BISHOP WARBURTON.

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is, or might be, done between any two other earthly potentates.

But, without encountering any detail, we may simply ask, who is the head of this independent, sovereign church? The Lord Jesus Christ himself. And does He enter into an equal, mutual alliance, offensive and defensive, with impious, irreligious, profligate, formal sovereigns? for example, with the brutal, bloody Henry -the politic, arbitrary Elizabeth; or the perfidious persecuting dynasty of the Stuarts? Utrum horum mavis, accipe. Which will ye believe? The Saviour himself, who says his kingdom is not of this world, or the right reverend William Warburton, who seeks to stamp the secular stain upon its beauty of holiness?

In addition to this, the political wisdom of excluding every other religious denomination, except the dominant sect, from an equal participation in the rights, privileges and offices of government, is more than doubtful. This policy proscribes, and thus renders useless, if not hostile, at least one-third of the talent, learning, piety and efficiency of the whole empire. Mr. Bates, a loyal adherent to the British government, and a sound churchman withal, in his valuable work called “Christian Politics," recommends, that, while the Anglican church should be protected in all her present emoluments, benefices and dignities, the partition wall between her and the other denominations should be so far thrown down, as to admit every religious persuasion, throughout the empire, to an equal share in the offices of government, whether civil or military; giving to all the citizens equal political rights and privileges, and allowing to the national church the exclusive enjoyment of her revenues and ecclesiastical prerogatives.

It is not easy to find a valid reason why Britain. should not repeal her Test and Corporation acts; laws passed amidst the heat and smoke of religious intolerance and persecution. She has already done it, with signal success, in relation to her Irish protestant dis

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RELIGIOUS PROSCRIPTION.

senters. And why not extend the boon to all the dissenting sects throughout the nation; and thus, indefinitely, augment her own intellectual and moral power, by permitting all, instead of only a privileged order of her people, to serve, aid and support her, to the full extent of their capacity and powers, in her civil and military functions; in the field and on the flood in foreign courts, and in her home councils and cabinet? Other countries have learned this lesson of practical political wisdom. In these United States, every religious communion is placed on equal ground, as to all civil rights and privileges. By a provision of the federal constitution, the general government is interdicted from regulating or interfering with the religion of the Union; and the separate states, for the most part, have confined their legislative enactments to the mere civil incorporation, with certain restrictions, of such religious bodies as apply for charters. In the United Netherlands, in Prussia, in Russia, nay, even in France, there is no exclusive national church, shutting out the other sects from equal political privileges; but in those countries all religious denominations stand on the same level of social claim and right.

During the time when Russia broke down the military strength of revolutionary France, the commander in chief of all her armies belonged to the communion of the Greek Church; her minister of finance was a protestant, and her premier, a papist. Her affairs, civil and military, were not the worse conducted, in her agonizing struggle for existence, because she disfranchises none of her people of their political rights, on account of their religious opinions or belief.

But the ministerial and lay patronage of the Anglican Church is subject to a much higher and more awful objection than the mere want of political wisdom, in shutting out, for ever, so much talent, learning and efficiency from the service of the state. It almost of necessity ensures a constant supply of formalism, at least, if not of absolute irreligion, to the clerical establishment.

CHURCH PATRONAGE.

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Under this national system, boys are regularly bred up to the Church, as to any secular calling; for instance, the army, or navy, or law, or physic, or merchandize; and are thus continually thrust into the priest's office for a morsel of bread, in defiance of the denunciations of Scripture. If a father, or uncle, or more distant relation, or friend, or acquaintance, or the government, have a valuable living, well endowed with ample tithes, to dispose of, the fortunate clerk for whom it is designed is forthwith inducted, without the shadow of an inquiry into his fitness for so sacred, so momentous a charge, as that of professing to minister to the spiritual wants of perishing sinners. His piety, talents, learning, industry and aptness for pulpit exercises and pastoral duty, are all taken for granted; and a whole congregation of immortal souls are transferred, like so many cattle, to the ghostly care of a man, who probably never has seen, nor ever intends to see them; but consigns them and their everlasting interests to the supervision of some under-paid curate.

Suppose, what has happened in English history, that the British Prime Minister, and the Lord High Chancellor of England, who share between them the whole enormous church patronage of the crown, including the making of bishops, should be both, or either of them, avowed infidels, or merely irreligious, secular and formal What sort of bishops would be appointed to fill the vacant sees? What kind of clergy to possess the empty parishes? Evangelical men, think you, imitators and followers of the holy Apostles, and primitive pastors, or smooth, courtly, pliant politicians, and careless, irreligious, immoral clerks?

The individual lay-patrons, also, whether noble or gentle, put into the livings in their gift, either gratuitously or by open sale in the market, as of any other estates, the sale of church-livings being advertised in the English newspapers as the sales of negro slaves are advertised in our American journals, pastors of their own choice or price. In the election, or call of these pastors, the people composing the congregation have

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FORMALISM AND INFIDELITY.

neither voice, nor part, nor lot; but, nevertheless, are required to pay them tithes, and sit, either under their ministration, or that of some stipendiary substitute.

Waiving, for the present, all remark about the barter and sale of church-livings, and the patronage of bishops, and other clerical corporations, which must ever bear the hue and colouring, religious or irreligious, of the patron's own sentiments; let us advert, for a moment, to the regular and ordinary course of lay-patronage.

If the lay-patron be not religious himself, and it is no want of charity to suppose that some of them steer quite clear of all evangelism, the probability is that the incumbent, placed in a living by him, will, also, not be too well acquainted with, nor be very deeply interested in, the propagation of the all-important truths and doctrines involved in the stupendous scheme of human redemption, as revealed in Holy Writ. And perhaps few things are better calculated to foster the growth of infidelity, and its inseparable adjuncts, discontent, radicalism and rebellion, in a country, than the foisting finto any church, but more especially into a national establishment, men who dole out only a little thin, diluted, unsubstantial morality, once in seven days, made up of shreds and patches from mere ethical writers, whether ancient or modern; instead of regularly expounding the great statute-book of Christianity, and habitually inculcating the essential, the characteristic, the distinguishing doctrines and practical duties of the everlasting Gospel.

And yet, while so large a proportion of the English national clergy are now, and have been for several generations past, starving their flocks upon the husks of formalism, grave personages of all ages and aspects, profess to marvel at the rapid decline and diminution of the national church, and the portentous growth of other religious denominations, whose pastors, on moderate stipends, perform faithfully and successfully, the allimportant duties of the highest, holiest, most interesting, most useful vocation that can be accorded to man. To which add the awful increase of seditious and

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revolutionary movements among the irreligious part of the population, which frequent no place of worship, but by law belong to the establishment, which claims all not openly dissenting. It is simply impossible that such numerous hordes of radical banditti could be found to infest the peace and threaten the existence of all that is valuable in England, if the eleven thousand national clergy performed their duty, as it behooves evangelical ministers, who are faithful stewards of the mysteries of godliness. committed to their care.

power

The vested in the crown of appointing all the bishops in the Church of England by the writ of congé d'eslire, or leave to choose, transmitted to the dean and chapter upon every episcopal vacancy, is, perhaps, still more objectionable; because it in effect vests in the existing cabinet ministers the creation of all those, who ought to be the evangelical guardians of their respective dioceses. How far men, so deeply immersed in mere political occupations and secular pursuits, as the cabinet ministers of England must always be, are fitted to select those best qualified to discharge the momentous spiritual duties of the episcopate, needs no discussion. That they do not always stumble upon men remarkable for their attachment to the truths and doctrines of the Bible, and of the liturgy, articles and homilies of the Anglican church, is manifest from their having made so many baptismal regeneration doctors, and double justification, and captious, sophistical question men, bishops of a protestant establishment.

The very preamble to the act of parliament, passed in the year 1786, under which the American bishops, Provost and White, were consecrated in England, shows how completely the election and consecration of English bishops are under the control of the crown. The preamble begins thus-" Whereas by the laws of this realm, no person can be consecrated to the office of a bishop, without the king's license for his election to that office, and the royal mandate, under the great seal, for his confirmation and consecration," &c.