publications as are personal, or of mere local interest, may properly be left to be buried where they first saw the light. Passing by, therefore, all those parts of the pamphlet which concern none but the author of the Address, I will treat the readers of the Congregational to such morsels only as seem suited for the general appe

tite.

1. The first titbit is from the Litany. The pamphlet opens with a "prayer of the Christians in the Church of England for their enemies. That it may please Thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers, and to turn their hearts;- We beseech Thee to hear us good Lord." There is a certain stage of oral disputation in which the parties, growing in politeness as they grow in warmth, reach that ominous climax of courtesy, my dear sir, and, my good sir. Now when a clergyman turns over the pages of his Liturgy till he comes to a form of prayer for his enemies, and then gives to the Dissenters the entire benefit of it, there seems something suspicious in the very warmth of his charity; and ground to fear, that had he not quickly met with that particular form of devotion, he might have been tempted to relieve his overcharged feelings by an extemporaneous effusion of another kind. charity reminds one of the glowing devotion with which a holy brother of the Inquisition may be supposed to have prayed for a relapsed heretic, when delivering him over, pro salute animæ, to the civil power, for execution. It is related of a certain noxious soil, that it so strongly impregnated the flowers with bitterness, that the very honey extracted from them partook of the flavour. The Hon. and Rev. Gentleman's prayer for Dissenters -the very honey of his charity

N.S. NO. 137.

Such

must be confessed to have a strong smack of the athanasian in it. But I presume he intended his intercession to come under the general head of strictures-and most astringents are bitter.

In the present day, however, Dissenters deem themselves truly fortunate to obtain a prayer of any description from a high churchman-even though it should come in the questionable form of an extract of Litany, very bitter. A few years ago the circumstance would not have been thought so remarkable: though, as they never expected to be prayed for in that orthodox quarter, but in the duly authorized and canonical terms of the Prayer-book, they must confess that they did not look for any thing very cordial or even appropriate. But that time has gone by. And as if the party in question were stung with remorse for the excess of charity which they once feit towards us, they are, certainly, at present, making an ample atonement. If ever the writer of this pamphlet felt charitably disposed towards Dissenters -not that I am aware that he ever laid himself open to the suspicionI doubt not he has felt compunction and sought forgiveness; and has published his pamphlet as a humble step towards purging himself of his wicked error." I will only add concerning his prayer, that as he was determined to give Dissenters the benefit of it, he did very wisely to do so in the opening page; for the high temperature of the subsequent pages leads one to fear, that had he kept his devotion till the end, it would have turned sour.

2. Whenever a dominant and corrupt church is assailed, it appears to pass through three stages to ultimate defeat. The first stage is that of proud and insolent con2 P

tempt. When first aroused from its lordly repose, it contents itself with uttering a few opprobrious epithets at the miscreants who dare disturb its tranquillity, and affects to spurn them without changing its recumbent posture. This stage of the controversy the Dissenters have happily survived. Now and then, indeed, one sees the lingering appearance of this high-church insolence still. But it is all appearance-a mere mask to conceal the vexation and shivering apprehension which marks every line of the care-worn countenance. The se

cond stage of the controversy is that in which the dominant party is obliged to lay aside contempt, and to look out for argument; to call on its friends for help; to bring into use all that it happens to know of "the noble art of selfdefence." The third stage is that in which, distrusting the defensive power of its arguments, it betakes itself to the vulgar weapons of recrimination. When the party descends to the last resource, it is a sure sign of a falling cause. Now, judging from the pamphlet before me, I should say that the church controversy has reached a point somewhere between the last two

stages. The Hon. and Rev. Defender of the Establishment is evidently much more intent (after prayer) on impugning the character of dissent, than in vindicating that of his church. So completely is he engrossed with this laudable and lofty aim, that his pages are but little disfigured with evidence, or encumbered with the low resort of argument. Parallel to this was a scene which I remember to have once witnessed in a court of justice; in which the convicted culprit, when called on for his defence, burst forth into an angry triade against his master, the prosecutor. But the judge, very properly,

silenced him by reminding him, that accusing another did not exculpate himself: adding, "It is you who are on trial, not your master." And here, be it remembered, that not only is not dissent in court in the capacity of defendant, it is not there even as prosecutor. Dissenters are only employed as the advocates of certain great principles-the principles which produced the Reformation. It is these great principles which impeach and arraign the English Establishment. All that we have to do is to see that these principles have fair play. Were dissent to be overwhelmed with abuse to-morrow, the threatening relation in which these principles stand to the Established Church, would still be the same. Having began to reform this child of despotism and of Rome from the corruptions of popery, they demand to reform her more; they demand it to be fully carried out, and legitimately applied. And in enforcing this demand, these principles speak, not with the voice of Dissenters only, but of thousands also within her own pale,-with the voice of the nation.

3. It may be taken for granted that those pages are sufficiently sprinkled with the usual parrotlike phrases of high churchmanship. We are solemnly lectured on the dreadful sin of schism :— and this too by a minister of that church which is the great schismatic of Christendom; full of rents within, and voluntarily cut off from all without-from all but her distinguished Roman relative. We are told that the bishops are not merely successors of the apostles, (we could never yet learn whom the archbishops succeed,) but bishops and apostles are synonymous terms; so that the bishops are our apostolic rulers; they are apostles

or bishops-just which you please; in short, they are the apostles of the church. The rubrics of the church are triumphantly quoted to prove her maternal solicitude to preserve the purity of her household: his familiar reference to them, indeed, shows on his part a very commendable degree of antiquarian research in a most neglected branch of clerical study; but as far as their practical application to the discipline of his church is concerned, he might almost as well have quoted the Pandects of Justinian or the Maxims of Confucius. Indeed, I remember hearing with sympathy, a few years ago, of the trouble in which he himself was involved for daring to attempt to carry one of these obsolete rubrics into effect. But, as a complete answer to all that he has said in vindication of his church, let me refer him to the pages of the able pamphlet, reviewed in the "Congregational" for March, and entitled, "Fundamental Reform of the Church Establishment; by which it may be rendered less despotic in its constitution, less secular in its spirit, and less intolerant in its administration"-a pamphlet written by one of his own order; and implying in its very title, that even a fundamental reform of the church, as an establishment, would only diminish its intolerance, secularity, and despotism. We are further apprizedfor the pamphlet is full of information-that the clergy of the Establishment are the authorized ministers of God's word;-that the rulers of the church of Rome have likewise received this commission;—that he and the said clergy have, some how or other, certainly not in the ordinary way, received grace to know the nature and necessity of the apostolic commission ; - and that they have had grace to weigh and

value the trust committed to them. To all which we can only say, that it is very odd; inasmuch as this grace, when vouchsafed to a noble family, as in the instance of the Honourable and Reverend Gentleman himself, is uniformly vouchsafed to a younger son; and wherever a living is hereditary, this grace is hereditary also. But we dare say it is all very true, or the gentleman would not say so; and henceforth, therefore, when we see a clergyman who appears to be destitute of piety, we shall conclude that he has grace as a matter of course, only that he is shy of using it. How he could have come by it is that which puzzles us. We suspect that the church has still some faith in transubstantiation.

And then, as might be expected, political Dissenters are not only seeking to overthrow the institutions of their country; they are not only leagued with Popish image-worshippers, and the Socinian blasphemers of our Lord, to overturn these institutions; but Dissenting ministers have received no commission; they are schismatical teachers; unauthorized intruders into God's ministry; they know not the sinfulness of men, taking upon themselves to confer orders, who can show no warrant, or pretension of warrant, ordinarily or extraordinarily, directly or indirectly, for sending labourers into the Lord's vineyard; the whole body of Dissenters are voluntarily living in a state of excommunication; they have dissented, at least the more hopeful among them, through ignorance and erroneous impressions of conscience; and, by the high authority of one of the canons, the sacraments are unduly celebrated among them, and without the authority which, of necessity, is requisite to the same. But, as I do not wish to administer an emetic to the reader, I suppose it is almost time that I

should stop.

He must be convinced, from this sample, that the pamphlet contains all the usual and approved high-church ingredients for the concoction of such a dose. Should its reverend author see fit to alter its title, let him call it, "A recipe for turning dissent from the church into compassion for its members." And, in the sincere exercise of that compassion, I would ask-what must be the state of that mind which can thus, in a calm, composed, unconscious way, as if he were indicting the most obvious and undeniable truths, publish these grave offences against the common sense of mankind? That he should give utterance to them by his own fire-side, in the company of a few clerical cronies, when their conversation has become enlightened with a little rancour against dissent, is conceivable. But that an individual of about forty years of age, living in the year 1836, and having access to every ordinary source of information, should sit down and deliberately write such superannuated nonsense, and then send it to press, and then revise the copy line by line, and then give it to the world in a pamphlet, is a mystery of absurdity, an abyss of folly, which we trust we shall never be able to comprehend. Well might he be ashamed to put his name to it: we look on this as the most hopeful thing about him.

With what interesting simplicity does he ask, "Who are the persecuting party? the Church, or the Dissenters? We do not seek to deprive them"-but the answer, in favour of the Establishment, is so obvious, that it is unnecessary to state it. No, poor, persecuted church, whom hast thou ever wronged? But thine own history is a history of sufferings. In thine infancy, they barbarously robbed

thee of thy pet land; took from thee thy Star-chamber, and deprived thee of all thy other little innocent toys. As thou grewest up, thou wast denied the little Spartan indulgence of cutting off the ears or the head of a dissenting helot. And now thou art begrudged the trifling enjoyment of keeping thy hand in the Dissenter's purse just to play with the contents. But, cheer up, still thou hast Guy Faux. How truly ludicrous is it to hear a church, which has never yet laid the torch of persecution out of its hand, complain that it is not loved and caressed;- -an Ishmaelitish church, with its hand against every Christian denomination, murmuring because these denominations do not embrace it ;-shutting the door in their faces, and then alleging against them, as a crime, that they will not come in;-surrounding its wares with a high protecting price, and then complaining that its custom falls off. Such is the logic of the wolf against the lamb. But the Establishment has always been eloquent in complaints. Like a sturdy beggar, some sore it must exhibit, either real or feigned, to appeal to the compassion of the passers-by. This writer's complaint, that the church is now persecuted, is only a new version of that ancient cry, the church is in danger. But we wish to break it to him gently, in a friendly way, that this alarm-bell has had its day; its trading value is gone; it is a dangerous speculation. He may apply the match, but he will find the powder damp. It is high time for him to know, that the period has gone by when the words, Dissent-Popery-Danger, could deprive men of their senses. If there really be danger to his church, it arises from her imitating certain other old ladies-standing

still in the middle of the road, instead of moving on, and thus getting out of the way.

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4. And now for the "important discovery; or the new reason for seeking the redress of our grievances." It will be found in the following quotation: In one, and one only, of his strictures, has Mr. Harris a ground of truth, and that is in our defective discipline...... Suffice it to say, that the evil is known, and lamented, and acknowledged by the church at large; and the 8000 clergy who, two years ago, addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury, all joined in expressing their desire for amendment in this respect. There is a hope, therefore, that under God's blessing, this, the only stone of reproach which our accusers can find out, will at length be rolled away. But it is right that Mr. Harris, and all the Dissenters who may be inclined to triumph over us for this defect, should clearly know, beforehand, that the very first and necessary consequence of the restoration of the exercise of our discipline will and must be to enforce the canon above cited, and to exclude the separatists and revilers of Christ's church from the spiritual benedictions which He has entrusted to her; of which, in many instances, by the laxity of discipline, they are now enabled, outwardly, to partake. The justice of this he must himself acknowledge; for as there is no sin more frequently and earnestly condemned in the New Testament, than the sin of schism and causeless dissent, they whose carnal mind leads them to fall into that snare of Satan's, are, to the full, as fit objects of exclusion as Mr. Harris considers those who fall into other sins. Not only this, but as it is manifestly contrary to our blessed Lord's intention, that we

should cast the pearls' of our heavenly treasure to those who 'turn again and rend us' with railing accusations; so it seems to the greatest degree unreasonable, that they who have lived in hatred of the Apostles' communion in the Church of England, should be admitted, &c."

This is speaking out with a vengeance. The canon to which this promising pupil of St. Dominic refers, and on which his christian hopes rely, is the 9th of 1603; which excommunicates, ipso facto, all separatists from the church: and the benedictions of which these separatists are to be deprived, are matrimony, burial, or any other office. So that what the gentleman means is simply this-that he and 8000 clergy are panting for the reformation of church disciplinethat by such reformation they understand the recovery of the power to punish Dissenters-and that having obtained such power they will place all the Dissenters of the kingdom under the terrors of a papal ban. From which it is plain, that should this clerical millenium arrive before we have obtained the redress we are seeking, the consequence would be, that the right of marriage would be denied us-our dead would remain unburied-and every other christian office be refused us.

Here, then, is surely a new reason for urging the measure of redress; whether it be an additional reason for being in haste about it, is another question. Now this is another specimen of that kind of attraction so peculiar to the Establishment; and called by philosophers the attraction of repulsion. No doubt this amateur of persecution is astonished at our obstinacy in not rushing into the arms of a church so manifestly scriptural in its spirit, and so devotedly bent on our recovery;