ence. Without this spirit and principle of independence of the civil power in religious affairs, the efforts of Luther, Calvin, and Knox, would have been unavailing with the people in establishing the Reformation; and the Free Church of Scotland shakes hands with the Church of Rome over this one great social and religious principle common to both-the independence of religious faith of all state power. Let no man contemn the Church of Rome as having been, from beginning to end of its history and social influence, a noxious or useless establishment. In the Greek Church no such reformation as Luther's can take place; because no such independence of the civil power as the Roman pontiffs claimed, made good, and infused in the mind and spirit of the people of western Europe, was ever conceded to, or inculcated by the patriarchs of the Greek branch of Christianity. We read history wrong when we swell with indignation at the arrogance, pride, and almost royal pomp, wealth, and power of the prelates in the middle ages, at the disposal of crowns and kingdoms, and at the humiliation and dethronement of legitimate sovereigns in the plenitude of their power, by papal decrees. We forget that these events, so common in the middle ages, were the subjugation of brute force, in barbarous times, to spiritual and intellectual influences in social affairs. Superstition, fanaticism, religious action of any kind, however unenlightened, degrading, and barbarous, is still intellectual influence, is still moral movement, however ill understood and ill directed, is still something higher and better than the mere submission to blind force-is something that exalts the man above the mere animal-serf or slave, responding, without reference to his intellectual nature, to the mere impulse of the command and the lash. The despotism of the East is founded on the union of the spiritual and civil power in the same hand, on the subjection of soul and body to the state-ruler. If the sovereigns of western Europe had been heads of the Church as well as of the state, civil and religious liberty would have been extinguished, and with it all civilisation. Historians declaim against the inordinate ambition of popes and prelates, and the wonderful continuity of effort of all Churchmen in all countries, century after century, to obtain more and more power and influence for the Church and its head at Rome; but they forget that such ambition and effort would have been altogether fruitless, if not supported by some great social necessity, by some generally and strongly felt conviction in the minds of all men, that this power was beneficial to them in their social state, protective of their temporal interests and civil rights, and not merely beneficial to the order of clergy. An obscure impulse, a kind of instinct, leads men to support what is for their general social good, although the mode of its operating may not be clear to every mind. It was this instinctive impulse of the human mind to adopt the fitting and the good, and not merely a blind fanaticism or superstition raised by the clergy, that led every intelligent man, in those dark ages of despotism and anarchy, to side with the Church, and to set up and support her power in every country, above and independent of the absolute uncontrolled power of physical force involved in the military feudality of the sovereign and nobles. We see, at this day, the want of such a third power in the social structure of some of the Protestant countries of the Continent. Those which had not, like England, Switzerland, and Holland, obtained some form of an effective constitutional government, or some general feeling in favour of it, before the Reformation, fell back, by the junction of Church and state in the hands of the sovereign, into a lower condition as to civil and political liberty and rights than they were in before. Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and all the Protestant states of Germany are, at this day, in all that regards freedom in social action, freedom of mind and opinion, more enslaved than they were in the middle of the middle ages. The union of Church and state has established an irresponsible power in the hands of the sovereigns adverse to civil and

religious liberty. This is clearly brought out by the different position of the Protestant and Catholic clergy in those countries. In Sweden and Denmark there are few or no Catholic clergy; but the established Lutheran clergy are employed as government-functionaries and overloaded with statistical returns, inquiries, and local business in their parishes which, however necessary to the state, are incompatible with the pastoral duties of the clergyman. The Roman Catholic priesthood would not submit, in any country, to such abuse of their time and proper functions. In Prussia, the two branches of Protestantism, the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches, were squeezed into one a few years ago by the late sovereign. New forms of worship were imposed upon them by royal edicts; coercion, imprisonment, military force, and quartering of troops on the recusant peasants, were resorted to, in order to force the ministers and people to receive the new service; and to resist this monstrous tyranny and persecution there was no Rome, no Vatican, no pope or head of the Church to appeal to. How different, in the same country, at the same period, was the exertion of the autocratic power of the same Prussian monarch over his Roman Catholic subjects! They had protection at Rome, and consequently in the whole Catholic world, against such arbitrary violence to the religious convictions and Church of his Catholic subjects. He could not even appoint to any clerical office independently of Rome, although he could, and actually did, imprison and dismiss Protestant clergymen, for refusing to adopt a new Church service which, as head of the Church and state, he composed and promulgated by royal edict.

Whoever considers impartially the historical events of ancient and recent times, will admit that the Church of Rome was, for many a dark age and hour, a beacon-light in the path of civil and religious liberty, shining far a-head through the universal gloom; and although now it is left far behind in the progress of mind and of society, and is dimmed by the rising dawn of knowledge and civilisation, it is still useful, it still shows to arbitrary kingly power in Prussia, that there are restraints upon tyrannical interference with religious opinion and convictions.

'The influence of the religious persecutions of the late king of Prussia in producing the general movement of Germany, in 1848, for constitutional government to limit such arbitrary acts of autocratic power, will be touched upon in a future Note. The attempt, by a Concordat with the pope, to bring the Catholic subjects of Prussia into some ostensible connection with, and subjection to, the head of the Protestant Church, and its total failure, is curious and instructive. It was not to be tolerated in an autocratic government that the sovereign who could, as head of the Church and state, impose a new liturgy and Church service on his Protestant subjects, and appoint or dismiss, reward or punish their clergy at his pleasure, could not even name a priest to a vacant dignity or office among his Roman Catholic subjects. A Concordat with the late pope was therefore attempted, in order to give an equivalent power to the crown over its Catholic subjects.

If governments can be taught by example, the example of Prussia in this attempt at the settlement of a Concordat with the Vatican might be a useful lesson, a warning against the gratuitous interference of a state with objects of Church power, nowise connected with the legitimate objects of good government. To have no State-Church at all appears to be the only arrangement suitable to the present advanced condition of society and of the public mind on religious freedom.'-Pp. 391–100.

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ART. V.-1. The True Remedy for the Evils of the Age. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, &c. in 1849. By JULIUS CHARLES HARE, M. A. London:

J. W. Parker. 1850.

2. The Marriage with the Sister of a Deceased Wife. A Sermon preached in Bocking Church, on Sunday, March 17, 1850. By HENRY CARRINGTON, M. A. Dean and Rector of Bocking. London: Longmans. 1850.

3. Marriage with Two Sisters, contrary to the Holy Law of God and Nature. A Sermon preached in Canterbury Cathedral, on Tuesday, May 7th. By the Rev. CHARLES FORSTER, B.D. one of the Six Preachers, and Rector of Stisted, Essex. With Notes, and Berriman's Letter on the same subject. London : Rivingtons. 1850.

It was said a few years ago of a pertinacious disputant, that he never could perceive when he was logically defunct. Archdeacon Hare, in those portions of his Charge, and of the accompanying notes, which treat of the much ventilated Marriage question, has betrayed this want of perception. To some other of the many topics, on which, like a true cosmopolite of the nineteenth century, he has thought proper to enlarge, the same remark would apply. But it is really strange, that, notwithstanding the author's well-known boldness and confidence, and vehement affection for that figure of speech called an ipse dixit, he has ventured so resolutely to put himself at the head of dead arguments, in the face of that bristling array of evidence, which on this most important subject so clearly stands forth. Perhaps there is but one satisfactory solution of the phenomenon. It is briefly this: he believes that all the conclusions involved in this question may be ascertained,' (as he affirms of Catholic consent,) without much trouble;' in other words, that he takes just as much trouble as he pleases, and no more. With him, and others like him, 'de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio; that is, they do not believe those things to exist, for which they have not taken the pains to seek. However, whether their conclusions can be ascertained without much trouble, it is certain they can be asserted with little or none.

In justice to the Archdeacon, we will state a few of his

propositions; and then, for the enlightenment of the youthful philosophers of the present age, will put them in contrast with Mr. Carrington's obsolete arguments, which in such quarters seem to be unworthy of notice, since they exclude altogether that most valuable element aforesaid, the ipse dixit, and are based upon the sandy foundation of Catholic consent, reason, and analogy, and have nothing to do with German Romanists.

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In the first place, then, as a TρÓσWπоν τηλaνyès, we have the weight of his individual opinion. The question is one in which I have not seen my way clearly to any satisfactory conclusion.' Then again: The main argument of all, drawn from the injunctions of the Levitical law, has seemed to me wholly untenable.' This proposition consists of three parts. 1. To me. The Archdeacon cannot hold what the Church has ever held. 2. It is untenable, which means, it cannot be held :—though it has long been held, it can be held no longer. At least, the Archdeacon cannot hold it, therefore it ought not to be held. He has appraised the article, set its true value upon it, and thrown it aside as useless lumber. 3. It is wholly untenable : Analogy, testimony, authority, are nothing: Fathers and Councils have not a leg to stand upon. This is decisive. Again: I cannot resist the conclusion that the marriage of a sister after the wife's death is implied (in Scripture.)' So irresistible was the impulse, that he pushed S. Basil, S. Gregory, and a few other such 'imaginary authorities' out of the way, as men of straw, myths-and would hardly listen to a word they could say. Such is the energy of a powerful intellect, luxuriating, like Homer's horse, in the unrestrained liberty of his pastures. Another instance: to repeat what cannot be too emphatically urged, The untenableness of the Scriptural argument seems to me quite manifest.' It is for this end we read the Fathers and history; to test the strength of an individual opinion, as opposed to the testimony of thousands. This sort of opinion used to be called by more than one hard name; but we live in the nineteenth century, and have discovered, or are on the eve of discovering, 'a true remedy for the evils of the age; the greatest of these evils being definite doctrine upon morals. Perhaps the great panacea may be expressed in the saying of the French wit, who discovered that no one was always in the right but himself.

Now Mr. Carrington, in woeful contrast to the Archdeacon, has surrendered that right of private judgment, which we have the fullest liberty to exercise,' in the re-consideration' even of those matters which had been settled by the alleged consent of the Church. He thought, perhaps, that it was his duty to consider these matters before he took orders, and gave his assent

and consent. But Mr. Carrington ought to have known that the Church is only right if you or I agree to what she says: not otherwise. And if you and I, (or you or I,) change an opinion, the Church ought to change hers, or, at least, ought to let us think and teach what we please.

The Archdeacon's opinion as to the moral nature of the law of marriage is remarkable. He begins by saying, (p. 27,) that it is a matter of great moral and social importance.' And further on, (p. 67,) he alleges, as one of the tests of incest, the moral sense of mankind,' the horror naturalis, and speaks of a 'profounder inquiry,' that will lead to a proper apprehension of the law of nature. His inquiry is so profound, that we cannot fathom it; like some profound things, it is so dark, that, to use his own phrase, we cannot see our way.' For, though allowing the question to be a moral and social one, (and all questions of social conduct involve, we presume, morality,) still he decides that the Law of Leviticus as to marriage was not moral, but ceremonial, (p. 70,) that is, of course, of the same kind which enjoins lustrations, circumcision, the avoidance of certain kinds of food, the burning of lamps and incense; things obviously in the same category. So the works of kindness and justice, and purity and piety, enjoined in Leviticus, are ceremonial; we presume like our ceremonies of wishing good morning and good night, and of paying formal visits. Obviously so, for the Archdeacon has ruled that the moral law consists of the ten commandments only. So that Christians are freed from a very great restraint indeed. They may be worse than Pharisees in every thing but their hypocrisy. And it follows that the New Testament gives no sanction to the law of marriage. We wish the Archdeacon would indulge us with a safety-lamp to guide us through the profundity of his argument, for it seems to us somewhat mephitic, though probably, like some other dark researches, very scientific.

Mr. Carrington, on the contrary, has indulged in an error which runs through the warp and woof of his whole argument. He assumes, rather than asserts, the moral principle upon which the whole Law of Leviticus is based, and seems to take it for granted that a law which is intimately concerned with the dearest human affections, and with the happiness and well-being of society, must be pre-eminently moral, especially since it proceeds from the author of all morality, and has been distinctly noticed in the Gospel and the Apostolic writings. How much is it to be regretted that his views are not deeper, and then perhaps he would see that, notwithstanding the deep moral ends and illimitable social influence, connected with the relations of man and woman, still it is very unphilosophical to infer that