as consisted chiefly in the voluntary exertions of Christians, as distinguished from those which have been commanded or directed by state establishments.

VI. That the churches described in the New Testament (apart from the word when it is taken in a generic sense to denote all true Christians of every description,) were congregational, voluntary, and independent.

VII. That the modern churches, usually called Congregational, or Independent, including those of the Antipædobaptist denomination, are constituted, governed, and directed in a faithful conformity to the principies and rules of the New Testament.-Pp. 52, 53.

Of these, and many similar passages, we may observe in the words of Dr. S. himself:-"A high self-opinion, instead of being a mark of intellectual or spiritual strength, is a proof of weakness."-P. 4.

The second charge we have advanced is a tenderness for Socinianism. Mark with what ingenious sophistry he labours to veil its deformities. The quotation (p. 21) must be a long one, but we should only spoil it by curtailment.

There are persons to whom we should grieve to refuse the name of Christians, but who differ from us in matters of great importance: we have to consider the application of our rule to them.

In the introduction to this Discourse, I have endeavoured, not without anxiety, and feeling the difficulty of the question, to ascertain what description of persons the Apostle Paul had in view, in his candid constructions, his large forbearance, and his charitable confidence with regard to them. The evidence elicited, when applied by a reasonable analogy to modern circumstances, has led me to think that, in conformity to the design of the Holy Spirit in this part of his revealed will, we are permitted to apply the rule laid down in the text, to one class of persons who hold some of the primary truths of the gospel, yet in a manner which is contracted, obscure, and feeble, in comparison with the strong and comprehensive representations of those truths in the word of God; and to another class, who, with their sincere faith in the great doctrines of the gospel, maintain some additional opinions, to which they themselves attach vast importance, but which appear to us destitute of any foundation in the Scriptures. The one class errs by defect; the other, by redundancy.

Of the former description, it has been my lot to know some; and from fifty to a hundred years back, they were not of very unusual occurrence in the old Presbyterian congregations of England. They were persons of strict virtue and morals, of mild and sedate tempers, recluse, and somewhat inactive in their habits of life, fond of the practical and devotional writings of the seventeenth century, and there was every reason to regard them as conscientious in the duties of sacred retirement: and they held with strong attachment, some general, and not very definite, views of the pre-existence and personal dignity of the Redeemer, of his atonement, and of divine influence on the human mind in order to form and improve the christian character. Upon these principles they built their piety and their hopes; and, having early imbibed a horror at the names of Trinitarianism and Calvinism, they had never sought to be correctly acquainted with the things signified by those names, but implicitly rejected them as forms of bigotry and hard-heartedness.-Pp. 21, 22.

It is to be regretted that Dr. S. did not point his observations with the lines of Pope

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight-
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right"---

and favour us with a few remarks on the propriety of expunging the

18th Article, and all those passages in Scripture upon which it is founded.

But to proceed to the next paragraph (p. 22), in which he speaks of those who err by redundancy; in other words, of Churchmen.

Under the second description, I refer to many who maintain that the validity of God's instituted means of grace, has been by him made dependent upon certain mechanical actions, performed by persons upon whom other mechanical actions had been performed; and so on backwards, through an assumed chain of uninterrupted succession, eighteen hundred years in length; that this mysterious character, transmitted and transmissible in the only line of descent, is independent of intelligence, or morals, or inward faith and piety in the person in whom it indelibly inheres; that in this channel alone the covenanted mercies of God are transmitted; that baptism, so administered, conveys the pardon of sin, and the state of regeneration, even to an unconscious subject; and that, in the sacrament of the eucharist, there is a real presence of the body and blood of Christ, though in what way, it is not attempted to be explained.

He then proceeds to claim the pity and charity of the excellent and infallible Dissenters for Socinians and Churchmen, whom he classes together as weak brethren. Towards which of them his own charity most warms, may be inferred from the manner in which he has spoken of them separately.

In both these classes of persons, I am persuaded that many have been found who are sincere, though weak and defective Christians. They are far removed, in mind and spirit, from men who hate and revile the essential doctrines of evangelical truth: but their knowledge is extremely limited; their instruction has probably been of an inferior order, or they have wanted a due susceptibility for correctly understanding the enunciation of truth.-P. 22.

We proceed with his remarks on the Church; and among the theses which he avows his readiness to maintain, we find the following:

XIV. That the Church of England is only a part, parcel, or sect of the general body of Protestants; its reformation from the errors and corrupt practices of popery, the least complete of them all; and its assumption of superiority, its domination, its exclusiveness, and its intolerance, are awfully contrary to the character and influence of true religion, and are matter of just grief and disapprobation to pious minds.

XV. That the dissent from the Church of England is not the result of disloyalty, faction, spiritual pride, or unwillingness to submit to lawful authority; but is the imperative obligation of Christians, arising from the authority and laws of Christ, contained in his holy word.

XVI. That there is no foundation in the New Testament for the use of forms of prayer in the public worship of God; that the imposition of them was unknown till the fifth century, when it originated in the deplorable incompetency of many nominal christian ministers; and that the commanding and compelling their use is an act of usurpation on the one part, and of a sinful surrender of christian liberty on the other; and that the use of them without any permission of discretion for appropriate alterations, is a cruel violence to the conscience of a faithful minister, and a counteracting of holy qualifications, which should be improved and exercised for the edification of the Church; and is a lamentable means of encouraging formalism in the minds of ignorant and unconverted persons.

XVII. That, if even the general principle were admitted, that precomposed human forms of public prayer are the most eligible mode of conducting the

social worship of Christians, it is exceedingly wrong in itself, and is a usurpation in any man or body of men whatsoever, to bind their fellow-men to the use of such forms, prohibiting any discretionary deviation.

XVIII. That readily admitting the devotional excellency of many parts of the Church of England liturgy, (but which excellent parts are chiefly those translated from the ancient Roman Catholic service-books,) that liturgy contains much that is exceedingly objectionable, furnishing to the conscience of one who makes the word of God his guide, many solemn and weighty reasons for declining to use it.-Pp. 60, 61.

Again:

I speak not of persons, but of the system. You, and many, very many in your communion, I love and revere but your ecclesiastical system is an almost perpetual exhibition of "straining at gnats, and swallowing camels."

We long to hold the communion of saints, and of sister Churches, in the most large and liberal manner; but she refuses: not an iota will she abate of her unscriptural pretensions. She absolutely claims "authority in matters [misquoted, controversies] of faith," the exclusive prerogative of God; and, if we ask where this authority is seated, it turns out to be with the King, Lords, and Commons! We have read, thought, and inquired, have searched the Scriptures long and carefully, and are not strangers to the records of ecclesiastical antiquity; and hence we are unable to acquiesce in her demands. But she is inflexible. Our known harmony upon the grand essentials of faith and holiness, shall stand for nothing. She will not admit "the communion of saints," except in her own arbitrary and man-devised way. Who, then, is guilty of schism?-The party which insists upon terms of communion for which the word of Christ gives no sanction; or that which declines submission to the proud, presumptuous, selfish demand,—a demand which we cannot but consider as an act of rebellion against Christ? Pp. 70, 71.

Offering such a picture of the Church, it may be supposed that Dr. Smith's notions on Church Reform are sufficiently sweeping. Let him again speak for himself:—

True it is, and we never wish to disguise it; on the contrary, we have been perhaps too eager to proclaim it; that the Protestant Dissenters of England, and a mighty host of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches in Scotland, are deeply convinced, from the reason of the case, the voice of history, and the word of God, that the connecting of the Church of Christ with the Civil Government, in any way of dependence and subjection to influence, is, indeed, not fit to be called an establishing, but is an unstablishing, a degrading, a desecrating, an enslaving of the Church; pouring into it, and mingling with it, a vast multitude of men who are destitute of real religion, and from whom, so far as concerns church-communion, the New Testament commands Christians to withdraw and separate; thus violating some of the first principles of religion; impiously confounding the precious with the vile; conveying into the minds of myriads ideas that are false and full of danger to their souls' immortal welfare; most deeply injuring the faith and religious prosperity of real Christians; darkening the glory, and obstructing the power, of the gospel-ministry, -in a word, making the name, and cause, and institutions of our blessed Saviour, vassals and tools for worldly purposes.-Pp. 77, 78.

We cannot venture to extract the whole paragraph, which extends through the three following pages. The Bishops, he says, are appointed from motives and upon reasons perfectly political and worldly. He would have the Clergy elected to their parishes only by the communicants:

in other words, the Church should new model itself, and adopt all the practices of Dissent. As to the system of the Church, he denies that out of ten or eleven thousand incumbencies one minister is appointed in a scriptural way. Election by the parishioners, and nominations by ecclesiastical or lay pastors, are condemned. "If the Bishops were men of real holiness, and did their work faithfully, we should rejoice, though it is not, as we conceive, the scriptural plan." "Now and then a good man is presented to a rectory, or to a higher dignity, and then we rejoice and thank God, who often educes good out of evil. But this alters not the wrongfulness of the system." Hear his conclusion of the whole :

O, abomination that maketh desolate! Foul and crying impiety! Systematic robbery of the most precious rights of the flock of Christ; and a method the most likely to insure a succession of false pretenders, hypocrites, wolves to ravage the flock! Hence is your total want of a godly and efficient discipline: hence the heart-breaking difficulties and secret agonies of many devoted clergymen, and others among you: hence the delusion of myriads of souls, the blind led by the blind, and both falling into the pit, the blackness of darkness for ever! Well might you excuse my pious and honest and warm-hearted friend, Mr. Binney, contemplating the tremendous extent of soul-delusion from this cause and your baptismal formularies, for exclaiming," She ruins more souls than she saves !" O, Dr. Lee, and all ye other Clergymen in every rank, who feel the importance and enjoy the power of vital religion, whom the love of Christ constrains, and who watch for souls as they that must give an account,-why do you not arise as one man, in prayer to heaven and protest upon earth, against this sacrilegious, this impious patronage? I know the subterfuge-We only beg or give, we only buy or sell, the temporalities. Is it so? Then keep your temporalities to yourselves, and allow some holy and well qualified minister of Christ to occupy the parish church, and dispense his spiritualities to the people, trusting to God's providence and their grateful affection for his earthly maintenance: or rather, give a proof of your sincerity by holding the temporalities, till the truly pious and constant communicants of the parish shall have chosen "a faithful man, apt to teach, a pattern of good works, an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in love, in faith, in purity, who will keep back nothing that is profitable, not shunning to declare the whole counsel of God,-preaching not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord;"-let him have the investiture of the bishop, acting in conjunction with the Clergy of the district, as his presbyters: and then endow him with your temporalities.

The wicked intrusion of worldly authority into the affairs of the Church, works mischief, not only in these ways, but in many others; and I cannot but feel convinced, that if your Church does not assert her liberties "wherewith Christ hath made free" all who will embrace that freedom, and burst those bonds of base subserviency to worldly policy and the domination of the ungodly, she will become a ruin, and a lesson to future time. Let her then shake herself from the dust, renounce every unholy influence, make herself independent of state-control and patron-grasp, and stand forth as a worthy branch of THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.

This is what we mean by the Separation of the Church from the State; and it would be the greatest human benefit that the now cramped and fettered Anglican Church could receive. I know, however, that there are some, and those persons of unquestionable moral excellence, and who would abhor any violation of what is strictly just, who recommend the resumption (or rather it would be the assumption, for the State could not resume what it never gave,)

of the church property by the government, as a part of the desired reform. This, to my apprehension, would be downright robbery. May our country never be dishonoured by it!-Pp. 79, 80.

We thank him, however, for the last admission.

Towards the close of the Appendix, from pp. 83 to 88, he offers in contrast, pictures of "the Established Church of England," and "the Protestant Dissenting Church;" the descriptions being placed in parallel columns. The first is given in caricature; the second is a flattered portrait, in which those who know the original will find it far from easy to trace the resemblance.

The Clergy could expect no quarter. Dr. Smith's opinion of them is expressed in the following words :

Personal religion and official devotedness, such as correspond with your ordination and consecration forms, are not the rule, but are the exception. When we hear of a new incumbent or a new Bishop, it is the ordinary apprehension that he is a worldly-minded man, who would never have entered the ministry, but for the selfish and flesh-pleasing expectancies connected with it: but when we learn that he is, in any good degree, what his ordination-vows have pledged him to be, we "rejoice as one that hath found great treasure;" we bless God as for a blessing out of the way of reasonable hope. Take the Clergy of England and Wales at fifteen thousand can we delight ourselves with the hope that more than three thousand are "faithful men of God?" And this is not the state of things at a period of great declension, or under any singular and unfavourable circumstances; but at the most happy and promising time of a holy revival that the Church of England has ever known!-Again, I say, and with sincerest grief, godliness is the exception, ungodliness the rule: and this is the state of things which is PRODUCED with all the certainty of effect that can belong to moral causes, by the very constitution and most cherished arrangements of your Church. Pp. 87, 88.

But how is it that this unscriptural Church, with her ungodly Clergy, should have been so visibly honoured of God? and whence that great advance in piety and zeal, which is admitted even by her enemies? Dr. S. answers the question, and, with great complacency, claims the credit for Dissent!

Every intelligent and candid Churchman who has looked closely into the history of that happy revival of religion, which has blessed your Church within the last sixty years, will acknowledge that it has been, and is, in a great degree, sustained by the writings of the Puritans and Nonconformists of the seventeenth century. Pp. 43, 44.

The resuscitation of your Church from a lethargy like death, in the last century, took place by the instrumentality of the writings of the Nonconformists; the lamp kept burning by the Congregational and the greater part of the Baptist Churches, (while those dissenting communities which possessed endowments independent of the people, generally declined in purity till they became Arian and Unitarian;) and the effect of the labours, conducted upon Dissenting principles, of Whitefield and the Wesleys.-P. 74.

One remark here. Endowed dissenting meeting-houses have become Arian and Socinian, not merely because they are endowed, but because Dissent has no standard of doctrine which is independent of the will