gested, "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin," I proceed to ascertain how far the term illegal will apply to church-rates : A.D. 693. Ina, king of the West Saxons, enacted, in a legislative assembly, that church-scot should be paid according to a regular assessment; defaulters to be fined forty shillings, and pay church-scot twelve-fold. A.D. 844. Ethelwolf summoned a parliament at Winchester, and made a solemn grant to the church of all the tithes of crown lands, free from all taxes and impositions. A.D. 928. Athelstan held a parliament at Grateley, which passed an act to give the tithes of the whole kingdom to the clergy; and by a separate decree ordered the payment of church-scot. A.D. 948. Edmund held a legislative assembly in London, in which tithes and church-scot were recognised as distinct claims, and confirmed accordingly. A.D. 969. Edgar held a legislative assembly at Andover, which, enforcing parochial limitations, re-enacted tithes and church-scot. A.D. 103. Canute assembled a parliament at Winchester, which, having confirmed the statutes of Edgar, declares that, independent of tithe, all people are bound by right to assist in repairing the churches. The Norman conquest did not at all disturb the legal position of the church; the clergy were now become wealthy, and all, and more than all, just and reasonable dues were cheerfully rendered. A.D. 1215. Magna Charta confirmed to the church all her rights and privileges. A.D. 1305. A dispute having arisen between certain clergy and their parishioners, as to the division of expenses for church repairs, vestments, and other requisites for public worship, it was decided, that the rectors were to keep the chancels in repair; but that the repairs of the body of the church, vestments, and all other requisites for public service, were to be provided by the parishioners. A.D. 1450 (about). Lyndwood says, common law transferreth the burden of the reparation of the body of the church on the parishioners. At the Reformation, and so late as 1552, violent hands were laid upon an immense portion of the property of the church, as Lord John Russell can testify from his family archives; but the laws of tithe and of church-rate underwent no change. During the great rebellion, the establishment passed from the episcopalians to the presbyterians, and from them to the independents; and, strange to say, tithes, though threatened, were never abolished, and church-rates never thought of: so that, through all that stormy period, they retained their position on the statute-book, even though the independents gained for a time the ascendancy, and with that were well contented to take all the advantage they could of all dues and endowments. A few years after tranquillity was restored, Chief Justice Holt decided in court that, "by the common law of the land the parishioners of every parish are bound to repair the church." I am not aware that during the last century the payment of church-rates was ever seriously disputed. Certainly, no alteration was made in the law laid down as above by Lord Chief Justice Holt. We therefore find, on examination, that, nearly a thousand years before the rise of modern dissenters, there was a legal establishment of church-rates recognised and confirmed by the legislature in its public acts, at various intervals, and that it reached through a period of twelve hundred years; wherefore, if any payments stand above the charge of vexatious and illegal, church-rates may fairly rank in the foremost place. That they are not illegal is sufficiently proved by the agitation now going on to force upon the government a law for their abolition; but having cast aside the restraints of principle-having joined in close alliance with papists and infidels-the political dissenters care not what desperate plunges they make. They disturb the waters, but they communicate to them no healing powers. It is not, however, for the turbid streams of ignorance and hypocrisy to wash away the foundation of a scriptural church. The terms "ignorance and hypocrisy" are strong, but are they not strictly applicable to those who make a plea of conscience to excite universal discontent, when, by the example and precepts of Christ and the apostles, conscience should bind them to follow after peace ? Are not those worse than ignorant who, by bold declamation, endeavour to represent as illegal a payment which the laws have recognised and enforced for twelve hundred years, through every change of government, civil and ecclesiastical? The dissenters may exclaim against all such sweeping accusations; for they who throw their firebrands about in sport, are exceedingly inflammable if a spark fall on their own heads. These charges are forced from us; we make them not willingly, but of necessity. They are directed against the overt acts of a party-not against individuals, least of all against the truly conscientious, whatever be the mode of worship which they hold most acceptable to their Lord; but the promulgation of principles founded upon bold and erroneous assertions, and, in their immediate effect, widely destructive of social happiness, is to be firmly and promptly met. No matter how specious and smooth some of the theories may be, if false let them be exposed, and let the shame and the reproach rest where they are deserved. The spurious liberality which hesitates to denounce the ignorance and the scurrilities of an active political body, carrying on their operations under the cloke of religion, is only rewarded with more hardihood of abuse, with more recklessness of argument. The language from many dissenting pulpits*-the speeches of their ministers and laity at their public meetings are so utterly at variance with His precepts who taught, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another," that we cannot but reject their pretensions as a religious body. It is therefore against a political party, whose language and conduct prove that religion cannot be their object, nor Most of the published sermons of dissenters confirm this statement; and a friend of the writer was, a short time since, informed by one of the higher class among the dissenters, that she had lately been driven from the meeting, which she had long attended, by the repeated attacks made from the pulpit on the church of England. These unchristian sallies have had the effect of converting this individual to a church which, whatever be its faults, does not make its pulpits a medium of slander. a sound conscience their guide, that these remarks are penned. The highest is said to be the turning point; may it prove so with the dissenters. They have now attained all, and more than all, that their forefathers ever required-there is neither ban nor proscription, let nor hindrance, remaining. The standard of civil and religious liberty' waves over every chapel and meeting in Great Britain, and it is not the hand of the churchman that is stretched forth to pluck it down. It was, therefore, to be hoped that the dissenters, having reached the summit of their desires, had also attained the full height of their uncharitableness; and that, excited and wearied with the toilsome ascent, they would pause awhile to inhale the air of freedom, and of goodwill, and, descending again into milder regions, would be renewed in the spirit of their minds, and display something of that charity which envieth not-vaunteth not itself-thinketh no ill. This hope has, in some instances, been realized. The Wesleyans generally, and individuals of other denominations, have been influenced by good feeling, and have expressed themselves in strong terms of disapprobation of the language and conduct of the political agitators, who, jumbling together papists, Socinians, infidels, and revolutionists, call themselves dissenters. We have no desire to pick a quarrel with these parties. Our business is with friends, to warn them of the spirit which is abroad, and to supply them with such facts as may give a better insight into the nature of the controversy, and preserve them from the arguments of those who "Clamour in the throng Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue, THE TITHE BILL. It is understood, and from good authority, that the principle which is laid down for working this Bill, as to the sum to be put down as the 'equivalent' for rates, is what it ought to be, and what this Magazine has contended for all along. The inquiry is to be what sum has actually been paid for the last seven years, and this is the sum which, very rightly and in consistency with the rest of the bill, is to be adopted as the equivalent. This makes it unnecessary to use the excellent letter referred to in the Notices to Correspondents last month. This, it is understood, has been the answer given by the Tithe Commissioners to those who have consulted them in the progress of Voluntary Commutation; and it does away with one of the difficulties (suggested in former Nos.) in the way of attempting them. THE ERRORS OR UNFAIRNESS OF DR. WISEMAN. NO. II. DEAR SIR, Dr. Wiseman is not more to be trusted in quoting the Fathers than in treating of the English Church. In the eighth Lecture of his series on the Catholic (R. C.) Church, he treats especially of the pope's supremacy. As the first step of his reasoning, it was necessary, of course, to shew that St. Peter was bishop of Rome, in the ordinary sense of the word. In attempting this, he asserts, that "authors of the highest literary éminence, and remarkable for their opposition' to the supremacy of the Roman see, such as Cave, Pearson, Ussher, Young, and Blondel, have both acknowledged and supported it." p. 278. He also cites several of the fathers to shew the primitive and admitted supremacy of Rome, founded on the episcopate of St. Peter, and his pre-eminence of authority among the apostles. I send you a sample of Dr. Wiseman's accuracy. The first witness is Cave, who shall speak for himself. "To conclude at last this dissertation, it is not without reason to be doubted whether Peter ought properly to be called bishop of Rome. That in a certain laxer sense, he may, indeed, be called so, inasmuch as he founded that church, and made it illustrious by his martyrdom, all, both the older and more recent authorities, will confess, I think, with me. But that he was fixed in the Roman chair as restricted (peculiarem) bishop, the very nature of the apostolic office will hardly suffer. Irenæus the first, who handed down the succession of the Roman bishops, thus speaks: The blessed apostles, (Peter and Paul,) founded and built the church, and delivered the episcopal office to Linus.' So writes Eusebius, after the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, the first that received the bishopric of the Roman Church was Linus.' Moreover, those of the old authorities that assign the bishopric of Rome to Peter, acknowledge that Paul was joined with him in the common labour and administration; and ever ascribed to him the privilege of the same dignity and the same charge with Peter, both in founding and governing the church of Rome. Let Epiphanius, who had examined the archives of the church very diligently, speak for all: In Rome, the apostles Peter and Paul were themselves bishops, then Linus,' &c. And, presently after, the succession of the bishops of Rome is in this order, Peter and Paul, Linus, &c.;' and others say the same, did I wish to spend time in citing them.”— Historia Litteraria, in voc. Petrus, sect. xi. For the same assertion, and a refutation of the fable of St. Peter's twenty-five years' episcopate at Rome, see Cave's Life of Peter, sect. xi. 6, and xii. 14. This co-equality of episcopal rank with St. Paul is not exactly what Dr. Wiseman wishes to exhibit; and his first witness proves too much for the case. So does the second, Bishop Pearson. "Irenæus, from whom first we received the table of the Roman succession, fetches its origin at once from the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. For thus he writes: OpeλwoavтEÇ K. T.A. (as above) having founded, &c." So Epiphanius records the Roman succession, · ἐν Ρωμῆ γὰρ γεγονασι, κ. τ. λ. In Rome, the apostles, &c.' (as above.) And a little after " the succession of the Roman bishops is in this order: Peter and Paul, Linus, &c. So Irenæus says that Hyginus had the ninth place in the bishopric by succession from the apostles. So Eusebius, 1. iii. c. 21: At that time Clement still governed the Roman church, who was the third that held that rank after Paul and Peter, who were bishops there.' And again, lib. iv. c. 1, At that time, when Euarestus had completed eight years at Rome, (i. e., in the see,) Alexander received the episcopate, bringing on the succession to the fifth from Peter and Paul.' So, of the Greeks, Irenæus, Eusebius, Epiphanius, deduce the origin from both the apostles." So much for Pearson's testimony. The fact of St. Paul's episcopate is, of course, fatal to Dr. Wiseman's argument. Next, let us see his quotations from Irenæus. In page 278, Dr. Wiseman produces the Tоñоν TоλUsρvλnróv, already cited by Cave and Pearson; but common readers would hardly recognise it in the following translation:-" To Peter! succeeded Linus; to Linus, Anacletus; then, in the third place, Clement." The inverted commas are from Dr. Wiseman. The words of Irenæus are"The blessed apostles having founded, and builded the church, delivered the episcopal office to Linus. Of this Linus, St. Paul makes mention in his epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; after him, Clement obtained the bishopric, in the third place, from the apostles."-Iren, lib. iii. c. 3. Is it possible that Dr. Wiseman made this quotation without referring to the original? or that, having referred to Irenæus, he could have deliberately inserted between inverted commas "To Peter," &c. The passage is, of course, destructive of Dr. Wiseman's whole argument, as it mentions equally the two apostles, and calls Clement bishop in the third place from them; i. e., after Linus and Anacletus, thereby excluding the apostles from the ordinary restricted episcopate of the church. Again, in page 282, garbling the same passage, Dr. Wiseman says, "They committed the administration thereof (the bishopric, Iren.) to Linus, &c. &c. But Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius, the twelfth from the apostles, now governs the church." Irenæus says, "Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius, now in the twelfth place from the apostles, has the bishopric, Tòv Tйs EжLσкоTŪS ἀπὸ τῶν αποστόλων κλῆρον. Linus is, therefore, the first, or Eleutherius the fourteenth. Next, Dr. Wiseman brings in Cyprian to give a very short and cautious testimony, page 280:-"To manifest unity, he authoritatively ordained the unity to spring from one."-Cypr. De Unit, Ecc. It was well done to get this witness as quickly out of the box as possible, for he had most surely gone on to say, "The other apostles were, in truth, just what Peter was, endowed with an equal share of honour and power; but the beginning issues from unity, that the church might be shewn to be one, which one church, even in the canticle, the Holy Ghost, in the person of the Lord, intends, and says, 'My dove is one, my perfect, (e. v., undefiled,) she is the only one of her Pearson, Opera Posthuma Chronologica. De serie et successione primorum Romæ Episcoporum.-Diss. 1. c. vi. 2. |