put a stop to these less laudable methods of providing temporal poffeffions for the clerical Society; and Dean Tucker frankly acknowledges it is not yet.

Nor," fays he, " is it in the power of the civil magi"ftrate, even where he difapproves of these benefactions, to

tally to prevent them." Which, I apprehend, is nearly. the fame thing as to exclude the civil magiftrate from any concern with the clerical fociety. Against his intermeddling in matters merely Spiritual, the fociety is fufficiently guarded. Take away his power of controlling or regulating their temporal acquifitions, and he is completely oufted of all authority with respect to this facred order. Is not this fairly to confefs, that fuperftition, and the knavery and avarice by which it is encouraged and fupported, will, in every age, be too hard for the wifeft and most righteous ordinances of civil government? It had been indeed to no purpofe to diffemble it, after the repeated experience we have had of the dexterity of the clerical fociety in evading the feveral Mortmain laws enacted to restrain them in the use of these lesslaudible motives *.

It would however be neither just nor candid to deny, that the church, confidered in a lefs exceptionable light, acquired many temporal poffeffions (as many perhaps as would have fupplied all the real neceffities, and have answered all the real importances of a truly Christian church) in a more reputable way, and upon more laudable motives. But I must make this a Poftulatum in my turn; for in my present penury of records, I cannot prove it without fending the reader to Dr Newton's Pluralities indefenfible, and there are many

Sce Chambers's Dict. under the word Mortmain.

E 2

refpectable

refpectable men among Dean Tucker's clients, whom I would not willingly offend.

With the Dean himself I fhall not ftand upon the like ceremony, as I cannot, in any reafon, grant him his fecond Poftulatum while it is loaded with those honourable diftinctions, which feem to him to be so especial a portion of the church for which he is apologifing.

I am therefore under a neceffity of exhibiting another quotation from Father Paul, on which Dr Newton feems to have laid fome ftrefs.

"Ecclefiaftical degrees were not established at their inftitu"tion, on the foot of dignities, pre-eminences, recompenfes, or honours, as they are at this day, and have been for many ages, but upon that of miniftries and offices; to which St Paul gives the name of Labours, in the fame sense as Jefus "Christ hath called those who were therewith invested, La"bourers. They who were appointed to the offices, were

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obliged to discharge them in their own perfons; nor, abfenting themselves from them, could, with justice, retain "either the title or the profits of them. It is but fince the year feven hundred, that in the Western church, ecclefiaf"tical ministries changed their nature, and became degrees of dignity and honour, and were beftowed as recompenfes of fervices *."

Now if the offices themselves ftood upon this footing before the year feven hundred, and if making the labour infeparable from the office, was derived from the fenfe of Jefus Chrift and St Paul, whofe authority the Church of Eng

** Newton, p. 71, from Hift. Conc. Trid. b. ii. p. 203, of Brent's translation, 1676; where the paffage is in much stronger terms, than in Courayer's which

Newton cites.

land

land herself acknowledges to be fuperior to that of the Western church, I fhould think that fomething of the labour, as well as of the office and honourable diftinction might be admitted into the Dean's centre of union, whatever it means. Candidates indeed for laborious offices, with no rewards or distinctions either in hand, or in prospect, but fuch as bore a just proportion to the labour, would not, I fear, be very numerous, a circumstance which might probably contract the circumference of the union, whatever fhould become of the centre of it.

But perhaps fome blundering copift, or defigning transflator, might have played fome tricks with that copy of the record from which Father Paul collected the sense of Jefus and his Apostle; and in that cafe, this fallibility in the defcent, would make it of little authority, and this being fhewn by the Dean to be the cafe, I do not fee why his Reverence might not turn his inference into a third Poftulatum, as thus:

"Such fociety must have a right, arifing from the important ends and uses of its inftitution, to acquire temporal poffeffions, by every poffible means, and to retain and ap

propriate them to fuch services as may best answer the in"terefls and purposes of fuch fociety, without any regard to "the rules of civil justice, or permitting the magiftrate to "interfere either with the acquifition or the distribution of "them." And then the And then the way would be completely levelled for the introduction of the Dean's conclufion, viz. "There"fore fuch fociety might form fuch centre of union, and esta"blifh fuch rules of government, and fuch conditions of admiffion, as their difcretion fhould find requifite.

But, after all, I am apprehensive, that the Petitioners may object to the Dean's whole fyftem, and fay, "What is all this

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to

"to us? we do not admit this picture to be a faithful refem"blance of that church of England of which we are mem"bers, even as it is by law established. If the law has efta"blifhed this exclufive clerical Society, under the name of "the church of England, it is more than we know, and what, for the honour of the law as well as the church, we are unwilling to fuppofe.

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"We acknowledge," might they fay," that there have "been men, even from the early days of the Proteftant "church of England, who have endeavoured to turn her in"to a mere clerical fociety, and who, by a coincidence of "favourable circumstances, may have fo far fucceeded in "the attempt, as to procure fome laws for her discipline and "government, not very confiftent with her fubjection to "the laws of Christ. But thanks be to God, they have not "fo far prevailed as to fupprefs the church of England's teftimony of herself, that he is a vifible church of Chrift, "and under the controll of his written word. And as this teftimony is as firmly established by law, as any other cir"cumftance of her conftitution, and is the original ground"work of her reformation from Popery, every thing con-trary to it, however established by human authority, must "be confidered as a corruption of the very fame nature as "thofe Popish affuments, whose obstruction to the free course of the word of God, not only gave occafion, but afforded a complete juftification of the church of England in fepa"rating from the church of Rome. Of these corruptions, "and of these only, we defire a reformation of the legisla

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ture. And whoever, like the angry Dean of Glocefter, af"firms, that the church of England would be ruined by "fuch reformation, must unavoidably be driven, first or

laft, to acknowledge, that the church of England is not

a

a vifible church of Chrift; it being impoffible that the pure "word of God fhould be preached, where the doctrines and "commandments of men, are intermixed with it, and stand,

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by the means of what is called an establishment, on the "fame level with it."

Many readers of Dean Tucker's pamphlet, confidering the cogency of this plea, and the perfpicuity of the argument on which it is founded, have fuppofed, that the Dean, having turned his thoughts fo inceffantly to fecular commerce, had mistaken the queftion, and applied his Apology to a wrong object, viz. the temporal emoluments, instead of the evangelical privileges of the church of England.

I will not fay but this might be the case in part. But undoubtedly, in the main, he was well aware of this plea of the Petitioners, and accordingly addreffes himself to answer it, and having gone on with great fluency, till he found this block of the fcriptures in his paffage, he looks about him for a way to escape, and finding no opening to the right hand or the left, he boldly ftrikes into the high Roman road, and attacks the infallibility of the fcriptures, on the pretence of their being tranfmitted to us through the hands of fallible copists, falible printers, and fallible translators, and all these fallibilities established by fallible authority.

What is the confequence? Will it follow, that his creeds and confeffions are infallible? By no means; the Dean is too modest to affert it: but he will fhew you, that one fort of fallibility is as good as another, and that you may make as good a fhift with bis, and with your own.

His ftate of the cafe is this.

"The fcriptures are infalli

"ble in their fource, but fallible in their defcent. Creeds are 'fallible both in their fource, and in their defcent *" Surely

* P. 23,

he