ample in good government." Will the reverend bench maintain, that unerring Wisdom could have sanctioned the existence of a power which man's reason discerns to be objectionable?

From the deviation which gave the Church an irresponsible Clergy, all the evils we complain of have flowed. I have set forth these evils only in a few unselect cases, falling casually under notice, within the compass of three or four parishes. My own parish was quite enough. Within that limited space all the horrors of non-residence have been exhibited. . . . . .

66

'I shall be called an innovator, which of all charges is the least founded. To do me justice, I am in the strictest sense a conservative, heartily opposed to all the Apostle condemns in his rebuke of such as are given to change." The Church, as founded by Christ, is the solitary institution that does not admit of innovation, unless the creature may mend the works of the Creator. The constitution of nature itself, and of Christ's Church, are from the same hand; and we might as reasonably hope to reap fruit, while the husbandman in his operations reverses the order of the seasons, as look for the fruits of Christianity while we disturb the arrangement of its Author. I am, in fact, dragging back the innovator-and that innovator no other than the Church herself to the long-deserted path; leading back the sheep to their proper pasturage. Christ alone is the author of the Gospel Church state, (not State-Church,) its only Law-giver. (James iv. 12; Isa. xxxii. 22.) He buildeth his own house (1 Cor. xii. 5; Rom. xii. 6, 8); he gave directions for its administration (Eph. iv. 11, 13; xi. 12.); and he conferred all authority upon those who were to minister and rule in his Church. The Apostles themselves did not venture to innovate on the Church as founded by our Saviour. (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; 2 Cor. i. 24; iv. 5.)

The grand reform desiderated, it cannot be too often repeated or too strongly enforced, is a responsible Clergy, to which ought to be added a School establishment for the peasantry, with responsible teachers; teachers, I mean, as responsible to the Clergy as the Clergy to their parishioners. The reception of my proposal of a parish library by the Bishop, is decisive, that private individuals, however well disposed, can do very little good. By making the care of the schools part of the responsibility of the Clergy, there will be the same security for an active schoolmaster as an active pastor. These institutions must work together, or the advantages of both are lost. Without a responsible Clergy, all our reformations are valueless. Though my Lord Grey lopped off supernumerary dignities by the dozen, swept off every fragment of ecclesiastical exaction, and yet failed to secure a responsible Clergy; yea, though the Bishops visited the parishes once in three years, and the Vicar resided on his vicarage; if the Clergy are not responsible, the Church is but a name. These people are now convinced that they must be taught their religion, if they are to be saved by their religion; which cannot be hoped where the pastor is not responsible. Dr. Chalmers may trust me, there is not one reflecting man in England, who is in the least carried away by his eloquence to believe, that, without having learned his religion, he can be saved by the learning of his priest. They will no longer believe their salvation

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enclosed in a Sunday's homily, as a free passport to heaven. No longer will they view the Vicar as their faith and justification, the performer of their good works, and the eschewer of their bad. They begin to believe that they cannot know by other men's understandings, any more than see with other men's eyes. So much truth as we comprehend, just so much we have, and not one tittle beyond. To believe the people content to have their spiritual necessities satisfied thus vicariously, we might as well believe them happy in the absence of their personal ale, provided his reverence's tankard be full, and feeding contentedly in the idea that he enjoys his daily joint, though they have had the last potatoe ravished by the proctor.

The proposed alterations respecting the temporalities of the Church, which engross the legislature, are all most praiseworthy. But there are other things as important. The gospel was not given for endowing Churches. Peace and goodwill towards men were not sent as a pretext for taxation, as a means of giving meat and drink to the laziest portion of society at the expense of the rest. Whatever the StateChurch Clergy may think, there are spiritual things pertaining to the gospel as well as temporal, duties to be performed as well as wages to be received, or we have no right to wonder at the march of crime and scepticism of which they complain.'

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If we have a State-Church, the people must have something more substantial to depend upon, to avail rational beings of rational views of their immortal hopes. It is among the first of the duties of a christian state to put them in the way of this information; and, in a humane point of view, the very first of the acts of charity and true philanthropy. A little while, and we, too, shall stand in need of its consolations, when the approaching term of life will shut out from us the slippery vanities of these scenes, with all the delusive emptiness of mere intellectual attainment. Our dependence must then be placed, not upon human acquirement, but on the sincerity with which we have striven to benefit our kind. Yours, my Lord, is a responsible stewardship, whether I regard your position, or the talents with which you have been entrusted. Let not then the last days of your useful labours pass away without redeeming the promise of your life, by obtaining for the people the full blessings of our religion. Reform in the Church is called for-radical, substantial reform-not only in a fiscal, but a religious view. It is called for by every reflecting person in the empire, who has not some interest to serve by his connivance, or his opposition. Forbid it that the Canter should say, as the Canter has said, that the fruit of your patriotic exertions and great abilities has been confined to the paltry concerns of this life. It is expected at this crisis, that you should shew you deem Christianity as something more than a piece of State policy; though even in a legislative sense, where is there such a code of morals for securing every blessing, social, political, and domestic?' pp. 35-73.

The enemies of Christianity are accustomed to depreciate the evidence of the early Christian writers, even such as were converted to the faith from paganism, as though their testimony was ex parte and suspicious. Thus, the evidence of the heathen Taci

tus or the Jew Josephus, is deemed of more weight than that of Luke, or Clement, or Justin Martyr. This is as illogical as it is unjust. A similar prejudice manifests itself when an Episcopalian of the Establishment attaches himself to some Nonconformist communion: he becomes henceforth only a Dissenting witness! We do not know any other way in which the force of Sir Arthur Faulkner's testimony can be invalidated, than by called him—a Dissenter. But he says that he is not one; that he is still a member of the Established Church, and determined, if he can, to remain such. There are, we believe, thousands of Churchmen of his way of thinking, whom the Church of England would be unwilling to disown.

Mr. Ward is not only no Dissenter, nor, so far as we can find, connected with Dissenters, but he was bred up in Toryism, and has always ranked among cautious reformers, or something between a conservative and a liberal. His speech, however, goes to the root of the great mischief; in that sense only, it is radical. He speaks out nobly; and to his conclusions, we venture to say, after all the special pleadings, and shilly-shallying of ministers and ex-ministers, and commissions of inquiry, and petitioning, and threatened or actual collisions, the Parliament of these kingdoms must at last bring itself. Whether it will stop there, is doubtful. The colossal injustice of the Irish Church' not only cannot be permanently upheld in all its magnitude, but the claims of the Romish Church to a legal provision, on the principle upon which alone State Establishments can be defended, are so strong, that we do not see how they can be ultimately evaded, but by placing the Episcopalian Protestants on the same footing with those of other denominations, and leaving each form of Christianity to the free working of the voluntary principle.

Mr. Ward hints at the adoption of a plan similar to the ecclesiastical system of France, by which, in the budget of every year, provision is made for the clergymen of every congregation of Christians, without distinction of religious opinions, who notify their existence to the minister of the interior. We are not sure that Burke and many other politicians of his school, would not favour a compromise of this kind. The system is described as working well, by preventing rivalry between the different sects, and ensuring a full measure of religious instruction to the people. The Government of this country may be considered as having acted, to a certain extent, upon this principle, by the annual grants of the Regium donum to the Arianized Presbyterians of Ireland, and by the sums voted to the Popish college of Maynooth. Much might be plausibly urged in favour of the system, as at least more equitable than the exclusive system, granting a state provision of any kind to be expedient or defensible. But this we do not grant; and it is, perhaps, one of the most decisive

objections that can be urged against ecclesiastical establishments, that, in order to be politically just, they must be theologically vicious, by indifferently countenancing all religious opinions ;that they must be either latitudinarian or intolerant.

Mr. Ward justly maintains, that Governments are not entrusted, either by original or by delegated right, with determining the truth of religious opinions. The same principle that led the Government of the Stuarts to concede to the Scotch a Presbyterian establishment, though not till after fifty years of oppression and suffering, because Presbyterianism was the religion of the majority of the people,-would, he contends, require, that, in the future distribution of church property in Ireland, a similar regard should be shewn to the religion of the vast majority of the Irish.

'If I am told,' he proceeds to say, that this religion is not the true religion, and that we ought not to sacrifice to political expediency the sacred interests of Truth,—I again deny the fact. I say that with Truth, as Legislators, we have nothing to do! We have to look to Civil Unity alone, as the basis of the connexion between the Church and the State; and if we once wander from this strong ground, there is no predicting the consequences, which must ensue? Who is to be the Judge of Truth, except One, to whom, in this world, there can be no appeal! Where is the source of Truth, except in that Sacred Volume, from which, in all times,--aye, even down to the present day, the most opposite conclusions have been drawn, upon points of doctrine, at least, by the wisest, the most virtuous, and the most conscientious, of mankind! Look at the consequences, again, of adopting this principle! If we maintain the Established Religion to be the only true Religion, the State must follow up this doctrine! It must enact Test Laws for its protection. It must put down all who reject it! Sir, it was in the name of Truth that the Spanish Inquisition was established; and Louis XIV. was never more intimately convinced of the Truth of his Religion, than when he desolated the fairest Provinces of France in its name, by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes! These were the effects of maintaining the Established Religion to be the true Religion in Catholic countries. But let us not forget, Protestants as we are, that it was in the name of Truth that Ireland was cursed with the Penal Laws! Sir, I have no wish to dwell upon this hateful topic; but when I see-and I do not use the term irreverently -how in this case at least, the sins of the fathers have been visited upon the children, unto the third, and fourth, generation-when I see what a plentiful crop of strife, of disorganization, and of blood, has been borne by the seed sown in 1704, when the attempt was made to degrade, and brutalize, the whole Catholic population, by a series of legislative enactments-I feel that there cannot be a man in the assembly, which I am now addressing, who would ever again consent to sully the pages of our Statute Book by unjust, and partial, laws, enacted in the name of Truth.

If I am told that the people of England are not prepared for the

adoption of such principles as these, and that, at all events, it is useless to moot them here, because they will never receive the sanction of another branch of the Legislature,—I, once more, deny the fact!

‹ The people of England are prepared for the adoption of the principles of Justice, and of religious toleration, to the fullest extent of the terms; and, as to the other branch of the Legislature, we have nothing to do with it. We ought neither to court, nor to fear, its opposition! Let this House but discharge its own duties honestly;let it place itself in the van of public opinion, instead of lagging, tardily, behind ;—let it, above all, redeem that Pledge, which it has so recently, and so solemnly given,-" to remove all just causes of complaint in Ireland, and to promote all well-considered measures of improvement," and I will venture to predict that its influence will be irresistible!' Ward, pp. 30, 31.

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In much of this, we need not say that we cordially concur. 'If 'it be a right of kings and rulers to prescribe the creed and manner of worship, with its appendages, to their subjects, and to 'enforce their concurrence, it must be equally the right of all 'kings, for they all think, or profess to think, their own religion to be the true religion. Such is the admission of Mr. Scott, the Commentator, who felt the difficulty, we say the impossibility of evading the inference. Dean Milner, however, says: 'Nothing can justify the magistrate in establishing a false religion.' If so, nothing can justify him in establishing a true one. Dean Balguy, on the other hand, in defending religious Establishments, fairly says: I mean to defend not Popery only, but Paganism itself. I mean to defend every established religion ' under heaven.' Here, again, we have a radical and irreconcileable contrariety of principle between the advocates of Establishments, -as total an opposition as can exist between those who maintain and those who deny the lawfulness of a legislative connexion between the Church and the State. But surely, few Churchmen would go so far as to deny that the King of Naples has a right to establish Popery in his dominions, or the Ottoman Emperor to establish in Turkey the Mohammedan Church; or that the King of Great Britain was not justified in establishing the Roman Catholic religion in Canada. Then why not in Ireland? Do truth and falsehood vary with the longitude and latitude? All the ingenuity in the world cannot furnish a satisfactory answer to this fair question. An Establishment, to be either just or politically useful, must rest, as Mr. Ward contends, upon the broad basis of population; and he calls upon Dissenters to sanction this principle. Dissenters cannot sanction it, because they deny at once the lawfulness of establishing a false religion, and the civil utility, as well as religious expediency, of establishing the true religion. Because they would deem it criminal to establish Popery in Ireland, although the religion of the nation,