reasonable, that I, who have, in the former part of this address, made no scruple to give myself pain, in order to give your Holiness pleasure, should now be permitted to give you pain, in order to give myself pleasure; especially since I promise, that, if any thing offers, which it may be a satisfaction to you to know, I will without reserve intermix it, to mitigate the affliction.*

The old primate still breathes; and breathes the same spirit of christian liberty, which he ever did; and the same hatred of all spiritual usurpation and tyranny that bears any resemblance to yours. May he long breathe. And may his last days be made serene and easy, by the returns of all that regard and deference, which his former labours and constancy have merited.+

He sees himself surrounded by a bench of brethren, who have stood the shock of the day of trial, and brought off immortal glory. I forbear, out of tenderness, to tell you, what excellencies they are

* [A few paragraphs are omitted here, which relate to king George, and to the local politics of Great Britain at that time. However applicable and pointed they may have been when written, they have little to interest readers in this country at the present day. EDITOR.]

+ The Most Reverend Dr Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, called by all friends of liberty, Old Rock, from the steadiness of his conduct in this time of trial, in spite of all the arts of tories, agreeably with his motto, Rupe Immobilior.

possessed of; or what a confidence all true Britons place in them.

One, indeed, is removed from us; and one, to whose services this nation owes an eternal monument. I have a passion for his great name; but no words of mine ought to be joined to it.

I would pay some tribute to a memory, dear to liberty and religion, if any thing I could say could add to a reputation and character, acquired, supported, and enlarged, by pastoral labours unintermitted from his earliest youth to his latest old age; and by writings, which will give life to the name of BURNET, long after the names of his enemies shall cease to be remembered.

Your church hath ever paid him the respect of fear; and the world will, in ages to come, pay to his memory that love and admiration, which the ungrateful of the present age denied to himself.

Were there no other reason to think so, I should be certain, that this news will give you, and your friends abroad, some joy; because it hath given it to that party of Protestants, as they call themselves, amongst us, who always partake in your Holiness' pleasures.

I will hasten from this unpleasant subject; and take leave of your Holiness, with a proposal, as odd and romantic, in appearance, as this whole address may seem; but, in reality, neither odd nor romantic, any otherwise, than as all justice, and simplicity,

and plain dealing, are esteemed to be so, in a degenerate and corrupted age.

But, if it be so, that I am, in this, transported beyond due bounds, let all the fault be imputed to the subject I have been upon.

The state of religion, on all sides, is a scene of astonishment; and the surprise of things, to which I have been heretofore a stranger, hath, I confess, filled me with an enthusiasm, too warm to be contained.

Descend, Holy Father, from your seven hills, and disdain not to tread upon the level plain. Unrobe yourself of all the gaudy attire of a pompous superstition. Lay aside all the embarrassments of worldly grandeur. Turn your eyes from the coffers of gold and silver, of which your great predecessor, St Peter, and his greater master, had none. Acknowledge religion to be something more, than being wrapt up in a heap of fine vestments, or being skilled in a dexterous performance of antic gestures.

And then look inwards. Divest yourself of your infallibility; and own yourself to be like one of us. As to renounce a kingdom for your church, hath been accounted the height of honour and saintship; so now, it will be your glory, in the most exalted degree, to renounce, in the name of your church, a double kingdom, for Christ; that temporal kingdom, which, in his name, and to his reproach, you have erected over the bodies and estates; and that spir

itual one, which you have established over the consciences of mankind.

Remember, in the midst of all your luxury, and delicacy, and ostentation, what ground you stand upon. The bowels of the earth are armed against you. The shocks of earthquakes and the eruptions of volcanos, besides the common calamities of nations, are the beginnings of that day of vengeance, which will come, unless you prevent it by a speedy conversion to christianity.

Renounce, therefore, your golden keys, and your fruitful kingdoms. Throw away your fopperies, and your indulgencies, and your processions, and your canonizations. Show yourself in the nakedness of simplicity; and take the Gospel into your hand, and into your heart. Call in your emissaries, and your missionaries, from all parts of the world; and let them receive instruction, themselves, before they pretend to convert others.

Trouble the world no more with quarrels about the holy sepulchre; but believe that he is risen, who once was laid in it. Let the wood of his cross cease to be magnified to an immense bulk; and his natural body cease to be multiplied to an infinite number. Restore the heads of holy men and women to their bodies, if they can be found.

Let

the bones of the dead saints be at rest, and their blood be released from the perpetual fatigue of working wonders.

Throw up all your legends; discard all your miracles, stated and unstated; and make over all your tricks to the jugglers of this world. Declare to the Jesuits, that their game is at an end; and restore the inquisition to hell, in which it was forged.

And, for the conclusion of this great work, celebrate an open and solemn marriage between faith and reason; proclaim an eternal friendship between piety and charity; and establish an agreement, never to be dissolved, between religion, on one side, and humanity, forbearance, and good nature, on the other.

I would not have you think, that I propose all this to your Holiness, and nothing from our own quarter. So far from it, that I am free to acknowledge, that it cannot be expected, that you should thus far recede from your present pretensions, unless others are ready to give up every thing of the same sort and the same nature.

If your Holiness parts with infallibility, it is but equitable, that the protestant churches should part with indisputable authority. If you give up the decrees of the council of Trent; let them, in Holland, give up the synod of Dort; and others, every where, throw off all manner of human decisions, in religion. If you discard the inquisition, let them discard classes, and judicatories, and consistories, and fines, and imprisonments, and the whole train of secular artillery, and the whole armory of the weapons of this world.