ON CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. ordain nothing in matters of conscience, it is perfectly nugatory, and has done nothing. Its principle is therefore directly subversive of that of every church establishment. A compulsory provision for its maintenance is the character of the mildest as of the most intolerant hierarchy. Every such institution, whether papal or protestant, is founded in injustice, and inevitably violates the religious liberty of the subject. "The language and spirit of the mildest establishment, even of the English establishment as administered at this day, to all dissidents, is, 'We invite you to unite in the creed and forms which to us seem best: if you differ from us, you are at liberty to choose your own institutions; but remember, though we will not contribute a farthing to the maintenance of your worship, we shall tax you for the support of ours; and if you refuse, remind you, in a way not very grateful to the flesh, that you cannot with impunity demur to the payment of tithes, church rates, and Easter offering.' It is not, however, a whit more equitable, though it may be less cruel and absurd, to compel dissentients to contribute to the revenues, than to coerce their conformity to the doctrines or discipline of the hierarchy. Civil government, as we have observed, is a compulsory authority ordained for quite another purpose, and when it presumes to employ its coercive powers in religious matters, it transgresses its legitimate bounds, and becomes oppressive and unjust. It is then just the same in principle, whether the state merely enforce a provision for the church, or insist upon an acquiescence in its creed and forms; the latter is only a greater stretch of usurped authority. The civil power has just as much right to compel one as the other. If it has no right to coerce my religious profession, it has none to tax me for the support of its own; both assumptions, in point of equity, must stand or fall together; once admit the right of private judgment, and the right to choose, and give effect to that choice by exclusively voluntary means, follows as a matter of course. Christianity allows of no means but persuasion and argument for the spread of its tenets, and consequently nothing but freewill offerings to maintain its institutions; and I am persuaded, that nothing has created a greater repugnance to the gospel than the attempt to support its claims by coercive means, and that it never can assert its primitive power, till all such factitious and unnatural aids be withdrawn and done away. Eclectic Review, May, 1830. Article," Scott's continuation of Milner's Church History." 115 As the intervention of the civil power in matters of conscience gave birth to the man of sin, so in my view must the abolition of all church establishments precede his entire downfall. "National churches," says Mr. Gilbert Wakefield," are that hay and stubble, which might be removed without difficulty or confusion from the fabric of religion by the gentle hand of reformation, but which the infatuation of ecclesiastics will leave to be destroyed by fire. National churches are that incrustation which has enveloped by gradual concretion the diamond of Christianity; nor can, I fear, the genuine lustre be restored, but by such violent efforts as the separation of substances so long and closely connected must inevitably require." Such an unwarrantable compound of politics and religious forms fully merits the castigation thus inflicted upon it by one of our poets: "Inventions added in a fatal hour, Call it the church, and darkness put for light, Falsehood with truth confound, and wrong with right? No 1 dispute the evil's haughty claim, The immortal Locke, in his imperishable work "Of the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes," is more than a match for all the advocates of religious establishments; but the title of his book, which very imperfectly describes its contents, is perhaps one reason why it has not been so generally read and understood as could have been desired. That it should not have been a favourite with the clergy, and that they should think the less that is said about it the better, is explained, when we find that it proves unanswerably, that the civil magistrate can either ordain every thing in religion, or he can ordain nothing, and that the scope of its argument throughout is decidedly against ecclesiastical establishments of every kind. The secular power, as the whole of his reasoning goes to shew, has no concern with the soul, beyond equally protecting the religious rights of every class of its subjects. Its maxim should be "Tros, Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur." To talk of toleration implies that one set of men have a right of dominion over the faith of another, than which nothing can be a more preposterous and daring usurpation of the inalienable attributes of humanity. It were just as rational, as has been well remarked, to talk of tolerating a man's head upon his shoulders. The assumption of such a power is the very essence of popery, and involves a claim to infallibility; for if every man must give an account, and by consequence has a natural right to judge for himself in matters of conscience, the license or prohibition of erring mortals must be altogether out of the question. How singular is it that the world should have continued down to the seventeenth century almost totally insensible to the claims of religious liberty, and that even now a large portion of protestant Christendom is hardly awakened to a full recognition of the rights of private judgment. Leonard Busher appears to have been the first in this country who publicly advocated entire religious liberty. In the reign of James I. he presented to the king and parliament his "Religious Peace," in which he pleads the right of every person to be protected in his religious sentiments, and to write, dispute, confer, print, and publish any matter touching religion, either for or against whomsoever, and that all members of the state were in this respect perfectly equal as brethren and fellow-disciples. Then followed Roger Williams, Owen, Milton, and, lastly, Locke, though the two latter admit of some restraint in the case of infidels, which is hardly to be reconciled with the general principle they have so unanswerably contended for. The above writers then have placed the subject on an irrefragable basis, and developed principles as imperishable as liberty itself, which shew that all coercive interference in religion, whether in the shape of pains and penalties, or of church establishments, is a most unwarrantable infringement of religious liberty, and the right of private judgment. For as the religion of every prince is orthodox to himself, no power can be entrusted to the magistrate for the suppression of error, or maintenance of truth, which may not in time and place be perverted to the very opposite. If we claim for a Christian government the right to establish a national church, we must concede an equal right to rulers of a different persuasion, whether Jewish, Mohammedan, or Pagan; since there is no medium between this, and denying such a right altogether. The truth or falsehood of the particular religious system cannot in the least affect the question, because every government believes its own to be true, or, at any rate, professes to do so. Will then the advocates of the hierarchy, the Hookers, Paleys, Jewells, and Wilkes, of the day, contend for the principle in full, in behalf of every kind and mode of faith, or abandon it altogether? Will they assert, that if any other sect of this country were elevated to the supremacy, it would be equitable to compel them to contribute to its maintenance? Or that if they should become resident in foreign countries, they may justly be obliged to support the particular superstition which may chance to be predominant? Common sense, to say nothing of moral principle, revolts at the idea. Yet upon the horns of such a dilemma are the abettors of an establishment thrown. "Utrum horum malunt, accipiant." What then is all the special pleading of such advocates, compared with the unanswerable arguments in behalf of religious liberty, and the fact, which stands unique in the annals of the world, of the government of the United States of America, which knows no religious party, but extends equal protection to all; where religion pervades all classes of the community much more than in this country, and infidelity never assumes the daring front which is witnessed here, though they have no statute against blasphemy, and Christianity is not, in any but the right sense, part and parcel of the law of the land? Such a state of things affords a most edifying example to the whole civilized world; and whatever may be alleged by the lovers of antiquity and expediency, we would say, "Go to the schoolmaster, and learn." Christianity part and parcel of the law of the land! The phrase is now a mere farce; for the fact stated has never yet taken place in this or any other part of Christendom, where religious establishments exist; and never will, until the grand principle of Christian justice of "doing to others as we would be done to," pervade our whole legislation, and be fully recognized in political as well as private affairs-until every religious test, as a civil qualification, be abolished, and the combination of civil and ecclesiastical power be done away-until the criminal code be purged of its sanguinary character, and law be reduced to equity, and founded on the basis of the Christian morality. When Christianity shall thus be exhibited in her real character, as being, both in public and private matters, the parent of every virtue; when she shall no longer be smitten and wounded in the house of her pretended friends, and establishments cease to rob her of her angelic aspect, she will prove omnipotent to subdue the world-the golden age will be again witnessed on earth, and the ON CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. moral scene be renovated. Let every good man pray for this desired consummation, and endeavour by all proper means to promote a separation of gospel institutions from secular alliance; and a grand obstacle will be taken out of the way. How clearly the holy apostle foresaw the evils impending over the church and the world, as the consequence of such an alliance, we learn from the second chapter of his second Epistle to the Thessalonians-" And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming," &c. Church establishments are also a bar to all liberal and enlightened legislation for the public good: they identify the state with the interests of a party, instead of those of the community at large; and produce an insolent overbearing in the favoured sect, and a sense of degradation in the merely tolerated. And hence it seems to be a judicial infliction of Providence, that where men debase and corrupt the church by an unholy alliance with the state, the church shall in its turn injure the state; both shall be perverted from their proper objects, and be mutually the bane and curse of each other. For as the permanence of the union depends upon both remaining in their present state, it is obvious that a religious establishment tends to perpetuate its own evils, and to preclude any ecclesiastical or political reforms, however necessary they may be to the public welfare.* And we may well believe that much of the papal opposition to the reformation in the sixteenth century, arose from perceiving that if it were carried to its necessary consequences, it would be subversive of national establishments altogether, and lead to such political changes as must ensure the complete and final establishment of popular liberty. Whenever any reform is proposed, whether in reference to the state, or her spiritual ally, the cry is immediately raised "the church is in danger;" but the public are not to be duped by such an artifice into the belief that any thing can be really in jeopardy but the ecclesiastical revenues; and if they are founded in injustice, (as I think we have most clearly proved,) the sooner they are hazarded, and put an end to, the better. Why should such a fear be pleaded against salutary reform, whether in church or state? Why should the disease be urged against the application of the remedy, or one piece of iniquity made an apology for another? Had it not been for an ecclesiastical establishment, we should have known nothing of the test and corporation acts, or the Ca 117 tholic disabilities, which, under a pretence of guarding us against intolerance, actually produced it, and were really calculated to serve no other end than to secure a monopoly of power and emolument to the adherents of the hierarchy. This the acts of repeal fully prove, since they do not profess to guarantee any thing but the temporalities of the church establishment. And what must have been the character of those political barriers against popery, which were confessedly a substitute for moral and spiritual ones, might be readily imagined, if experience had not abundantly decided the fact. The exclusion of the Catholics, so far from being a bulwark of truth and civil and religious liberty, was the fence of secularity and corruption in the Church of England, and we think the title of a pamphlet on the late controversy," Protestant Church Corruption, the only Bar to Catholic Emancipation," strikingly depicts the truth of the case, and the real origin of much of the clamour against concession. Church establishments then and religious liberty are altogether incompatible; if the one be right, the other are wrong, and vice versa.† "Indeed," says a competent writer, "all national religions, whether Pagan, Jewish, Turkish, or Christian, have ever hitherto been national tyrannies. The last began with Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and continues to this day, our own establishment not excepted." The shafts of infidelity are levelled very often, not so much at Christianity, as at the corruptions which hierarchies have thrown around her; and hence the latter are chargeable with provoking the offence they pretend to punish, and all the mischief arising from the spread of unbelief. How worthy of adoption by every civil power, in regard to religious matters, is the advice given by Gamaliel to the Jewish authorities-" And now, I say, refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this counsel or work be of men, it will come to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be even found to fight against God;" as also the conduct of the deputy Gallio-" And if this be a question of words, and of your law, look ye to it, for I will be no judge of such matters." And the conduct of the apostles further teaches us, that even a heathen prince, or magistrate, ruling over Christian subjects, provided he rule in equity, and with a due regard to the ends of civil government, is to be equally respected and obeyed with a Christian governor, for his office sake. See Dymond's Essays on the private and political rights of mankind. Ibid. Having thus shewn that the objects of civil government, and those of church discipline, are altogether distinct, and cannot be combined without loss and injury to both, what can be said of the conduct of those hybrid Dissenters, who, while they separate from the communion of the established church, pretend to love and venerate the principle of establishments; profess to cry out against their abuses, while they stickle for that union which is the fertile source of them all?-Such is the absurdity of quarrelling with effects, instead of attacking the originating and exciting cause! ARGUS. ESSAYS.-ON THE EVIDENCE FROM SCRIPTURE, THAT THE SOUL, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY, IS NOT IN A STATE OF SLEEP OR INSENSIBILITY, BUT OF HAPPINESS OR MISERY. NO. I. "Utrum sit melius vivere an mori, dii immortales sciunt hominem quidem scire arbitror ne. minem."-Cicero. Or the immortality of the soul, some nations have doubted, and others have been totally ignorant. Historians, of unimpeachable veracity, inform us that the aborigines of Soldania and some of the Caribbee islands had no notion of a supreme Being, nor of a future state,-* that "the Rejangs in Sumatra worship neither God, devil, nor idol, and have no name for the Deity in their language.†—that the nations of Caffraria," consider man as on a level with the brutes, with regard to the duration of his being, so that when he is dead, there is an end of his existence : - that several tribes have been discovered in America, who have no idea whatever of a supreme Being, and no rites of a religious worship. Inattentive to that magnificent spectacle of beauty and order presented to their view, unaccustomed to reflect upon what they themselves are, or to inquire who is the author of their existence, men, in a savage state, pass their days like the animals around them; without knowledge or veneration of any superior Power; nor have the most accurate observers been able to discover any practice or institution which seemed to imply that they recognized his authority, or were solicitous to obtain his favour.§ The legitimate inference from these historical extracts is, that the tribes to which they refer, could have no idea of the immortality of the soul. For if they acknowledged no supreme Being, they could have no Campbell. Thevenot. + Marsden, § Robertson. foundation to sustain their belief of that immortality. Among the nations of antiquity, Greece and Rome stood unrivalled for politeness and learning, yet we find their most renowned sages, as it regards the immortality of the soul, were in a state of complete vacillation. Even "the best sort of them, who were the most celebrated, and who discoursed with the greatest reason, yet expressed the most uncertainty and doubtfulness concerning things of the highest importance; the providence of God in governing the world, the immortality of the soul, and a future judgment."* Socrates, whose opinions and dogmata came nearest to inspiration; when about to die, expressed himself in a hesitating manner: Εμοὶ μεν ἀποθανεμενῳ ὑμιν δε βίωσομενοις ὑποτερο δε ήμων ἔρχονται ἐπι ἄμεινον πραγμα άδηλον παντι πλην ǹT Oεw." "I am now about to die, but ye shall survive me; and which of us shall have the better part, is known only to God." Again, “ Νῦν δε ευ ἴστε ότι παρ άνδρας τε ἐλπιζω ἀφιξεσθαι ἀγαθες, και τετομεν εκ αν πανυ διϊσχερὶσαὶμεν.”† "I would have you to know that I hope to join the company of good men; but of this I cannot speak confidently." Cicero, when speaking of a future state, says, " Ed quæ vis, ut petero, explicabo; nec tantum quasi Pythias Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa quæ dixero; sed ut homunculus unus e multis probabilia conjectura sequens. Ultra enim quo progrediar quam ut verisimilia videam non habeo." "What you wish, 1 will endeavour to explain; but you must not look on what I say as infallible. I only guess, like other ignorant creatures, at what seems most probable. Farther than this, I do not pretend to go." Again, when writing upon the same subject, and adverting to the question,-Is the soul mortal or immortal? He himself replies, "Harum sententiarum quæ vera sit, Deus aliquis viderit; quæ verisimilima magna quæstio est."I "Which of these two opinions is true, God only knows; which of them is the most probable, is a very important question." Such were the obscure views of the greatest luminaries of Greece and Rome. And much more obscure were those of the second, third, and fourth magnitude.—Life and immortality are brought to light only by the bright shining of the Sun of righteousness upon the pages of Divine revelation. T. R. Huggate, Jan. 21, 1831. 66 PRIDE EXPOSED. PRIDE EXPOSED. "Love's strong as death, and like it levels all; With that possessed, the great in title fall, Themselves esteem but equal to the least, Whom heav'n with that high character has blest." Waller's Divine Love, Canto v. AND who are they? Upstarts, I warrant. My name shall not be coupled with such mushroom," said Mrs. Crofton. "Indeed, aunt," replied her niece, "I think you carry your ideas of birth and family too far. Surely virtue and talent ought to be allowed to counterbalance them, as much as the beauty of nature does the adventitious ornaments of art." "Ellen, child, I can make nothing of you. You reason just like your mother: virtue-virtue-everlasting virtue. Why, it's all well enough, but the purity of one's blood is better." Ellen was preparing to make her morning visits to the poor patients of her little village, and therefore the unprofitable conversation was broken. She left the room, and pensively passing through the small garden in front of the house, felt thankful that she did not think as her aunt. Mrs. Crofton was a widowed lady, who had lately taken up her residence at the beautiful village of Clapperton. Her manners were peculiarly disagreeable, both to her inferiors and superiors. To the one she was overbearing in her notions of birth and gentility; to the other, contemptible by her parade of unfashionable formality, and the display of her whole knowledge of family histories, pedigree, &c. By her horror and detestation of the vulgar, she had raised, as she imagined, ideas of her own family which should be a passport to the fashionable world. By the same intriguing spirit, she conceived she had formed an attachment between her niece and Mr. Goodwin, a gentleman in the neighbourhood; but Mr. Goodwin was moved by very different sentiments in professing his regard to Ellen. Mrs. Crofton was an important personage in the village, or at least fancied herself as such. Not a charitable meeting was to be held, not a lecture given, not a ball or even a party, but she expected a homage that was often withheld. "Was the meeting a general one? Did the lecturer desire her patronage?" were necessary questions before the strings of her purse were unloosed. But as for associating with company that was not purely aristocratic, she would as soon herd with the Esquimaux. Who this lady could be, and from whence she came, had been long conjectured: but here she was mysterious as the oracle of Delphos. Her communicable propensities only re 119 spected others; she was silent with regard to herself. Very different was her amiable niece; indeed, so different, that it did not seem possible for a relationship to exist between them. Ellen was evidently in her manners superior to the affected politeness of Mrs. Crofton. Hers was the pure benevolence of the heart, which, as Makenzie observes, "is confined to no rank, and dependent upon no education. The desire of obliging, which a man possessed of this quality will universally shew, seldom fails of pleasing, though his style may differ from that of modern refinement." Her education had been carefully attended to, and with a natural perception of the elegant and graceful, she united a well-informed mind and correct taste. The consequence of this distinction between Mrs. Crofton and her niece was evident very soon after their settlement at Clapperton, in the reception the two ladies met with. Mrs. Crofton was disliked for her uncharitable propensity for scandal; almost every action was imputed to a bad motive. Ellen was esteemed for her kindness and sympathy to all; she possessed a pity for the unfortunate, however she condemned their errors. The one by her stiffness of manners, and her constantly dwelling on birth and family, rendered herself suspected by some, and disagreeable to all; while the other, from her sweetness of disposition and gracefulness of manners, became universally beloved. We said that Ellen had left her aunt, to soothe the miseries of the unfortunate class of beings who are more immediately dependent on the bounties of Providence, while Mrs. Crofton pursued her uncharitable and unreasonable reflections. She took up some papers left on the table, which were plans of a society for benevolent purposes. Again she repeated the names of the subscribers, subjoining her observations to each. "Mrs. Hodgkin-the very name is vulgar. The Misses Lemington-birth and family suspicious. Miss Holcroft-her father kept a grocer's shop. Mr. Wardlaw-an attorney's clerk, &c. &c. And these are to be the members of a charitable society, truly!" Her soliloquizing remarks were interrupted by the entrance of the clergyman, who had called to know whether she would become a subscriber. "Why, really, Mr. Wetherell, I don't know what to make of this society of yours." "Its intentions are purely benevolent, madam." be; but upon my word I don't think you have been very select in your subscribers." "We have conceived that in charitable institutions there should be no distinction of "That may |