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CHAPTER VI.

THE EVIDENCE OF SCRIPTURE.

But we come now to the consideration of a class of evidences which will and must practically determine the question. To the scriptures lies the ultimate appeal in all ethical and religious enquiries. The word of God is the crucial test. Its authority is supreme. If its well ascertained teaching is in favour of the state-church principle, its rectitude, its practicability are inalterably and finally decided; if on the contrary, the principle is unscriptural, then no consideration of mere utility or temporary expediency can in any way justify its adoption.

What, then, we proceed to enquire, is the doctrine of Holy Writ on the subject matter in hand?

Is it true, as

John Angell James the late eminent non-conformist, has confidently asserted, that—" there is not a single passage

of the Christian Scriptures, which, fairly interpreted, contains any command to civil governors to provide religious instruction for their subjects, or that furnishes any rule by which such an important duty is to be preformed?" Is it true that "the Church of England is not founded on scripture, but on Acts of Parliament ? "* Is it true that “the Union is condemned by the Word of God?"+ Is it as Dr. Winter Hamilton has termed it an 'unholy alliance."+ Is it true that "upon all national churches is stamped in deep and indelible characters, the mark of the beast ?" Is it true that "the Church of England is an impious pretence"... ..."a life-destroying upas?"§ Is it true in the words of Dr. R. Baird, that "the union of Church and State is the greatest curse that has ever befallen christianity,—that it has done more, a hundred-fold more for fifteen centuries, to corrupt sound doctrine, to blend the world and the church, to subvert the rights of conscience and religious worship, and in a word to prevent men from entering into heaven than all the SLAVERY that ever existed?" Is it true, in fine, that "with the mystery of iniquity"—the state-church principle "is wrapt up in a common doom"-"that the one and the other belong to the same system”—a system that "must fall,” and “fall

* Church Penny Magazine, Vol. ii. p. 77.

Essay on Church and State, by the Hon. and Rev, B. W. Noel, M.A., p. 110

Institutions of Popular Education, p. 276.

§ Nonconformist's Sketch Book, by E. Miall.

|| Progress and Prospects of Christianity in the United States

of America, by R. Baird, D.D., p. 42.

that the church may rise?" * emphatically in the negative.

Our response

is most

Glance at the testimony of the Bible. It is unequivocal. It is decisive. It explodes the modern figment that connexion with the state is repugnant to the idea of the christian church! It demonstrates, in a word, that if religion is deteriorated by the constitution of the secular with the spiritual powers, it has been subjected to such deterioration, for full four thousand years, under either the direct or the implicit sanction of the Almighty. Every dispensation whether patriarchal, legal, or evangelic has lent its specific authorization. The state-church principle is peculiar to no single economy. It is not the special growth of any epoch. Rather is it a constant in the long series of mundane history—an invariable fact amid the revolutions and mutations of the world.

It cannot be concealed that in the primeval polities of the Pentateuchan annals, the respective functions of the patriarchy and the hierarchy were not only not deemed incompatible; but rarely or never suffered actual dissociation. During the two millennaries of the patriarchal sway, the father-kings knew of no essential incongruity between duties civil and duties sacred. True to the instincts of an exalted piety, at once guileless and simple, they apprehended the unique character of all duties-they traced all law to but one source, all obligation to one idea. The spurious division of duties into those which are secular

* National Establishments, by R. Wardlaw, D.D., p. 388.

and those which are sacred, those which are political and those which are religious, as if they were some polar antagonism—some dual strife between the two, was as yet unfeigned. With these worthy presbyters all duties were alike holy-all law alike divine. The formal origin of all government whether ecclesiastical or political was traced up to its Supreme author. As a tripersonal monotheism constituted a fundamental article of the patriarchal creed, so did it naturally supply a unitive principle which reconciled duty with duty. Their stern and simple piety repudiated the anti-state-church notion of there being some irreconcilable diversity-some intrinsic repulsion between different classes of ethical and religious obligations. the contrary the christian verity that God is one, conducted them to the grand conception of the fundamental unity of all such obligations.

On

But more in detail.

Very early in the history of the race, there may be discovered unmistakeable traces of an established religion, with its sacerdotal, sabbatic, ritual and fiscal institutions. To what date the transaction of Cain and Abel is to be referred, it is impossible precisely to determine-notwithstanding, thus much is certain that it does not pertain to the date of the first or second generations. It clearly presupposes contemporary facts which could not possibly have had existence at so early a period. It most probably should be referred to between 115 and 130 A.M., or in round numbers to the prior half of the second century, A.M. But take the narrative as it stands, and it will be found, that, when carefully consi

dered, it furnishes several points of great interest in connexion with the incipient church-system of this primæ val period, "Abel was" as we read, "a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass Cain brought of the fruits of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering-but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell, And the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not well sin lieth at the door."*

Here, then, let it be observed, that the narrative presupposes

(1.) The existence of a considerable population.+

(2.) The existence of ritual laws respecting the time, the kind, and the quantity of the sacrifice.

(3.) The existence as it seems to us, of a priestly class a class of men, who as such in part required maintenance in their office.

(4.) The narrative implies that in some instances the tribal chiefs or princes were themselves arch-priests or hierarchs.

* Gen. iv. 2-7, inclusive.

Ib. 14 verse.