militant array; which is too much the case with the distinction in question. The Church is honoured by the State when her Bishops possess the baronial dignity; but she certainly is not thereby represented in Parliament. Of course, the "intrinsic unlawfulness" we dismiss with a smile. But it is most true, that "their power is, in furthering the interest of the Church, inconsiderable; in giving a colour to any encroachments on it, too great.' The whole bench, when unanimous, can produce but a very faint impression on the house; when divided, absolutely none, either by vote or authority. Yet the style of "Lords Spiritual," is studiously introduced into Acts of Parliament, and thus measures the most injurious to the Church, and perhaps unanimously opposed by the Bishops, with one or two "liberal" exceptions, go down to posterity as the deed of these church representatives.

To pass, however, from a particular branch to the general argument of the work before us. The author's proposition is, that the Jewish and Christian dispensations may be called two kingdoms of God, the former of this world, and the latter otherwise; the former not only admitting temporal interference, but making Church and State actually the same thing; while the latter, by its very essence and constitution, excludes the intervention of all temporal authority. Hence he concludes, that all alliance of church and state is essentially unlawful; and that they are, in their very nature, things necessarily disconnected; at least, where they exist in their purity.

The premises we admit; the conclusion we regard as untenable. We think, indeed, that the author has himself overthrown it, in one short sentence, when he says, in page 4, that the kingdom of Christ is a" kingdom existing in this world, but not of this world." So far, then, as it exists in the world, it must have reference to worldly affairs. Indeed, the same observation may be made of the Church of Christ which applies to every member of it. The Christian, as such, is not judged of any man's judgment, but he that judgeth him is the Lord. His spiritual state is a matter in which the world has no concern. Yet as he is the subject not only of Christ, but of the state to which he belongs, so also is he amenable to the laws which that state imposes, and must, for conscience sake, obey them, provided they are not evidently contrary to the word of God. He must have political relations and political duties. Now what every member of the Church is severally, the whole Church is collectively. She is, so far as she is IN this world, the subject of the State. If the State should impose upon her articles of faith, or command her to receive spiritual instruction and sacramental grace from the hands of the civil officer, she is bound, as any of her private members would be, to resist. But as long as the State requires no more than the power claimed in the

King's Declaration, and allowed by the Thirty-seventh Article, and First and Second Canons, we find nothing in Scripture to condemn either party. Our author, in his 148th page, interprets that clause of the Article referred to, that the chief magistrate may "restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers," somewhat singularly. "Since no one," says he, "could ever have disputed his authority to punish civil offences, this explanation would be nugatory and impertinent if, under the term ' evil doers,' schismatics and other religious offenders were not meant to be included." A strange forgetfulness of history, and a strange inadvertency to the very object of the Article, the denial of a supremacy so long and so sturdily asserted! "No one could have disputed his authority to punish civil offences!" Why, it was the dispute of centuries! The immunity of the clergy from civil jurisdiction, had at one time become almost an axiom of legislation. This it is which the Article denies, not alluding to the power of the magistrate to punish offenders against the Church, but simply affirming that ecclesiastical as well as civil persons are subjects of the civil government. The weakness of the author becomes apparent when we venture to pursue this argument.

The Church of Rome has persecuted the most bitterly, and for the greatest length of time, chiefly because she has had the most, and the longest continued power to do so, and has existed during the ages of the greatest blindness, and ignorance, and barbarism; and it has been urged, that the right, and even duty of persecution, is one of her most fundamental articles of faith: but what Protestant Church has ever, as a body, expressly renounced that right? The Inquisition is a most horrible tribunal; and it is one well accommodated, I confess, to the genius of the Romish persuasion; but it is no necessary part of Popery: and why should it not exist in a Protestant country? What disclaimer, for instance, is there, in the Articles of the English Church, of all right to erect or to sanction such a tribunal?-P. 42.

It is impossible to read such a passage as this without a smile. If the absence of a disclaimer be a sufficient warrant for making charges against an individual or a corporate body, it would be easy to accuse any man of any thing. Our author has no where disclaimed "all right" to commit murder, sacrilege, treason, &c. &c. Therefore he cannot be presumed innocent of the whole catalogue.

That the character of the theocracy gave the Jewish kings an authority in spiritual matters which cannot belong to princes under the Christian dispensation, is true; but the Thirty-seventh Article, (the authoritative declaration of the Church on this subject,) distinguishes between the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction; the king's authority over the church establishment, (as over individual Christians, as subjects,) is there asserted, as also his supremacy over ecclesias

See the very curious account which Burnet gives of a dispute on this subject.History of the Reformation, Book I.

tical, as well as civil persons; with these doctrines "the minds of some slanderous folks were then "offended," and it is no more than what we are to expect that offences should come.

But it may be more to the purpose to inquire, what spiritual authority the king of Great Britain actually exercises. Does he not virtually ordain Bishops? And is not ordination a spiritual function? I am not speaking of the appointment to a particular see of one who is already a Bishop; that is no exercise of spiritual authority, any more than the institution to a particular benefice of one already a minister; but of the determination who shall be a Bishop. If the patron of a benefice had power to present a layman, and to compel the Bishop to ordain him priest, this would surely be a virtual ordination by the patron; and the case I am considering is parallel to that; unless it be said that whoever is fit to be a priest is necessarily fit to be a Bishop: in which case the very notion of ordination would be nugatory; since you might as well talk of ordaining a man lecturer or prebendary. It may be said, that the chapter, a clerical body, are the electors of a Bishop, and the Bishops his ordainers; and I grant that this makes his ordination real and valid: but does not the compulsion under which this is done imply an interference of the civil magistrate in spirituals? And is not this an encroachment on the kingdom which is not of this world? If the Pope had power to determine who should, and who should not, be admitted to holy orders within these realms, would not the Pope be the spiritual governor of the churches there existing? There is something, I think, strained and fanciful in the application of the term simony to the sale of benefices, since it is not a spiritual office, but a temporal endowment that is sold. But there is something that does remind one of Simon Magus, in saying, "I will give the Church secular power and wealth, on condition that you will let me, indirectly, if you will, but in effect, ordain Bishops;-if you will let me say to whomsoever I will, not immediately indeed, but by compelling another to say it, 'Receive the Holy Ghost for the office of a Bishop."""He offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay my hands he may receive the Holy Ghost." "Thy money perish with thee! Thou hast no part nor lot in this matter."-Pp. 114–116.

In this case our author appears altogether to forget the ancient mode of appointing Bishops, which was done, before the temporal establishment of Christianity, by a general assembly of the people, laity, and clergy. Many inconveniences having resulted from this system, and the Church being protected and countenanced by the State, the Roman emperors took this appointment into their own hands, and the kings of England have herein imitated them. Now if this be virtual ordination, it is evident that laymen, in the early Church, virtually ordained; as they had concurrent voices in the appointment of a Bishop. Our author, therefore, by pressing his argument, discovers its insufficiency. Appointment is not, nor can be, ordination; whether this power is beneficially vested in our monarchs is a separate question; but neither absolutely nor virtually can they be said to ordain.

Another objection is one which we should rather have expected from the vulgar blundering of a Towgood than from the logic of an episcopalian scholar.

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One of the effects resulting from this system is the imposition of articles and liturgy by secular authority. I am, as you know, a warm admirer, generally, speaking, of both; but it degrades their sacred character that they should stand upon the foundation of acts of parliament; that the spiritual rulers cannot alter them when they may need it; and that the secular power can, whether they need it or not. And accordingly it is almost a proverbial reproach, that yours a parliamentary religion;"-that you worship the Almighty as the act directs; and that you are bound to seek for salvation, "according to the law in that case made and provided," by king, lords, and commons;-under the directions of the ministers of state-of persons who may be eminently well fitted for their civil offices, and who may indeed chance to be not only exemplary Christians, but sound divines, but who certainly are not appointed to their respective offices with any sort of view to their spiritual functions,-who cannot even pretend that any sort of qualification for the good regulation of the Church is implied by their holding such stations as they do. Can this possibly be agreeable to the designs and institutions of Christ and his apostles? If any one will seriously answer in the affirmative, he is beyond my powers of argumentation.— Pp. 119, 120.

I shall not be suspected by you, I trust, of being one of those shallow reasoners who seem to think that your religion is made false from having been true, your liturgy changed from good to bad, by the mere circumstance of having secular power to enforce them: but should any one urge that if your religion is true and your worship pure, they are so only by accident, &c.—P. 120.

But this is blundering still further. In truth this writer's position is none other than the very mistake of the "Full Justifier of Dissent from the Church of England;" and we therefore feel ourselves less called upon to refute in this place what we have abundantly refuted elsewhere. OUR ARTICLES HAVE NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH ACTS OF PARLIAMENT; and our Liturgy has no necessary connexion with the legislature. That power has indeed made our Liturgy the law of the land; but, without it, the King and Convocation had made it the law of the Church. "That the spiritual rulers cannot alter them when they may need it, and that the secular power can, whether they need it or not," is quite a mistatement as regards the theory of our ecclesiastical constitution, and, crippled as our Church now is, we trust it is equally removed from the probability of practice. A serious notice of the old threadbare vulgarism, that ours is a parliamentary religion, is what we could hardly expect from a writer of our author's pretensions; he is graceful enough to be ashamed of it, and wishes to escape the company of "those shallow reasoners who seem to think that our religion is made false from having been true, our Liturgy changed from good to bad, by the mere circumstance of having secular power to enforce them;" (exactly Mr. Towgood's predicament this, by the way,) but how does he evade the consequence? by concluding that "our religion is true, and our worship pure--BY ACCIDENT!" Accident has received much credit in this world for results in which it has borne no share; but this is the first time we have heard it assigned as the cause of a pure worship and a true

religion. If accident can furnish such discoveries as these, it is worthy to be deified at once! It is singular that a man of talent, as our author evidently is, should not have here suspected either the truth of his statements or the validity of his reasonings, when he found himself in so pitiful a conclusion.

Of course, the non-religious system of the United States is the object of our author's warm approbation; yet he admits he would not pretend to hold them up as a model to others in what regards religion. Strange inconsistency again! Here our author's favourite theory has been fully developed and tried. Not a circumstance has interposed to mar the production of its genuine fruit. Why then is not America a model? If our author's principles be true, it certainly would be one; and since it is not, the conclusion would appear inevitable. But the defence is not less curious than the proposition itself.

The censure so hastily passed on the American government, might just as well be applied to any agricultural society; none of which, that I ever heard of, is of any religion, as a body, though all its members may be good Christians.P.155.

An agricultural society has about as much relation to a church as it has to a state; that is to say, none to either. The object of an agricultural society is to promote good farming; and we do not deny that an atheist may farm as well as a martyr or a confessor. The object of legislation is to prevent crime, to promote morality, to consult the happiness of those who are its objects. And has religion nothing to do with all this? And if it has any connexion with these points, (which, we suppose, will not be denied,) why might the censure so hastily passed on the American Government" be just as well applied to any agricultural society?

But though we hold the principle of this work to be erroneous, and think we have proved it so, and though we are sure it contains much mistake as to matters of fact, yet there are many remarks which it is: impossible to quote without approbation. We will insert the following remarks on church property.

Both Warburton, indeed, and Paley, speak of the maintenance provided for the Clergy by the State, of the justness of a compulsory payment for their support, of a tax levied expressly for that object, and of the best modes of raising such a tax, and of distributing the produce of it, &c. as if all such discussions necessarily appertained to the subject now before us; but, in truth, they are irrelevant, and may be waved altogether. It is, to say the least, a gross misrepresentation, to affirm that government levies a tax in the shape of tithes, and pays the clergy with the proceeds. It is a mere play upon words, to call tithes and other church revenues a tax, or to speak of any one paying them. They are neither a tax, nor a payment, in the sense of the words which these writers have in view. A man who has an estate left to him, burthened with certain legacies,

P. 154.