But this writer, setting up to form a system upon stale, scanty topics, and a narrow circle of thought, falleth into a thousand absurdities. And for a further help, he hath a talent of rattling out phrases, which seem to have sense, but have none at all: the usual fate of those who are ignorant of the force and compass of words, without which it is impossible for a man to write either pertinently or intelligibly upon the most obvious subjects. So, in the beginning of his preface, page iv, he says, "The Church of England being established by acts of parliament, is a perfect creature of the civil power; I mean the polity and discipline of it, and it is that which maketh all the contention; for as to the doctrines expressed in the articles, I do not find high church to be in any manner of pain; but they who lay claim to most orthodoxy can distinguish themselves out of them." It is observable in this author, that his style is naturally harsh and ungrateful to the ear, and his expressions mean and trivial; but whenever he goeth about to polish a period, you may be certain of some gross defect in propriety or meaning: So the lines just quoted seem to run easily over the tongue: and, upon examination, they are perfect nonsense and blunder: To speak in his own borrowed phrase, what is contained in the idea of established? Surely, not existence. Doth establishment give being to a thing? He might have said the same thing of Christianity in general, or the existence of God, since both are confirmed by acts of parliament. But, the best is behind: for, in the next line, having named the church half a dozen times before, he now says, he meaneth only "the polity and discipline of it": As if, having spoke in praise of the art of physic, a man should explain himself, that he meant only the institution of a college of physicians into a president and fellows. And it will appear, that this author, however versed in the practice, hath grossly transgressed the rules of nonsense, (whose property it is neither to affirm nor deny) since every visible assertion gathered from those few lines is absolutely false: For where was the necessity of excepting the doctrines expressed in the articles, since these are equally creatures of the civil power, having been established by acts of parliament as well as the others. But the Church of England is no creature of the civil power, either as to its polity or doctrines. The fundamentals of both were deduced from Christ and His apostles, and the instructions of the purest and earliest ages, and were received as such by those princes or states who embraced Christianity, whatever prudential additions have been made to the former by human laws, which alone can be justly altered or annulled by them.