THE INDEPENDENT WHIG: OR, A DEFENCE O F Primitive Christianity, And of Our Ecclefiaftical Eftablishment, AGAINST The Exorbitant CLAIMS and VOL. III. The SECOND EDITION. LONDON: Printed for J. PEELE; and Sold by J. OSBORN, MDCCXLI. English Sanders 10-21-31 24664 To the Right Honourable The LORD PAGETT. MY LORD, T O the Fifth Edition of the Independent Whig, I added fo many Pieces, fome intirely new, others printed before, akin to the Subject and Defign, and never collected together, that the Bookfeller thought proper to publifh the Whole in two Volumes. And to the Sixth Edition, I have added this third Volume, confifting of Papers, which I formerly published occafionally, after Cato's Letters were dropped; together with fome other feparate Pieces, which have been well received by the Public; all afferting the Independency of human Judgment, and Liberty A 2 Liberty of Confcience, and expofing those monftrous Impieties and Reproaches to Chriftians, Perfecution for religious Opinions, and Restraint upon the free Confciences of Men, accountable to none but God. OUR bleffed Saviour, and his holy Apostles after him, pretended to no Power but that of Miracles and Perfuafion. Too many of their pretended Succeffors, deftitute of the Gift of Miracles, and unfuccessful in perfuading, plead for Force, not to bring Men to Chriftianity, (for the Separatifts in many Countries are generally the best Christians) but to Ceremonies, and Poftures, and Sounds, and Submiffion to Ecclefiaftical Law, however foreign from, or unresembling the divine Law. I AM forry to fay, that where-ever the Clergy, of any Country, had Power to perfecute, they have never fuffered fuch Power to fleep. I am forry to fee, that in this Country, where they have none, and fwear that they have none, but derive their very Being, and all their Emoluments, from the Law, there are are any of them hardy enough to contend for it, and even to claim as their Right, what they have folemnly abjured. SURELY, if we may judge by eternal Experience, by what has paft for fo many Ages in the World, and by what paffes daily in it, the certain Confequence and Operation of clerical Power, is the Exalting of the Clergy, and the Depreffing of Laymen and Christianity. DOES Popery, which is the highest Pattern and Improvement of Church Power, at all refemble Christianity? And have the Papifts any thing for the Word of God, but the Word of the Prieft; who not daring to trust them with the Bible, nor with the true Senfe of it, mif-explains it for them, and gives them his own Whims and Falfifications for the divine Truths of the Gospel? THIS is Church Power in its natural Tendency and Effects. What brought Popery itself into the World, with all its peftilent Craft and Barbarity; efpecially the Inquifition, more cruel than all the Cruelties ever invented by Paganism? What but Church Power? A 3 What |