obedience and non-refiftance, no doubt, keep all in perfe fubjection to one head.

Now, what becomes of an hypothefis, when there are no facts to fupport it? If there be no confpiracy of Diffenters against the government, no peculiarly refractory disposition of the wives of the Diffenters against their husbands, or peculiar obftinacy in Diffenters' children towards their parents, what evidence is there of the existence of a turbulent difpofition in Diffenters at all? Mr. Madan fhould attend more than he has done to the connexion of causes and effects, and then he will find himself compelled to give up his favourite hypothefis of the universal difpofition to republicanism, and confequently, as he will suppose, to anarchy, in the principles of the Diffenters.

It was particularly fortunate for the Anabaptifts, that there were but few of them in England at the time of the civil wars, and that the mention of them does not occur in any civil transactions of the times. For as they had been the most turbulent of all the fectaries in Germany, they would certainly have come in for their fhare of Mr. Madan's cenfure, who would never have been perfuaded but that they had brought their feditious principles with them into this country. They now fall under his cenfure (which includes. them as well as all other Diffenters) merely because they keep bad company, and go by a bad name. For this reafon too, the Quakers alfo, and the English Catholics, ought to bear their thare of this cenfure, and the calumny being divided among so many, it will hardly be felt by any individual. This, I flatter myfelf, will be the cafe when, as claffes of men equally aggrieved by the laws now exifting, we shall all join in one petition for the repeal of all penal laws in matters of religion, and, without fwords in our hands, demand, as our natural and just right, the civil privileges of other fubjects.

If the fins of remote ancestors are to be imputed to people now living, and Mr. Madan had been a Welshman,

he

he might urge his countrymen to make war upon the English, for driving them out of their lawful poffeffions in the time of Hengift and Horfa. Do not then follow Mr. Madan in looking for the guilt of the prefent generation in that of another, one hundred and fifty years ago, but confider our conduct at prefent; and of this, without having recourse to history, you can judge yourselves, and you will not be misled by preachers, who, by taking advantage of your ignorance, may impofe upon you.

However, after all that has been urged a thousand times and from the cleareft evidence of hiftory, to exculpate the present Diffenters from the horrid crime of cutting off king Charles's head, this guilt, like original sîn, is so entailed upon us, that I believe, it must defcend to our latest posterity, and even to the day of judgment. It is even ready to feize all the profelytes we may make, whether they be the pofterity of Charles himself, or of his executioners. The clergy have repeated the accufation fo often, and in fuch ftrong modes of affeveration, as the fettled principles and conviction of their hearts, that they seem to believe it as firmly as they do any of the thirty-nine articles ; so that in time it may take its place among them, and make a fortieth; though they will then exceed the number of forty Stripes fave one, which was the limit of caftigation in the Jewish law; and many who must subscribe them or ftarve, I am perfuaded, would rather chufe that one were taken away, than that any more were added to them. We are the sheep, and our accufers are the wolves, and, say what we will, we must be guilty.

Indeed, the more I reflect on the temper with which Mr. Madan must have written, the more concern it gives me, as an unpromifing feature of the times we live in; reafoning as follows. If his good fenfe can be thus blinded, and if, notwithstanding the fweetnefs of his temper, and his polished manners, his paffions can be fo violently inflamed, as to abuse us innocent Diffenters in the manner that he has done, what must be the strength of those principles which C 3

have

have produced fo unlooked for an effect? And what have we not to dread from them in perfons of inferior understandings, of less liberal education, and of harfher difpofitions? I should not even wonder if, in understandings more clouded, and tempers more irrascible, this extreme bigotry should produce the effects of abfolute infanity.

If Mr. Madan can really confider all the Diffenters of the present day as unquestionably republicans, and so strongly infinuate that we are all ready to treat the present king as Oliver Cromwell did Charles I. I have reason to rejoice in the Act of indemnity. Without this I fhould now expect that, though my ancestors, being churchmen, might have fought under the ftandard of Charles I. I, being a Diffenter, fhould be actually indicted for the crime of murdering that blessed martyr, and that myself and my three fons (for the politeness and mildness of which Mr. Madan makes fuch a boaft would perhaps fpare my daughter) might be hanged, drawn and quartered, for our fhare in that horrid tranfaction.

The philofophical world has of late been amused with a ftory of a poisonous tree in the island of Java, that would not suffer any plant to grow, or any animal to approach, within twelve miles of it. But the murder of this king has a far more baneful and extenfive influence; and according to appearance, we can never remove far enough from it. I fhould think, however, that the clergy should fix some time, a thousand years for example (for I would not be unreasonable in fixing too fhort a term of probation) after which, if the Diffenters should behave like other fubjects, and kill no more kings, it should be deemed illiberal in such preachers as Mr. Madan to charge us with the crimes of republicanism, and king-killing. However, it seems hardly fair to infer a habit from a single act, and we are not charged with killing any more kings than one.

The great merit, however, of this king Charles was his attachment to the church of England, to which the clergy confider him as having been a martyr; and for this reafon

it

it is that they pursue with fuch indifcriminate vengeance all perfons, whom they can have any pretence, how improbable foever, for charging with it. For this reafon I shall in a future Letter confider the nature and value of civil establishments of religion in general, and then proceed to that of the church of England in particular, that you may judge whether it be reason, or merely interest and passion, that dictates fuch Sermons as thofe of Mr. Madan. Hoping a more favourable hearing than we have hitherto had, I remain,

My good friends and neighbours,

Yours, &c.

P. S. My next Letter will relate to the Corporation and Test Acts, and I shall prove to you that neither the state, nor the church, have any thing more to fear from the repeal of them than from the repeal of the old ftatutes concerning witches, or from making any new ones concerning canals or turnpike roads, but that both would be gainers by the measure. Nay, I fhould not wonder, if, when these acts are repealed, the clergy should take to themselves the merit of all that has been done to promote it, as they do with respect to the act of toleration, after all the averfion they fhewed to that measure.

LETTER IV.

Of the Corporation and Teft Acts.

My generous Townsmen and Neighbours

THE

HE nature of the Corporation and Teft Ats, which have occafioned all this writing and preaching, has been strangely misreprefented to you, and Mr. Madan's Sermon has no tendency to clear it up. But plain men may judge of plain things, at leaft by their effects, without much deep. reasoning on the fubject. Mr. Madan fays, p. 12, that "the Diffenters are under no difability which can poffibly "be avoided confiftently with our own fecurity," that is, the fecurity of the church. Now, without confidering what the Corporation and Teft Acts are in themfelves, you fee that, according to Mr. Madan, they are things without which the church cannot be fecure, if it could exist at all. But, though I am not of your church, and therefore you cannot fuppofe that I think it to be the best of all poffible churches, I have a much better opinion of it, in fome respects, than Mr. Madan has, or any of thofe high church men, who, on this occafion, are fuch zealous fticklers for it. They must think it a poor weak, and infirm thing, indeed, of no ftrength at all, in its own conftitution, or they would never fancy fuch fupports as these to be neceffary to it. I can clearly fhew them from history and fact, that it is much better established than their fears will allow them to think it is.

If these acts were really neceffary to the fecurity of your church, it is plain that it could never have done without them. And I dare fay that, after reading Mr. Madan's Sermon, and every thing else that has been written by your clergy (men of great courage no doubt, but who are

frightened