should prefer the cobler to you. I have had a liberal edocation myself: yet who that knows me would think of sending their children to me to be taught Christianity? They perhaps might prefer your teaching, Sir, to mine. The reason is, I am too honest for this world. I don't profess to be any thing but what I am. I have not that worldly wisdom, that necessary prudence, which many have, and so I am termed an infidel. I accept the appellation. I put on the cap, because I know it fits me. Yet, Sir, if any man were to dare to tell me that I am not as good a Christian as you, or as nine tenths of those who are brought up to the art and mystery of preaching, I should be highly offended. If you ask why I think thus? I answer, that any fool may know what is told him. You all tell me that you don't believe the Scriptures, or nine tenths of you at least, as I said before. You tell this to me, and to all the world, by your actions, which are better proofs than words. If you believed a heaven or a hell, would you dare solemnly to subscribe articles which you do not believe, or pretend to give your unfeigned assent and consent to them for the lucre of a paltry living? I could not myself do it, infidel as I am; and if I had done it, I would throw up my prefer ments, and restore my ill-gotten goods, as many worthy men have done. To subscribe one set of doctrines, and to preach another, is the greatest prevarication. The clergy indeed tell us that the sin lies with them who require subscription. But I do not think so; for if you take the wages, you ought to do the work your masters set you about. The conscience of those surely is not very scrupulous, who for the sake of gain declare their belief of things which they do not believe, and then try to fasten the guilt upon those who hold out the temptation. Call the articles which you are obliged to subscribe, articles of peace or by whatever name you choose, falsehood is falsehood still, and will be so to the end of the world, however it may be gilded and adorned to silence the clamours of conscience. Besides, my friend, your religion and the religion of Jesus are two different religions. Only endeavour to convert a Jew to Arianism or Socinianism, and he will tell you as I do, that you are no Christian.

Observe I do not blame you for disbelieving the articles; but I blame you for declaring that you believe them when you do not, and for exclaiming against the poor shoemaker, who I doubt not does believe them. I have long considered Christianity as a fortress built for the protection of tyranny; the dignified and beneficed clergy are its officers, the poor curates are the common soldiers. Hence proceeded that wise proverb, No bishop, no king; that is, no" tyrant for a good and patriotic king stands in need of no such aid.

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Come, come, Mr. Clifford, cried my father, you are too severe upon the clergy.

O no, Sir, replied he, Mr. Law knows I cannot help speaking the truth, and he has long ceased to be offended. at any thing I say. It is reasonable that it should be so; for he knows that he is at full liberty to say any thing to me, provided he speak the truth.

Mr. William Neville, said Mr. Clifford, you look very serious. If that dear girl had been here, whose loss I assure you has grieved me very much, and affected my son beyond any thing you can conceive, I say if she and her friend Miss Barnwell had been here, Mr. Law would not have come off so easily. But he and I have boxed one another so often, that we don't feel each other's blows.

I am truly sorry, Sir, answered I, that a person of your sense and education should avow your disbelief and dislike of Christianity. You say that it has been used as a fortress for the protection of tyranny. I grant that it has been perverted by being made a state religion: but which of the mercies of God has not been abused? It is not in its own nature calculated to be an established religion; for it never can become so, except it be first exceedingly cor rupted.

Pray, Sir, said Mr. Law, how do you prove that? Though I do not care to dispute with Mr. Clifford, because I know he will have his own way, I cannot hear such an assertion from you, and be silent. Is not Christianity the established religion in every catholic country in Europe? Why then is it not fit to be the established religion in protestant countries.

It is unfit, Sir, replied I, for that purpose, in any country; since the church or kingdom of Christ is neither of this world, nor governed by worldly maxims. Christ is the only head and lawgiver of his own kingdom, and his subjects are all brethren. Neither wealth, learning, nor genius, can exalt any one of his subjects above the rest. The bishops whom they choose from among themselves to preside over them, are neither directors of their faith nor of their practice: they can only inform them what Christ and his apostles have commanded, and enforce those commands by the penalties mentioned in Scripture, which do not extend either to life or limb, to fine or imprisonment. The forms of proceedings in a bishop's court against a delinquent would be in vain sought for in the New Testament. I might make the same observation concerning the election of bishops by virtue of a congé d'elire, or royal mandate; concerning the consecrating and enthroning of them when chosen; and concerning their being lords of parliament, or indeed lords in any sense. They who have learned this kind of Christianity from the precepts of Jesus, or of his humble followers, must have read the New Testament to little purpose. Religion is now said to wear golden slippers; but it is a very different religion from that of Jesus Christ, whose followers have by the noble and wise men of this world been always esteemed the offscouring of all things, or, as Mr. Law terms them, the scum of the earth. This is the hour and the power of darkness. Christians must wait a little while, and every thing will be in their favour; their enemies will then be ashes under the soles of their feet. With regard to you, Mr. Barnwell, permit me to tell you, that in persecuting your daughter you are. wounding yourself to death. She is a daughter of whom you are unworthy. While you are despising her, treating her as an enemy and alien, and rendering her an orphan, she is praying for your happiness, and weeping over that distress, that misery and destruction, which she too well knows are coming upon you.

Sir, replied Mr. Barnwell contemptuously, you are a young man. When you have lived as many years as your father or I, you will know better. You will by that time I doubt not have learned, that God and nature have made you

the rightful guardian of your children, and that their conduct ought to be under your direction, at least while they are under your care. We will soon settle this point, continued he. Pray, Sir, answer me this plain question. Does not an apostle command children to obey their parents? But faith, faith, faith, among enthusiasts now-a-days, is every thing, and morality is nothing at all.

Well done, exclaimed Mr. Law, smiling; I dare say you have given this young gentleman a knot that he may cut, but that he will not be able to untie.

Pray, Sir, said I, when will you acknowledge it to be untied?

When you have proved, Sir, said he, that children are not to be obedient to their parents.

I suppose, said I, that you confine obedience to parents to their lawful commands.

Undoubtedly, answered Mr. Law.

Suppose, Sir, said I, Mr. Barnwell and his daughter haa lived in the time of the apostles, and had heard Paul preach at Philippi when Lydia was converted. Suppose further the word of God had made the same impression upon Miss Barnwell's mind, which it did upon the mind of that excellent woman, would it have been lawful for her after this to obey her father by joining in the worship of Jupiter or Apollo?

It would not, answered he; but the case is not similar. Miss Barnwell was commanded to attend the worship of God in a Christian church.

I will not take the advantage, Sir, replied I, of showing the unlawfulness of forcing the conscience in any case whatever. It is sufficient for me to deny that she was commanded to attend the worship of God in a Christian church. If you cannot prove that she was so commanded, it will follow from your own concession that Mr. Barnwell commanded his daughter to do that which was unlawful. It will also follow that it was not her duty to obey him, for filia! obedience is restricted in the New Testament to lawful things. Children, says the apostle, obey your parents in the Lord: and our Lord predicted that parents and children would become the most bitter enemies to each other on account of the gospel.

Am I put upon proving, said Mr. Law, that the church to which Miss Barnwell was commanded to go, is a Chris tian church? It would be a difficult thing to prove that the sun shines, to a man who shuts his eyes. I am willing to allow the church of Rome to be a true church, and I think myself entitled to equal candour from you. But I am doubtful, Sir, whether you are a catholic; for you talk very strangely for one of that communion.

It is sufficient, Sir, answered I, to inform you, that I am a member of no national church, and that I consider the numerous corruptions which have been introduced into Christianity as one great cause of the infidelity of the great, both in catholic and protestant countries; since, in opposing and deriding priestcraft, they unwisely imagine they are opposing and deriding Christianity. A Christian church, continued I, is an assembly of faithful men, meeting together in one place to hear their pastor or bishop explain and enforce the writings of the apostles and prophets. This bishop is a person of their own choice, possessing the qualifications which are enumerated in Paul's first epistle to Timothy: The things taught at the universities to youth designed for the ministry are no part of those qualifications: it is no marvel therefore that reading a moral essay should by such teachers be mistaken for preaching the gospel. A composition that would have been heard with pleasure by a Roman audience in the time of paganism, must be essentially different from that divine morality which has its foundation in the love of God, manifested in the gift of his Son to die for sinners, and which is powerfully and properly enforced from that consideration. Mr. Barnwell's insinuation that the doctrine embraced by the despised servants of Jesus consists of nothing but faith, is a libel on Christianity. They who hold the doctrine of justification by faith alone, maintain with the apostles, that wherever the truth of the gospel is received, it will be productive of love to God, and of universal submission to his will; and that where this is not in a considerable degree the case, there is no real Christianity.

I tell you what my friend, said Mr. Clifford, (looking at Mr. Law,) I would advise you to give it up. I don't mean the argument; that you have lost; but the profession of