are; but let succeeding ages improve as they will, all men shall leave the minster where they find it." How say you, Sir? Cranmer stained his archiepiscopal hands with blood; but could even Cranmer have opened the convocation with such a speech as this? Yet speak it or no, it is all fact.

The reformers were not to blame for exercising the right of private judgment themselves; their fault was a denial of the same right to others. They had the highest authority for what they did, deriving it from the doctrine and example of Christ and his Apostles.

Take one, two, or more of our Saviour's doctrines, and ask what magic can there be in subscribing them without examination? Himself never proposed such a thing, but on the contrary, exhorted his hearers to search the Scriptures; a strange impertinence, unless the right of private judgment be allowed! Nor did he only exhort the people to judge for themselves, but he also warned his disciples not to usurp that right. CALL no man your father upon the earth, neither BE YE CALLED masters. Neither impose your opinions upon others, nor suffer them to impose theirs

upon you.

Had Jesus Christ considered the right of private judgment in an unlawful light, he would first have instructed Herod, or Caiaphas, or some of the principal rabbies, and by them he would have converted the nation. But instead of that, he condemns the

doctrines of the church governors, addresses his sermons ad populum, gives it as a proof of his mission that the gospel was preached to the poor, and constantly protects his followers in the exercise of the right of private judgment. When the disciples plucked and ate the ears of corn, they broke two canons of the established church. It was on a sabbath day; and probably before morning service was over; and the church had determined the illegality of what they did. Used to judge for themselves, they thought the church mistaken in this case, ventured to think for themselves, and acted accordingly. Jesus Christ protect them in their claim?

Did not

The Apostles, worthy followers of such a master, went into all nations, preaching a doctrine which no church governors upon earth believed. Did they deny the right of private judgment? If they had, their expeditions would have been in the Quixotic style. Did St Paul write to Corinth? I speak as to wise men; JUDGE YE what I say. Did he write to Rome? Let EVERY MAN be fully persuaded in his own mind. Every body understood this. The populace at Berea, men and women, searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so. The students at Athens desired to know what the new doctrine was, of which the Apostle spake; for the purpose of search, no doubt. The magistrates, as Gallio, declared themselves NO JUDGES IN SUCH MATTERS. And hence the amazing success of his preaching;

for what himself calls preaching with demonstration of the spirit, and power, St Luke calls reasoning in the synagogue every sabbath day. Compare Acts xviii. 4. with 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5. Who can account for all this without the right of private judgment?

Consider the condition of man in a state of nature; and you will readily grant either that a right of determining for himself is no man's, or every man's right. Vindicate the right to one, and you do it to two, to two hundred, to two thousand, to the whole nature are on a level.

world; for all in a state of There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, prince nor subject; the right of one argued from his nature, is the right of all. Whether men forfeit this right in a state of society is another question.

A christian not only cannot, but if he could he ought not to dispose of this right, because not only he cannot be a christian without its exercise, but all the purposes of civil government may be answered without it. The power of the magistrate is an article of importance enough to demand a particular discus sion; let the remaining space of this letter be filled up with inquiring, whether, if this advantage of private judging had been denied to other classes of men, the world would not have sustained infinite damage?

Choose of the mechanical arts, or of the sciences, which you please, place it in the state in which it was seven hundred, five hundred, or two hundred

years ago; let its then present state be defined, its ne plus ultra determined; let all future search be prohibited, and what an innumerable multitude of useful discoveries are men deprived of?

When Columbus first imparted his designs relative to the discovery of America to Ferdinand, king of Spain, his Majesty thought proper to advise with his ecclesiastical counsellors about it. All were against the project, and quoted St Austin, who, in his book de civitate Dei, had declared it impossible to pass out of one hemisphere into another; and had denied that there could be any Antipodes. Seneca, Seneca the heathen, had declared long before, that future ages would discover new worlds, and that Thule would not be the farthest region upon earth. In this case it must be owned that St Austin was an heretic, and Seneca a sound believer. The king and Columbus ventured to dissent, judged for themselves, and found ample reward for so doing, notwithstanding clerical decisions. Indeed, St Austin was not the only person who denied the possibility of Antipodes; the church denied it, that is, the head, Pope Zachary, denied it for all the members. And this is the order that he sent to his legate Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, who had accused Virgil, bishop of Saltzburg, of holding the dangerous error of the Antipodes. "If," says the head of the church, "he should be convicted of maintaining that perverse doctrine, which he hath uttered against the

Lord, and against his own soul, that is, that there is another world, other men under the earth, another sun and another moon, call a consistory, degrade him from the honour of the priesthood, et ab ecclesiá pelle." A fine story for a man to be excommunicated for!

Has not all Europe pitied the fate of Copernicus and Galileo, the fathers of modern astronomy? The first kept his work near forty years before he dared to publish it, and died immediately after it was presented to him; the persecution he dreaded being the supposed cause. As to Galileo, he was charged with heresy, first, for affirming that the sun was in the centre; secondly, that the earth was not in the centre, but had a diurnal motion. His works were burnt, himself imprisoned, and being released was enjoined a penance of repeating once a week for three years the seven penitential psalms. As if the penitential psalms said any thing about Galileo's crime! But these are some of the fruits of denying the right of private judgment. The pope, the sole judge, was pleased to think that these discoveries in geography and astronomy clashed with certain doctrines established in the church.

What a condition would all Christendom have been in by this time, had not this extravagant claim been denied, and the right of private judgment

established in arts and sciences?

All the received

systems of music, astronomy, physic, and of all other