Royal proclamation, suggested by your lordships for the consideration of his Majesty; but of the best form I pretend to be no judge: I only submit the subject to your consideration, as a seasonable shield against the fiery darts of the enemy. By acting upon this suggestion, your lordships will not only steal a march upon our opponents, but will qualify yourselves to call upon Parliament, without giving rise to any unworthy suspicions, to proceed deliberately in their alterations; and thus protect the nation, the church, and religion from the dangers which will ensue from crude, hasty, and precipitate proceedings: thus will you "exercise yourselves to have a conscience void of offence both towards God, and towards man:" thus would you "AVOID❞ not only evil, but as we are all bound to do, 66 THE APPEARANCE OF EVIL."

Here, most reverend fathers in God, I perhaps should thank you for your patience, and not put your long-suffering to further trial, but finding that your lordships are really active, are really contemplating original measures of change in the Church, I cannot content myself with merely imploring you to throw up your intentions of

Unions;

I cannot rest satisfied with merely advocating

Divisions;

I cannot but feel that I should be losing a good opportunity, were I to present for your lordships' audit, my account of the necessities of the

Rural, and Agricultural Church of England,

without adding a postscript, regarding

The Urbane and Manufacturing Church.

Look, my lords, to towns and cities in the manufacturing districts; to mills, and factories resembling the Tower of Babel, more than any other thing present to my mind. Hither it is that all true friends, I do not say to the Church, but to

good order, to concord, to religion, to Christianity, should direct their best, their stoutest, most dauntless energies.Here is the tug of war,-here is danger,-here is sedition, yea, anarchy, yea, infidelity, not only mining the foundation of our establishment, made with hands, but actively engaged in tearing to shreds the covenant into which God has entered with his people.-Here are men "whom a deceitful heart hath turned aside," not merely to defame the glories of our constitution, not merely to deny the LIBERTIES, the privileges, the toleration of England, unequalled in Europe; unthought of in Asia; unheard of in Africa; UNKNOWN IN AMERICA; but actually with the limited powers of reason denying the power of faith, crying out for liberty as a cloak of maliciousness-putting light for darkness, bitter for sweet-turning the blessings and favours, and revelations of benign, and condescending Omniscience into the curses of offended Omnipotence ! !

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"Hear me, chieftains !-and Thou, All powerful, whose "thunders can shiver into sand the adamantine rock, whose lightnings can pierce to the core of the rived, and quaking "earth. Oh, let thy power give effect to thy servant's "words, as thy spirit gives courage to his will."

If we traverse the manufacturing districts, or sojourn in the cities or villages of trade, do we not find Dissenting chapels without end? we pause before one, and we ask ourselves, how came this chapel here? we need no companion to inform us, that zeal was its founder, liberality was its builder; that faith, hope, and charity met together, and these three have raised this chapel; and the greatest of all is charity. We proceed to ask ourselves next, what is the motive whereby so many were induced to co-operate towards erecting this chapel? what is the purpose to which, now it is erected, it is devoted: a text or two over the threshold arresteth our notice, and while they serve to awaken those who go in to a sense of the solemn duties therein to be

discharged, they suffice to inform us who stay out, of the services rendered within. The words selected from Scripture are, perhaps,

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"Watch ye and pray, least ye enter into temptation." Or, "Let him that standeth take heed least he fall." Or, "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord," shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the Will of my Father, which is in heaven." Or,

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments." Or,

"Come with us, that we may do thee good."

Or,

"The Poor have the Gospel preached unto them."

Now, my lords, I leave to others to object to the selection of these texts, or to doubt the utility or propriety of Dissenting chapels. I respect them,-" charity hopeth all things, so I would not despond; "charity believeth all things," so I would not deny; "charity endureth all things, so I would not resist; "charity never faileth," so I respect them as instrumental by God's favour to comfort and help the weak hearted, to strengthen such as do stand, to raise up them that fall, and finally to beat down Satan under our feet; "charity never faileth," so I respect those chapels as monuments of the zeal, and assiduity of the Dissenting ministry; of the piety and liberality of the Dissenting laity; of the hopes of both of pardon and peace at the last.

We turn, my lords, to set churches against chapels,and we find that they are, perhaps, as one to three, or more, throughout the country. We then are naturally compelled to pursue reflection; and inquire, how comes

neither a Church nor an Episcopal Chapel here? and does not candour compel us to confess that zeal, the founder, is wanting; that liberality, the builder, is not called to work ; that our faith, the chief corner-stone, is not visible enough, the evidence of things hoped for is not strong enough; that hope deferred hath made our hearts sick; that charity HAS failed;-and we are ministers in an apostolic church! While others are receiving nothing independent, we are in the annual receipt of

We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord; to give us true repentance, to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances, and to endue us with thy Holy Spirit; to amend our lives according to thy Holy Word.

Fathers in God, this one thing let us do: "forgetting the "things which are behind, (or rather I would say, remembering them only as incentives to redeem the time) and "reaching forth unto the things which are BEFORE, let us PRESS toward the mark of the high calling of God in ،، Christ Jesus." God forbid that we should enter the streets and alleys of Christian exertion open to us in the midst of the manufacturing districts of Great Britain, as opponents to any Dissenting community. There is room both for them and for us, (would to God there were not!) let us enter with them as auxiliaries: NOT BY CONCESSION OF DOCTRINE!! God forbid ! alter my lords, if it seem well, the circumstantials of our worship, but never the essential doctrines of our faith: expunge from the Common Prayer Book whatever time has rendered harsh to the ear, or the common acceptation of words hard to the heart, but preserve as the apple of our eye, our DOCTRINES which faith rendereth dear to the soul-change the latter, and you sign our death warrant; we shall forfeit the respect of dissenters, and what is still worse, we shall forfeit the best stimulant on earth, we must cease to RESPECT OURSELVES. If the country decide that we are

no longer worthy of its confidence, let us submit to exile: if it like to reject us as unequal to lead the van, let us retire into the rear again: but let us give up the ascendancy unimpaired by our weakness, to any body of dissenters who covet it and to whom the nation shall award it. Never let us trifle or tamper with any, we shall disgust and disappoint all, we shall debase and condemn ourselves-never let it be said that we are ashamed of the gospel that we desert Christ to serve the world; if the Lord be God, let us be faithful to the end and follow Him. Let us at once, and in a body from one end of the kingdom to the other scorn to retain the boon, if stripped of its most glorious attributes: let us throw ourselves upon the providence of Heaven, as Elijah at the door of the widow woman of Sarepta, and cast the responsibility of a change of our doctrines upon the shoulders of those who are rash enough to attempt it. But is it come to this-tush-is God's arm shortened that He cannot save; or broken that He cannot strike? Believe, who will, an intended change in our doctrines by the present ministry,I never shall till it is beyond doubt: true it is that "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed: we are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not for"saken: cast down, but not destroyed." I believe, and therefore I will speak, and by the faith of a Christian, numerous as the Separatists are from the Established Church, I am convinced that the great majority, if not all of those whose opinion is worth asking, whose approbation worth possessing, would give their voices for our continuance at the head of God's army in this country, if only they can see the camp divested of its covetous character, its evident imperfections, and its repulsive inconsistencies.

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Think, my lords, (are we to be told?) think of the glorious union with dissenters !!

Think of the character for toleration which is to be