gation of doctrines which they do not believe. According to this plan, just so much of the interposition of the civil power remains as to intercept the perfect enjoyment of religious liberty, and to check the free course of religious zeal, by rendering that a compulsory, which ought to be a voluntary, contribution. The state is little more than receiver-general for the public; and, for this trifling benefit, religion forfeits her free and independent character, and incurs the degrading imputation of being a mere instrument in the hands of government for the accomplishment of political purposes, and the maintenance of social order. The influence placed by this scheme at the disposal of the government, is nevertheless so neutralized by the number and variety of the parties amongst whom it is dispensed, as scarcely to be worth the trouble and expense of preserving it; and when a government has become sufficiently liberal and enlightened to adopt a religious establishment on this broad and comprehensive basis, it will be prepared to go a step further, and to release religion from all connexion with the state, in the recognition of its perfect ability to perpetuate itself. That the New-England States of North America have followed this course, and have, at length, set religion quite free, may be regarded as a confirmation of the justice of this remark.

In examining, therefore, the spirit and tendency of religious establishments, we must consider the effects which necessarily arise from the state's selecting some form or forms of Christianity, as the subjects of its patronage, in preference to others; for such is the only kind of establishment which we have hitherto seen continue to exist, and the only one which, we have good reason to believe, the state would find it worth while to uphold. It is impossible to establish a general Christianity; general Christianity is a mere fiction of the human mind-a metaphysical abstraction, which it may be convenient to use occasionally in reasoning, but which has, and can have, no real existence. Christianity, by which is to be understood all the mingled influences, convictions, and views, communicated to the mind by the doctrines of Jesus, will exist in a form somewhat different in the bosom of every individual professor, and under that form alone must be habitually contemplated and embraced, to produce all the beneficial effects of sincere belief. Every inducement, however remote, to draw away the minds of men from that one single form of Christianity, to which their own individual feelings and convictions naturally lead, and to fix them on some prescribed and foreign standard of faith, must impair the fervour and sincerity of belief, and prevent those beneficial practical consequences which ought to flow from it. Now, although the state should require subscription only to the simplest and most essential articles of Christianity, and should comprehend various modes of discipline in the national establishment; yet the state would naturally look most favourably on those opinions, and on that discipline, in which it found the readiest sympathy, and the most effectual support of its own political views; so that, notwithstanding the prospect held out of equal favour extended to a variety of religious parties, the circumstance of all honours and emoluments emanating from the state would inevitably produce a favoured party even in the bosom of the establishment itself. The present condition of the Church of England confirms this opinion; of the two parties, into which it is divided, the evangelical enjoys a comparatively small share of the patronage of the state.

Varieties of religious opinion, and various modes of worship and discipline, are, in the highest degree, beneficial to the community; for the controver sies which such varieties occasion, not only keep alive the spirit of truth and

liberty, but ultimately conduce to peace and charity. Justice, however, requires that in this Christian rivalry all parties should stand on an equal footing, and that no one, through the partial favour of the state, should be placed on a vantage ground above the rest. The preference shewn to one sect converts it into a privileged and dominant order, and creates those invidious distinctions among Christian professors, which engender sectarianism, and mingle a feeling of distrust and jealousy with the intercourses of social life. The wealth and splendour of the national church, its monopoly of the seats of learning, and the grace bestowed upon it by all that is polished and elegant in literature, mark it out as a religion peculiarly befitting the higher classes, and predispose its members to make an adherence to it the badge of gentility. On the other hand, the excluded party are impelled by a spirit of contradiction to shew their contempt for advantages and accomplishments, which are placed beyond their reach, by unreasonably depreciating them, and running into the opposite extreme of too great a disregard to refinement and elegance. Individuals may be found on both sides, whose liberality enables them to rise above the contracted views of their party; but such is the predominant bearing towards each other of the two great masses into which the existence of an establishment divides the religious world: and while these invidious distinctions subsist, it is idle to talk of an equality of civil privileges extended to all Christian professors of every denomination; for the mere circumstance of belonging to the excluded or the favoured party makes a difference to a man, which he feels more or less in all the relations of life.

Such a state of society is the fruitful parent of sectarianism, which is the spirit of party, as opposed to the pure and disinterested love of truth for its own sake. In this respect, the influence of an establishment is scarcely less injurious to Dissenters than to its own members. Were all Christians placed in circumstances of perfect equality, without any inducement, direct or indirect, to approve one set of opinions more than another, truth would have a fair chance, and men, having no countervailing attraction, would search for it with a single heart. The stock of religious knowledge would be increased, and the certainty of religious truths more clearly ascertained, by every controversy which arose among Christians; and truths of the most vital and practical importance would be sure, in the progress of society and knowledge, to engage the largest share of public interest and attention. But where one party is favoured and another excluded, the doctrines or forms which constitute the ground of separation between them, acquire an interest and secure an attention quite disproportionate to their real value and importance. Even inquiries in some degree foreign to the leading controversy between the two parties, contract a bearing towards it, and are warped from the straight and obvious course which they ought to pursue. What is worst of all, a spirit of rancour and jealousy, arising naturally out of the relative situation of the disputants, almost unconsciously influences their minds, and prevents them from seeing the question in a clear and impartial light.

The patronage of the civil power naturally renders the great body of the clergy steady supporters of the government; Dissenters, on the contrary, from their education and from other causes, are as naturally disposed to league themselves with the popular party. Hence no small share of political feeling mingles itself with the sentiments which Churchmen and Dissenters are accustomed to entertain towards each other; and in the decision of questions purely theological, considerations are permitted to have weight, which ought to be wholly kept out of view. In these remarks, we of course speak

of classes, and not of individuals. Individuals there will always be greatly superior to the mass by which they are surrounded, but it is only by the movements and tendency of large masses that we can estimate the spirit of parties and the effects of a system.

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An establishment imposes restraints upon freedom of inquiry. The tronage of the state must be limited to some particular form of doctrine and discipline, otherwise it will have no equivalent for the patronage conferred, nor feel secure of the end for which its favours have been bestowed. Let the scheme of establishment be ever so comprehensive, where preferment is in the hands of the state, there can be but one sure method of obtaining it, and that is by compliance with the wishes of the ruling powers. Here is another most serious evil involved in the essential principle of all religious establishments. The religious worship of a great portion of the communityis fixed by a prescribed standard of doctrine and discipline, and the honours and emoluments of the national church are made conditional on an adherence to it. But opinion is necessarily wavering, usually progressive; and moral and religious opinion, depending so much on feeling and sentiment, on the state of manners and the advancement of general knowledge, is peculiarly liable to change-it may be hoped, peculiarly susceptible of improvement. Were the doctrines of Christianity solitary and insulated truths, burning in a narrow and secluded sphere of their own, and shedding no lustre on contiguous objects which increase by reflection the light they receive; then, indeed, it might be conceived that the religious knowledge imparted by revelation should not exceed in one age what had been enjoyed in another. But the truths of religion are of vast extent, and abound in unsuspected bearings and dependencies on other truths; they sustain a sort of general relation to the whole circle of human knowledge, and intermingle their light with every subject of consciousness, and every result of experience, and every deduction of reason. Thus, with the progressive developement of the human faculties, while the light of Christian truth is continually poured in upon the expanding circle of knowledge, a new set of objects is brought successively under its influence, and the religious views and feelings undergo modification and enlargement. Any restraint, conse quently, upon the religious convictions is pernicious, because though such limitation may have been made with a tender regard to the predominant belief of one age, yet so infinite are the bearings of religion, so subtle and imperceptible its influences on the whole range of human thought and feel-ing, that it is impossible to foresee how such limitation may affect the religious mind of a coming age, and prove an obstacle to that strong individual conviction which is necessary to make religion the vital spring of action and the nourishment of our moral being.

A religious establishment has been sometimes vindicated on the ground of its serving to protect religion against the inroads of ignorance and superstition; but if there be any force in the foregoing observations, it must at least perpetuate as many errors as it excludes:

Tam ficti pravique tenax quam nuntia veri.

It tends to fix and rivet the mind to one particular state of advancement, and there, by a sort of vis inertia, to keep it, while the current of public opinion and knowledge runs rapidly past it; and thus occasions in its adherents a state of mind, of all others the most unfavourable to depth and firmness of religious conviction, and the sure forerunner of scepticism and infidelity-a want of accordance between the faith that is outwardly professed

and defended and that which is inwardly, though perhaps carelessly and indifferently, entertained.

It is a harsh thing to say of an establishment in many respects so learned and respectable as our own, that it fosters infidelity; and yet, if we consider the language and conduct enforced upon its ministers by the requirements of its creeds and articles, it is hardly possible to deny the fact. The majority of mankind will, it is to be feared, for some time to come, continue to gather their notions of Christianity from what is publicly taught and established; so that while the mind is encouraged to think freely on all other subjects, and is opened to new views of moral and political truth, on the subject of religion alone it is oftentimes a perfect blank; because, to inquiries urged in the spirit, and to doubts and difficulties founded on the knowledge and intelligence, of the nineteenth century, answers are frequently returned and solutions offered worthy only of the superstitious notions and mysterious creeds of gothic barbarism and ignorance. Too many of our established clergy, by a confusion of ideas, natural enough to men in their situation, identify the cause of the Church of England with the cause of Christianity; and thus all the zeal, and learning, and ability, with which many of her sons are so eminently endowed, and by which, were they left free to follow the course of their own unbiassed minds, they might become such formidable champions of the truth, are diverted from their proper objects, and employed in maintaining the cause to which their interests attach them, against the growing light and powerful questionings of the age. Under such circumstances truth has no chance. Every thing is calculated for the meridian of an age long past. It is almost useless to look for any fresh theological information in the productions which issue from the press of the most orthodox of our two universities; for, under the promise of some contribution to the stock of religious knowledge, we are constantly mocked with an ill-concealed apology for the doctrine of the Church of England. From the same cause arises that unmeasured hostility, which is poured out by the zealous sons of the church, upon all those inquirers after truth, however learned, and candid, and ingenuous, whose researches have terminated in conclusions widely at variance with established creeds and articles. With some it is the quick and instinctive perception of the tendency of such researches to undermine the authority of those doctrines with which the existence of the establishment is identified; with many, no doubt, it originates in a better, though still very erroneous, state of mind-in that confusion of ideas, which leads them to regard an attack upon the church in the same light with an attack upon Christianity, and to respect the Prayer-book and the Gospel as of equal authority.

Such are the certain consequences of making the religious opinions of any particular age a standard for the faith and worship of future generations. When we consider what a powerful attraction of interest operates for the upholding of an established system, and in what various and unseen ways interest influences the judgments of men, we may estimate the number and magnitude of the obstacles that are thus thrown in the way of discovering the truth, and the bias by which the best and purest minds may be almost unconsciously swayed. These evils would exist to a degree under every form of an establishment; but they are felt with peculiar force in England. He, whose purity of heart and simplicity of taste might resist the attractions which wealth and splendour throw around the hierarchy, finds himself assailed by temptations of a more dangerous, because of a less obvious kind, which derive their force from some of the most amiable and valuable qualities of our na

ture. All that constitutes the poetry of religion, all the images that cling to our most cherished conceptions of its peace and sanctity, its venerable edifices rising amidst scenes of quiet and rural beauty, their association in our -memories with all that is most ancient and noble and revered in the chronicles of the neighbourhood, the prospects of learned ease, of domestic tranquillity and competence, of general respect, of wide-spread influence, and of future advancement to more elevated stations as the reward of honourable and useful exertions,-all these imaginations, however vain and delusive, dazzle with a wonderful fascination the young and ardent mind, and blind it to a perception of the evils of a system with which all its fondest wishes and most reasonable hopes are entwined. The stern and uncompromising may deride such feelings as weaknesses, but they are weaknesses closely allied to some of the best feelings of the human heart; for, the wish to rise in the scale of society, to command a liberal independence, to be admitted to a participation in the honourable distinctions of the world, and to win a virtuous fame, is the stimulus to all great and magnanimous exertions, and an impulse which the most generous and elevated spirits

juvenes, quibus arte benigna

E meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan—

will most keenly feel. In the objects held out by the honours of the establishment to a young ambition, there is a force of temptation which he, who is placed beyond its reach and early taught to direct his wishes to other objects, is hardly competent to appreciate, and which he is bound to take into consideration in estimating the character and conduct of those from whose communion he dissents.

Imagine a young man of ingenuous spirit and distinguished abilities entering life, crowned with academic honours, full of generous purposes, and intent on the service of mankind. The soundness of his understanding and the candour of his temper lead him to entertain doubts of the truth of that religious system, with the profession of which all his hopes in life are closely connected. What a painful alternative awaits him! He must either check the generous enthusiasm of youth, and make the love of truth and usefulness submit to prudence and expediency, or he must blight his fairest earthly prospects, and take his lot with those whom all the prejudices of his early education have taught him to view with dislike, and whose situation is associated in his eyes with contempt and poverty. Can we doubt, when we know how human nature is constituted, that, in the prospect of such an alternative, the merits of opposing systems and principles are never fairly weighed; or hesitate to condemn a system which forces the convictions and sympathies of men into the current of their interests, blinds the learned and ingenious to the perception of truth, and sometimes arrays even the amiable and generous against the rights and liberties of mankind?

There are individuals who approve of establishments as the best means of teaching Christianity, but who would revolt at the idea of converting religion into a mere instrument of state policy; who apply to the civil power for the benefit of Christianity, and do not establish Christianity for the sake of the civil power. The distinction, no doubt, is perfectly intelligible. Nevertheless it is impossible that such an amazing engine of power as religious influence puts into the hands of government should not be constantly perverted by

VOL. II.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days.

C

LYCIDAS.