Reviewing, then, the propositions and arguments which have been delivered in the present chapterpropositions which rest upon the authority of the parties concerned, what is the general conclusion? If Religious Establishments are constitutionally injurious to Christianity, is not our establishment productive of superadded and accumulated injury?. Let not the writer of these pages be charged with enmity to religion because he thus speaks. Ah! they are the best friends of the church who endeavour its amendment. I may be one of those who, in the language of Lord Bexley, shall be regarded as an enemy, because, in the exhibition of its evils, I have used great plainness of speech. But I cannot help it. I have other motives than those which are affected by these censures of men; and shall be content to bear my portion, if I can promote that purification of a Christian church, of which none but the prejudiced or the interested deny the need. They who endeavour to conceal the need may be the advocates, but they are not the friends of the church. The wound of the daughter of my people may not be slightly healed. It is vain to cry Peace, Peace, when there is no peace. What then will the reader,

who has noticed the testimonies which have been offered in this chapter, think of the propriety of such statements as these? The "establishment is the firmest support and noblest ornament of Christianity." It "presents the best security under heaven for the preservation of the true apostolical faith in this country."+ "Manifold as are the blessings for which Englishmen are beholden to the institutions of their country-there is no part of those institutions from which they derive more important advantages than from its church establishment." Especially what will the reader think of the language of Hannah More ?-Hannah More says of the established church, "Here Christianity presents herself neither dishonoured, degraded, nor disfigured;" Bishop Watson says of its creed, that it is "a motley monster of bigotry and superstition." Hanrah More says, "Here Christianity is set before us in her original purity;" Archdeacon Blackburn ys, that "the forms of the church, having been ighed in the balance of the sanctuary, are found eatly wanting." Hannah More says, "She has en completely rescued from that encumbering load ader which she had so long groaned, and delivered om her heavy bondage by the labours of our blessd reformers;"§ Dr Lowth says, that the reformaion from Popery "stopped in the midway.' Hanpah More says, "We here see Christsanity in her whole consistent character-in all her fair and just proportions as she came from the hands of her divine author;" Dr Watson calls her creed "a scarecrow. dressed up of old by philosophers and Popes." To say that the language of this good woman is imprudent and improper, is to say very little. Yet I would say no more. Her own language is her severest censurer. When will it be sufficiently remembered that the evils of a system can neither be veiled nor defended by praise? When will it be remembered that, if we "contend for

• Dr Howley, Bishop of London: Charge, 1814, p. 25. On the Nature of Schisin, by C, Daubeny, Archdeacon of Sarum, p. 153. First words of Southey's Book of the Church, Moral Sketches, 3d edit. p. 90.

Is

It has frequently been said, that the "church is in danger." What is meant by the church? Or what is it that is endangered? Is it meant that the Episcopal form of church government is endangeredthat some religious revolution is likely to take place, by which a Christian community shall be precluded from adopting that internal constitution which it thinks best? This surely cannot be feared. The day is gone by, in England at least, when the abolition of Prelacy could become a measure of state. One community has its conference, and another its annual assembly, and another its independency, without any molestation. Who, then, would molest the English Church because it prefers the government of bishops and deacons to any other? Is it meant that the doctrines of the church are endangered, or that its liturgy will be prohibited? Surely no. Whilst every other church is allowed to preach what doctrines it pleases, and to use what formularies it pleases, the liberty will not surely be denied to the episcopal church. If the doctrines and government of that church be Christian and true, there is no reason to fear for their stability. Its members have superabundant ability to defend the truth. What then is it that is endangered. Of what are those who complain of danger afraid? it meant that its civil immunities are endangeredthat its revenues are endangered? Is it meant that its members will hereafter have to support their ministers without assistance from other churches? Is it feared that there will cease to be such things as rich deaneries and bishopricks? Is it feared that the members of other churches will become eligible to the legislature, and that the heads of this church will not be temporal peers? In brief, is it feared that this church will become merely one amongst the many, with no privileges but such as are common to good citizens and good Christians? These surely are the things of which they are afraid. It is not for religious truth, but for civil immunities: It is not for forms of church government, but for political pre-eminence: it is not for the church, but for the church establishment. Let a man, then, when he joins in the exclamation, The church is in danger! present to his mind distinct ideas of his meaning and of the object of his fears. If his alarm and his sorrow are occasioned, not for religion, but for politics -not for the purity and usefulness of the church, but for its immunities-not for the offices of its ministers, but for their splendours-let him be at peace. There is nothing in all this for which the Christian needs to be in sorrow or in fear.

And why? Because all that constitutes a church, as a Christian community, may remain when these things are swept away. There may be prelates without nobility; there may be deans and archdeacons without benefices and patronage; there may be pastors without a legal provision; there may be a liturgy without a test.

In the sense in which it is manifest that the phrase, "the church is in danger," is ordinarily to be understood-that is, "the establishment is in danger"--the fears are undoubtedy well founded: the danger is real and imminent. It may not be immediate perhaps perhaps it may not be near at hand; but it is real, imminent, inevitable. The establishment is indeed in danger; and I believe that no advocacy, however zealous, that no support, however determined, that no power, however great, will preserve it from destruction. If the declarations which have been cited in this chapter be true -if the reasonings which have been offered in this

and in the last be just, who is the man that, as a Christian, regrets its danger, or would delay its fall? He may wish to delay it as a politician; he may regret it as an expectant of temporal advantages; but, as a Christian, he will rejoice.

Supposing the doctrines and government of the church to be sound, it is probable that its stability would be increased by what is called its destruction. It would then only be detached from that alliance with the state which encumbers it, and weighs it down, and despoils its beauty, and obscures its brightness. Contention for this alliance will eventually be found to illustrate the proposition, that a man's greatest enemies are those of his own household. H is the practical enemy of the church who endeavours the continuance of its connexion with the state except indeed that the more zealous the endeavour, the more quickly, it is probable, the connexion will be dissolved; and therefore, though such persons" mean not so, neither do their hearts think so," yet they may thus be the agents, in the hand of God, of hastening the day in which she shall be purified from every evil thing; in which she shall arise and shine, because her light is come, and because the glory of the Lord is risen upon her.

Let him, then, who can discriminate between the church and its alliances, consider these things. Let him purify and exalt his attachment. If his love to the church be the love of a Christian, let him avert eis eye from every thing that is political; let his hopes and fears be excited only by religion; and let his exertions be directed to that which alone ought to concern a Christian church, its purity and its usefulness.

In concluding a discussion, in which it has been needful to utter with plainness unwelcome truths, and to adduce testimonies which some readers may wish to be concealed, I am solicitous to add the conviction, with respect to the minis ers of the English Church, that there is happily a diminished ground of complaint and reprehension-the conviction that, whilst the liturgy is unamended and unrevised, the number of ministers is increased to whom temporal things are secondary motives, and who endeavour to be faithful ministers of one common Lord: the conviction too, with respect to other members of the church, that they are collectively advancing in the Christian path, and that there is an "evident extentension of religion within her borders." Many of these, both of the teachers and of the taught, are persons with whom the writer of these pages makes Do pretensions of Christian equality-yet even to these he would offer one monitory suggestion-They are critically situated with reference to the political alliance of the church. Let them beware that they mingle not, with their good works and faith unfeigned, any confederacy with that alliance, which will assuredly be laid in the dust. That confederacy has ever had one invariable effect-to diminish the Christian brightness of those who are its partizans. It will have the same effect upon them. If they are desirous of superadding to their Christianity the privileges and emoluments of a state religion-if they endeavour to retain in the church the interests of both worlds-if, together with their desire to serve God with a pure heart, they still cling to the advantages which this unholy alliance brings-and, contending for the faith, contend also for the establishment-the effect will be bad as the endeavour will be vain; bad, for it will obstruct their own progress and the progress of others in the Christian path; and vain, for the fate of that establishment is scaled.

In making these joyful acknowledgments of the increase of Christianity within the borders of the

church, one truth, however, must be added; and it is a solemn truth-The increase is not attributable to the state religion, but has taken place notwi k standing it is a state religion. I appeal to the experience of good men: has the amendment been the effect of the establishment as such? Has the political connexion of the church occasioned the amendment or promoted it? Nay-Has the amendment been encouraged by those on whom the political connexion had the greatest influence? No: the reader, if he be an observer of religious affairs, knows that the state alliance is so far from having effected a reformation, that it does not even regard the instruments of that reformation with complacency.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF LEGAL PROVISION FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERSOF VOLUNTARY PAYMENT AND OF UNPAID MI

NISTRY.

Compulsory payment-America-Legal provision for one church unjust-Payment of Tithes by dissenters-Tithes a "property of the church"-Voluntary payment-The system of remuneration-Qualifications of a minister of the gospel -Unpaid ministry-Days of greater purity.

If some of the observations of the present chapter are not accurately classed with political subjects, I have to offer the apology that the intimacy of their connexion with the preceding discussions, appears to afford a better reason for placing them here, than an adherence to system affords for placing them eisewhere. "The substance of method is often sacrificed to the exterior show of it."*

LEGAL PROVISION.

By one of those instances which happily are not unfrequent in the progress of human opinion from error to truth, the notion of a divine right on the part of any Christian teachers to a stated portion of the products of other men's labours, is now nearly given up. There was a time when the advocate of the claim would have disdained to refer for its foundation to questions of expediency or the law of the land. And he probably as little thought that the divine right would ever have been given up by its advocates, as his successors now think that they have fallacious grounds in reasoning upon public utility. Thus it is that the labours of our predecessors in the cause of Christian purity have taken a large portion of labour out of our hands. They carried the outworks of the citadel; and whilst its defenders have retired to some inner stronghold, it becomes the business of our day to essay the firmness of its walls. The writer of these pages may essay them in vain;

• Bishop Warburton.

+ Yet let it not be forgotten that it is upon this exploded notion of the divine right that the legal right is founded. The law did not give Tithes to the clergy because the provision was expedient, but because it was their divine right. It is upon this assumption that the law is founded. See Statutes at Large; 29 Hen. VIII. c. 20. Mem. in the MS.

"The whole was received into a common fund, for the fourfold purpose of supporting the clergy, repairing the church, relieving the poor, and entertaining the pilgrim and the stran ger."-"The payment of Tithes bad at first been voluntary, though it was considered as a religious obligation. King Ethel wolf, the father of Alfred, subjected the whole kingdom to it by a legislative act." Southey's Book of the Church; c. 6. Mem. in the MS.

Wickliffe s followers asserted, that Tithes were purely eleemosynary, and might be withheld by the people upon a delinquency in the pastor, and transferred to another at pleasure." Brodie's History of the British Empire. Introduction Mem. in the MS.

but he doubts not that before some power their defenders, as they have hitherto retired, will continue to retire, until the whole fortress is abandoned. Abandoned to the enemy? Oh no.-He is the friend of a Christian community, who induces Christian principles into its practice.

In considering the evidence which Christianity affords respecting the lawfulness of making a legal provision for one Christian church, I would not refer to those passages of Scripture which appear to bear upon the question, whether Christian ministrations should be absolutely free: partly, because I can add nothing to the often urged tendency of those passages, and partly, because they do not all concern the question of legal provision. The man who thinks Christianity requires that those who labour in the gospel should live of the gospel, does not therefore think that a legal provision should be made for the ministers of one exclusive church.

One thing seems perfectly clear-that to receive from their hearers and from those who heard them not, a compulsory payment for their preaching, is totally alien to all the practices of the apostles, and to the whole tenor of the principles by which they were actuated. Their one single and simple motive in preaching Christianity, was to obey God, to do good to man; nor do I believe that any man imagines it possible that they would have accepted of a compulsory remuneration from their own hearers, and especially from those who heard them not. We are therefore entitled to repeat the observation, that this consideration affords evidence against the moral lawfulness of instituting such compulsory payment. Why would not, and could not, the apostles have accepted such payment, except for the reason that it ought not to be enforced? No account, so far as I perceive, can be given of the matter, but that the system is contrary to the purity of Christian practice.

An English prelate writes thus: "It is a question which might admit of serious discussion, whether the majority of the members of any civil community have a right to compel all the members of it to pay towards the maintenance of a set of teachers appointed by the majority to preach a particular system of doctrines." No discussion could be entertained respecting this right, except on the ground of its Christian unlawfulness. A legislature has a right to impose a general tax to support a government, whether a minority approves the tax or not; and the bishop here rightly assumes that there is an antecedent question-whether it is morally lawful to oblige men to pay teachers whom they disapprove? It is from the want of taking this question into the account, that enquirers have involved themselves in fallacious reasonings. It is not a question of the right of taxation, but of the right of the magistrate to oblige men to violate their consciences. Of those who have regarded it simply as a question of taxation, and who therefore have proceeded upon fallacious grounds, the author of the "Duties of Men in Society" is one. He says, "If a state thinks that national piety and virtue will be best promoted by consigning the whole sum raised by law to teachers of a particular description-it has the same right to adopt this measure, as it would have to impose a ge

See Quarterly Review, No. 58.

"There was a party in the nation who conceived that every man should not only be allowed to choose his own religion, but contribute as he himself thought proper towards the support of the pastor whose duties he exacted. The party, however, does not appear to have been great. Yet let us not despise the opinion, but remember that it has been taken up by Dr Adam Smith himself as a sound one, and been acted upon successfully in a vast empire, the United States of America."-Brodie's History of the British Empire, v. 4, p. 365. Mem. in the MS.

neral tax for the support of a board of physicians, should it deem that step conducive to national health." Far other-No man's Christian liberty is invaded, no man's conscience is violated, by paying a tax to a board of physicians; but many a man's religious liberty may be invaded, and many a man's conscience may be violated, by paying for the promulgation of doctrines which he thinks Chrictianity condemns. Whither will the argument lead us? If a Papal state thinks it will promote piety to demand contributions for the splendid celebration of an auto-da-fé, would Protestant citizens act rightly in contributing? Or would the state act rightly in demanding the contribution? Or has a Bramin state a right to impose a tax upon Christian residents to pay for the fagots of Hindoo immolations? The antecedent question in all these cases is-Whether the immolation, and the auto-da-fé, and the system of doctrines, are consistent with Christianity? If they are not, the citizen ought not to contribute to their practice or diffusion; and by consequence, the state ought not to compel him to contribute. Now, for the purposes of the present argument, the consistency of any set of doctrines with Christianity cannot be proved. It is to no purpose for the Unitarian to say, My system is true; nor for the Calvinist or Arminian or Episcopalian to say, My system is true. The Unitarian has no Christian right to compel me to pay him for preaching Unitarianism, nor has any religious community a right to compel the members of another to pay him for promulgating his own opinions.

If by any revolution in the religious affairs of this country, another sect was elevated to the pre-eminence, and its ministers supported by a legal provision, I believe that the ministers of the present church would think it an unreasonable and unchristian act to compel them to pay the preachers of the new state religion. Would not a clergyman think himself aggrieved, if he were obliged to pay a Priestley, and to aid in disseminating the opinions of Priestly? That same grievance is now inflicted upon other men. The rule is disregarded, to do as we would be done by.

Let us turn to the example of America. In America the government does not oblige its citizens to pay for the support of preachers. Those who join themselves to any particular religious community commonly contribute towards the support of its teachers, but there is no law of the state which compels it. This is as it should be. The government which obliged its citizens to pay, even if it were left to the individual to say to what class of preachers his money should be given, would act upon unsound principles. It may be that the citizen does not approve of paying ministers at all; or there may be no sect in a country with which he thinks it right to hold communion. How would the reader himself be situated in Spain perhaps, or in Turkey, or in Hindostan ? Would he think it right to be obliged to encourage Juggernaut, or Mahomet, or the Pope!

But passing from this consideration: it is after all said, that in our own country the individual citizen does not pay the ministers of the state religion. I am glad that this seeming paradox is advanced, because it indicates that those who advance it confess that to make them pay would be wrong. Why else should they deny it? It is said, then, that persons who pay tithes do not pay the established clergy; that tithes are property held as a person holds an estate; that if tithes were taken off, rents would advance to the same amount; that the buyer of an estate pays so much the less for it because it is subject to tithesand therefore that neither owner nor occupier pays any thing. This is specious, but only specious. The landholder "pays" the clergyman just as he pays the

tax-gatherer. If taxes were taken off, rents would advance just as much as if tithes were taken off; and a person may as well say that he does not pay taxes as that he does not pay tithes.-The simple fact is, that an order of clergy are, in this respect, in the same situation as the body of stockholders who live upon their dividends. They are supported by the country. The people pay the stockholder in the form of taxes, and the clergyman in the form of tithes. Suppose every clergymau in England were to leave the country to-morrow, and to cease to derive any income from it, it is manifest that the income which they now derive would be divided amongst those who remain that is, that those who now pay would cease to pay. Rent, and Taxes, and Tithes, are in these respects upon one footing. Without now enquiring

whether they are right, they are all paymentssomething by which a man does not receive the whole of the product of his labour.

The argument, therefore, which affirms that dissenters from the state religion do not pay to that religion, appears to be wholly fallacious; and being such, we are at liberty to assume, that to make them pay is indefensible and unchristian. For we repeat the observation, that he who is anxious to prove they do not pay, evinces his opinion that to compel them to pay would be wrong.

There is some injustice in the legal provision for one church. The episcopalian, when he has paid his teacher, or rather when he has contributed that portion towards the maintenance of his teacher which by the present system becomes his share, has no more to pay. The adherent to other churches has to pay his own preacher and his neighbour's. This does not appear to be just. The operation of a legal provision is, in effect, to impose a double tax upon one portion of the community without any fault on their part. Nor is it to any purpose to say, that the dissenter from the episcopalian church imposes the tax on himself: so he does; but it is just in the same sense as a man imposes a penalty upon himself when he conforms to some prohibited point of Christian duty. A papist, two or three centuries ago, might almost as well have said that a protestant imposed the stake on himself, because he might have avoided it if he chose. It is a voluntary tax in no other way than as all other taxes are voluntary. It is a tax imposed by the state as truly as the window tax is imposed, because a man may, if he pleases, live in darkness; or as a capitation tax is imposed, because a man may, if he pleases, lose his head.

But what is he who conscientiously disapproves of a state religion to do? Is he, notwithstanding his judgment, to aid in supporting that religion, because the law requires it? No: for then, as it respects him, the obligation of the law is taken away. He is not to do what he believes Christianity forbids, because the state commands it. If public practice be a criterion of the public judgment, it may be concluded that the number of those who do thus believe respecting our state religion, is very small; for very few decline actively to support it. Yet when it is considered how numerous the dissenters from the English establishment are, and how cmphatically some of them disapprove the forms or doctrines of that establishment, it might be imagined that the number who decline thus to support it would, in consistency, be great. How are we to account for the fact as it is? Are we to suppose that the objections of these persons to the establishment are such as do not make it a case of conscience whether they shall support it or not? Or are we to conclude that they sacrifice their consciences to the terrors of a distraint? If no case of conscience is involved, the dissenter, though he may think the

state religion inexpedient, can hardly think it wrong And if he do not think it wrong, why should he b so zealous in opposing it, or why should he expec the church to make concessions in his favour? If, o the other hand, he sacrifices his conscience to his fears. it is obvious that, before he reprehends the establishment, he should rectify himself. He should leave the mote, till he has taken out the beam.

Perhaps there are some who, seriously disapprov ing of the state religion, suspect that in Christian integrity they ought not to pay to its support-and yet are not so fully convinced of this, or do not so fully act upon the conviction, as really to decline to pay. If they are convinced, let them remember their responsibility, and not know their Master's will in vain. If these are not faithful, where shall fidelity be found? How shall the Christian churches be purified from their defilements, if those who see and deplore their defilements, contribute to their continuance? Let them show that their principles are worthy a little sacrifice. Fidelity on their part, and a Christian submission to the consequences, might open the eyes and invigorate the religious principle of many more: and at length the objection to comply with these unchristian demands might be so widely extended, that the legislature would be induced to withdraw its legal provision; and thus one main constituent of an ecclesiastical system, which has grievously obstructed, and still grievously obstructs, the Christian cause, might be taken away.

As an objection to this fidelity of practice it has been said, that since a man rents or buys an "state for so much less because it is subject to tithes, it is an act of dishonesty, afterwards, to refuse to pay them. The answer is this-that no dishonesty can be committed whilst the law exacts payment by distraint; and if the law were altered, there is no place for dishonesty. Besides, the desire of saving money does not enter into the refuser's motives. He does not decline to pay from motives of interest, but from motives of duty.

It is, however, argued that the legislature has no right to take away tithes any more than it has a right to deprive citizens of their lands and houses; and that a man's property in tithes is upon a footing with his property in an estate. Now we answer that this is not true in fact; and that, if it were, it would not serve the argument.

It is not true in fact.-If tithes were a property, just as an estate is a property, why do men complain of the scandal of pluralities? Who ever hears of the scandal of possessing three or four estates? Why, again, does the law punish simoniacal contracts? Who ever hears of simoniacal contracts for lands and houses? The truth is, that tithes are regarded as religious property. The property is legally recognised, not for the sake of the individual who may possess it, but for the sake of religion. The law cares nothing for the men, except so far as they are ministers. Besides, tithes are a portion of the produce only of the land. The tithe-owner cannot walk over an estate, and say of every tenth acre this is mine. In truth he has not, except by consent of the landholder, any property in it at all; for the landholder may, if he pleases, refuse to cultivate it -occasion it to produce nothing; and then the tithe-owner has no interest or property in it whatever. And in what sense can that be said to be property, the possession of which is at the absolute discretion of another man?

But grant, for a moment, that tithes are property. Is it affirmed that whatever property a man possesses, cannot be taken from him by the legislature! Suppose I go to Jamaica and purchase a slave, and