1090. The demands of the Spiritual Estate may be pushed so far, that to concede them would produce, not an Established Church, but an Ecclesiastical Supremacy. In order to counteract this tendency, an Established Church must be placed under Royal Supremacy, or in some other way subjected to the Sovereignty of the State. The Sovereign, who is the Head of the State, must also be the Head of the Church, so far as its Government on Earth is concerned. He must convoke and dissolve the Legislative Assemblies of the Church, as of the State. He must be the Supreme Judge of Appeals; and must, in other ways, be recognized as Sovereign. In the practice of States, it has generally been assumed also that the Sovereign must have a large share of power in the appointment of persons to the higher offices of the Church, as Bishops: although the judgment of the Church is rather that such appointments should be by election in the Church itself. The Church, by acquiescing in the appointments made by the Sovereign, avoids conflicts concerning the political authority of the Bishops, which can hardly fail to arise, if persons are placed in that office by an authority independent of the State, and therefore possibly hostile to it. The appointment of the parochial clergy, also, may be modified by the alliance of the Church with the State. The Bishop alone can bestow upon any man the sacred ministry (823); but from among persons so ordained, the choice of a Minister for any particular Parish, may be in the hands either of the people themselves, or of the lord of the land (825), whose predecessor probably gave to the Church the endowment which it there holds; and who, in that as in many other ways, may be considered as summing up in himself the Rights and functions of the tenants of the land. This laypatronage is not a desecration of the ministry (for the sacred character is bestowed by the Church

alone); it is rather a consecration of property; for it invests the holder of property with a function in the Christian Church, which ought to be performed in the spirit of religion.

1091. But as the State, for its own purposes, associates the Church in its Polity, this Association makes it necessary to give a certain character to the Polity for the sake of the Church. The State accepts the Church as the Teacher of Religious Truth; and upon this ground, joins with the Church, in Ecclesiastical Legislation, and Ecclesiastical Appointments. This makes it necessary for the Church to demand that there shall be some Test of religious Truth agreed upon, which may be applied so as to prevent such legislation and such appointments as would be hurtful to religious Truth. If the State is to legislate for the Established Church, the Legislators must be of the Established Church; or at least, must be friendly to it. If the State is to place persons in offices in the Church, there must be some means of ascertaining that they are of the Church.

1092. The various branches of the Christian Church (among which the question lies, in the cases with which we are here concerned) differ from each other in Liturgies belonging to their Ordinances, and in the Articles in which they have summed up the leading points of their Theology. And these are the Tests which must be applied by the State, if it will have an Established Church. The Articles and Liturgies must be assented to, by all who are to hold Ecclesiastical offices; and these also, or at least those portions of them which exclude Sects hostile to the Established Church, must be assented to by Legislators, and other persons holding prominent offices in the State. If this is not done; if persons avowedly hostile to the Established Church are placed in weighty official situations, without any effective tie to prevent their using their official power against the

Church h; the Ecclesiastical Polity of the State no longer consists of an Established Church simply; but of an Established Church, along with a provision for disestablishing it.

1093. This brings us to a weighty disadvantage of the Polity of an Eetablished Church, which it possesses, along with all the great advantages which we have noticed: namely, the difficulty of dealing with Dissenters from the Church. When we reject the System of Spiritual Domination, the very energy and freedom of mind which are requisite for this purpose, lead to differences in the Doctrine and Discipline of different Religious Communities. The aim and plan of the Reformation, which established the Church of England was to reject, both the Polity of Ecclesiastical Supremacy, and the various doctrinal Corruptions and Errors, which the Church of later times taught, along with that Polity. The Church of England retained Liturgies, and an organized Church Government by Bishops. But other Reformers, the Presbyterians, rejected Bishops; others, the Independents, rejected Church Government; and both, for the most part, rejected Liturgies. These Sects, however, did not professedly dif fer in essential points from the ancient Belief of the Christian Church, and are termed in England Orthodox Dissenters. Other Sects have arisen, rejecting more and more of the ancient belief.

1094. The Polity of an Established Church puts no difficulty in the way of the most complete Toleration of Dissenters. They may be freely allowed, under such a Polity, to worship according to their own rules, and to teach their own opinions without restriction, so long as they keep their teaching clear of sedition. But if the State wish to compel the whole of the population to be educated, then, indeed, the question of Dissent becomes a very difficult one. For to compel Dissenters to have their

children taught by the teaching of the Established Church, would be a violation of toleration; and to accept the teaching of Dissenters as answering the purposes of the State, equally with the teaching of the Church, is to repudiate the view of the Church which its Establishment implies. To give the Church the means of educating all; and to leave those who reject its education to their own teachers; appears to be the nearest approximation to a Universal Education of the People, which can be made under the Polity of an Established Church.

1095. With regard to the political position of Dissenters, there are also considerable difficulties. Among Dissenters in England, are found a great number of persons hostile to the Church of England, and to the Polity of an Established Church in general. The State, having adopted the Established Church, cannot consistently arm with its power, those who would destroy that Church. The most simple mode of avoiding such a danger is to exclude Dissenters from all offices of Trust or Power, whether general or local. But the temper of the English Constitution, both makes such exclusions with every possible reserve, and leaves, to the persons excluded, many years of labouring to get their exclusion mitigated; as Petitions, public writing and speaking, and the like. Hence, whatever the excluding boundary is, it is always a matter of contest between the Friends of the Church and the Champions of the Dissenters. If the Dissenters were only a small part of the population, the frontier of the Church might be defended with comparative ease and success; and for this purpose, it was desirable, at the first, to make the terms of Commnnion with the Church as comprehensive as possible. Whether this was done as fully as it might have been, we need not discuss: but the barrier being once pitched, has become the line of

angry conflict, and probably could not be shifted with safety.

1096. An Established Church is the Church of the Nation; and must retain that character, by acting for the Nation. She must, as far as possible, consider all the inhabitants of the land as belonging to her; and must exclude none who will allow themselves to be included. She ought especially to make provision of religious teaching for the rising generations; and her parochial system, if complete, and made always commensurate with the national domain, and with the population, enables her to discharge this duty, if the State duly support her in doing so.

1097. Not only has an Established Church a peculiar power, or rather the only full power, of educating an expanding population, if she be supplied with adequate means for doing this; but the Idea of an Established Church is imperfectly carried into effect, if such means be not provided. For the State has adopted the Church, as the teacher of Religious Truth; and is desirous of having Religious Truth taught to all its subjects. The religious teaching of the Established Church is not by permission, or under protection of the State, as is that of other Sects: it is on the part of the State. The State, desirous of teaching Religious Truth to its growing population, and having the means of doing this by the machinery of the Established Church, is inconsistent, if it do not provide for an extension of this machinery in proportion to the extension of the population. The State should make the teaching of the Established Church keep pace with the advancing numbers of the nation. If it do not do this, it incurs, so far as its neglect operates, the evils of ignorance, immorality, disaf fection, and Religious Sedition, which it ought to escape in adopting the Polity of an Established