But I must do the dissenting Protestants the justice to say, that they have shown themselves, upon occasion, very ready to assist us in so pious and christian a work, as bringing heretics to their right mind; being themselves but very lately come from experiencing the convincing and enlightening faculty of a dungeon, or a fine. The difference between these two sorts of persons is this. The one differ from us about ceremonies of worship and government; but they boggle not at all at the doctrine settled for us by our first reformers; it is all with them right and good, just as Christ left it at first, and Calvin found it above fifteen hundred years afterwards. The others, unhappy men, look upon this to be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel. However, the former sort, having a toleration for their own way upon subscribing all our doctrines, can the more easily come to persuade themselves, that the christian world is unhinged, if the latter should be tolerated in their opposition to doctrines which have been called fundamentals, even by Protestants, for so many years.

This hath been experienced particularly in Ireland, by one who could not see exactly what they saw about the nature of Christ before his appearance in this world. For, as with you, a man had better blaspheme Almighty God, than not magnify the blessed Virgin; so, with many of us, it is much more innocent and less hazardous, to take from the glory

of the Father, than of his Son. Nay, to bring down the Father to a level with his own Son, is a commendable work, and the applauded labour of many learned men of leisure; but to place the Son below his own Father, in any degree of real perfection, this is an unpardonable error; so unpardonable that all hands were united against that unhappy man. And he found at length that he had much better have violated all God's commandments, than have interpreted some passages of Scripture differently from his brethren. The Nonconformists accused him; the Conformists condemned him; the secular power was called in; and the cause ended in an imprisonment, and a very great fine. Two methods of conviction, about which the Gospel is silent.*

In Scotland, let a man depart an inch from the confession of faith and rule of worship established by the assembly there; and he will quickly find,

[The person here alluded to was the Rev. Thomas Emlyn, who was several years settled as a dissenting minister in Dublin. He was an Arian in sentiment, and so violent did the popular feeling become against him on account of his religious opinions, that he was arraigned before a judicial tribunal, tried, and condemned to suffer imprisonment and pay a heavy fine.

He remained in prison two years; and, when released, he went over to England, in 1705, about ten years before this Dedication to the Pope was written. He preached to a small congregation in London till age and infirmities compelled him to retire. He was a friend of Whiston and Clarke, and highly respected for his learning and virtues. He died 1743, aged seventy eight. EDITOR.]

that, as cold a country as it is, it will be too hot for him to live in. Infants are baptized there, not only into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but into the pure doctrine professed and settled by the church of Scotland. To suppsoe, therefore, any point of doctrine to be erroneous, or so much as a subject for a new examination, in so unspotted a church, is a token of malignity and infidelity; and the man, who doth it, must be content to escape out of their hands as well as he can.

In England, it is not all the other excellencies in the world, united in one man, that can guard him against the fatal consequences of heresy, or differing in some opinions from the current notions of our world, especially if those opinions are such as are allowed to be mysterious and inexplicable. We have now an instance of one or two learned and otherwise good men, who have thought it their duty, as they themselves say, to step aside out of the common path. And what their fate will be, time must show. At present, the zeal, as it is called, of their adversaries prevails. The fire is kindled, and how far it will consume or where it will stop, God only knows. But the case of one of them, which will give your Holiness some notion how we stand affected, is very remarkable.* For, not to mention his

* [Rev. William Whiston. He was educated at Clare hall, Cambridge, and succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as professor of mathematics in that university. He took orders in the church,

good life, which is looked upon but as a trifle, common to almost all modern heretics; though his religion is mixed up with a good deal of Kalendar and Rubrical piety; though he hath his stated fasts and feasts, which he observes with the greatest devotion; though he is zealous for building of churches in the Apostolical form of a ship with all accommodations for order and decency; though he is for the use of oil and the trine immersion in baptism, and for water mixed with wine in the other sacrament; though he is very warm for believing in Christ towards the east, and renouncing the devil towards the west; though he hath laid them a foundation for independent church power in the decrees of the Apostles themselves; nay, though he joins with them in beating down human reason when it would pretend to judge in matters of religion; and resigns to them all the preferments in the land from Dover to Berwick upon Tweed; yet all will not do.

and was appointed a lecturer. But in 1706 he embraced Arian sentiments. This change in his opinions caused him to be expelled from the university, and deprived of his professorship.

After this he took up his residence in London, where he published from time to time a great number of books on mathematics, philosophy, and theology, and gave public lectures on various subjects. He died 1752, at the advanced age of eighty five. He was a man of amiable temper, goodness of heart, and great simplicity of manners. Some of his opinions were vision. ary and whimsical. His writings discover originality of genius, but more fancy than judgment, and more erudition than sound reasoning. EDITOR.]

He holds the Son to be inferior to the Father, and created by him, though a being of most glorious perfections; and upon this account he must not enjoy even the poverty, which he hath chosen, in quiet. And, if this be his case, what has another to expect who has not these advantages on his side, though he should be found armed with unspotted integrity and unequalled learning and judgment ?*

Your Holiness will judge from hence, how the matter of heresy stands amongst us; and how it must stand, unless my lords the bishops, who have with an unexampled courage preserved our liberties

* [Dr Samuel Clarke. After publishing his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity in 1712, he was charged with entertaining heterodox opinions, and a formal complaint was made against him to the bishops by the lower house of convocation. Much violence was at first manifested on the occasion, but the good sense and moderation of the bishops quelled the storm. The affair was suffered gradually to subside.

To objections urged against some parts of his book, Dr Clarke wrote a reply, the spirit of which was by no means consistent with his usual manliness and independence. A controversy was kept up for some time on the general subject of the work, in which Dr Waterland took an active part in opposition to Dr Clarke. The convocation was prudent enough to meddle no further in the affair, but left it to the scrutiny and judgment of the public.

Not long after this, Dr Clarke gave great offence to the bishop of London, by making an alteration in the doxologies usually sung in the church. A warm dispute ensued, but no other censure was inflicted, than a circular letter from the bishop, forbidding the clergy of his diocess to use any new forms of doxology. EDITOR.]