Bates 9-18-51 CONTENT S.* 9-20-31 mi * Prefixed by the Editor.-P. H. If there be any thing in these writings, that may be apprehended to be repugnant to any law of the realm, or to that respect which is claim'd by any particular body, or persons, it is unsaid; the only design being the truth and reason of things in themselves, and the recovery of Original Christianity. EPISTLE TO THE ORATORIANS. BRETHREN, IT is with great satisfaction I now present you this new impression of our Liturgy, corrected and improv'd; and that I can assure you, there is nothing admitted into it that is not Scripture itself, or penn'd in the compass of the first and second ages; and therefore not my own writing, or composi tion: so that it affords the acquiescence and the pleasure to worship and communicate after a manner the most acceptable to God in Christ, through the Holy Ghost; which is the proper, distinguishing, and original worship of Christians. It is presum'd, that what seems particular in this affair will not be answer'd by power, but sense. For as the whole Reformation is an 'express appeal from Church-authority, force, Inquisitions, Bishops, Clergy, Councils, Convocations, implicit faith, impositions, judicial prosecutions, and decrees, in matters 6 EPISTLE TO THE ORATORIANS. of religion, to the liberty of private judgment and conscience; so it must be a contradiction for any part of the Reformation to make use of those very methods from which it appeals. That would tend to abolish a main difference between Protestantism and Popery, and so to destroy the very reason both of the Reformation, the Revolution, and the Protestant Succession. For Church-authority and force are, wherever they prevail, the same principles; and there is no distinction to be put between a Protestant and a Popish Church-authority, only that the former is rather the more absurd, as at once supposing and denying private judgment and conscience. It is therefore insisted, that the Oratory, which is rais'd on the principles of the Reformation, and refers all Christian enquiries to the rule of the first ages, shall freely declare the particulars, and the reasons, why it makes that appeal; and that its enquiries be debated by opposite arguments, learning, and reasoning only: since it is the peculiar practice of an Inquisition to decide such points judicially; and if the affair was to be determined by votes, or an high hand, nothing could be more Popish for the Romanists would, was it in their power, out-number, and out-vote, and out-prosecute all cases, articles, forms, and constitutions, of all the Reformed Churches put together. This appeal to the first times of our religion is so entirely |