can lie down peaceably in the repofe of a neutrality. To many of these provinces belong confiderable degrees of influence and authority, fufficient to give weight and fuccefs to feasonable and fpirited remonftrances. And they who are in the lowest ftations of watchmen and labourers, may bear their teftimony, perhaps with more advantage than may be apprehended by those who confider not, from whom we are to look for the increase of what is planted or watered by any hand. And wherever the obligation exifts, I fhould think it can hardly be removed out of view, without opening the prospect of some discomfort, at that awful period when every man's final account shall be called for.

But indeed, indolent neutrality is not a common, and hardly a poffible effect of the cure performed upon idle and vifionary reformers of the public. Idleness, in the proper fenfe of the term, is not their failing. They are commonly perfons of active and lively fpirits, who are not eafy under want of employment. Their inexperience leads them into fanguine hopes, that fame, honours, and rewards must crown their labours. It is inconceivable to them, that where the public is fo grofsly and notoriously wrong, it fhould not acknowledge its obligations to those who intereft themselves to fet it right, by the most substantial inftances of its gratitude. And this is the idle part of the character, in the figurative fenfe.

But when the aftonifhed vifionary finds his mistake, and perceives that public error of the moft palpable kind, has its champions ready armed at all points, and prepared to dispute every inch of ground with him, that nothing would be got by the unequal conflict but difgrace, contempt, and poverty; human nature, and an impatience to be figuring with eclat, commonly bring him over, without much hefitation, to the furer fide; where he fets himself to act the part of a true profelyte, that is to fay, to reform backwards, with a violence and precipitation proportioned to the fufpicions his new allies might entertain of his hankering after his old deviations, fhould he not give the moft fpirited proofs of his effectual converfion.

• Were not the fubject of too ferious a nature, (for the particulars above are to be understood of reformation and reformers of religious matters) and were not the Dramatis perfonæ of too folemn a caft to be exhibited in Comedy, one might give very diverting inftances of this kind of frailty, in more than one of those who have affected, with a kind of philofophical grimace, to ridicule their own former conduct as idle and visionary, but also, to fill up the measure of their merit with their party, have been the forwardest to expofe, reprobate, and to the utmoft of their goodwill, perfecute those who perfift in this epidemical folly.

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The perfifters indeed are but few; and no wonder. Alf their difcouragements confidered, they may be faid, like Abraham, against hope, to believe in hope. In the first ranks of their adverfaries appear thote who enjoy plentiful emoluments from the nature and conftruction of the establishment, who are therefore concerned to defend every thing belonging to it, not because it is true, or reasonable, or righteous in itfelf, or with respect to the defign of the Gofpel, but because it is established. With litigants of this complexion, arguments drawn from reason, from fcripture, from the most notorious facts, are of no force. When particular answers fail them, they have general ones at hand, which do their bufinefs effectually. Public authority, long poffeffion, the concurrence of the majority, the danger to public peace from attempts to innovate, &c. &c. &c. have fuch a formidable appearance, even in the eyes of fome of the warmeft friends of Reformation, that they will often fhudder at the temerity of their own champions, when they confider with whom, and with what they are to engage, and (fuch are the effects of this kind of intimidation) will fupprefs their own speculations, to avoid fufpicions of being connected with a fet of men, whom the nature and tenor of fuch anfwers, go near to ftigmatize with fomething more heinous than faction and fedition.'

This whole cafe with its feveral appendages, is fet forth by Mr. Bayle in fo masterly a manner, that our Author cannot refift the temptation of giving his Readers a pretty long extract from him: this gives him an opportunity of making fome very pertinent reflections arising from the cafe as stated by Boyle, compared with the conduct of the Anti-reformers in our own country.

The weakness of the few answers that have been made, fays he, to the important remonstrances of ferious and judicious men on the article of a farther reformation, and the fupercilious contempt with which the moft refpectful, as well as the most reafonable of them have been paffed by, muft detract something from the estimation of those whom the thinking part of mankind will fuppofe to be chiefly concerned to take notice of them. It will look like a combination to adhere to the establifhed fyftem, for fome political purposes not fit to be owned; while no follicitude is perceived to relieve the reafonable fcruples of confcientious diffenters, or to confult the real neceffitics of our own people by fubftituting, in the room of hackneyed, and not always juftifyable forms, more intelligible, as well as more animating methods of public worship, and public edification.

To be plainer ftill, this temper and conduct in a set of men, many of whom make it appear, on other occafions, that they want neither learning nor capacity to form an accurate

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judgment on fo interesting a cafe, will hardly allow us to think them in earnest in their weekly exhortations to christian piety and virtue, or the zeal they occafionally exprefs for the proteftant religion and government. Their doctrine, contrasted by their practice, will look to the difcerning part of the public, as if nothing was meant by these terms, in their mouths, but mere conformity to an ecclefiaßical establishment, and a refolution to fupport and defend that at all events, with, or without reafon.

But if ever the mask fhould fall off in fome future fkirmish, (the probable and frequent effect of a rivalfhip for temporal honours and emoluments) and one of the parties fhould be reduced to the neceffity of leaning upon the friends of reformation, by way of balance to the other; 'tis then that the labours of thefe idle and visionary men may come to have their weight, and fome of those, at least, who are now pining away in a defponding obfcurity, under the frowns of their difobliged fuperiors, may poffibly live to fee the way they have been preparing, gradually opening to the accomplishment of what all well informed Chriftians and confiftent Proteftants have been fo long and fo ardently withing for in vain.

But let this happen when it will, the church will not get half so much credit by a reformation into which fhe is compelled by an unwelcome neceffity, as would attend her undertaking it freely and of her own bounty.'

Our very fenfible Author now proceeds to give his Readers a curfory view of the steps taken, by authority, to reform the church of England, after the fettlement of it by Queen Elizabeth's act of uniformity, with fome very pertinent remarks upon them. He goes on in the next place, to confider one interesting circumftance in our prefent establishment, which has not a little employed the fpeculations of men of the first abilities of all parties, viz. the facramental test, enjoined as a qualification for holding civil offices: and here the Reader will find fome very acute and judicious obfervations upon the Alliance between Church and State.

After this he proceeds as follows. It may now perhaps be expected that I should give some account of a publication, which has in it fo very little of the complexion of the times, and which appears at a feafon, where there is but little profpect of engaging the attention of the public to fubjects of this nature and tendency.

The Reader will perceive, that fome part of these papers were written at times very diftant from others, and not in the fame order in which they now appear. Perfons and facts are mentioned or alluded to, which, when they were noticed, were fill upon the stage, but have now many of them difappeared;

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nor has the Author perhaps been fufficiently careful to adjuft his remarks upon them to the prefent period, fo as to avoid the imputation of anachronisms.

The Free and Candid Difquifitions, and afterwards the Essay on Spirit, gave occafion to feveral little pamphlets on the fubject of a review of our public fervice, and to the discussion of feveral particular points, which were fuppofed to be proper objects of it. And at the fame time, when cards were not in the way, the fame topics were debated in private parties.

Into one of thefe the Author was accidentally thrown, where it was his hap to mention a glaring inconfiftency in the cafe of fubfcription to our established articles of rel gion. Some gentlemen of good fenfe and refpectable ftations, then prefent, expreffed the utmoft furprize on the occafion; nor did a dignified divine, who alfo made one of the company, seem to have been apprized of the impropriety before it was then mentioned, though for the honour of the church, he made an attempt at a folution by that fort of cafuiftry, of which feveral famples may be met with in the enfuing difcourfes.

One of the lay-gentlemen defired to have the case stated upon paper, which after fome time, was prefented to him, and makes a part of the following work, though placed at fome distance from the beginning. In going through the particulars then to be confidered, the author found new matter arifing upon him; which he pursued at leifure hours, without thinking of putting any thing into form upon the subject immediately.

In thofe days, the two principal fees were filled with two prelates, well known, while they were in fubordinate stations, for their zealous attachment to civil liberty, and for their enlarged, generous, and Chriftian fentiments in religion; in which one of them perfifted to the last moment of his life, and in the higheft eminence of ftation, and gave proof of it in a remarkable inftance, which, when the time comes to give his character its full luftre, will do him honour with our latest pofterity.

Here was then encouragement to venture something for the truth, and on that fair occafion, the author methodized and put the finishing hand to his collections. But a fudden change in the face of affairs quickly convinced him, that a publication of fuch fentiments would be now quite out of season.

It would certainly now be demanded, if out of season then, what is it that hath brought to light a work of this fort at a period, when there is not only fo confiderable a change in the public tafte, but when other circumftances, unfavourable to the caufe of reformation, feem to diffuade an enterprize of this kind, for ftill more cogent reafons?

It may look like a paradox to allege (in answer to this expoftulation) that there are others who can give a better account of this matter than the author himself; which however is pretty much the cafe. Suffice it to fay on the part of the author, that his principal inducement to acquiefce in the publication was, his obferving the redoubled efforts of popery to enlarge her borders, without being at the pains, as heretofore, to cover her march, and the furprizing indifference with which fome public and even clamorous notices of her progrefs were received, where, one would have thought, both intereft and duty were concerned to remark and obstruct her paffage.'

What our Author intimates here, and in other parts of his work, concerning the fpread of popery, and the indifference of those who are principally concerned to watch her fteps, and check her progrefs, is very alarming, and calls aloud for the attention of every friend to the liberties of his country. Even upon the fuppofition that what is faid upon this subject is not always fufficiently grounded, it can never be improper to have a watchful eye over our avowed and inveterate enemies, who, we well know from fatal experience, will avail themselves of every favourable opportunity to hurt us, and who are well acquainted with the various arts of feducing the ignorant and unfufpecting.

We now come to the work itself, which is divided into eight chapters; in the first of which our worthy Author takes a fummary view of the rife, progrefs, and fuccefs of established confeffions of faith and doctrine in Proteftant churches. In the fecond he confiders the claim of a right to establish confeffions as tefts of orthodoxy, in Protefiant churches; and in the third examines, very particularly, their expedience and utility.

The fourth chapter contains a particular examination of Bifhop Burnet's introduction to the expofition of the thirty-nine articles of the church of England. Before our Author confiders his lordship's folutions of the several difficulties which have been fuppofed to encumber the cafe of our English fubscriptions, he thinks it neceffary to give a little previous attention to the motives and reafons which engaged his lordship in this particular work of expounding the articles of our church.

In the fenfible conclufion, fubjoined to this prelate's history of his own times, his lordship has not fcrupled to declare, that the requiring fubfcription to the 39 articles is a great impofition. He had expressed himself to the fame purpose to the principal men of Geneva, with refpect to their confenfus doctrira, many years before he could have any view to the circumftances which gave rife to the Expofition, and that with fo much zeal and eloquence, that, according to the writer of his life, (a witness worthy of all belief) it was through his credit, and the weight of his character, that the clergy at Geneva were releafed from these subscriptions,

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