LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
CHURCH AND STATE.
[TO THE EDITOR Or ma "SPECTIT0S.1 SIR,-1 feel so deeply indebted to Mr. Maurice for the light whicIr he has cast on almost every subject which I have had occasion to. study, that I cannot quite understand how I should differ with him so utterly on the questions discussed in his valuable and instructive letter.
There is one point on which I should be obliged if you would allow me to offer a word of explanation. I venture to hope that the most "powerful champions of our cause" would not disown the views which their humbler brother expressed in your columns last week. It is the unholiness of the actual form of the alliance„ I should say, too, of the idea of an alliance, between the Churclr and the State, which we all denounce. We can conceive of a form of relation, such for instance, as the first constitution framed for the Churches of Hesse, or the experiment at Northampton in 1570, of which Mr. Fronde tells us, which we might speak of as impracticable or undesirable, but certainly not as unholy while the form of the relation established in the Anglican Church appears to us unholy to the very core.
I may not venture to occupy your space with any extended_ remarks on Episcopacy. It is part of that scheme of the Church of which the Roman pontificate is the Crown ; and with it, it. seems to us, it is decaying, waxing old, and ready to vanish away. Whatever help it may have afforded in past times to the progress. of Christian society, we are happily living under conditions in which the pure simplicities of the New Testament alone can help. us further on our way.
My complaint against both the Presbyterian and Methodist Church systems is just that they seem to organize that "separa- tion of the secular and spiritual spheres" which both Mr. Hughes. and Mr. Maurice denounce, and by that organization they per- petuate it. From this tendency the Independents are, or ought to be, free. We may easily become a sect, and I think we are ia grievous danger from this source at present. Those of your readers who are Independents, and they are many, will know that I have recently expressed my conviction on this point in the best way in my power. But the simple "congregation of faithful men,' drawn into fellowship for Christian culture and work, appears to me more and more to be the one mode of Church life and activity- which gives to the life and light of the spiritual sphere free play through all the organs of the social and political life of a people,. whereby alone can we have any hope of realizing a national religious life.-1 am, Sir, &c.,
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