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prejudices, habits, conftitution, and connections, which cause him involuntarily to demur, where he ought inftantly to decide. Thefe, however, are under command; and fhall henceforth vanish and give way to fuperior conviction and the obligations of truth.

Let these confiderations excufe the trouble I have given you, while your candid forbearance with them have greatly enhanced to me the value of your friendship, which, I truft, will be uninterrupted to the end of our lives.

REASONS

FOR RESIGNING THE

RECTORY OF PANTON

AND

VICARAGE OF SWINDERBY,

IN

LINCOLNSHIRE;

AND QUITTING THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

BY JOHN DISNEY, D.D. F.S.A.

[Re-printed from the fecond edition, 1783. ]

REASONS

FOR QUITTING THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

A PUBLIC departure from my miniftry in the established church, and withdrawing myself from all attendance on its worfhip, should seem not only to excufe, but to demand, a declaration of the reasons which have induced me to it, and made fuch a conduct necessary.

Several years have paffed fince a petition was offered to the confideration of parliament, praying for relief in the matter of fubfcription to articles of religious faith and doctrine. That petition had my entire concurrence. It maintained the only principle upon which any proteftant church, or fociety of chriftians, can defend itself against the arguments urged in behalf of popery; and pleaded ftrongly, in my opinion, for the removal of all those human inventions and additions to the gospel of Jesus, which create the too general disbelief and rejection of it. The prayer of the petition, however, did not neceffarily involve in it the truth or falfehood of any particular doctrines; neither did it ask the fubftitution of others, either in whole or in part, in the place

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