to veer about with the breath of every passing doctrine; and he who, without good and substantial cause, quits the professions which he once held, is inflicting an injury on the cause of religion in general, and affording an example which the light-minded, the wavering, and the irreligious will seldom fail to make a bad use of. To the man then who has been brought up, I will not say in opposition to the Church, but in nonconformance to her doctrines, if I see the fruits which he produces, are those of a holy and religious life, I should say, in the language of Solomon, "Meddle not with those who are given to change;" and I trust that personal vanity will never lead me to wish, any more than at this minute I do, that my congregation should be ever swelled at the expense of an establishment, to whose moral use, I can offer my humble but willing testimony.

'But if I admit that much piety is to be found within your walls, there is, you know, quite as well as I, much impiety to be found without;-many a field in which, were your exertions ten times more zealous than they are, as far as human probability can reach, those exertions would be for ever useless. To every voluntary member of your communion, your ministers can speak in the language of admonition and reproof; but with those who refuse to recognize their authority, there is no connecting tie; and if the legislature of the country did not provide the means, there must be many sheep without a shepherd, whose peculiar duty it was to feed them with the living waters of eternal life. But, as a minister of the Church of England, I feel it my duty not only to plough upon a willing soil; I am not only concerned with those who are in communion with my Church here, and many of whom I trust to meet in a happier communion in heaven, but I am bound also to extend any benefit, whether of temporal or moral good, in my power to confer, to all whom the law has placed within the sphere of my ministry. Those benefits may be, as they are I know in many cases, rejected and despised, but such rejection does not invalidate the truth of what I say; and the laws of our country have placed me here the religious servant of you all, whose assistance and advice it is in your power to claim, not as a favour, but a right. The state has so far complied with the injunction of the text, and evinced its love of Christ, that it has not left the care of your souls to chance and casualty, but, as far as in its power, has found the means of having all his sheep here fed. Although, then, upon the present occasion, I speak to many who are not members of our Church, I honestly believe, that I speak to men who are not so clouded by prejudice, so blinded by bigotry, as not to admit the moral utility of this principle. But you will here say, perhaps, the principle is good, but the practice is deficient. This is neither the place or the time for me to allude to what I conceive to be the cause of such deficiencies, or to suggest what I conceive should be their remedies. But I am willing to say now, what I am ready to say at all times, and before all persons, that the sole principle on which I recognize the justice of a Church establishment is, that it does contribute to the moral welfare of society, does comply with the injunction of the text, does feed the sheep of Christ.' pp. 6—12.

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Our readers will observe, that this sermon was preached in aid of the funds for building churches and chapels, and was therefore an appeal to the voluntary generosity of the audience, involving a departure from the fundamental principle of an Establishment, which is that of compulsory payment. Of this we shall presently. Mr. Stebbing's sermon was preached on a similar occasion, and is characterized by a kindred spirit of amiable and enlightened liberality, combined with a fine tone of evangelical piety. It is an excellent and an eloquent sermon; an eloquent defence of the Church of which he is a minister; an eloquent, though undesigned, condemnation of the Establishment. The text is taken from Psal. cxxvii. 1. After urging the claims of the Church to the veneration and support of the people, Mr. Stebbing proceeds to lament, that the principle of the text has not been sufficiently remembered by the builders of the house.

'I shall not hesitate to say, that for many years, the building of the house was not carried on as if the Lord was to be the great Masterbuilder of the edifice; and this more especially because the articles of the church were not taken by its ministers as the rule of their preaching; or in plainer terms, because the Gospel was not given in its whole substance as the nourishment of the people. The church of Rome has laid it down as a maxim, that the blood of Christ was too precious a thing for the unconsecrated laity: the church of England seemed on the verge of saying, that the inexpressibly holy and comforting doctrines of justification by faith, of spiritual renewal, of the in-dwelling of Christ in the heart, that is, the life-giving Spirit of scriptural truth, was to be kept back, and only the moralities presented;-the body which, without the Spirit, though it were the body of Christ himself, is dead. It cannot but be matter of profound thankfulness to churchmen, that we seem to have passed, in this matter, from under the shadow of darkness; for everywhere now may the Gospel be had, if it be sought for: there is no shamefacedness shown at the mention of Christ divine grace, the experience of its power, the testimony of the Holy Ghost, furnish topics which the preacher may now handle in language familiar to his hearers; and the opened sanctuary thus pours forth again the light treasured behind its altars.'

But the Church still suffers in its strength from the faults of its own members..... If I may pass from considerations of this kind to others which belong to points of a more temperal nature, I must freely state that there does not appear to be that recognition of the building of the house of God in the disposal of the church's wealth, which we might look to see in a land like this. There can be but one opinion as to the general principle which should prevail in the management of resources given for the sole purpose of promoting the interests of Christ's religion; but obvious as it is, that to support an efficient and independent body of ministers is the first grand object for which the wealth of a Church should be expended, we find that, in our apostolic establishment, the same fearful vice has long prevailed, which lent a powerful hand to the ruin of earlier churches. It is no trifling thing

to a genuine churchman, to see simony allowed, by a mere quirk of law, to practise its infamous arts undisturbed; still less is it so to know that there is, in fact, a worse species of simony than that which carries on its traffic by money, because it is a bolder vice, and has its chief seat in the highest places of national power :-I mean the simony of political patronage; that which, for the promise of so much help in the support of a particular measure, will give so many thousand souls over to the charge of, perhaps, the most worldly-minded, and the most unlearned of the ministers of the Church. The dire spirit of antichrist was never more clearly exhibited, in the worst periods of Roman corruption, than it has been in the unchecked use which the government of this country, or the agents of government in their several degrees, have been allowed to make of Church patronage to carry their ends. In some instances, it may be feared, the sin of the politician is infected the ruling members of the Church itself; and the cedar and the gold of the temple have been taken away, even by those who dwell therein, to satisfy the labourer who was not worthy of the meanest hire. This certainly has not been a recognition of the precept that, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it;" for it has distinctly proved that, in the one instance, the wealth which the generous piety of our ancestors consecrated on the altar of Christ, which generation after generation has regarded as a sacred trust, which was given that the Church might not want a seemly vesture when it has kings for its nursing fathers, and mighty nations to worship in its courts, it has plainly been shewn that, in the one instance, the wealth given for this noble end has been taken and employed as a vile and common bribe; and that, in the other, a favouritism which it would have been unpatriotic to exercise in respect to the meanest political offices, has taken by the hand men of low capacity and untried character, and placed them in situations for which every sober-minded Christian, every thinking man in the country, would declare them unworthy and unfit. And what is the consequence? It would be bad enough, were it only that the plain rule of right, which the Church should have ever on its side, is broken by those who have the chief power over it; but we see the mischievous effects of such a state of things in the confined efficiency of the ministers of the church. Were its resources and patronage managed with a direct reference to the production of the greatest possible good; were it felt by the ministers of the crown, by the men of wealth and power, of every class, who have benefices in their hands, that literally, and without an argument, the best and most pious of Christ's ministers are the men for whom these benefices were placed in trust,-there would not be a parish in the kingdom without a sound teacher of truth;-there would be no shaking of beams and rafters in the sacred edifice; and the mass of the community, owning the power of learning and sanctity, would prove, by their stedfast and increasing attachment to their church, that the Lord is building the house, and that they labour not in vain who build it.

'As patronage is at present disposed of, there is a threefold evil always in action. In the first place, the clergy are tempted into seeking preferment by methods which little become the pure, independent,

elevated temper of mind which should always characterize a minister of religion. In the second place, the worthy and laborious curate is, with very few exceptions, dispossessed of his office, and not in very rare cases driven into a situation of the greatest anxiety and distress; and that, not because his virtues are unknown, but because the benefice has been promised elsewhere. In the third place, the church is deprived hereby of the full portion of intellectual power, as well as of the spiritual exertion, which it has a right to look for from the great body of its clergy.' pp. 13-17.

It is not quite in harmony with these admissions, that Mr. Stebbing proceeds to remark, that the Church has lost none of 'the characteristics which made it venerable in the eyes of our 'forefathers'; or that he ascribes the rancour with which it is now assailed, first, to the spirit of schism, to the desire of appropriating its wealth, or to the love of political experiment. He admits, however, that it is not with these only, its fierce, bitter, 'intolerant enemies, that the Church has at present to contend.'

It has to stand on its defence against a very different class of opponents: I mean those numerous dissenters from her rule and discipline, who, not for wrath, but for conscience sake, assail her borders. For the true Christian piety; for the laborious charity which marks the teaching and the conduct of many of these, our adversaries; for the profound learning which adorns the leading members of the body; for the thoughtfulness, for the systematic recognition of the gospel which appear in all they write, and say, and do, I feel the truest reverence: but I am not the less convinced that they are acting in opposition to the general interests of Christianity, by joining at this time with the rude, unthinking multitude, in endeavouring to undermine the national church. I am not the less anxious to see every barrier raised against their approaches, which the wise, temperate, and sober spirit of that church can provide.' pp. 20, 21.

But are Dissenters seeking to undermine the National Church? Properly speaking, they form part of the National Church, and they are anxious that the National Church should be established on the broadest and surest foundations. To this end, they would wish to see it no longer a State Church, such as Mr. Stebbing describes it to be, resting upon the Jachin and Boaz of corruption and patronage, but an apostolic establishment', resting upon apostolic principles. And this is what they mean by desiring its separation from the State.

With such men as Mr. Turner and Mr. Stebbing, the ornaments of any Church, Dissenters can have no quarrel. But we must repeat, that their notions of the Establishment, as a State provision for the religious instruction of the people, are a mere theory, of more modern origin than the objections urged by Dissenters, because invented as a reply to them; a theory at variance with the history of the Church Establishment in this country,

at variance with existing facts; not reconcileable with its construction, with the polity, or the exclusive claims of the Church, or with the uniform policy of the rulers of the Establishment. Were this theory correct, the Establishment, having for its object to instruct the people, would have favoured every auxiliary means of instructing them; would have encouraged spontaneous and gratuitous efforts; would have promoted preaching; would have encouraged the people to procure instruction for themselves; would have met their anxiety to obtain competent instructors. The reverse of all this has notoriously been the uniform practice of the Establishment. It has discountenanced and repelled every popular effort; has reluctantly conceded education to the people, when it was seen that otherwise education would be taken out of the hands of the Church; has depreciated preaching; has denied to the people any voice in the choice of their teachers; has fostered popular ignorance; has discountenanced evangelical religion, both within and without the pale of the Church; and has uniformly treated with contempt, or met with active opposition, every effort on the part of Dissenters to supply its own lack of service. The obstacles which the Establishment has thrown in the way of the usefulness of its own clergy, and of the instruction of the people by all other means, are immense and incalculable. The Establishment was not designed as a scheme of instruction: it was a scheme of government. The intention was not that the people should be taught, but that they should obey. The Establishment was intended to repress the free progress of knowledge, not to advance it; to keep down fanaticism and puritanism, not to build up piety. It is a provision, but of benefices, not of benefits; of livings, not of teachers. It is essentially a scheme of patronage, and an engine of power; the beneficed clergy being only an order of magistrates, wholly unfitted, for the most part, to be the teachers of the people. Mind, we do not say that the Church is all this, and nothing more than this. We say, that such is the political scheme of the Establishment; and that, by being incorporated with the State, and merged in the State, the Church, as a religious institution, is stripped of its proper character, and converted into a mere secular corporation, which has become odious alike for its extortion and its intolerance.

The Church Establishment never can be rendered efficient as a scheme of instruction, till its whole constitution is changed. There are two ways in which this may be done; by the fundamental reform which intelligent and pious churchmen sigh for, and by what Dissenters term its separation from the State. Now there is really far less difference between them, than may at first sight appear. Both measures would meet with equal opposition from the same quarters. To reform the Church would be to de

prive it of every thing for which its alliance with the State is deem