accused Dissenters, because they have in but few instances thought proper to join them. This refusal to unite has been construed into many things which they solemnly repudiate, and it is but natural that they should state the real reasons of their conduct; it is but just that those reasons should be heard. We plead for nothing but equity. We know no party in this question. If Dissenters are wrong, let them be condemned; if right, let them be justified. We forbid none to 'strike,' we only ask of all to 'hear.'

It has been said and insinuated more times than we have any wish to count up, that Dissenters do not support Protestant Associations because they are cold in their attachment to Protestantism, if indeed they are not secretly inimical to it. This interpretation of their conduct we pronounce presumptuous and false. Dissenters are no friends to popery. They hate the system with a perfect hatred. They appeal to the civil and ecclesiastical history of their country in proof of that hatred; they appeal to the essential spirit and character of their peculiar views in proof of it. Right or wrong, those views are held and prized by them because they are esteemed peculiarly Protestant. It would be strange, indeed, if upon this subject they were indifferent and careless, and against the argument that they are so, because they keep aloof from Protestant Associations, we protest as at once absurd and libellous. It may not be necessary to assail popery as a specific form of evil in order to oppose and destroy it. Popery, like all other erroneous and vicious systems, is an effect-an effect of human depravity. It has its roots in that depravity. He who does most to destroy that depravity does most to destroy popery. All the religious enterprises of Protestant Christians are in reality anti-popish. They may not attack the particular evil by name and in form, but they are vigorous instruments of resistance to it. They are designed to stop up the fountain as the best way of putting an end to the streams; they are designed to crush the eggs as the best way of destroying the serpents.

Nor do Protestant Dissenters give only general efforts to oppose popery. They are not chargeable with the neglect of particular operations with the same view. If they support not Protestant Associations, it is just because they regard their own methods as better. They do the same thing as others, although not in the same way. They believe that wiser and more efficient means of promoting Protestantism exist, and are available, than contributions to Protestant Associations, the delivery of speeches at their meetings, the support of their petitions to parliament. They endeavor to promote Protestantism by preaching Protestant sermons, circulating Protestant tracts, and seeking the destruction of an Establishment

which has been popish once and may be popish again, and which presents in its property and its powers a great attraction to popish zeal. It is no more righteous to assert that they who refuse to unite with Protestant Associations are deficient in Protestant zeal, than it would be to assert that none cared for the circulation of the Bible who did not support the Bible Society; it is less righteous, for the certainty is far greater that the Bible Society circulates only the Bible, than that Protestant Associations circulate only Protestantism.

We object to these associations on many grounds. And first of all, we object to them as general engines for the promotion of the Protestant faith. They place Protestantism in a false position. They may be a fit expression and instrument of the principles and feelings of members of the Established Churches, but they do not so of all Protestants. Those churches are set up as opponents of popery. This must necessarily prevent the adhesion of all who do not consider those Churches as the most proper forms and engines of Protestant truth. We are of that number. In our view the controversy is not a contest of churches but principles. It has a broader basis and a wider comprehension than is given to it by the Associations. To treat Protestantism as if its fortunes were involved in any church, is to do it grievous injustice. Associations that may unite the sympathies and powers of all Protestants must recognize only Protestant principles, and not represent and advocate Protestant sects. Did Dissenters esteem the defence and confirmation of the religious establishments the best way of resisting popery, they would not only advocate them, but join them. As it is, they think the cause of Protestantism is perplexed and embarrassed by its connexion with any church, and especially established ones. To infer the coldness of their Protestantism from the conduct which these considerations necessitate, may be excusable in such as think such churches comprise all the Protestantism in the land; in other words, may be excusable in such as conceal a Popish heart under a Protestant name: but it is inexplicable in such as do not consider Protestantism and dissent as necessarily inconsistent terms.

We do not join Protestant Associations because we do not join the Church which in this part of the country* is their great embodiment of Protestantism, and we do not join that Church because it is too popish for us. Our dislike to popery is no superficial or accidental thing. It is not excited by the occa

The Church of Scotland, though bad enough, is somewhat better than the Church of England. We select the last for particular mention for obvious

reasons.

sional form which popery may assume, or the ecclesiastical organization with which it may be connected. We hate it as a spirit and a power, with an impartial and universal hatred. We hate it everywhere, when we see it; and seeing it in the Church of England, we hate it even there. It is Protestantism which makes us Dissenters from that Church, whose Protestantism, it is said, made her dissent from the church of Rome. It is a mistake to suppose that we dissent only because of the connexion of that Church with the state. We disapprove of that connexion, thinking it an evil, and the source of innumerable evils, believing it to be contrary to the principles of justice and liberty, and to the word of God. We have no words with which to express our sorrow and dismay that the sovereign of the land, of whatever character, should be the head of a divine religion; that the gospel of peace and love should be supported by the aid of contributions forced from the unwilling and unbelieving; that spiritual functionaries should be involved in all the secularities of magisterial and parliamentary engagements. Were there nothing else, we should dissent. But we dissent from the Church as well as the Establishment. Were it severed from the state, our objection to it would remain strong and stedfast. We read the creeds, and finding them contradict themselves and the Bible, we are compelled to dissent; we read the canons, and finding a solemn sentence of excommunication appended to many affirmations which we feel 'bound in the spirit' to make as only utterances of the will of God, we are compelled to dissent; we read the articles, and finding in them assertions, such as that the Church has power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in religious controversies which, fairly and fully developed, require and constitute popery, we are compelled to dissent; we read the services, and finding it said that God hath regenerated all that are baptized, that He hath given unto the confirmed forgiveness of all their sins, that Christ hath given his ministers authority to absolve men from all their sins, and that the soul of every one that is buried is taken of great mercy unto God himself, and his body is committed to the ground in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, we are compelled to dissent. In our interpretation of the doctrine of the Church of England we are not singular. Right or wrong, we have the sanction of many, in past and present times, of its most eminent tutors, dignitaries, and clergy. The difference between us and many of its members is just and only this, we think the Church has much popery in it, and dissent because we are Protestants; they think so too, and conform, because they are not. The Protestantism of the Church of England appears in a most painful predicament just now. Within the last few years there has arisen within it a new form of heresy,

accompanied with circumstances which impart to it peculiar interest. We need not tell our readers that Puseyism is greatly popish. Without giving the least credit to the rumor that the leaders of this faith are in reality Jesuists who have crept into the English Church in order to work its assimilation to their own, a rumor of which we scarcely know whether its falsehood or its truth is most complimentary to that Church, or most pleasant in itself, no one can read the Oxford Tracts without perceiving the sentiments and sayings of the man of sin. Their authors show great uneasiness in their Protestant profession, deny or modify nearly every leading characteristic principle of Protestantism, and show a grievous approximation in general belief to the mystery of iniquity.' Has it not been said that not only is regeneration by baptism, but that there is no regeneration but by baptism? Has not mention been made of reserve in communicating some of the most important doctrines of the Bible? Has not the Lord's Supper been termed 'a sa'crifice? Has it not been matter of complaint that argument should have to be used to maintain tenets which the civil power should enforce? There are evidently men connected with the new system that believe in more popery than many papists have done. It is no wonder that the church of Rome contemplates its spread with cordial and undisguised complacency. The progress of this system has been rapid, and its present prospects are by no means gloomy. Among its professors are men who, from their talents, and learning, and station, must be powerful agents of truth or error; it has received the adhesion of some who were once most popular and useful as evangelical ministers; it is supported by all the ability and influence of some of the leading portions of the public press; it has baptized and is baptizing with its spirit thousands of the elergy and the laity of the English Church; its doctrines are issuing warm and fast from one of the great sources of clerical education. Is this the Church to be set up as the British antagonist and rival of Rome, as the perfection of Protestant beauty and strength? It matters little what its written records may say, if these are the views, and are becoming more and more the views of its officers and members. We believe that the Oxford divines are not far wrong in their interpretation of the language of their Church, but if they were, if that language furnished a literally accurate expression of the will and thoughts of God, it would matter little. A church is not made up of paper and

print, of leaves and letters, but of living men. It is the organization and representation of intellect and heart. The faith of a church does not consist of the things contained in its articles and formularies, but of the things preached by its ministers and believed by its members. The former may be the truth of God,

the latter the delusions of Satan. As the functions of a church are not discharged by the orthodoxy of its authorized books, its character cannot be saved by it. A church is what its operation and influence is, which is much the same as saying, that it is what its priests and people are. We do not admit that the doctrines of the Church of England, as they appear in her Homilies and Prayer-book, are scriptural. There is truth, doubtless, much important truth, but it is in great measure neutralized by error. Our own conviction, and we are not without the authority of Churchmen in holding it, a conviction forced upon us by frequent reading and serious thoughts, is this, that the founders of that Church (we beg pardon of high Churchmen for using this expression, but we cannot help it) were either doubtful in their minds or meant to be doubtful in their manner, upon some subjects, while they both thought and spake most erroneously upon others. But the question is,

what are the sentiments of the men who constitute the Church of England? Are they orthodox? We hesitate not to say, that in this sense, the Church of England is not now a Protestant church, for whether they be Puseyites or something else, a majority of its people do not know or believe in Protestantism, multitudes deny and ridicule it, those who profess and promote it in its purity are regarded by their own brethren as a heretical and dangerous party, and are compelled to have recourse to dissenting plans; and it is but little likely to become a Protestant church, for there are many and mighty influences in operation, which unless stayed by some strange and unexpected interference of God, must remove it further and further from the principles by which alone its existence can be justified. It is with the deepest grief that we think and write thus. Though we rejoice to know that the preservation and triumph of the truth does not depend upon the orthodoxy, past, or present, or future, of the Church of England, yet its heterodoxy must be greatly afflictive to every Christian mind. It would be unjust to truth to suppose it could not live or prosper without that Church's faithfulness; it would be unjust to that Church to suppose its belief or infidelity might not greatly help or hinder the truth. With the views entertained of that Church by the champions and orators of the Protestant Associations, we do not wonder at the evident timidity which they often betray. Could we regard the Church of England as one of the great bulwarks of Protestantism, we should tremble too. If the great opponent of popery be greatly popish, and in the way to become more so, what hope is there for Protestantism? 'If 'the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is 'thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.' The power of the Church of England, it