Bishop HOADLEY, whilft he allowed that there was a Catholic vifible church, compofed of particular visible churches, which churches ought to be regular focieties, by his loofe and unqualified pofitions in favour of religious liberty, fo undermined the foundation of all ecclefiaftical authority, as to render null and void the conceffion, which, from a different view of the fubject, he found himself constrained to make.* Bishop WARBURTON, in his Sermons before the Society of Lincoln's-Inn, upon the authority of church government and church communion, appears to be throwing down his gauntlet, in the hope of calling forth fome antagonist into the field, with the view of proving himself a more fuccessful champion in favour of religious liberty, than Bishop HOADLEY had been before him. For the principles of these two writers, though perhaps fomewhat differently expreffed, tend to the establishment of the fame point.

WARBURTON acknowledges the church to be a fociety; that" from the command of its Founder, obedience is due to it as fuch; and that authority without obedience and fubmiffion is but a mockery."

*To enter at large into a fubject which has been fo fully treated by a celebrated writer, as to leave nothing to be faid upon it, would be to trefpafs on the reader.-See Law's Letters to the Bishop of BANGOR.

At the fame time he tells his readers, that this obedience and fubmiffion are to depend entirely upon the will and opinion of the party intended to be governed. Which is to fay, that CHRIST made a law, which as fuch is obligatory upon the confcience; but which, according to this interpretation annexed to it, man is to obey or not, as he thinks proper. For (in the words of this learned writer)" all the jurisdiction which follows from the authority committed to the church of CHRIST, is this: that fo long as any man continue a member of this fociety, called the Church, he is to be obedient to fuch laws of his fpiritual governors, as concern difcipline; but when he chooses to withdraw himself from that fociety, the rights of confcience (as it is erroneously called) furnish him with a juftifiable exemption from his former obliga tion." So that confcience, in fuch cafe, not being governed by the law laid down, but by the judgment from time to time formed upon it, enjoining obedience or justifying disobedience, according to the different difpofition of the judging party; it follows, that church communion, instead of being a matter of Christian obligation, dwindles down into a matter of mere private opinion.

The above mode of ftating this fubject might have force in it, provided the church was a human fociety, of which men were left at liberty to become members, or not. But as the church is a fociety of CHRIST's forming, with the intent that all men should be admitted into it, for the purpose of their being faved in it; and the government of it was eftablished by CHRIST, with a view to the effectual promotion of that gracious object; every exertion of human liberty, in this cafe, must be at the peril of the party exerting it; it being exerted in oppofition to a pofitive establishment, and in a matter in which it does not appear that God has left man at liberty to determine for himself. For if the establishment of the church by CHRIST be true, the diffenter from it is in an error; if his error be unavoidable, we rejoice to think that he is in the hands of a merciful GOD; but fhould he deceive himself, fhould his feparation from the church be derived from evil caufes, be it remembered, that that wife Being who has established nothing in vain, is not to be mocked.

But to render fubmiffion to ecclefiaftical authority incompatible with the liberty of the rational Chriftian, recourse has generally been had to arguments drawn from the ufurped tyranny of the church of Rome;

which, though well calculated to produce effect upon the mind of the Proteftant, do not apply to the fubject; unless we confider fubmiffion to an authority eftablished by Divine wisdom, and to the corruption of it by human pride, to be the fame thing. Widely different, however, as these cafes are, the Proteftant is not taught to discriminate between them, when he is told (as he is by the author here alluded to) that the principle upon which the Reformation proceeded, was not fo much a right of feparation from the errors of a corrupt church, as" that Chriftian liberty which gives every man a right to worship GoD according to his confcience." But furely this is making the exertion of what is called Chriftian liberty, regarded merely as fuch, rather than the cause in which it is exerted, the object of confideration; upon which principle, feparation from a falfe church and feparation from a true one, become modes of conduct entitled to equal juftification. Yet fuch is the Proteftant ground, upon which the Proteftant church of England has been placed by fome modern Divines, by whom protestantism is made to confift in the right of feparating from a church, without regard to the caufe. "When we left the Popish doctrines, (fays Bishop HOADLEY) was it because they were actually corrupt? No; the

reafon was, because we thought them fo." The fame reason, therefore, founded in the private opinion of the party, juftifies feparation from any other church, whatever its actual ftate may be. "The principle of the Reformation (fays Bishop, WARBURTON) was not fo much a right of separation from the errors of a corrupt church, as that Christian liberty, which gives every man a right to worship GoD according to his confcience;"* in other words, to fepa rate from a church when he thinks proper.

Bishop JEWELL, however, who partook of the fpirit of our reformers, thought very differently upon this fubject. In his apology for the Church of England, he writes thus:

"The church of Rome (fays he) accufe us of herefy, of feparation from the church and communion of CHRIST. It is true, we feparated, but not as heretics do from the church of CHRIST, but as all good men ought to do, from the corrupt fociety of

* But fuppofing this confcience, according to which a man worfhips GOD, to be an erroneous one; what then? Should my reader have duly attended to a foregoing chapter on Conscience, he will, I flatter myself, have an answer ready for this question; because he will perceive, that the Bishop, in this cafe, does not appear to make that neceffary diftinction between confcience rightly fo called, and strong opinion or perfuafion,