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burs , acting in Ms name /* Upon the whole , he sees not " any evidence , that the power of making or ordaining ministers is committed to the people /'
though he has " no inclination to dispute their libe $ * ty of choosing them , " and think 3 it unreasonable that people should be deprived of their liberty of refusing any person proposed to them /' He adds , " I dispute not , therefore , against the people ' s being interested in the choice of their ministers : but
only argue that theit choice conveys not the office , that the judging of men qualifications and ordaining them belongs to such as God has called to the sacred office /* Thus Mr . Peirce was well prepared to dedicate his Vindication in 17 IB , in a strain of
unqualified approbation , " to the most reverend , pious and learned pastors and ministers of that part of Christ ' s church which is in Scotland , " and to speak of them as " famed for Christian discipline / ' In his " Appeal to
Foreign Divines" also , with which his learned work commences , he says , " We have always desired that aristocraticul form of church-government which you have deservedly made choice
of , as most consonant to the Holy Scriptures / ' This language was , however , scarcely correct from a vindicator of the whole body of the Dissenters , of whom the Independents , including Baptists , in that term , had become a
large proportion ; and who were , certainly , far enough from desiring an aristocratical form of church * government . Ibid . Ci Such books as the Rights . " Mr . Hallett undoubtedly designed Dr . €
Tindal ' s < Rights of the Christian Church asserted , against the Romish and all other Priests , who claim an independent Power over it . " This book was first published in 1706 , and in 1709 there was a fourth edition .
It was largely described and much commended by Le Clerc in his Bib Chois . Tom . X . To an insinuation , enco uraged by the Convocation , that this commendation had been purchased , Le Clerc thus indignantly replies :
" Quelques pgrsotities ont public en Angleterre , que ceux qui m' avoient envoy < £ le livre intituld , Les Droits de V Eglise Chrfoienne , qui y a fait tant < le bruit , m * avoient doim 6 une recompense , pour en purler . Iln ' yjannais
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rien eu de plus faux , et je ptfis protester , en hotiete bomme , et devant Dieu , que je n ' ai jamais eti , pour parlef de ce Livre-lk nl d'aneun autre , de promesse m de f £ com $ refcse . Ceux qui ont public le < cont £ aiire 0 &t public un mensonge , soit qii ' ite Paient invent ^ euxm&mes ou qtif ils aieiit &t 6 trompez , par quelque autre . " ( Bib . Chois . XXIII . 23 & , 236 . )
To what anstcers Mr . Haliett directed Mr . Fox it is impossible to say . Several are mentioned in " A Defence of the Rights / ' ( Ed . 2 , 1709 . ) 1 . " The Rights of the Clergy in the Christian Church asserted , " preached at the primary Visitation of " the
Bishop of Lincoln , " ( Wake ?) " and made public at his command and the desire of the Clergy , " by the learned W . Wotton . 2 . " An Answer to the Rights , " by €€ Dr . Turner , Vica ; r of Greenwich . " This writer says , " If a private man has the liberty to enjoy his own sentiments to himself , without
being constrained on one hand to forego and renounce them , or permitted on . the other to publish and defend them , he has all the power and liberty he can reasonably pretend to . " 3 . " Demas and Hierarcha , " a dialogue , by S . Hill , " Archdeacon of Wells . " This
writer complains that the enemies of the clergy , with the author of the Rights in < € the van- —have mustered up all their forces , and sharpened all the weapons , not only of ail the tolerated Dissenters , but of Socinians ,
Deists , Atheists , to the utter crucifixion of Christ and his church . " 4 . " The Second Part of the Postscript , " a collection of " Weekly Papers , " by " the great Champion of High Church . " 5 . Dr . Hickes ' s " Answer to the Rights . " Besides these answers , neither of
which , I should think , Mr . Hallett could recommend , there appeared , on the same side , and in the same spirit , A Dialogue between Timothy and
Fhilatheus , " in three volumes , the last closing with an attack upon Le Clerc , entitled ** Timothei ad Johannem Clericum Epistoia . " The same
author , " layman , " in 1711 , published " An Essay on the Nature , Extent and Authority of Private Judgment in Matters < rf Religion . " The following extract from the preface will sufficientl y describe him : " The condemned book of Rights ,
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Notes on the Memoirs of Mr * «/ . Fo& . 223
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1821, page 223, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2499/page/31/
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