The grand struggle of the long parliament against Charles was the prolongation of the conflict of the Reformation-an attempt to set up a more Protestant, instead of a more Popish, state church. The Independents, who rose during the advanced stage of the contest, were not themselves, at first, sufficiently enlightened on this, which is the question of modern times; nor were they sufficiently numerous to sway the nation by their views, though their energy did much to supply their defect in numbers. All parties may be said to have admitted, not only the lawfulness, but even the necessity of a state church, to which every one must conform as far as he could. When, therefore, the episcopal Establishment was restored, a wide door being left open for the people, multitudes, who never approved, entered, because they were not obliged to express their approbation; but as the design of the restored party was to regain possession of the livings, clerical conformity was made difficult, and to honest dissentients impossible. When the new terms of subscription for the ministry were being settled, a more liberal member of the conclave said, "I am afraid the Puritan party will not conform;" and one of an opposite spirit replied, "I am afraid they will; but now we know their minds, we will make them all convicted rogues, if they do."

Two thousand of them, therefore, resigned their livings; but of these some became lay members of the state church, under the supposition that it was their duty to conform to it as far as they could. But a change has come over the public mind. Many are so convinced that a state church is a harlot committing fornication with the kings of the earth, that this adulterous connexion would, of itself, be to them a sufficient reason for dissent.

Lord King remained a lay member of the Establishment, though his book proves that he thought Independency, or Congregationalism, the original form of the churches of Christ. His Inquiry has done much to make Independents. In Scotland, where Cromwell's sword failed, the chancellor's arguments have triumphed. Almost half a century ago, a member of the Scotch Presbyterian establishment, in Aberdeen, seeing its fearful declension, joined the Wesleyans, as, in his eyes, the most spiritual body unconnected with the Establishment. But he had read Lord King's book, and it had made him an Independent; which induced him to diffuse his sentiments, till a little company formed a church of that order. Though few, and anything but wealthy, they built a place of worship, and invited an Independent minister from England to assist them in carrying out their views. Great attention was excited, and nine persons rose, in a large congregation, to which a sermon had been preached on the scriptural nature of a church, and giving to each other the right hand of fellowship, declared that they, in Christ's name, joined together as a church according to his word. A minister of the Scotch church was present, who being asked what he thought of

the sermon, said, "It let in the light too strongly upon weak eyes." In the city, that little band was ridiculed by the name of "the sanctified nine;" but the little one became, if not a thousand, several hundreds. Dr. Philip, of the Cape of Good Hope, was their pastor for some time. Other churches of the same order have been formed in the neighbourhood, till, during the last year, the Congregational Union of Scotland held its anniversary at Aberdeen; and nearly two hundred such churches deliberated on the means of evangelising the dark parts of their country, for which a Christian of another communion once declared, they had done more than any other body in Scotland. The recent movement of the free church, almost a parallel to the sacrifice of the two thousand nonconformists, has been traced, by those who know the secret history, up to the Independents. For they originated the voluntary controversy in Scotland, when the ministers of the state church were told, "You pay for the support of the state, by the loss of your liberty as a church." They replied, "We are as free as you are ;" and to prove it, they passed the Veto Act, which led to their forming a free church, by the sacrifice of state connexion and support.

The free church has left the Establishment in the minority; and thus we have Scotland added to Ireland and Wales, where the national church is the church of a minority of the nation. England is, perhaps, in the same predicament, as far as the actual attendants on public worship are considered; and Puseyism is consummating the triumph of the voluntary principle, which is identical with Congregationalism. The free church will accelerate the movement of hostility to state churches, which is spreading through Europe, and triumphing in America. The Puseyite clergy have demonstrated the truth of the dissenting objections to our national church-" that it is not sufficiently reformed to prevent its being again deformed." The offices of the church are Papistical, though the Articles are, with some small exceptions, Protestant. But the Articles, once subscribed to, are willingly forgotten; while the offices, constantly employed, are diffusing false views. Romanists are profiting by it, and the spreading of even their principles, is giving a preponderance to dissent.

We designedly singled out the clergy as Puseyite; for the laity in the Church of England hate the priestly domination; and by their opposition they are preaching dissent, and thus, unconsciously, learning the principles. Some, growing tired of professing one system and acting upon another, will review their sentiments, and find that "great is the truth, and will prevail." Several of the clergy have already taken alarm at this, and after adopting, have renounced Puseyism; but others, papists at heart, go on till they increase the ranks of dissent by the left-hand movement of reconciliation to the church of Rome.

But, to return to Lord King. Little did he anticipate that Scotch tradesmen would practise what the lord high chancellor of England

taught. He thought he might live, as a layman, in a church whose constitution and ministry his book condemned. It was the error of his time to us it appears absurd and wicked. What! Shall the laity wrap themselves in selfishness and say, "Our church forces upon ministers a subscription to which we could never submit; but never mind, let their consciences stand the brunt, as long as we are free?" The infamy and mischief of this principle are indescribable; but the state church makes the priests everything, and the people nothing; while in their turn the people, by this absurdity, make themselves every thing, and the priests nothing.

But the book! for a lord high chancellor's book on the church must tell for some thing. That it lay a long while in abeyance, was a proof of the somnolency of the times; and the stir it is now creating is but the effect of the cry that has gone forth, "O thou that bringest good tidings, awake." We have seen that the Inquiry has made Independents, and who can wonder? Sincerely to inquire, is to learn that the first churches of Christ were congregations of believers, independent of each other's control, dependent only on the guidance of Christ by his word and Spirit. When a distinguished person said to Dr. Owen, "I wonder that a person of your learning and ability should adopt the novel notions of the Independents;" he replied, “I defy any man to find any other than independent churches in the first and purest ages of the church." He was previously a Presbyterian ; but examination made him a Congregationalist; and he advised all those who determined not to come to the same conclusion, to avoid investigation. Lord King's Inquiry led to the same conclusion. He found that a church was a congregation of believers, with its bishop and deacons.

It may be asked why he restricted his Inquiry to the first three hundred years after Christ? We answer, the very nature of the inquiry required some restriction; for when we ask whether the present state of things in the church is according to the original institution, we must go back to an earlier period, and stop somewhere. No man's life is equal to a thorough investigation of all the fathers, Greek, Latin, and Syrian. Though Bernard is considered the last of the fathers, we may ask, why stop at the eleventh century, and not come down to the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth ?

But the fathers mean the ancients, and the more ancient are more truly the fathers. Of these, then, the men of the first three hundred years are selected as the most unexceptionable; because they were what the Scotch would call the free church; since, after this, the state establishment of Christianity introduced all the corruptions of secular control. They who cannot stand the test of the first three centuries, must resign all pretensions to primitive Christianity.

Lord King should have carried his principle out more thoroughly,

and made more of the first uninspired record, the Letter of Clemens Romanus to the Corinthians, as may be seen in the volume of the Congregational Lectures on the "Theology of the Early Church." But he has done enough to make episcopalians angry; and therefore there issued, not many years after his work, an Original Draught of the Primitive Church, in answer to a discourse entitled, an ‘Inquiry, &c.' By a Presbyter of the Church of England." This is an obscure and confused work, which forms a curious contrast to the lucid simplicity of Lord King. The Draught has no originality, except that it contends for interpreting Clemens Romanus, not by the previous language of Scripture, which he knew and reverenced; but by the language of a subsequent age, which he could not know, and would probably have condemned. But episcopalians are compelled to admit that the difference between bishop and presbyter was post-apostolical, and therefore non-apostolical. This is in fact acknowledging their system to be unscriptural.

"Within the last five years," says the editor of the book on our table, "a new edition of Lord King's work has appeared in a form better calculated to advance the cause of separatists than the discovery of truth. The Latin and Greek quotations are omitted." It was published by S. Cornish and Co., Newgate-street, 1839.

But, if this still more new edition has given the quotations, we were struck with the inaccuracy of the list of authors quoted, though it was given accurately by Lord King. The very first quotation, too, embarrassed us, for we knew not what to make of 'H ékkλnoía (see page 2) Êws πрàτWV Tŷ≤ Ys. But on turning to Lord King's book, we found instead of parov, TEрàтwv. Better not give the quotations at all, than give them inaccurately.

The comments on Lord King are derived from the "Original Draught," and to the Appendix we looked for something new, but were disappointed, for it is little else than repetition. The editor of this volume is, indeed, not the man to succeed where he supposes Lord King to have failed; the controversy remaining just where it was before this book was published: it is still between the chancellor and Mr. Edmund Elys.

Our maxim is, "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them," Isaiah viii. 20. We welcome all helps to the right understanding and application of the Divine records, and, therefore, value the writings of the fathers, in proportion to their antiquity, which gives them all their claim to paternity. For, "the mystery of iniquity which was already at work" in the apostles' days, soon destroyed the credibility of every thing which could not be proved by Scripture. One hundred years have produced revolutions in what is called the Church of England, which à priori reasoning would have pronounced incredible, or impos

sible; and yet we are expected to defer to the writers of three, four, or five hundred years, as unexceptionable witnesses to pure primitive Christianity! The editor of this volume calls all but the members of the state church separatists, while his own variable and divided church is the greatest separatist in existence. It has separated from the church of Rome, from the Greek church, from the Lutheran, and the reformed churches of the continent, and has sent an agent to make a separation on the very spot where the first church was "of one heart and one soul." The new bishop of Jerusalem sets at defiance all ancient and all modern notions of ecclesiastical order, to introduce universal distraction.

The Holy Ordinance of Christian Baptism; its Doctrine and Duties considered, with an especial view to the Obligations it imposes on Parents and Children, and the Church of Christ. 12mo. pp. 185. London: Jackson and Walford. Bradford: Byles.

"IF infant baptism were more improved, it would be less disputed." This sentiment of that holy man, the late Philip Henry, is adopted by the author of the above volume; we also believe it to be true; and neither the oracular assumptions of some, nor the dogmatic impertinence of others, in favour of the baptism of believers only, and that by dipping, diminish our wonder that any one can read the Bible with seriousness and mark its spirit, and not only exclude infants from the cleansing and purifying rite of the Gospel dispensation, but attribute to unworthy motives the conduct of those who admit them, and speak contemptuously and sneeringly of their practice. The giants of other days, Hall and Ryland, Fuller and Hughes, &c., could respect their opponents, and admit that the arguments and convictions of a Henry and a Williams, a Doddridge and a Watts, did not altogether spring from imbecility or prejudice, from mental or moral obliquity. It is the men of dwarfish stature, who have succeeded them, that are in the habit of wearing infallible airs, and speaking and writing as though they could not by possibility be wrong. The revival of Puseyism may have been the occasion of the manifestation of such a spirit; and the inattention of many Pædo-baptist churches to their children, may have served to present the rite to the minds of some as an insignificant institution; but neither of these things is sufficient to justify the bitterness, the uncharitableness, the audacia et perfricta frons, with which some writers and speakers are in the habit of dealing with the motives and reasonings of brethren, who are at least as honest, as unprejudiced, and as conscientious as themselves. But the class of persons we now refer to, for the most part, go further still, and have the arrogance to deny to those who admit infants as well as adults to baptism, access to the table of the Lord. They thus, in symbolising so completely, in