“_It is of course plain that I was neither speaking of the Catholic Church at all_, _nor even of the Church of England_, _except in its character of a Reformed Church_, _founded as such on the principles of the Reformation_, _which I again deliberately assert to be liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment_, _in opposition to that Church from whence it separated_, _in which the authority of Popes_, _Councils_, _and Priests_, _superseded all appeal to the scriptures themselves_, _and by which of course freedom of judgment was strictly prohibited_.” {25a} Not that it bears upon his Lordship’s argument, still I would respectfully submit whether our alleged _separation_ here from the Church of Rome be strictly correct; we threw off our allegiance to the _usurped_ authority, temporal and spiritual, of the Pope; we reformed the abuses of _our own Church_, but we _separated_ from no mother Church. The episcopal Church in England existed long before the Pope cast his eye upon it.—“In the acts of the Council of Arles, which was held A.D. 314, we find the Subscriptions of three British Bishops.” {25b} But I would further question whether in his Lordship’s _qualified_ sense of the observation it can with any strictness be said, that our _reformed_ Church was founded on the principle he contends for. It will, I think, be admitted that whatever was done with reference to the Church by that “Postilion of the Reformation,” as Burnet calls him, the _Papist_ Henry, was done by him more with a view “to cudgel the Pope into a compliance with what he desired,” {26a} than from any desire to reform our religion. At all events, we must give up any attempt to reconcile his “six acts” with “liberty of conscience.” The reformation of our _religion_ had its commencement in the reign of his successor. Here, if any where, we must look for the principle in question. But can it be said that our religion was reformed “in _opposition_ to the authority of Popes and Councils,” when it is so well known, that “the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction was of most just causes taken away and _abolished_,” {26b} in the preceding reign? Neither can it, I think, in strictness be said, _of that time_, that the _Priests_ superseded all appeal to the scriptures, seeing that it was by the Bishops themselves that the scriptures were chiefly caused to be circulated. I am speaking not of the German Protestant Church, but that of which his Lordship speaks, “the Church of England, in its character of a reformed Church.” And I have before shewn on your own authority in the matter of _Hooper_, that she recognised nothing so little as the principle of “liberty of conscience.” That sectarism or separation _from_ the Church is founded on this principle, will be admitted.