Church; Would better their temporal circumstances; That landlords would alone be benefited,' refuted; The reduction of tithes and taxes operates alike; Church-room, &c. not free in the Church; Would promote their spiritual advantages; Called to think, act, &c. would be beneficial; The case of poor country parishes, considered; no parishes would pay more, and most of them less; No proof of real love to episcopacy admissible; The richer the church, the poorer the nation; The great evils of authority in religion; It would be just to Protestant Dissenters; Fears of many respecting their spirituality; The question of principle, not of expediency; Dissenters would be the least benefited by it; They would be freed from their religious oppressions; Clergymen have no sense of Dissenters' wrongs; The Church sustained by moral dishonesty; Would be placed on equality with Episcopalians; Are subject to many inconveniences and evils; The church always persecutes as far as it can; Their institutions would be better supported; Their indirect savings would be considerable; The taunts of clergymen respecting mean chapels, &c.; Eulogiums passed on Dissenters. "BOOK FOURTH.-ARGUMENTS IN DEFENCE OF THE UNION. "Opposition to establishments a novelty; If it were, of little importance; This shown to be an erroneous assumption; Establishments safeguards of divine truth; This may be equally said of Dissenting churches; Establishments safeguards of numerous errors; The Church a most tolerant system; This refuted by the history of the hierarchy; And by its canons, laws, articles, &c.; It possesses the germ of resuscitation; This implies that establishments, may decay; Most heresies have sprung up in the Church; Revivals in England begun by seceders; Establishments not subject to changes; Not in ceremonies, but in doctrines; Prevent useful and necessary reforms; Truth and piety never secured by creeds and tests; Many neglected without establishments; And so they are with them-illustrated; The apostolic order much more diffusive; The Alliance defended on silence of scripture; And so may a thousand unholy institutes; The folly of the argument fully exposed; Christ sanctioned establishments; this argument of a dangerous tendency; No evidence that Christ sanctioned human forms, &c.; The question of ancient liturgies, briefly examined; The prince the father of his people, ergo-Princes have not parental authority; Never called fathers in scripture; The domestic economy of Abraham irrelevant; Converted kings should promote religion; The question is, by what means? Agrippa nor the Sanhedrim right to interpose; The passage— Kings, nursing fathers, &c.' explained; If they may touch, may establish Christianity; The case of oaths referred to-inconclusive; The observance of the sabbath, noticed: Jewish hierarchy warrants establishments; This position examined, in detail; Jewish church and state not united under kings; Civil rulers had no ecclesiastical authority; Could only act as directed from above; Proceeded on the voluntary principle; In erecting the temple, synagogues, &c.; Priests and our clergy materially different; In appointment-services-support -orders; The incomes of the Levitical priesthood investigated; Analogy between priests, &c. bishops, &c.; New Testament, a system of divine legislation; No toleration to Hebrews under the law; Dr. Dealtry's subsequent Charge,' briefly referred to. "CHAP. SECOND.—Archdeacon Hoare's Arguments. "The temper and manner of Mr. Hoare, illustrated; Dissenters rest their cause on a single text; Not true-but, if so, valid against the Church; The text explained, and our views supported; Dissenters pervert the evidence of history; This chargeable on conformists-position established; The church injured by Constantine-his establishment different from Henry VIII.'sprimitive state-churches free; Independency and Popery are the same; The Church of England and Popery identified; The Archdeacon's arguments shown to be vague, &c.; Dissent and Popery agree only in their independence; The Church under the control of the civil power; Arguments of Dissenters blasphemous; The Archdeacon's notions of legalized rebellion examined; His charges against free churches refuted; Proofs that the early churches were all Independent; Dissenters not blasphemous - nor reject all Old Testament example; Dissenters join Papists to destroy Protestantism; this shown to be a false and ridiculous accusation; Several fallacious apothegms exposed. "CHAP. THIRD.-Miscellaneous Arguments. "The separation would violate coronation oath; Religion once established should remain so; To enforce support of religion not persecution; Government should do all the good it can; Clergy would not be voluntarily supported; Church-property must not be alienated; The Church amply repays the State; People cannot judge for themselves; The apostles supported idolatry; If rulers establish religion, subjects should conform; Without establishments there would be no uniformity; Several minor arguments for this union; Government bound to care chiefly for men's souls; Though rulers may not preach, should provide preachers; The term church, properly, means a national church; Primitive miracles rendered hierarchies needless; Without this Union, no authorized Scriptures; Nor should we be properly a Christian nation; The Church good, but liable to great abuse; Differs but little from evangelical Dissent; Ezekiel's vision in favour of a national church; God has blessed the labours of state-clergymen. "BOOK FIFTH.-ARGUMENTS AGAINST THIS UNION. "What magistrates authorized to incorporate Christianity? Whence is such a supposed right derived? What form of government may rulers establish? Have civil rulers a religious or political object? To establish their own or the people's creed? Difficulty felt by churchmen on these points ? "CHAP. FIRST.-This Union is Anti-scriptural. "If essential, scripture is a defective rule; Our opponents admit the adequacy of Scripture; Contend that establishments are absolutely essential; Yet concede that establishments are not scriptural; Neutralizes many divine injunctions; Trying, supporting, pastors-Purity of communion, &c.; The argument that scriptures afford no rules, &c. examined; The importance of church-order to the cause of truth; Arguments of churchmen would defend idolatry; This admitted by eminent clergymen; The reasonings of others vague and frivolous; Renders church-discipline impracticable; Strange ideas on Christian discipline; Discipline essential to the peace, &c. of a church; They exalt man to a divine office; Magistrates not qualified for this work; Many heads of churches have been wicked men; They identify civil and religious offences; To punish men for religious delinquency, improper; Toleration no principle of a state-hierarchy; Toleration supposes a right not to suffer Dissent; Toleration of Dissent not allowed under the law; And, if establishments are divine, should not now; Render things indifferent essential to Conformity; Are placed on an equality with sublimest doctrines; Things required which God has not commanded; To require more than Christ has done, is impious; This is the cause and justification of dissent; Sin of schism chargeable alone on the Church; Are subject to the vicissitudes of states; Political governments are frequently changing; The church of England cannot be a stable institution; Civil dominion suffers by sustaining only a sect; State-churches not suited to all political societies; Prevent all improvements in their orders, &c.; Episcopalians no just confidence in their cause. "CHAP. SECOND.-This Union is impolitic. "State-churches defended on the ground of civil utility; They coerce the consciences of kings; they throw a vast responsibility upon them; To assume this prerogative arrogant and sinful; They destroy the right of private judg ment; Private judgment condemned by the church; This illustrated in the conduct of the state-system; The clergy have more liberty than their cures; Operate perniciously on the best of men; Produce sycophancy and intolerance this accounted for; Induces indolence and engenders conceit; Undue regard for externals-infidelity-commotions; Produce great hypocrisy among us; Great temptations in the way of clergymen, illustrated; Also to the laity, great secular advantages; National churches present a deceitful aspect; Faithful men and loyal citizens regarded as identical; The spiritual energies of Conformists paralyzed; Have occasioned most persecutions; The sword, lent to the Church, destructive; The Church intolerant-unchanged in principles; Dissenting disabilities founded on religious grounds; A church, needing force, not apostolical; An intolerable expense to the nation; Number of all, not Dissentersexpenses requisite; Parliamentary returns, evidently defective; value of all the Church property, &c.; Episcopalian teachers paid, and millions saved; Clerical frauds in first-fruits and tenths; Have proved a signal failure; In preserving unanimity and uniformity; The number of practical Conformists; The number of Nonconformists, though opposed; In securing a pious ministryharmony-salvation; Establishments have failed universally. "BOOK SIXTH.-DUTIES AND PROSPECTS OF CHURCH REFORMERS. "Several preparatory observations; Principles of Dissenters guarantee moderation; Church and Dissent constitutionally different. "CHAP. FIRST.-Duties of Church Reformers. "Must look above for divine guidance; Must enlighten the public mind; Must not be intimidated by the great; Must be willing to sacrifice, if required; Must never countenance this Union; Wealthy congregations must rouse themselves; All denominations must co-operate; Must duly employ their political influence. "CHAP. SECOND.-Prospects of Church Reformers. "Church Reformers pledged to their cause; Increasing intelligence of the times; Great pressure on public resources; Prevailing desire for church-reform; Independence of Church Reformers; Veneration for establishments diminished; High-churchmen evidently alarmed; Several preparatory measures carried; Other favourable circumstances; A deep interest taken in ecclesiastical affairs; Encouraging examples of voluntary churches; Men are being guided by reason, instead of precept; People are prepared for great reforms; Much thoughtless, forced, and feeble conformity; The increase of pious clergy and church-people; Most important concessions already made; We believe all establishments are doomed to fall. We have to apologize to our readers for the insertion of this lengthened analysis, but we felt that it is impossible in any other way to give them an idea of the multifarious contents of this volume. A single extract must suffice as a specimen of the fair and full manner in which Mr. Thorn examines the objections of opponents. "The doctrine of the unlawfulness of establishments,' says Dr. Dealtry,' is a discovery of very recent origin-this throws at least a considerable suspicion upon it. That a fact of such importance as that of the scriptural unlawfulness of the system, should have escaped the theologians of former ages, till the light of the French Revolution exhibited it to our view, must needs be a startling proposition, and requires cogent proof.' "This argument proceeds on the assumption that the more ancient any human system is, the less suspicion can be thrown upon it. Now it is plain, that, as a scheme of church-order, Popery is, at least, a thousand years older than the Church of England; which, as united with the state, in the manner previously described, is no older than the Reformation: and, therefore, this reasoning would have been ten times more valid in the mouth of Bishop Bonner than it is in Dr. Dealtry's. The individual opponents of Popery, previous to that era, were as few as those who have condemned the Alliance of Church and State in this nation, subsequent to that period. "Archbishop Tillotson justly remarks that, 'As to the point of antiquity—this is not always a certain mark of the true religion. For surely there was a time when Christianity begun, and was a new profession, and then both Judaism and Paganism had certainly the advantage in point of antiquity.' Are the recent discoveries in arts and science, and the consequent destruction of antiquated schemes, to be regarded with suspicion because they are novel? Is it wisdom to traduce a modern discovery, merely because it is modern? Is it not greater wisdom to reduce novel inventions to the test of truth and utility, and to enquire not so much respecting their age, as whether they comport with true wisdom and tend to general advantage? "It is, however, not true that the scriptural unlawfulness of national establishments is a doctrine of recent origin.- Mr. Cobbett informs us, that 'Cranmer's church was hardly born, before there were plenty of people to protest against it. ... The Dissenters, as we must now call those protestants who refuse to subscribe the creeds and articles of the church, objected to those creeds and to the church-worship-some for one thing, and some for another; but it is a curious fact, that they all agreed most cordially in one objection-namely, to the uniting of the spiritual supremacy of the church with the temporal supremacy of the state-they all insisted, and most perseveringly on this, which they called an unscriptural Alliance.' 6 "The Baptists, who have existed in this country more than two hundred years, have ever opposed the establishment of a state-church. The Quakers, who took their rise in England about the year 1640, have equally borne testimony against incorporated Christianity. Locke, the disciple of Dr. Owen, an Independent, was opposed to the Union of Church and State; and the Presbyterians have, for many long years, evinced a great degree of uneasiness at the authority of the civil power over their ecclesiastical proceedings, and have almost invariably condemned such an alliance as exists south of the Tweed. "That the Independents have from the first condemned this Union, no intelligent person will deny. Now, how long have they existed to protest against it? The rise of this sect in England is buried in oblivion. But in the year 1580, only 47 years after Henry VIII. broke off from the see of Rome, and assumed the prerogatives of his holiness in his southern dominions, The Rev. R. Brown left the hierarchy and united himself with the then existing body of Independents; and being a man of some note, of highly respectable parentage, and a near relative of Lord Treasurer Burleigh, the Congregationalists were, for a number of years, denominated Brownists-from this conjunction with Mr. Brown. In 1567, a number of Independents were imprisoned on account of their principles. The Rev. G. Gyffard, writing in 1590, says, there was a congregation of this denomination twenty years before. And in 1592, Sir Walter Raleigh stated in parliament that there were not less than 20,000 Brownists in the kingdom. "Hence this sect may be traced back to the tenth of Elizabeth, or within 34 years of the Reformation. How much earlier was their origin we believe there are no means of knowing. Though these denominations were of course small at first, they were large enough to show that the Chancellor has blundered egregiously in averring that, 'The doctrine of the unlawfulness of establishments is a discovery of very recent origin, and discovered only by the light of the French Revolution.' "If he will turn to Dr. Watts's Essay on Civil Power in Things Sacred,' published in 1739; to Locke's Letters on Toleration,' published in 1689; and to Milton's Treatise on Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes,' published in 1659; he will easily discover that his chronological ideas will bear a little rectification. Selden, who was born in 1584, says, 'Independency is, no question, agreeable to the primitive times, before the emperor became Christian for either we must say, every church governed itself, or else we must fall upon 5 K VOL. I. N. S. ; that old foolish rock, that St. Peter and his successors governed all; but when the civil state became Christian, they appointed who should govern them; before they governed by agreement and consent - if you will not do this, you shall come no more amongst us; but both the Independent man, and the Presbyterian man, do equally exclude the civil power, though after a different manner.' "Even Archdeacon Hoare partially corrects Dr. Dealtry:-The novel proposal for the actual and entire Separation of Church and State, was broached I believe by a doctrinist of no seemly aspect in the last century.. in a work whose first date is 1746;' that is, nearly fifty years before the French Revolution, or just 90 years ago! A curious notion of novelty indeed! And yet it shows that the Chancellor was out half a century! "Dr. Redford observes, that The Savoy Declaration, in 1658, distinctly asserts all the doctrines of the Independents, as fully as it durst then, by the unanimous consent of the ministers. Still earlier we find the same principles maintained by the eminent Ainsworth, and a host of his contemporaries; and if our friends are very curious in this inquiry, we could show them all our principles in several of the early Dutch reformers, and in not a few of the most celebrated of the English, and even in Wycliffe's own works. But we are not careful to answer our friends in this matter. It is comparatively a trivial question, who has advocated the independency of the church, or at what period the discovery was made. It is enough for us that the apostles and first Christians were Independents, and founded only voluntary churches, and that Christ has said, My kingdom is not of this world.' "An Anonymous writer justly inquires- Why should our opponents attribute the origin of this doctrine to the influence of the French revolution, the parent, as they deem it, of whatever is atheistic, anarchial, and of bad report? They might, with more fairness, and a somewhat nearer approximation to the truth, have connected it with the American revolution; an event which presents to the world a grand practical exemplification of this obnoxious theory. By the constitution of the American republic, protection was secured to all forms of religion; monopoly of civil rights and privileges was permitted to none. Washington, the first president, was an Episcopalian-Adams, the second, was an Independent. In this arrangement they consulted alike the true interests of church and state, as is happily proved by the rapid and unexampled advance of the United States in political and religious prosperity.' “Dr. Dealtry surely will not estimate the opinions entertained by Dissenters in former times, respecting coercive establishments of Christianity, by the efforts made to abrogate the laws on which they are founded. The evil did not 'escape the theologians of former ages'-it was discovered and deplored two centuries before the French revolution. But until within these few years past, Church-reformers considered it useless and impolitic to agitate extensively a question of this magnitude and difficulty, when they had scarcely a remote prospect of settling it to their satisfaction. Like the Hebrews in Egypt, a premature essay toward freedom, would have but increased their burdens; but when, like the Hebrews, they are grown to giant-power amidst oppression, they may, under the guidance of Heaven, attempt their entire emancipation with confidence in their success. "The past inactivity of Dissenters on this particular subject is analogous to the long-sufferings of nations under despotic governments; they long for liberty, hope for its enjoyment, gradually prepare a way for it, and, when a fair prospect of success opens before them, they burst their chains-and become free! Our fathers have, for ages, been teaching us the nature of the Redeemer's kingdom. We have imbibed their principles, and, standing on vantage ground, shall attempt to effect what, to them, had been a hopeless struggle. Some even among ourselves, and whose sentiments, on parliamentary churches, precisely accord with our own, think that even we have begun our demonstrations too soon, and that the public mind is not yet sufficiently enlightened to entertain |