The bishops, of whom he speaks in the next paragraph, were “immured in a prison” on a charge of high treason; and a bill, to exclude them from the House of Lords, passed both houses of parliament, and received the signature of “our martyred Charles.” And, if it was ever “made unlawful for an Episcopalian to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience,” Mr. Perowne ought to know that this was done by parliamentary authority, and that the church might even now visit every Dissenter with pains and penalties, for not worshipping within her walls, were she not mercifully prevented by the Act of Toleration. One more paragraph yet remains. I had said in my Letter, that “the essential doctrines and hallowed influences” of religion “ought to be far dearer to us all than any forms of ecclesiastical government. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” This, he intimates, is equivalent to saying that “forms of ecclesiastical government” are “_matters of little moment_.” I did not say so. I said that doctrines and influences ought to be “far dearer” to us than such forms. Having, however, made me say that they are “matters of little moment,” he asks, why then do we separate from the church? I ask in reply, why does the church _impose_ them? and why does he write a pamphlet against those who conscientiously refuse to comply with them? Let Mr. Perowne regenerate a child by baptism, and cross its forehead, if he pleases. Let him kneel at the table, around which Christ and his disciples sat, if he pleases. Let him call a Socinian his “dear brother,” and bury him “in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,” if he pleases. But let him not attempt to compel me to adopt such practices; let him not anathematize me for not conforming to a church which declares that it “hath power to decree rites and ceremonies,” when I believe that such “power” is possessed by Christ alone. I am not the separatist. I “stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath made me free.” He is the schismatic who insists upon the practice of unscriptural and popish ceremonies, as the terms of communion with the church of Christ. “The schism,” says Archbishop Laud, in addressing Papists, and in justifying the church of England in her dissent from the church of Rome, “The schism is theirs whose the cause of it is; and he makes the separation who gives the first cause of it, _not he that makes an actual separation upon a just cause preceding_.” Let Mr. Perowne talk no more about separation, but remember that “those who live in a house of glass should never throw stones.”