ANTIPAS;

A

SOLEMN APPEAL

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND

THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS

OF THE

UNITED CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND;

WITH REFERENCE TO

SEVERAL BILLS

PASSED, OR PASSING THROUGH

THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT;

ESPECIALLY THAT CONCERNING

Witchcraft and Sorcery.

"Come, let him that standeth on the watch-tower, report what he seeth." Isa. xxi. 6. Bishop Horsley's Translation.

LONDON:

WILLIAM STOCKDALE,

N°. 179, PICCADILLY.

MDCCCXXI.

ΤΟ

THE RIGHT REVEREND

THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS

OF THE

UNITED CHURCHES

OF

ENGLAND AND IRELAND.

MY LORDS,

No sentiment was ever more gene

rally, or more justly approved, than that of our illustrious Nelson, " ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT 66 EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY." Such an appeal to the sense of the whole country could not fail to rouse its defenders to exertion in the moment of doubtful warfare,-could not but absorb every personal and private feeling in the claims of national obligation.

B

If such be the expectation of the State concerning those to whom her belligerent powers are confided-on whose conduct her political relations depend; with equal justice may the Church demand extraordinary exertions from the guardians of her spiritual welfare, whenever she may be placed in circumstances of equal, or of more imminent peril. And such, my Lords, it must be avowed, is her present condition: all that is dear to the name of Christian, all that belongs to that character, is now at stake, and depends, humanly speaking, on the issue of a warfare to which that, the weapons whereof are carnal, dreadful and destructive as it is, bears no comparison of importance.

To your Lordships, therefore, as to the delegated defenders of our faith, and to the constituted guardians of our church, an earnest and solemn appeal cannot be unseasonable: it may proceed with the strictest propriety even from the meanest member of her establishment. ship be endangered by a rock at midnight, the seaman who should perceive it, and not cry out,

If a

would be as criminal as the commander, who, after an awakening notice, should lie down again to sleep, and refuse to give directions for the safety of the vessel. The watchman of a city, should he neglect to sound his alarum at the commencement of a conflagration, would justly be involved in the guilt of an incendiary. Every man is expected to do his duty as a CHRISTIAN, no less than as a subject; and the heaviest penalties are repeatedly denounced with divine authority, against the neglect of timely warning in the spiritual dangers and warfare of the Church of God.

Had such an appeal been made to your Lordships in a respectful but forcible manner, before the fatal removal of those outworks which the piety and wisdom of our ancestors had raised against the most daring enemies of Religion, the torrent of infidelity would have been stemmed, or diverted from its course; it could not have inundated, as it has since done, every street in our cities, and every village in our land. A firm and united stand on the part of your Lordships,