Lordship has not intimated the slightest inclination to correct or to repress the presumed evils by calling in the aid of the secular arm.

By this fair and undisguised representation of the principles and views of the Unitarians, I flatter myself that I have made some progress in abating those prepossessions which your Lordship appears to entertain against that body of christians. In the subsequent Letters I hope to clear the Unitarians from those imputations which your Lordship, from misconception of their character, has alleged against them in your late Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of London. In the mean time I remain, with great respect,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's obedient servant,

THOMAS BELSHAM.

LETTER II.

The Bishop's first allegation stated, viz. that Uni

tarians are in alliance with other sects to overturn the Establishment-Stability of the Established Church shown-Principles of non-conformists hostile to all violent opposition-Divine Right no longer claimed or allowed by Church or Dissent ers-Unitarians friendly to the Establishment— Reform the only object desired by many both within and without the pale of the Church.

MY LORD,

FLATTERING myself that, by the frank and undisguised exposition of the principles of the Unitarians in my former letter, I have in some measure succeeded in obviating the prepossessions of your Lordship against that class of christians, I now proceed to reply to those allegations which your Lordship has adduced against the Unitarians in your primary Visitation Charge; and I trust that I shall make it evident to your Lordship's satisfaction that these allegations are in a great degree, if not altogether, unfounded.

In the first place, your Lordship conceives that the Unitarians have formed an alliance with other widely discordant sects against the Established Church. Your Lordship's words are these, p. 18:

"We are indeed exposed to dangers, and those "of no ordinary magnitude. The opposite ex"tremes of defect or excess of religious belief and

'feeling prevail among us in a variety of modi"fications and degrees to an alarming extent. "The partisans of these several errors, disjoined "in all other respects by discordancy of principle, sentiment, and ultimate views, are not the "less disposed to unite in offensive alliance

against the object of their common aversion, "the Established Church."

That of the extremes here alluded to the Unitarians constitute one, is sufficiently obvious from the context, and cannot be mistaken by the reader. An alliance between parties who are represented as so widely different is not in itself very probable; and in the case supposed is merely imaginary, as I hope to prove to your Lordship's satisfaction.

Since the Norman conquest, I believe there never has been a time when the Church of England, established by the authority of Parliament, stood upon firmer ground than it does at present. Time has been when Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, and other sects, each claiming a divine authority for its own form of church government to the exclusion of all others, and each anathematizing all who were not of its own com

munion, believed it to be an indispensable duty to exert their utmost efforts to subvert and extirpate all other sects, and to establish its peculiar discipline upon the ruins of the rest. And when the parties were nearly balanced, there might be, and at one time there actually was, a struggle which disturbed the peace of the country, and overturned the throne.

But these days are passed. The happy acces sion of the illustrious House of Hanover, which effectually crushed the old Jacobite doctrine of the jus divinum of Kings, involved in the same ruin the equally unfounded and Jacobite opinion of the divine right of Prelacy, and the sister claims of Presbyterianism and Independency. And though in all parties, some from policy, and some from ignorance, may still preach up the exploded doc trines, yet such is the change which in the last century has taken place in the public mind, that a man who should now gravely teach that no salvation is to be found without the pale of an episcopal or presbyterian church, or who should maintain that the communion of which he was himself a member possessed a claim to divine right, to the exclusion of all others, would become the object of ridicule and contempt, not only to the wise and learned, but to the public in general. In fact, men of inquisitive and candid minds plainly

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see that the external constitution of a christian church is no where defined, much less imposed, in the New Testament, but is wisely left to the discretion of individuals and societies in succeeding ages, according to the circumstances in which they might be placed. And upon the firm ground of expedience, Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, and Independency, are all fixed as upon a rock; each community of christians possessing an inherent right to frame its own ecclesiastical constitution, and none having authority to impose a yoke upon others. And if an establishment of religion be the will of the nation, it is for the Government to select that mode of ecclesiastical discipline which is most conducive to the happiness of the community. In the United Empire, as the people are satisfied with a parliamentary settlement of the crown, they are equally well satisfied with a parliamentary establishment of religion. And it creates no uneasiness, that while Episcopacy is established in England, Presbyterianism is by the same authority established in Scotland.

And if

Parliament should, with a magnanimity and liberality worthy of the enlightened and benevolent spirit of the times, not only grant liberty, but protection and support, to that system of faith and discipline which is professed by the great mass of the inhabitants of the sister island, I am persuaded