the corruptions in these Churches, and from the corrupting influence of their dependence on the state, no candid dissenter will experience any emotion but that of pleasure, in contemplating the advantages, certain or probable, to the souls of men, and to the best interests of the country, which have resulted, through the blessing of God, from the administration of Christian ordinances, and the influence of talent, and of Christian character, in the Establishments. In their calmer and better hours, all good men must rejoice in the successes of the gospel in any quarter; the churchman in its successes among dissenters -dissenters in its triumphs in the Established Churches. No party must envy another the venerated names of men distinguished by talent, by literature, by piety, or by all these qualities combined; the additions made by such men to the intellectual and moral treasury of the country; and the aids we receive from their labours in study, and in devotion. There is a larger communion than that of any particular Church, or party. There is an intellectual communion among all cultivated men. There is a holy fellowship of mind and heart among those who think and feel alike, on whatever is most ennobling to the spirit, and dear to the hopes of man; there is the communion of the family of the redeemed; nor can the artificial enclosures of sect or party, or the transient animosity and alienation of controversy, prevent us from sharing in the common sympathies of all who belong to this wide-spread community.

But after these allowances, let us look to the fallacy, It no more enters into the argument against Establishments, to assert that no spiritual advantage can be enjoyed under them, than a similar assertion respecting the ministrations of dissenters enters into the argument against dissent. What has accomplished, under God, the advantages to the souls of men which have been enjoyed within the Established Churches? Is it any thing else than revealed truth, and the ordinances of Christian worship, the administration of which they enjoy? Surely it is not the legal establishment of these Churches-it is not tithes, royal ordinances, and Acts of Parliament, that have instructed, reformed, and comforted the worshippers. The support of Christian teachers by the state, has no

more produced those results, than the presentation of these teachers by that patronage, which is now so generally condemned. Were the funds for the support of the teachers, and the erection of the edifices, derived not from the state, but from the worshippers, the same spiritual processes would be going forward under their ministry. I do not now inquire whether most good is done in dissenting, or in endowed Churches; but it will be conceded at once, that the same sort of results follows the same sort of instruction among dissenters as among churchmen. The good then, is not doing by virtue of the Establishment; but by the truth and ordinances of Christ Jesus, which can be administered without a legal Establishment, as well as under it.—And then, as to eminent men, would intellect lose its lustre, talent its power, goodness its worth, by passing the precincts of the Establishment? Were Bates, Howe, Baxter, Doddridge, less illustrious than Tillotson, Chillingworth, Barrow, or Scott? Or could Hall have been greater in Lambeth than in Bristol?

It is no reason why the dissenters should receive a legal Establishment, that so much good has been effected by their labours, that talent has been found among their pastors, and so much Christian worth among their people; neither is their any reason why the endowed Churches should continue on similar grounds to hold their exclusive endowments.

III. Dissenters wish to get hold of the revenues of the Established Churches for themselves.

In most of the discussions produced by this question on either side of the Tweed, this supposed design of the dissenters is dwelt upon at great length. It is asserted that, in the worst sense of the term, spoliation of the property of the Churches is meditated by their opponents; and that they intend either to attempt the entire dispossession of the existing holders-or to share the ecclesiastical revenues along with them-or, finally, to obtain government grants, small, perhaps, compared with the wealth of the Establishments, yet great for the dissenters, and sufficient to induce them to suppress their outcry against state endowments, after their own sordid

purposes have been accomplished. When such dishonest intentions are not directly charged, a suspicion is insinuated that these intentions may exist; that although it may not be convenient to avow them now, they are ripening in the breasts of their leaders; and that in due time all disguise will be thrown off, all decency laid aside, and these leaders and their followers will stand forth, the shameless devotees of ambition, lucre, and hypocrisy. Some writers, indeed, advance a step further, and declare their willingness, if not their wishes, that these secret designs and projects of the dissenters should be anticipated, and that some pecuniary grant from the public treasury should be made to them without delay, to bribe, if you cannot argue, them into silence;—a proposal not inconsistent with the spirit of an Establishment shamed into an alliance with the spirit of toleration, and possibly put forth as a feeler to ascertain whether some step may not be taken a trial of the pulse of the dissenters, to determine under what treatment it may be expedient to place them. And, truly, could the state be induced to offer, and the British dissenters to accept, after all that has passed, this politico-ecclesiastical bribe, the triumph of the Church would be complete, as far as the humiliation, the entire conquest, the utter prostration of her opponents are concerned; and she might, at her option, either lament, for the sake of Christianity and of human nature, the combination of such high profession with such unprincipled baseness; or indignantly hold them up to the scorn and derision of the country.

In a good state of religious society, when that charity which thinketh no evil receives the homage she merits, it were enough for those whose reputation is yet unstained with dishonour to disavow such sordid, and, in them, guilty purposes. But in a season of alienation and discord the voice of charity is not heard. Without contenting themselves, therefore, with an indignant disavowal of these imputations, the dissenters may appeal to the British public, whether the measures they are adopting can be reconciled with the purposes imputed to them, on any calculations of self-interest, or even on the dictates of common sense? Were we admitting the principle that some one religious society might be taken under the

patronage of the state, it might be imagined that we should come to issue with the existing Churches on the comparative claims which they and we can prefer for state favour; and, at all events, might plead that after they have so long basked in the sunshine, it is our turn, in all fairness, to enjoy it for a season. Or did we

merely complain that the favour of the state is too restricted, and that in this country, as in France, religious parties without distinction should enjoy a public endowment, it might then be alleged, and for aught I see, justly alleged, that we are dissatisfied with our condition, and wish that it should be improved by the legislature.

But what are the facts? Our pleading, whether just or unjust, is not against the establishment of one denomination of Christians, of one form of Christianity, but against the establishment of any denomination, of any form of religion. We not only plead that it is partial and unjust to endow Episcopacy and to neglect Independency to take Presbytery into favour, and to pass by Methodism; or that the legislation is inconsistent with itself, and unworthy of the state, which endows Presbytery in Scotland, but disowns it in England; which emblazons with all splendour Episcopacy in the South, but leaves it in poverty and dishonour in the North; which establishes Popery in Canada, but excludes it in Ireland. But we declare it as our belief, we plead for it as the dictate of reason and the doctrine of revelation, we form our societies, and take our measures on the very principle, that Christians of every name and party should be left to their own resources unaided by the compulsory support of the state; and that no other favour should be shown to any Church, than that which should be shown to every Church, the protection of all its members in their equal rights and liberties, so long as they discharge the duties of loyal and obedient subjects. It is not, then, hypocrisy, or ambition, or avarice, that you would have to charge on dissenters, did they envy the wealth of the Church, or desire to share in her endowments; it is a folly of which no sane mind is capable; it is labouring, on principle, and with their eyes open, to secure the certain frustration of their own purposes.

IV. It is affirmed that opposition to the Established Churches is a personal injury to their ministers; that its design and tendency are to reduce them to poverty, by depriving them of their temporal support; and that an object so injurious must originate in the worst and most malignant feelings of the heart.

It is with deep concern that I have observed this fallacy operating to a great extent; to such an extent, indeed, as to produce an exasperation of feeling, and an intemperance of language, which only great personal wrong, endured or apprehended, and proceeding from the basest principles, could be supposed to call forth. On the grounds I have just alluded to, it were useless simply to disavow the existence of the alleged feelings, and yet I may be permitted to remark, that, higher considerations apart, it is possible, this exacerbation of feeling and language on the part of the friends of the existing Establishments may be carried too far, for their own sakes, and that sooner than they are aware: for if to attack—not the doctrine of the Church-not her worship -not any thing which originally belonged to the Church of the Redeemer-and nothing essential to her existence, and even her spiritual prosperity, but solely this accident, this extrinsic circumstance in her worldly relations, her state alliance and endowment, shall awaken clerical wrath beyond what even immorality or heresy has been generally known to produce, the British public may begin to theorize unfavourably on the causes which must account for this ecclesiastical phenomenon. These are not the times when it is prudent for old monopolists, whether in the colonies or the mother country, whether in commerce or in religion, to defend their tottering battlements, by throwing down on opponents, who seek only the abolition of their exclusive privileges, showers of abuse.

There was a period in the history of the three kingdoms, when the Roman Catholics held the revenues now in possession of the Established Churches. Would the Roman Catholics have been justified in regarding their dispossession as a measure of personal hostility on the part of the Protestants; even when the Protestants took possession of the revenues of which the Catholics were