faithful and the zealous among their clergy-that new life would animate the private members of their Churches -that feeling how much they had done, however unconsciously, to repress the principles of voluntary exertion, in time past, they would labour to undo that repression in time to come-and that, as from their wealth they are well able, the truly Christian portion of them would rival the most devoted among the dissenters, in the amount of their benevolent Christian exertions.

Another remarkable failure in argument is an attempt made by Dr. I. to strike a balance betwixt the amount of temptation which Establishments, on the one hand, and voluntary Churches, on the other, present to ministers of the gospel. In determining the question of utility, he admits that the temptation of an Establishment is to indolence, while we have a strong excitement to activity— that the peculiar temptation to the ministers of voluntary Churches is to corrupt their doctrine and discipline to please the hearers-and that this part of the argument must be settled by the answer to this question, Whether it is worse for the Church to have an indolent, or an unfaithful clergy?* (as if, after all, any part of the constitution of the Christian Church must resolve itself into a mere choice of evils!) Alas! bad men will find temptations every where. Judas was tempted by avarice in following Jesus. But can these facts be disputed?-that the discourses, preached or printed, of evangelical dissenters, have been not less remarkable for their fidelity in asserting Christian truth, and in their minute discrimination of Christian character, for their searching quality, to use a common expression, than those of the same class of the Established clergy-that if ecclesiastical discipline, in the admission, superintendence, or exclusion of members, (the grand test of fidelity,) exist at all in Britain, it exists in North Britain chiefly, in South Britain entirely, among the dissenters-and that in the largest Establishment in the country, the Church of England, indolence is not only charged on a large proportion of the clergy, but faithless deviation from their own articles, subscribed

* Vindication, p. 205, et seq.

and sworn, so as to justify the saying of Chatham," a Calvinistic creed, and an Arminian clergy."

Dr. I. seems to err equally in his estimate of America. There the voluntary principle acts on a scale so ample, with effects so magnificent, and yet in the midst of circumstances so unfavourable, that its success may be regarded as itself a practical demonstration of its excellence. The unfavourable circumstances to which I refer are these-the existence of upwards of two millions of slaves in the United States, and the demoralizing influence of slavery and the annual discharging on the American shores of crowds of emigrants from all parts of Europe, whose character and habits are not, for the most part, friendly to piety. In reducing, as much as possible, the spiritual condition of America, Dr. I. relies chiefly on the testimony of two individuals, one of whom wrote many years ago, and on that of an anonymous writer in the Instructor; and he not only sets aside some of the recent testimonies of the General Assembly of the United States, but he overlooks the authentic ecclesiastical statistics for 1833, presenting what may be considered the present religious state of America. From these, the following are

Besides these numbers in a population of about 12,000,000 or 13,000,000, there are many other religious denominations specified in the table from which I quote. And the following remarks, taken from a periodical in this country, are probably near the truth. "In Great Britain and Ireland, there is scarcely one evangelical Church to every eighteen hundred of the population; while in America there is fully one to every nine hundred, including the slave community. Again, in Great Britain and Ireland, Catholics, Jews, Unitarians, Universalists, and such as are nowhere accounted

orthodox, are fully as one to three of the population; in America they are scarcely as one to six. Besides these

conclusive facts, we may add, that we find in the columns of a High Church newspaper, published in this country, a complaint that the people of Great Britain hardly support four religious newspapers; while in America upwards of fifty are flourishing." What facts will justify the voluntary principle, if these fail?

But the most extraordinary error of all into which Dr. I. falls, in descanting on the utility of Establishments, is, their supposed tendency to unite nations. "When

66

men in authority are united to those over whom they rule, by a profession of the same faith, and by the same exercises of religious worship, it has a tendency to unite their hearts in one bond of mutual confidence and mutual love." And this is to be accomplished by an Established Church!"* This may do for Utopia, but will it apply to any region on the surface of our planet? Will it do for Britain? Will it do for Ireland? Will Dr. I. after study and inquiry, succeed in naming the thing which so much disunites Scotland, England, and Ireland, as the Ecclesiastical Establishments of these countries, and which must continue to divide them, until this cause of division shall cease?

Upon the whole, the reasoning of Dr. I. in support of Establishments, from their supposed utility, seems not less infelicitous, than that in which he attempts to defend these institutions by the circumstances of the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian dispensations, or by the direct authority of the word of God.

In surveying the work of Dr. I. I cannot forbear again remarking, that its tone is polite, kind, and manly. He does not expressly affirm, but he seems to write under the feeling, that in this strife the dissenters are, as they ever have been, the party aggrieved; and that, in these circumstances, to argue is enough-acrimony would be unworthy. What estimate must he form of the conduct of some of his coadjutors in this cause, who delight to add insult to wrong, and to cover their pages with reviling and slander?

* Vindication, pp. 219, 220.

It seems somewhat ominous for the cause of Ecclesiastical Establishments in this country, that they are so linked with one another. Were one so small, relatively to the empire, and so moderately expensive, as the Scottish, and which probably includes a majority of the people in this quarter, alone in question, it might, possibly, be endured for generations. But we have the huge English Establishment, with its bishops sitting where they ought not, and uniting with the most disliked of the Peerage against the people and their own anointed king, and its detested tithes, and its obnoxious clergy, and its dissatisfied and half-revolting people from the Church in which they remain. We have the Irish Establishment, the laughing-stock of Europe, regarded as a morbid incubus by the restless people of the island on which it is placed, and now in the process of being cognosced by the British parliament. These all make common cause, and the work of Dr. I. illustrates this fact. The Church of Scotland will not now lift her voice against Episcopacy, as she did in the olden time-then, it was 66 abjured prelacy," now, it is "the venerable hierarchy;" nor will she tell the king, sitting in the Assembly by his Commissioner, that it is daring presumption to claim to be head of any church on earth, and that, as he values the permanence of his throne, he should renounce a presumption so offensive in the eyes of Him who is " King of kings, and Lord of lords." No-this cannot be. These are not times to agitate, after this fashion, the friends of Establishments believe and feel. What will be the result of this perilous coalition? It may not be at hand-it may be still remote-but can it be other than this that the sound and the unsound, the great and the small, the rich and the poor, religious Establishments, shall be mingled in the judgment of the British community that the various partners in the common concern shall each be held responsible for the whole-and that, as one great and intolerable abuse, the more intolerable for its very magnitude, the voice of the indignant nation will ultimately demand the abolition of the whole?

W. LANG, PRINTER, NELSON STREET, GLASGOW.

SERMON.

CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY

TRIED BY THEIR

ONLY AUTHORITATIVE TEST,

THE

WORD OF GOD.

BY RALPH WARDLAW, D.D.

GLASGOW.

WHAT THING SOEVER I COMMAND YOU, OBSERVE TO DO IT:-THOU SHALT NOT ADD THERETO, NOR DIMINISH FROM IT."-Jehovah by Moses.

THIRD EDITION.

GLASGOW:

A. FULLARTON & CO., 34, HUTCHESON STREET; JOHN WARDLAW, EDINBURGH; W. CURRY, JUN. & CO., Dublin;

AND HAMILTON & ADAMS, LONDON.

MDCCCXXXIII.