by any condition annexed to the inheritance nor by any confideration allowed in the purchafe; that neither the donor of the land gave, or could give it; and that neither confcience nor equity can require the Quaker to pay it.

The queftion will then depend upon the judgment of the legiftative power; and we are fill in the proper method of debating, what measures the legislative ought to prescribe, between the parfon and the Quaker in the cafe of tythes.

We are told upon this footing of the judg ment of the legislative power, and with fome air of triumph, that perfons withholding tythes are filed evil-difpofed perfons, 27 Hen. VIII. not regarding their duties to God and the king, 32 Hen. VIII. and acting of an ungodly perverfe will and mind: to which the parfon might have added, moved and feduced by the inftigation of the devil:- it would have made the fame impreffion on the commons of Great Britain, before whom he is pleading; and, it would have been as full an answer to the charge upon the clergy of oppreffion, avarice and injuftice in their fuits for tythe.

The

The words perverfe, ungodly, undutiful to God and the king, prove nothing but that the priefts, who had power to obtain a penal statute, had leave to call people names in the preamble to it. But

If it be urged as the fenfe of thofe times. concerning non-payment of tythe, will the parfon allow me to cite other ftatutes, made about the fame time, as the fenfe of the law-makers. upon other ecclefiaftical pretentions?

I fear, the fenfe of parliament hath very little weight with the clergy, when it is not on the fide of their ambition; and therefore I may not perhaps hold it conclufive, when, influenced by their ungodly management, it lets them loofe to defame and damn their enemies, as enemies to God and the king.

The ftatute of the firft year of Edward VI.. cap. 2

(

Declares,

That elections of archbishops and bishops,. by deans and chapters, are as well to the long delay, as to the great cofts and charges 'of such persons whom the king gives any K 3

• arch

archbishoprick or bishoprick unto, and that the faid elections be in very deed no elections, but only by a writ of CONGE D'ELIRE have colours, fhadows, or pre-• tences of elections, ferving nevertheless to no purpfe, and feeming alfo derogatory to the king's prerogative royal.'

This act of parliament, though not held at prefent to be in force, doth certainly shew the fenfe of our ancestors on the fubject of electing bishops.

Will the clergy allow us to fpeak of their pretended elections of bifhops in the terms of this act of parliament? No it is against divine right. If then they will not allow the inftitution of bishops to be tied down, to the preface of a law made in Edward VI's time, will they tie every man down, in the equity of tythes, to the preface of a law made in Henry VIII's time?

I trust in the right of an English fubject, that we fhall not be reftrained, from a larger confideration of fo important an affair, and that neither our duty to God or the king fhall be queftioned, for no better reafon than our difference of fentiments in the affair of thes.

I reverence an act of parliament as much

as any man living.

which we are all

It is the act of that power bound to trust and obey. But I am not fo far concluded by an act of parliament, that I ought either to believe implicitly whatever it declares, or not to follicit the repeal of what it may enact.

And, I cannot but obferve,

1. That when Henry VIII. unravelling his own reformation, went retrograde into the worst measures of popery, he paft the act of the fix articles in his 31ft year, wherein he eftablished auricular co-fefin and tranfultontiation. And

2. That in the next year he past the act for the payment of tythes, wherein is the famous expreffion of persons not regarding their duties to God and the king.

If therefore tythes, tranfulftantiation, and auricular confession, are of the fame growth and family, we fhall find that the fame reasoning from acts of parliament, which makes the payment of tythes a DUTY to God and the king, by the ftatute of 32 Hen. VIII. would as forcibly prove tranfubftantiation and auricular con

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feffion to be articles of faith fit for a chriftian to believe in, becaufe they are fo declared, by the ftatute of 31 Hen. VIII. which impofed thofe fix lody articles famous in the ftory of thofe times. And,

To fay that the act of the fix articles is repealed, but that the tythe act is ftill in force, would make the matter infinitely ridi culous; for

This would fuppofe that our duty to God, or our faith in Chrifl, depends altogether on the existences and duration of acts of parliament: So that it may be a duty to God, or not a duty to God; an orthodox creed, or not an orthodox creed, as different parliaments happen to be of different opinions.

If the country parfon is difpleafed, that fuch abfurdities fhould be laid at his door, he fhould be lefs forward to prefs the sense of our ancestors, and authorities out of the ftatute books, in proof of fuch points as duties to God, wherein every man may take the bible and his own confcience to be fafer guides than any act of parliament.

If he is difpleafed, that the sense of our ancestors, and authorities out of the ftatute books