Religion.

IS THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF CHURCH PATRONAGE JUSTIFIABLE?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

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THE questioning spirit, the disposition to demand the why of everything, is now thoroughly aroused, the yoke of authority is broken, the teachings of tradition are thrown aside,-opinions formerly regarded as incontestable have been subjected to debate, -customs aged by centuries are put on their defence, and are called upon to give an account of their origin, uses, and benefits; and institutions of the hoariest antiquity have no venerableness in the eyes of the men of our era, unless they can justify their existence by demonstrating their utility. And this is well; for it shows that the age is a thinking one, and that intelligence is taking its rank amongst the “powers that be." Dateless trial by jury" is put on its trial; the long-aged customs of Parliament and of the Law Courts have been brought under discussion, and few things civil of the olden time have had civil things said of them by their critics. Neither have things sacred been exempted from this universally diffused inquisition and adjudication. Not to speak of the great volcanic eruption of the Reformation, how many sects and forms of religious life have sprung into a place in history,-all more or less basing their claims to being, on some exercise of the critical faculty upon the things and "the days of other years." It is a boast with us, in many social, moral, civic, and religious matters, that "old things have passed away," and many of them “have become new." And this, too, is well; for it shows we practical people, and thoughtful practicality is perhaps the best possible characteristic of any body of men, class, or people. We love both manifestations of which we have made mention when they are kept in union, the inquiring and the reforming spirit,-provided that the results really are reform, and not merely change. We have no conservative feelings in favour of error, nor any desire to adopt the Satanic maxim,-" Evil, be thou my good; have strong conservative leanings towards all existent beneficial customs, institutions, laws, &c., and plead for the restraint of alteration only thus far, that the thing to be altered should be proven to be wrong or evil, and that the thing to be substituted should be proven to afford a fair probability of being a real and lasting improvement. Until both of these matters have been properly, fully, and well made out, "things as they are" are justifiable; justifiability, in our opinion, being proven when it has

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been shown that the best possible plan in the time and circumstances, and for the purpose, has been adopted in the existent arrangements. It is quite true that there is a higher standard for judging of the justifiability of any institution,-namely, its conformity with the decisions of the theoretic reason. But we have long ago learned that, in the practical affairs of life, the legislative power of reason is not supreme, but must be exercised in subordination to the qualities of the realities upon which it is to act, and that therefore this higher order of justifiability can be predicated of few of the manners, customs, habits, laws, or institutions prevalent among men. To prove that "the present system of Church patronage" is justifiable in this sense, is not, therefore, we presume, the duty of any writer on the affirmative side,-though one can easily perceive that this would be more readily proven than any other form of the question. We chose the harder labour voluntarily, however, and shall essay, as best we may, to lead our readers to see that in its historical, social, and religious relations, the present system of Church patronage" is "justifiable."

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We have only here to interject a reclaimer against the common appeal on such subjects "to the law and to the testimony," and the attempt to bring arguments from "Holy Writ" to bear upon the subject. We do not believe that any special Church polity, or any particular Ecclesiasticism, is established for everlasting perpetuation in the New Testament. And this, as we conceive, for sound reasons, and chiefly for that most desirable of all things in a church, an adaptability to all times, places, circumstances, and modes of civil government. In this we find one of the chief arguments for the Divinity of the religion of Christ, that it has not been bound and burdened by any external formulas, ceremonials, or polity, some or many of which might be impossible in different countries; but that has insisted on the purity and sincerity of the heart in worship-leaving the mode, and form, and all the specialities of Church government, officials, creeds, &c., to be determined by the "two or three gathered together" to worship God, out of a true heart, fervently. We know of no revelation of any Church polity -Papalism, Prelatism, Independency, or Presbyterianism-finally fixed and settled for the Christian Church; we only know, that in this as well as in every well-ordered society, the law is, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." What these powers are have not been specifically defined, and hence, among many other characteristics of the Christian faith, an evidence of its fitness for becoming and being the faith of the whole world.

Though this be granted by our opponents, we shall not, therefore, deny to them the right to quote whatsoever Scripture they choose, to illustrate or maintain their views, either in statements of fact, or for inferential argument; nor would we be understood to restrict ourselves from the exercise of the privilege of testing, by "the Book of books," our sentiments regarding this serious and sacred question.

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The Church consists of the whole body of believers in Christ. But this Church is necessarily sectional," many members in one body,"--because of the universality of its aims and claims; because it seeks to "cover the whole earth," and cannot do so without conforming, in its externals, to the language, laws, habits, modes of speech and thought, &c., of the several peoples among whom it spreads, and whom it desires to bring, absorptively, within itself. Over its concerns, there must be overseers; to do its work, there must be labourers; to carry its messages, there must be preachers; to fulfil its mission, there must be apostles-men sent. The labourer is worthy of his hire," and his worthiness thereof is specially insisted on in Scripture, though the mode in which it is to be given -paid, arranged, or settled for-is nowhere set forth in detail. The early Christians, in gratitude to their teachers, strove, by contributions of their goods, to make their instructors "partakers of their earthly things." When kings became converts, and emperors were baptized, they, in an enlarged and liberal missionary spirit, endowed the Church, and gave its teachers place, power, influence, and wealth, that they might be used for the promotion of the glory of God, and the good of their people. Thus kings became nursing-fathers, and queens nursing-mothers, to the Church. In their early zeal, their new-born love of Christ, their first gratitude to the teachers of salvation, they gave without scruple, grudge, or condition, and the Church, laden with the wealth of princes, forsook the ways of God, and its priests corrupted their way before the people. They ceased to use the bequests of the kings, as the agents for the people. for behoof of their subjects, but for the subjugation of the civil power; and it was necessary to wrest from them both wealth and power, and to take guarantees, as far as possible, for the useful employment of their endowments. The long contests for investiture were only a form of insisting upon patronage; and all down the tide of time it has been shown, in the records of history, that the uncurbed possession, by the Church, of its endowments and position, is only, or mainly, a pampering of priestcraft and a subversion of religion. How true this was in our own country the contests between priest and king will tell; and so we have proven that patronage is historically justifiable. The "present system" is justifiable because it divides it, and so lessens the likelihood of using it wrongly, and because it spreads an interest in the Church through all the leading men in a nation. It is more than justifiable, compared with the absolute, though unrecognized, patronage in dissenting Churches, where a few leading men too often hold the stirrup for the parson who is most capable of condescending to commend himself to them.

The moral obligation to support the Church is binding upon all; but it falls chiefly and heaviest on those who hold most of the good gifts of this life. A stated ministry cannot be kept up by voluntary effort amidst a fluctuating population. Hence the provision which burdens the possessors of the land, rather than its tillers, with the 1862.

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support of a stated ministry, is wise as well as politic. Yet it would be strange did no privilege accompany and acknowledge the bearing of this burden. Our Church and State have wisely, in general, agreed to regard the payers of the endowment as the granters of the patronage; and trusting, as they do, rightly in the main, in the fellow-feeling between proprietors and tenants, they have left the religious instructor of the latter to be nominated by the former. A few legal fictions may have somewhat altered the actual working of this general and original intent, but this is really its normal basis, and we think that, as a general principle, it is peculiarly justifiable on moral grounds, as giving a right in recog nition of the fulfilment of a duty; as binding in one interest the landlord and tenant; as giving the latter a right to look to the former as a patron and encourager of the Church, and as giving the former an inducement to be himself an example to the people; and especially as limiting the area of the pastor's dependence for daily food, and so making him able to take a place before his people as a "guide, philosopher, and friend." In all these ways, patronage is justifiable, and the "present system" contrasts favourably with the past, where pope or priest appointed fellow priest; and with the system of dissent, which widens the area of dependence so far as to make the pastor, in many cases, an absolute "hired servant," not of God, but of his people.

As a social institution, the Church exerts a highly beneficial influence in preserving and spreading a knowledge of the word of God, which is not only the word of eternal life, but the source of that "righteousness which "exalteth a nation;" in supplying throughout the country a staff of moral and religious teachers, learned and exemplary men; in caring for the training of the young "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;" in preserving the truth, and witnesses for it, in times of difficulty and corruption; in promoting personal religion, and in being a recognized reservoir of charity. All these purposes the Church of Christ ought to recognize as duties, and ought to provide the means of effecting; and the best means for providing for the effecting of these purposes, is most in accordance with the will of God.

We think that "the present system of Church patronage," inasmuch as it brings all classes of society into relation with each other, and gives them not only a common worship, but common interests in that worship, tends to effect these ends very effectively, and hence "is justifiable."

Before closing, however, let us confess that we admit and deplore that there are many instances and occasions in which "the present system of Church patronage" works ill, and that there is a large and much to be regretted exercise of nepotism in the Church. This, alas! seems to be an evil inevitably attending the working of any institution by human hands. Yet do we see in this even a beneficial effect; for it knits, and keeps knit, the great families of the State to the Church, and must exercise at least some restraining influence upon

the characters, not only of the holders of these holy offices, but also of their relatives. Altogether, we would say, all but unreservedly, that as the present system of Church patronage has not been proven to be theoretically bad, or practically evil, and especially as nothing provenly better has been proposed, it is justifiable. SALINE.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

EVERY Christian Church is, or professes to be, a Church of God; and by right its patronage truly rests in God. At His bidding Churches profess to have arisen, and for His purposes they acknowledge themselves to exist. Every reasonable adherent of any Church would be perfectly willing to admit the abstract right of God to the government and patronage of His Church. As, however, the Divine Patron does not now outwardly direct the affairs, or nominate the conductors of the churches, but has evidently left these matters in human hands, our first inquiry is to find out whether He has left any indications of His will as to the persons by whom His right shall be exercised. And if there is but the slightest instruction given by Him, it must be acknowledged to be an unpardonable insult to presume to dispose these affairs without any regard to His declared Will.

There is not to be found in the New Testament any code of laws upon the parochial constitution, or the administration of a system of Church patronage such as now exists, and therefore there is no one passage which can be appealed to definitively to settle this question to general satisfaction. But it is contended that there is a system of Church order and government set forth in the New Testament, as actually formed by men deputed by the Son of God for that purpose, and working under their auspices, which, in its very nature, forbids the introduction of anything akin to modern Church patronage. The apostles everywhere, in constituting Churches, formed communities consisting only of persons who professed to hold a peculiar relationship to God through a loving trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. These communities were commanded to permit none but honest, industrious, well-behaved, chaste, and pious people to mingle with them (2 Thess. ii. 6-10; 1 Cor. v. 1–13; 1 Cor. xvi. 22; Ephes. v. 11; Tit. iii. 10; 2 John 10, 11). It was to these communities, and to no other persons, we contend, that the right of appointing teachers and rulers in the Church was given. Several passages might be mentioned, but there are two passages which appear to us alone conclusively to prove the scriptural right of the Churches to exercise Church patronage. The one is in Acts i. There we find that the men who were immediately appointed by the Lord to form and teach the Church, esteeming it necessary to appoint an apostle, did not assume even to themselves the right of appointment, but left it to the people. Surely if the apostles, God-instructed men as they were, set up no claim to the right of appointment, but at once admitted it to rest with the disciples, there is an argument for the