important verities, one virtue is linked in other virtues of equal beauty and utility, and the obligations of man to his fellows are many and various. It follows that existing things, whether physical or moral, consist of great aggregations; and these aggregations again, are composed of various elements, blended, by the infinite wisdom of God, into one beautiful whole. This principle is seen in all things: if not the basis, it is the indissoluble bond, the mighty zone, which guides, encompasses, and holds the universe in immutable unity. The laws of gravitation are not more a part of nature, and essential to the harmony of the whole, than the principle of balances, as a law of Providence, in the government of the world.

The

The application of all this to the question of Christianity and the church, is plain and obvious. These questions cannot be considered aright without being judged of in all their fulness. Isolation is a dangerous thing. Bible is a great book; its revelations constitute a vast body of truth; and we may be sure that the economy of the Gospel, which is no other than the actual operation of the divine Being himself, does not work on the scale of one principle, however important, but of all the perfections of the Godhead, and all the provisions of his kingdom. This, we think, must, in the nature of things, be the case, whether considered in respect of the salvation of individual man, or the more complicated government of the church and the world.

All this is most grossly outraged by the partial and party notions and labours of the writers and theologians of modern times. We discover no reference to fundamental and primary principles, no grasp of the great scheme of the Christian revelation, no unity and harmony, no agreement of one truth with another. We instance the ex parte notions of the writers in two or three particulars.

If we follow the writers of the Tractarian or the Laudean schools (for they now seem to be dividing) on the subject, for instance, of the CHURCH, one would be led to conclude, from their inflated description, that the church was Christianity. She is arrayed in attributes, in their exaggerated statements, as little less than a divinity. The church is a deity to propound laws, to exact obedience, to elicit and call forth the affections of the heart, to receive the homage and adoration of her disciples, to enfold within her embrace her docile and obedient children in fond affection, and to secure to all her believing followers certain and indefeisible blessings of grace and salvation. And, moreover, this incorporated divinity in the church-form is represented as fiercely cursing, as well as indulgently blessing. Schismatics, heretics, and undutiful parties of all sorts, are freely and fiercely denounced, are placed beyond the pale of salvation, and left to the uncovenanted mercies of God; a stigma and a brand, like that of Cain, is fixed upon them, and they are treated as outcasts both in life and

in death.

We do not exaggerate. We have waded through book after book, review upon review, sermons, charges, pamphlets, articles great and small, almost without end, on this question concerning the church; and declare, that we are unable to form any intelligible analysis of the opinions of the writers, save that their ideal of a church is an ideal fiction, having no foundation in truth. They agree only in one thing; namely, in representing the church generally as a mystic-awful power; but what this is, we defy any human mind to discover, in these farragoes of nonsense and confusion. We give the following precious specimen respecting the Prayer-Book :

"We repeat, that these reasons exact our fullest respect, and have our

unqualified acquiescence,—unqualified, since we acknowledge that no member of our apostolic Church, be he of the laity, or, higher privileged, yet more heavily responsible, of the Clergy,-no child of that nourishing mother can prize at too vast a cost, guard too watchfully, cherish too dearly, that divinely-inspired form of prayer, of praise, and thanksgiving which he possesses in our Liturgy; that ready servant of his real necessities; that sure comforter in his deep afflictions; that guardian to defend him from evil; that guide to lead him to good.” (Church-of-England Quarterly Review, April, 1845, p. 478.)

The following occurs on the Church Service :

"If we could take from one cathedral its Litany, chanted by two Priests; from another its custom of bowing to the altar; from another its processions; from another its separation of Matins, Litany, and Communion; from Durham its copes; the innotation of the Gloria in Excelsis from one; a latera from this; sedilia from another; plate and hangings from another; it would be true that all these separate Catholic practices in combination would form a cathedral service Catholic in tone, and dignified in details; one which the Church of the Reformation never has witnessed: so is it with the parish churches. Altar-candlesticks may be found at St. Mary-le-Strand, and Allhallows Barking; tapestry-hangings may remain at Merton chapel; wafer-bread might have been consecrated, more or less, up to the time of the Rebellion; Andrewes and Laud might have used water for washing the hands before consecration; incense might have been burned; and yet we cannot say that these things were other than exceptions to a very much more debased and slovenly ritual-aspect of the general Church. And these things no more fully express the ordinary bearing of the Church, than was its ordinary doctrine adequately represented by the teaching of Andrewes, Montague, Thorndike, Bramhall, Cosin, and Johnson; or its ordinary sanctity by Hammond and Ferrar. The real value of the testimonies which, with so much diligence, have been collected, as to the fact of certain observances not having been forbidden—but rather used -by the greatest Divines among us, is more in the way of protection for individuals who think proper, on private responsibility, to revive them, than of general imitation for the whole Church of England. While we cannot rebut the fact, that high Catholic doctrine has rather been the exception than the rule, we may well admit that we have, as a Church, fallen short of the rule of external obedience to prescribed laws in exact proportion to our general unfaithfulness to the spirit of our Service-books. It is a matter of prayer to recover both; but facts go far to show that we have been a Church of individual, not of corporate, life; and if this seem contradictory, it will better express an anomaly." (Rubrical Question, Christian Remembrancer, April, 1845, pp. 492, 493.)

With what astonishment the Reformers and founders of the Establishment would look on the altered sentiments and phraseology of their country since they wrote their definition ! "The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." In the writings in question, the church is represented as anything rather than a "congregation of faithful men." Indeed, the idea of societies or congregations of men, faithful or unfaithful, seems to be absent from the minds of these gentlemen when expatiating amid their abstractions. The Church, and the people, or the laity, exist in their minds as two distinct ideas. So

far as the abstract notion of the Church ever embodies itself at all in the representations of these parties, it is in the Clergy. Hence the action of the innovators in the Exeter, Helstone, Falmouth, Hurst, and other cases, is always spoken of as that of the Church; whilst the action of the people in retaining the old truth, forms, and services in the order of their forefathers, is always represented as something ab extra; the voice of the people is not considered, in whole or in part, as the voice of the Church. The same notions obtain on higher relations. The Church is a national institution; and yet the usual channels by which the nation gives expression to its sentiments and will are supposed to have no functions in ecclesiastical matters. The State is represented as not identical, in any way, with the Church,—as an alien power, and sometimes not even as Christian. We confess ourselves shocked beyond measure, in going through many of these publications, to find men who owe their existence, as an institution, to the acts and endowments of the State, often, not only claiming an independent being and function, but treating the chosen types of the State's power, not only as not belonging to the Church, but as something merely secular and heathen. We are very certain that these were not the opinions and feelings of the founders of the existing commonwealth. Their obvious meaning was, to base the national Establishment, not on an abstract and unintelligible Christianity, but on Christianity in a clear, tangible, and Protestant form. Does not the throne rest on Christian principle, sanctioned by definitions, limitations, sacraments, and solemn oaths? Is not the Monarch of this nation, in the theory of the constitution, a member, rather a part, indeed, the human head, of the Church? But the Monarch is the State's highest representative; how, then, can these men speak and write of the State as if it were not Christian, not of the Church? Is not the Queen the administrative head of the State? If so, then when she either presents herself in the assemblies of the Church, or exercises her prerogatives in its government, the State appears in her person. This shows that the State is not an alien power. We lose ourselves in confusion in these and other subjects, for the want of reflection. What is the State of England? Obviously the people of England. Then, when the State is denied any right to interference in matters of Church discipline and government, the denial is to the people; for they are the parties in question. It may be extremely difficult to adjust the balance between the Clergy and the people, the civil and ecclesiastical establishments, the official functions of the hierarchy and those of civil rulers; but we cannot conceive of a national Church as possible, without the idea of the people belonging to it; or of a system of State religion, without the concurrent action of the civil power. We are neither condemning nor approving of the arrangement in question; but stating our notions of a fact. The great struggle which took place between the nation and the Papacy, at the time of the Reformation, turned on this point. It is well known that the Papacy claimed ecclesiastical independence and supremacy, involving interests deeply important to the liberties of the nation. The separation from Rome involved the rights of the nation to judge for itself in matters of religion; to establish a system of Church polity and ecclesiastical government agreeing with its own feeling of freedom and law. This was accomplished by the nation through its regularlyconstituted organs of legislation, civil and spiritual. To argue, at this time of day, on Church questions, as if the Church were something different from, and elevated above, the State, that is, the people, a mere hierarchy, a sacerdotal order distinct from both the body politic and the body spiritual, (for

they are the same persons,) is, in our view of the case, a pure absurdity. The State may do wrong for aught we know, may encroach on those functions which are spiritual, and the Clergy may have the right to complain, and seek redress; but to speak of the people as having no place, no rights, no voice in ecclesiastical matters, whilst the Clergy alone are the Church, and hold their position on some purely independent footing, is what appears to us most untenable and inconsistent. The animus of the parties we refer to is that of dissent. It may be dissent towards Rome; but Popery in these kingdoms is as much dissent, though of a different kind, as that system which on principle repudiates all establishments of religion. The dis sentients from the plain and obvious principles of the Church in which they are Ministers are bound, in all honour and honesty, to quit their connexion with her, and seek a place in a system more congenial with their sentiments.

So.

We had marked many passages for quotation, illustrative of the opinions we are now animadverting upon; but the want of space forbids our doing In the mean time, we may remark, that equally partial notions are promulgated on other subjects,-the SACRAMENTS, for instance. In taking up the writings of the day on this point, the reader would not imagine that these holy ordinances only constituted a part of the instituted means for the spiritual good of the church of Christ; but that, in truth, they were the only essentially necessary instruments of salvation. It would be no difficult task to show, by fair logical sequence, from the premises laid down on this question by nearly all the leading writers referred to, whether Tractarians or Laudeans, if true, that nothing else is necessary. It is held that both justification and regeneration are conferred in baptism; and both are contained, certainly and infallibly, in the reception of the Lord's supper. What follows from this? Clearly that the whole spiritual life is fully secured by these two sacraments. Here is no place for preaching and hearing the word of God, for faith in the truth, for a personal trust in the Saviour's atonement and merit, for an application by prayer to the throne of grace, for the direct visitations and influences of the Holy Spirit, for the cultivation of inward piety, and the communion of the heart with God. What are any of these things to do, if the whole spiritual life is secured to us by the use of the sacraments? On this principle, it will follow that all Christianity is concentred in these ordinances; for we know of no spiritual blessings which may not be fairly classed under the two heads of justification and regeneration. In case this doctrine were true, it would be both wise and consistent to abolish preaching altogether; to pull down our pulpits; to abrogate the Liturgy; to discontinue prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings as a part of divine worship; and, in a word, to turn our churches and chapels into temples for sacrifice. In purely Popish countries this has taken place: why should it not be done amongst ourselves, if this sacramental salvation is a verity of God?

In illustration of the doctrines held on this subject, we insert a passage from the "Church-of-England Quarterly Review" for January, 1845: Article," The present Difficulties of the Church :" -"On the other hand, the Dissenter, in his ignorance or rejection of the scriptural doctrine as to sacraments and the true constitution of a church, substitutes for that, in which the fellowship of the one body mystically consists, a system of spiritual asceticism, whose basis is effectively what man can prove himself worthy of possessing, or qualified to receive; not what God, in the exercise of his free grace, has done for him independent of his individual merit;

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and whose realities are tested by a reality of feelings which may be, though we do not say that they always are, the accidents of a peculiar temperament, rather than by the operation of immutable ordinances, given to the church by the Lord himself, and ever producing sure results." (Pages 123, 124.) The sentiment contained in this curious passage, embraces the doctrine, it is to be feared, of the vast majority of the Clergy. Here the sacraments are described as "immutable ordinances,” and as "producing sure results;” whilst other parts of the same article, and other kindred writings, show that the "sure results" in question are such as we have described. We are, however, convinced that the “ sure results of such a theory must be very different. The sacramental system has long been tested. In every country where Popery has predominated, this experiment has been long and largely made. The effects are before the world. Superstition has superseded all true faith; whilst the sacraments have been trusted in, all the corruptions of the heart have remained in unbroken dominion, and the mimic altar of sacrifice being put in the place of the atonement of the Lamb of God, the whole has issued in the banishment of all true piety from the world; whilst errors and evils dark as midnight have, for ages and ages, sat brooding over the nations of Christendom. How can the system now adopted by men, who "know not the Scriptures and the power of God," bring about results which, in all other ages, have failed? One would think the historical fact itself quite sufficient to settle this controversy. Have not the sacraments been administered in this country by every Bishop, parish Priest, and country Curate in all past time? Were not these Ecclesiastics just in the position of the modern race? Are the present Ministers of the Church in the line of the succession? Were not their fathers in this line as well as they? Are they par excellence consecrated Priests? Were not their ancestors Priests also? Have they received their holy vocation according to the prescribed formularies of the ordination service? Had not the long line of Ministers before them received orders in the same manner? Have their cures come to them on the rules of the Church's laws on the subject? Was not this the case with others? Then, we ask, wherefore all this stir and agitation about sacraments? They might be of the nature of a new revelation, by the mighty excitement existing on the subject. These gentlemen parade the sacraments as if they had discovered some new, some occult power belonging to our Christianity, which had never been known, or brought into developement, at any former period. Were it not for the sacredness of the subject, the thing would be purely ludicrous: as the matter now stands, it cannot but excite wonder and pity. We would ask the Bishop of London to examine his flock by the doctrines of his late Charge on this subject. If the statements of that celebrated document were true, all the children of his Lordship's diocess, being baptized, ought to be justified and regenerate. Can his Lordship discover the scriptural marks and evidences of a new creation in his juvenile flock? We fear greatly that these children exhibit the usual evidences of a nature "very far gone from original righteousness." But on the principles we controvert, all adults who attend the holy communion, whatever may be the faith or life of the officiating Priest, ought to be regenerate and sanctified, irrespective of the absence of any moral fitness, these "immutable ordinances producing sure results." We only say, at present, that this sentiment, so far as it is held and acted upon, must lead to the destruction of all vital piety.

Another of the distorted doctrines of the times may be designated