church. They both however appear to me to have run into one common error, which is that of extending the power of the civil magiftrate over the care of fouls, by attributing to him the confervation of the principles of the being of a God, and his providence over human affairs, &c. The like error has led to the like inconfiftency in Rouffeau as in Warburton. "Every individual may, while he does not fuffer his religious tenets to lead him into any action or any omiffion, which may be injurious to others, entertain what opinions he pleases, without being controuled in them by the fovereign, who, having no jurifdic tion in the other world, has no concern with the fituation of men in a future life, provided they are good citizens in the prefent." This as clearly withdraws from his office every care of fouls, as any thing faid by Warburton. The Citizen has also spoken as honourably of pure Chriftian religion, as the Bishop. "There now remains to be confidered the religion of man, or Chriftianity, not fuch as it is at this day, but fuch as the Evangelifts taught it, which is very different from the prefent faith. By this religion, HOLY, SUBLIME, AND TRUE, mankind, the children of the fame God, acknowledged all the human race as brothers; and the focial bond, which united them, diffolved not even in the grave; but this religion having no connection with the body politic, left the laws poffeffed of that force only, which they drew from themselves, and did not give them any additional power." I remember nothing in the three books of the Alliance more orthodox than this. Although the Citizen of Geneva attribute to the magiftrate the confervation of the fame principles as the Prelate of Glocefter, yet it must be allowed, that he does not debafe, vilify, and disfigure the Chriftian religion fo much as the reverend Prelate, by making the Chriftian church furrender and alienate her rights to the state. The Philofophic Citizen, thinking lefs favourably of all mankind than the Church Dignitary thought of himself, has affumed for fact, that Chrif tianity was no more to be found on earth, and that it had been fubftituted and replaced by what he calls civil faith or religion. Upon this hypothefis the Philofopher raifed his faulty theory of a Social Contract. The Prelate, affuming the exiflence and perpetuation of Chrif tian faith and church government to the end of time, attempted to effectuate and realize this hypothefis, by metamorphofing the church of Christ into a civil inftitution. "There is, however, a profeffion of faith merely civil, the articles of which it is the bufinefs of the fovereign to arrange, not precifely as dogmas of religion, but as fentiments conducive to the well being of fociety, and without which it is impoffible to be either a good citizen or a faithful fubject. The fove reign has no power by which he can oblige men to believe the articles of faith, which are thus laid down; but the unbeliever may be ba nished the state, not as an impious perfon, but as one unfit for that fociety; because incapable, from his principles, of being fincerely attached to equity and the laws; or of facrificing, if occafion fhould require it, his life to his duty as a citizen. But if any one, after he has fub *Social contract. fcribed fcribed to thefe dogmas, fhall conduct himself as if he did not believe them, he may be punished with death; for he has committed the greatest of all crimes he has lied in the face of the law. The arti cles of the civil creed must be fimple, few in number, precifely fixed, and free from either explanation or comment. The points infifted on must be a belief in one God, powerful, wife, and benevolent; who beholds all, and provides for all an expectation of a future life, where the juft will be rewarded, and the wicked punished, and a firm confidence in the fanctity of the focial contract and the laws." P. 355. After remarking that Rouffeau carries the office of the magiftrate to a degree further than Warburton, "even to the belief of future pains and rewards," Mr. P. oppofes them both, by infifting that these doctrines directly lead to perfecution for religions opinions and practices, which, he afferts, is contrary to every dictate of law and liberty, "unlefs thofe opinions, and thofe practices, fhould interfere with the fafety or welfare of the state." P. 559. But that is the very point contended for, and demonftrates the neceflary connection and co-operation' of the fpiritual and temporal power, on the clofe union of which depend the happiness and fecurity of the ftate. The author afterwards directs his artillery against teft-laws and fubferiptions, and his reafon for fo doing, as well as that which influences many other adverfaries of the established Church, is eafily to be difcovered in the laft fentence of the following paffage. "No country of Christendom ever did, or now does, fuperabound like our own with religious tefts and fubfcriptions. Now as every particular teft or fubfcription is the key, by which the fubfcriber is admitted either to the capacity of holding, or to the actual enjoyment of fome preferment of dignity or emolument, it will generally produce coldness, diffidence, difaffection, jealoufy, or difcontent in all, who' thereby are excluded from these advantages either in the church or Atate. Telt laws and fubfcriptions, therefore, have feldom been treated by any writers without ftrong fymptoms of predominant bias either for or against them. On one hand we hear a Warburton cry out, "When once we fee fectaries of all kinds fupply the civil adminiftration, the next place to look for them is the pulpit and the ftall." On the other a Priestley thus addreffes the members of the established church: "Muft the members of this favourite church of yours engrofs all the good things of this life, as well as thofe of another, and muft we unfortunate diffenters partake of neither?" P. 366. To go again over the old field of argument upon the testlaws and fubfcriptions, beaten fo frequently of late, both in and out of parliament, is neither confonant to our inclination, nor would it be of important ufe to our readers. We by no means means think that, Mr. P., from his particular feelings and per fuafion, can be a proper judge of the fubject; and we once more, in oppofition to his mifreprefentation of Mr. Paley's meaning, and his infinuations relative to the fincerity of those who may subscribe the thirty-nine articles, avow our fatiffaction in the liberal (not flimfy and unprincipled,") arguments, adduced by the Archdeacon in his explanatory obfervations on the duty of fubfcribers to that teft of faith. We are ftill inclined to think with him, with regard to that act, that the rule of fubfcribing thould be that of the animus imponentis; and that the principal enquiry fhould be, while paying that neceffary refpect to the laws of our country, Quis impofuit et quo animo? We feel our felves, and we think the whole Chriftian community, greatly obliged to that gentleman for favouring the public with his rational, judicious, and enlarged, fentiments on this head; and we hope they will, as they ought, have a due effect upon every reflecting, unprejudiced, mind. Our anxiety for continuing in ufe the test and fubfcription, does not arife from any particular apprehension for stalls and pulpits, but from our conviction of the abfolute neceffity of that proof of the fubfcriber's attachment to our admirable conftitution, in Church and State; and, him who argues for the abolition of that proof, we must ever conceive to have little attended to, or little regarded, the true interefts of either. The fourth chapter of this long book includes a fhort hiftory of the papal power, and the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in England, before the reformation. This chapter muft neceffarily be very interesting to the great body of the Roman Catholics, ftill reprefented to confift of fome millions of his majesty's fubjects; annoyed by penal statutes, and oppreffed with fetters, that render them almost useless to the State. The greater part of our readers, however, being less interested in the matters difcuffed, we must refer them for particulars to the work itfelf. This part is well and connectedly written, and the numerous legal allufions in it evince an intintate acquaintance with the fubject. There is one circumftance mentioned in it, however, which goes nearly to fubvert the author's whole hypothefis; for, in treating concerning the Pope's power in thefe kingdoms, that union of the fpiritual and civil authority for which we contend, and all idea of which he combats, is allowed in a degree to have actually exifted, fince" the Pope of Rome was, in fome refpects, head of the civil eftablishment of religion in this country; though, in all other refpects, the king was the fupreme executive magiftrate, or head of that civil establishment." ment." P. 418. This is rather vaguely expreffed; but in this and fubfequent paffages of this chapter, fufficient is acknowledged to prove that the Popes anciently poffeffed more than a fpiritual jurifdiction in thefe kingdoms; and fo far his argu. ment of the utter incompatibility of the two powers, fpiritual and civil, is deftroyed, and the exact contrary thus eftablished. The whole, however, is intended as introductory to the fifth chapter, which difcuffes the nature and power of the Spiritual courts. " In the perufal of this chapter we were much pleased; for it commences with a manly and ingenious apology for an error committed by an affertion in the Jura Anglorum," that thefe courts derived their fole authority from the temporal, not the fpiritual, authority. This statement the author now acknowledges to be incorrect and falfe." P. 455. "The fame Almighty Power which thought proper to inftitute a church upon earth, muit alfo," he fays, "be conceived to have endowed it with privileges and powers peculiarly its own." The judgment of thefe courts, being fpiritual, he contends, is only applicable to spiritual objects. The appeals formerly made to the Pope of Rome, as head of the Church, are now made to the Metropolitan of England, and, through him, to the king in Chancery, where delegates are appointed to revoke, or confirm, the fentence. P. 460. The abolition of this right of fpiritual jurifdiction, which defcended down from Christ and his apoftles, he argues, would be criminal. As fucceffors of the apoftles, and governors of Chrift's church upon earth, the epifcopal order are to regard it as a facred deponit, never to be furrendered to the civil power; and he confirms his reafoning by a detail of the tranfactions, of a judicial nature, that took place in the Primitive Church, at the first council, or convocation, holden by the apoftles and ancients, as recorded in Acts xv. In this primary ecclefiaftical fynod, the objects difcuffed were purely fpiritual, there was no application at all made to the civil magiftrate; nor any reference, or confideration, had to the municipal laws of Antioch, where the difpute. arose, to adjust which the council was convened. The refult of the argument is that, "what the apoftles could do independently of the civil magiftrate, in the firft century of Chriftianity, that, and that alone, may their fucceffors do, independently of the civil magiftrate, in the eighteenth." P. 469. Upon thefe principles, as far as poffible, we believe, are our ecclefiaftical courts founded and conducted; due allowances being made for the altered circum itances ftances of Christianity, in the eighteenth, from what they were in the first century: that religion which was, then, the profeffion of only a numerous fect, having now become the eftablished faith of the greatest nations of Europe, neceffarily influencing their manners, and blended with their fyftems of jurifprudence. The fixth, and final chapter, treats concerning the king's fupremacy over the Church of England. This is, and our author confeffes it to be, a delicate investigation; but, truth being his avowed object, he determines at every rifk to enter thoroughly into it. Different opinions on the fubject, held by diftingnifhed perfons, both of the Papal and Proteftant Church, are firft brought before the reader. In the next place, the caufes and hiftory of Henry the Eighth's renunciation of obedience to the See of Rome, (that power, in defence of the fupremacy of which he had previoufly written an able tract against Martin Luther) are detailed and ftigmatized; as might justly be expected from a Roman Catholic writer, irritated against the ufurpers of that fupremacy at a later period. The Clergy and the Legiflature of thofe times are reprobated for tamely furrendering their peculiar rights and privileges at the cominand of an "ambitious, cruel, and luftful tyrant*;" and, in particular, the refignation of the Bishopricks into the king's hands, and to his authority in the difpofal of them, is denominated "a fpecies of fpiritual proftitution unprecedented in Church Hiftory, and never fince followed till the late infamous attempts of foine Gallican bishops to renounce their order, by furrender of their facerdotal charters to the National Convention." P. 547. The refult of the whole argument is, that the king, having derived his power and station, as fupreme head of the Church, from human conceffions; i. e. repealed acts of parliament, and not from any fpiritual fource, as the Bishop of Rome enjoys that diftinction (defcending to him from St. Peter, the vice-gerent of Chrift, the true head of the, Church) can only be confidered, to ufe his own words, "as head, or first executive magiflrate of the civil establishment of religion in this country." P. 545. If the king had derived his ecclefiaftical fupremacy from God, he ftood in no need of a parliamentary recognition, or confirmation, of that fupremacy.. Such are our author's fentiments on this important subject, upon which, however, many great lawyers and able polemical This expreffion oecurs page 549. writers |