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NEW PREFACE.
the fires? If they did not, where are their protests against these atrocities? V:’liere is
the act of convocation condemning them? The Author can find "0 Pubgilagt 3 lmes :
any where against them; but in his search for this saving clause he I ii an ac
of the Assembly of the Calvinistic Church of Scotland, confessing ‘AS A dcignar (1:13;
TIONAL SIN the act of the British Parliament abolishing the burning an angina 0
witches. I . ' . .
But so far were the priests of the Protestant sects from condemning these atrocities,
that the Genevans were congratulated and praised by almost all the Protestant churches
on the continent-for burning Servetus; and the act of Cranmer was imitated in the time
of the Protestant James the First, by the burning of one poor wretch at Lichfield, and
another at Smithfield, viz. B. Legatt and E. Vliglltmaila With all the 01d regular and
hypocritical forms of deliverance up to the secular power by the bishop. As long as an
orthodox order (that is, the order of a sect possessing the power of the sword) charges
crimes of this nature against other sects as reasons for denying to them the possession
of their civil rights, their own crimes can neither be forgotten nor forgiven. Nor will
the Author be deterred by the foolish charge of bad taste from exerting his feeble efforts
to keep this encroaching order in its proper place.-If these statements give.ofl'ence,
they must be attributed to those who, by insinuating that the Author forgot the ninth
commandment, put him in his own defence to the necessity of making them.
‘ But the Author thinks that when the Canon of Salisbury was quoting so largely
from his book, he would have done nothing unfair if he had noticed the Author’s admis-
sion in the preceding page, that the Protestant priesthood of England was the only one
i ii the world which had not been a curse to its country.
The Author has most distinctly admitted, and will most cheerfully repeat his ad-
mission, that in every class of priests (but he will not limit it to any one sect) great
numbers of excellent men are to be found; but again he says, that the order is not a
necessary appendage to Christianity, and, as an order considered, throughout the world,
from the beginning of time, it has been more prejudicial than beneficial to mankind.
And, in opposition to the Canon of Salisbury, he takes the liberty of saying, that “ if
the Melancthons, the Bowleses, and the Bucers, had been three times as numerous as
they have been, they would not have destroyed the general nature of the rule.” In
all priesthoods, men in humble life, by their good conduct, have acquired power to
the order: this once acquired, its members, with the acquisition of wealth and power,
have become corrupted. It is only a consequence flowing from the nature of things;
and all pal:-iotic priests ought to assist the feeble efforts of the Author to keep their
PALACE-LIVING, ENTHRONING order in its proper place. Let them remember that
their Master was never entlzroned, nor did he live in a palace. And to excuse the acqui-
sition of these pomps and vanities to themselves by saying, that they are to do honour to
him who forbade them, is but to insult him.
January, 1829.
PVU