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• To the Lower House of Convocation.
• To the Publisher of the Independent Whig.
• Lib. Causarum Per Ann. Dom. 1721.
• To the Reverend Mr. Woods, Episcopal Register, to Be Communicated to the Clergy of This Diocese, 30 Januarii 1721.
• To the Honourable Alexander Horne, Esq; Governor of This Isle: the Remonstrance of Tho. Bp. of Sodor & Mann.
• At Castle Rushen, the 2d of February 1721.
• The Preface.
• The Independent Whig.
• Number I.: The Introduction.
• Number II.: The Design of This Paper.
• Number III.: Of the Contempt of the Clergy.
• Number IV.: Of the Explication of the Scripture.
• Number V.: The Unfitness of the Clergy to Teach Others.
• Number VI.: Of Creeds and Confessions of Faith.
• Number VII.: Of Uninterrupted Succession.
• Number VIII.: Of Uninterrupted Succession. P T . II.
• Number IX.: Of the Clearness of Scripture.
• Number X.: Of Ordination.
• Number XI.: The Advantageous Situation of the Clergy, Strangely Inconsistent With Their Common Cry of Danger.
• Number XII.: The Enmity of the High Clergy to the Reformation, and Their Arts to Defeat the End of It.
• Number XIII.: The Church Proved a Creature of the Civil Power, By Acts of Parliament, and the Oaths of the Clergy.
• Number XIV.: The Clergy Proved to Be Creatures of the Civil Power, By the Canons, and Their Own Public Acts.
• Number XV.: The Absurdity and Impossibility of Church-power, As Independent On the State.
• Number XVI.: The Inconsistency of the Principles and Practices of High-church; With Some Advice to the Clergy.
• Number XVII.: Reasons Why the High-church Priests Are the Most Wicked of All Men.
• Number XVIII.: A General Idea of Priestcraft.
• Number XIX.: Ecclesiastical Authority, As Claimed By the High Clergy, an Enemy to Religion.
• The Following Queries, and Letters to a Clergyman, Written By the Author of the Foregoing Paper, and Never Before Printed, Are Thought Proper to Be Here Inserted.
• A Letter to a Clergyman, Shewing the Impossibility of Assenting to What We Do Not Understand.
• Number XX.: Of Chaplains.
• Number XXI.: A Comparison Between the High-church and the Quakers.
• Number XXII.: Priestcraft Corrupts Every Thing, and Perverts the Use of Words.
• Number XXIII.: Of Zeal.
• Number XXIV.: Of Persecution.
• Number XXV.: Of Consecration.
• Number XXVI.: Of Faith and Morality.
• Number XXVII.: Of Fasting.
• Number XVIII.: Of Authority.
• Number XXIX.: Of Education.
• Number XXX.: Of Education. Part II.
• Number XXXI.: Of Ceremonies.
• Number XXXII.: Of Ceremonies. Part II.

Lib. Causarum per Ann. Dom. 1721.

My Brethren,

WHEREAS a most pestilent Book, intuled, The Independent Whig, has been lately brought into this Diocese, and, as we are certainly informed, industriously handed about with a manifest Intent to beguile ignorant and unstable Souls, and to render the Doctrine, Discipline, and the Government of the Church contemptible; and this without any Regard to his Majesty’s Directions, sent to me by his Grace our Metropolitan, and communicated unto you, expresly condemning such vile Books, and the spreading of them: I think it my Duty to acquaint you therewith, and with some of the baneful Contents thereof, that you may be upon your Guard, and that we may endeavour to secure the Flock over which the Holy Ghost has made us Overseers, from the Mischief intended by this and such-like blasphemous Books, which God, either for our Punishment or Trial, has suffered to be sent amongst us.

THAT the great Design of the Book abovementioned is to undermine the Christian Religion, appears by the Author’s representing all Religion as a mere Contrivance of Ecclesiastics for their own Interests;

BY his Rage and Malice against the antient Creeds, even that called The Apostles not excepted, and by his treating all such as at any time have contended for the Faith once delivered to the Saints, as the Tools of Princes, and as the Pest of Mankind;

BY ridiculing the venerable Fathers and Councils of the Primitive Church after the most scandalous Manner, and thereby depriving, as much as it is in the Power of Hell to do it, the Church of Christ of their Testimony to the Truth, and of the then received Sense of the sacred Scriptures;

BY making a very Jest of the Ordinances of the Gospel, and prostituting the Sacraments ordained by Christ himself to Contempt, magnifying those Heretics who do avowedly reject them;

BY making the Peace of the Church the Bane of Society; and Unity amongst Christians, so much required by Jesus Christ, the very Cause and Badge of Slavery;

BY scoffing at Holy Orders, and making a blasphomous Comparison betwixt the Powers conveyed by the Apostles to their Successors, and those given by an Attorney-general. And that we may be assured, that all this is from the Spirit of Antichrist, which St. John saith should come into the World, the Author of thisBook makes the Want of Faith an indifferent Matter, and expresly saith, that no Man will be rewarded or punished for having or not having right or wrong Conceptions of the Incarnation, that is, concerning Jesus Christ being come in the Flesh, which the Apostle gives as the very Mark of Antichrist. In short, the whole Book is one continued Design, in which the Devil and the Authors have shewed the utmost Skill to lay waste the Church of Christ, to overthrow all revealed Religion, to reduce Men to a State of Nature, and to bring all Things into a Confusion, both Sacred and Civil.

LEST therefore we should provoke God to deprive this Church and Nation of the Blessings of Truth, and Peace, and Unity, and the Means of Grace which we have so long enjoyed, by seeming to sleep while the Enemy is so busy in sowing Tares, and by neglecting to make use of all Means becoming the Spirit of the Gospel, to hinder such vile Tenets from spreading, to the manifest Danger both of Church and State; I beseech you, my Brethren, to join with me in puting a Stop, if possible, to the Beginnings of Profaneness and Infidelity;

BY convincing our People, from the Word of God, of the Necessity of holding fast the Mystery of Faith in a pure Conscience; that is, believing well, as well as living well; not being,like Children, carried away with every Blast of vain Doctrine; and of the prodigious Sin of those that teach, countenance, or embrace any thing contrary to the Gospel we have received. The Apostle saith, and repeats it, Let such be Anathema, let them be accursed.

BY detecting the Agents and Abettors of this Antichristian Spirit, that either they may be convinced of their Error in the Spirit of Meekness, or cut off from the Body of Christ, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

AND for ourselves, my Brethren, let us endeavour, by Well-doing, to put to Silence the Ignorance of foolish Men, holding fast the faithful Word, as we have been taught, that we may be able, by sound Doctrine, both to exhort and convince the Gainsayers.

Given under my Hand this 27th of January, in the Year of our Lord 1721, and of our Consecration the 25th.

THO. SODOR & MANN.