SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Dissertation ou Church Polity. By Andrew Coventry Dick, Esq. Advocate.

ligteDoTts AND DESCRIPTIOvc, Miscellanies. By the Author of "The Sketch-Book." No. II. containing Abbots ford and Newstead Abbey. sUuretry

Transfusion. Ile the late William Godwin, junior. With a 'aleinoir of his I.ife and

Writings, by his Father. lu 3 vols. Marano.

DICK'S DISSERTATION ON CHURCH POLITY.

APART from any consideration as to the soundness of the views, Mr. Dicx's treatise deserves to be stud its'. for its merits as a composition. The arrangement of the matter is lucid and natural ; the arguments display extensive knowledge, acute perception, and logical skill ; the style, despite a few (a very few) stray Seotucisms, is a capital example of discussional writing—perfectly clear, animated without vehemence, and exciting the pleasure of the reader by its felicitous illustrations and its keen yet quiet irony. In addition to these rare qualities, the author exhibits a philosophic calmness in the examination of his subject, and an easy loftiness of manner, which can only be acquired by .a long and familiar ac. quaintance with the best writers. Add to this, that the important question of polity, " What should be the conduct of the State towards the Church?" is thoroughly discussed, not with a view to flatter temporary opinions, but to establish permanent priuciples ; and we have said enough to attract attention to the volume, even from those who may dissent from the conclusions at which its author arrives.

The point which Mr. Dicx proposes to examine is, whether the Voluntary principle or a State endowment is most advantageous to society, and most serviceable to religion : and, after considering the subject in its essential bearings, he decides in favour of the Voluntary principle—provided the State takes care to deny the Church a power of accumulating property. To follow the author through his luminous exposition of the subject, would be to abridge and gut the book. This, if it were fair, would not be possible in our limits : but we will endeavour to convey some idea of the scope and tendency of his arguments, which resolve themselves into the questions of political right and religious utility. Commencing with an inquiry into the authority of the magistrate in matters of religion, Mr. DICK maintains, that, philosophically speaking, the State has no right to establish a particular form of worship. "Obedience is the true essence of a subject whatever the Government commands, the governed are bound to obey : and in darker ages and more evil days, the same obedience was required—and, upon the principles of an establishment, rightly required—to national creeds as to national decrees. Resistance to the State worship was punished as resistance to any other law of the country. Dissent was prevented and uniformity enforced by tire and fagot and by the sword. It is true that statesmen got weary of punishing for speculative dogmas, whilst the growth of rival faiths rendered punishment a matter of greater difficulty; the admission, moreover, of the practice of toleration, the gradual discovery of the true nature of belief, with the consequent right of every man to freedom of conscience, seem to have procured for dissenters religious liberty. But it has been yielded to necessity rather than granted upon principle. The religious advocate of an established church, if he acts up to the principles of his creed, must look upon this liberty as a concession which has been wrung from him by circumstances, and which he must always be determined to resume as soon as he possesses the power. There are many admirers of State worship, however, who rest their defence of it upon its utility. An established church, sa)s PALEY, is useful for the purposes of instructing the people. Endowments are thought by Dr. CHALMERS to be absolutely necessary for a similar purpose. t‘ The physical wants or appetites of our nature," he tells us, "guarantee an effective demand for the various articles of physical indulgence. Rather than want food, or clothes, or lodging, man will exert himself to the uttermost, that either by his labour, or the price of his labour, he may be enabled to purchase these indispensable accommodations." It is otherwise, however, with the better part of our nature. Fur, according to him, " There is an utter dissimilarity between the mental appetite for knowledge and the physical appetite for those necessaries, or even those luxuries of life, which constitute the great materials of commerce. It is not with the desire of knowledge as it is with the desire of food. Generally speaking, the more ignorant a man is, the more satisfied he is to remain so."

And hence the Doctor concludes, that Government should endow teachers, who may at once stimulate the demand of the people and furnish them with the necessary supply. In this view of the subject, the truth or the probable truth of the religion established seems to be a secondary matter. When the legislator and the people

differ in faith, Dr. PALEY advises that the popular creed should be adopted, because it is "an *equal chance" that the people's is the true one, and "more efficacy" can be expected from employing

men to teach instead of to convert. Passing this accommodating advice,—passing the objection, that when an order of men are paid by endowments, they will as a body discharge their duty With laxity, and perhaps neglect it altogether,—the argument of Utility seems to be unstable. Before a religion can be established, and most assuredly before it can be endowed by the State (if it be not endowed already), it must be the creed of the nation, or at least of a great majority of the nation. The natural question that arises is—by what means it came to be established ? and the answer must be—by the Voluntary principle. In the case of the purest of religions, we know that it not only spread, but became endowed, in spite of opposition. Its wealth, both ander the Roman Empire and subsequently throughout all Christendom, was for the most part the gift of pious individuals : the Catholic Church, indeed, was not so much established by, as in spite of, the State. If, therefore, the Voluntary principle is powerful * create, why not to maintain ?—especially when we find, that almost as soon as a church is endowed, it begins to languish and grow corrupt, and as soon as the " reign of terror " is abandoned, to dwindle.

Ha% ing dismissed the questions of how far cne of the functions of' government is that " of' propagating the true religion," and of the utility of an established church, the author proceeds at considerable length to examine the effects of endowments upon the doctrine and discipline of the Church itself, and upon the chame tors of its ministers. This leads of course into a full exposition of the policy which it is advisable to pursue towards ecclesiastical establishments ; the rules being deduced from the practice of' the ablest statesmen, whether Catholic or Protestant. It is shown, that to guard against all the evils which afflicted Europe during the high and palmy state of the Romish hierarchy—to prevent the disturbances resultihg from an imperium iii mperio—the state must subdue and corrupt the church, making it the mere bondswoman of the secular power. The legislative authority must determine its creed, its forms, and its discipline, and forbid any clerical alteration ; it must fix the amount of its property, prevent any fresh distribution, or any new acquisition even by gift without consent ; whilst the Executive must possess the chief power of appointing its ministers, in order that it may control, or rather corrupt them. Wlem this is &tee, the peace and safety of the state are tolerably secured ; but at the price of the slavery and degradation of the church. Though evea then there is danger in a great spiritual corporation : the rule is general, not universal; if ever its interests are affected, it will attack the government, or liberty, as the case may be.

Such is an outline, though but a meagre outline, of Mr. Dicies views; a few specimens must show his manner of stating them. If the reader finds in them topics to which no allusion has been made, he will remember that we only attempted to give a general idea of the leading arguments. If their opening app ars somewhat abrupt, it must be attributed to the close and consecutive manner of the writer.

We will begin with part of his reply to Dr.CummEas's argument on Endowments. After a severe and searching examination of some "dubious phraseology," the author thus proceeds— But not to dwell longer upon what are probably rather exaggerated expressions than fixed opinions, I pass on to obsei ve respecting the comparison which he has instituted between the strength of our mental and physical appetites, that there is reason to question its fairness and accuracy. Any one who examines his work with attention, will discover that he has not tested their respective energies by equal standards. He has pronounced our mental appetites to be weak, because they have failed to insure to all the human race the possession of a high degree of knowledge and of a pure religion ; but he has pronounced our physical appetites ter be strong, merely because they will not let man go without food and clothing and lodging. To make the comparison fair, he should hare judged either of the strength of the latter by their ability to insure to us the best tbod, the best clothing, and the best lodging ; or of that of the former by their power to insure, not a high quality of education and the best religion, but such a kind of both as might tirly be said to be relatively good. He should not have used the words knowledge and education to signify the education and knowledge of his ci vilized contemporaries, and the word religion to signify Christianity ; while under the terms food, clothing, and lodging, he was including all kinds and degrees of those articles, from the lusanies of a European palace down to the scantiness and loathsomeness of savage life. It is solely by the help of this artifice that he has been able to make the comparison appear so unfavourable to our mental and spiritual appetites. Let us reflect, that in any other than a relative sense, no man can justly be called well-educated. The knowledge of the most accomplished human being will appear, if he be compared with an angel, to be ignorance itself; and yet, relatively to the circumstances of its possessor, it may truly he great, and we may justly pronounce him to be well-educated. The knowledge of an ordinary artisan ot this country is small compared with that of a first-rate philosopher ; and yet, relatively to his own place, lie also may be a welheducated man. The very savage himself is not without his own degree of knowledge and education. Now, I will venture to say, that between his degree of education, and the degree of it which in Great Britain at this time would be called good, there is no greater distance than there is between the degrees of physical comfort enjoyed respectively by the savage and the wealthier classes of this country. If the mental appetites of the savage procure him only a savage education, his corporeal appetites supply him with corporeal necessaries of no better quality. By the help of this observation, and by pointing to the long labour of six thousand years, through which man has passed before leaching the height of external comfort now enjoyed in our own land, I might set myself to prove the languor of his physical appetites and the need of the application to them of a stimulus by government. In this task, I should find a want of that power to imagine and to embellish, which has been lavishly exerted in the essay on Endowments.

Here is a happy description of

WHAT AN ENDOWMENT IS.

To endow, is to assign a real estate or a sum of money to be employed in as.. complishing the object which its founder or provider has in view, whether it be divine worship or civil utility, or whether it be merely the gratification of his vanity and ambition ; which last is almost always the real, although the two former are commonly the only avowed purposes. An endowment is unchange-. able, both in its object and in the mode of its being administered. Fancying that society wants some specific good thing, the founder, in the first place,flefines it ; next, he provides funds adequate to procure it ; finally, he prescribes who shall manrge it, and the rules of management. It is obvious, that to guard against its being perverted or dilapidated, all these points must be fixed with precision and inflexibly. The administrators of the endowment must be mere executors of the will of the founder ; who, unless:he act foolishly and carelessly, will provide for the immutability of his institution.

This is especially necessary when its object is divine worship. It must be

supposed that the founder believes the religious system which he endows to be in all points true ; consequestly, every deviation from it he will regard as error to be carefully shunned. He will therefore take care that the endowment shall be guarded by the most jealous rules against the dreadful calamity of being diverted to the support of any other faith. But a religious endowment must contemplate perpetuity as well as unchangeableness. Religion is not like some objects for which endowments have been provided, an occasional and temporary, but a perpetual want of society. The founder believes that the worship he purposes to maintain will be alwsivs true and useful, and always requite the arta': cial aid of an endowment ; at least be cannot foresee the period when such aid will be no longer needed : and as it would be dangerous to leave its endurance at the will-of others, his reason and his conscience compel him to provide for the eternity of his institution. Every endowment is immutable till its design is accomplithed ; and as divine worship should never cease, a religious erelowinent is in its nature unchangeable and perpetual. These remarks apply with peculiar fitness to a national endowment of religion. NVe have seen that it is furnished not to religion generally, but to a spes tifie form of divine worship, by which the Government or Leeislature is desirous that every other may be supplanted. We have seen too, that this worship must be already professed and popular in the country. Hence it appears, that en endowment is given not so much because it is needed at the monieut,—for while the church is popular and the people zealous, the Voluntary system could .easily support it,—but because it may be needed in time to come. Its chief dc 'sign is to preserve, by artifickd means, to their children's children, the same 'blessing which the generatioa of founders have aequired for themselves by natural and unaided efforts. bnagining that religious truth exists in their ideas, in a degree of clearness and purity unknown in times preceding, and not possible to be exceeded in times to come, they as it were seize and fix it in that state, and contrive means for carrying down to the end of the world the precious deposit undefiled. Those who endow a church, never contemplate that the endowment may be transferred by their near descendants to the service of heresy : such a prospect would assuredly make them pause. Fired with the ambition of determining. the belief df all the dwellers within their territory for time and eternity, they labour to secure their institution agaiest the shocks of violence and the inroads of time ; and when they have exerted their utmost skill, they breathe over the work of their fallible wisdom the presumptuous prayer ESTO PERPETHA The preceding extracts have been only introductory to the main matter of all speculations upon this subject—the effects upon religion. The remainder shall relate to the chief subject, and appear in something like the consecutive order of the subject, as here presented without regard to their place in the hook.

WHAT A STATE RELIGION IS LIKELY TO BECOME.

Reviewing the foregoing details, we perceive in the first place, that one principle of the machinery is to provide every thing for the people. tinder it, they are recipients, never agents. Creed, ritual, and teachers, and the money

which feeds and moves all, are supplied by the providence of one age to all succeeding generations ; who find themselves placed under a system which, more

jealous of their supineness than confiding in their virtuous energy, guards against the ill effects of the former by means that are suppressive of the latter. Is such a plan reasonable, or can it be useful? The answer is obvious. Contrast the generation which erects an establishment with that of all which suc ceed, and you will find that by a singular revolution, what began and was com pleted by a fervent and untiring zeal, subsists at last only by lethargy and indifference. k rises from the enthusiasm of one age, but is sustaiued by the creep iug superstition, or the were habit, or the secular policy of those that follow. The descendants of its founders find a religious system placed over them, about which they have never been consulted and over which they have no power. Its doctrines and ritual being decreed by Parliament ; its whole framework upheld by means of art and compulsion ; its official men of all classes chosen, deposed, shifted, and guided, by an authority above their influence; they feel therneelves to resemble spectators and listeners in a theatre, where the display being gratuitous, the performers are at liberty to despise both the censure and applause of their audience. If upon them has descended any of the religious fervour, which, animating their ancestors, employed itself in the creation of an establishment, they look round and search in vain to find a vent for it within that institution. There every thing is supplied, every

thing fixed; to innovate is forbidden, to add is discouraged. Confining the people to the mere hearing of ductrines and precepts unfolded, and requiring of them no outward services beyond the observance of a few forms, it gives little exercise to their intellect, and less to their active faculties; or rather, it throws them both into inaction and repose. They perceive that its doctrines will contnue to be promulgated over the land, whether they understand them or not, believe or disbelieve them ; and that they do not want their aid, either as their advocates or defenders. As for the practice of its precepts, it may be useful to them as individuals, but will redound no mote to the stability of the church than their violation of them would weaken it. Suppose that they discover, that through the sloth or corruptiou of its functionaries, it is gradually drooping, or taking on new blendshes, of what avail is their zeal to reiunigorate and restore its life and beauty? Having no legal, and little moral influence within it, they can reach the guilty and redress the evil only by violence, which is criminal, or by accession, which is inconsistent with the principle and fatal to the reputation of the institution. In short, in the arrangements regarding this, the most interesting of all departments of constitutional policy, the people find themselves totally cast out of account, save as the passive subjects of clerical lectures. 'hus separated from them, an ecclesiastical establishment is perfect ; nor is it possible to vary ham this model except to the worse you never can give to the people any real power within it, although you may contrive to tease or amuse

them by offering them the shadow of it. • * * • • Here we may pause fur a moment to learn how we may best fulfil the meaning of poets, philosophers, and jurists, when they warn us to lay the foundation of civil society in an acknowledgment of Divine Providence. It is by owning first of all the rights of Providence. Observing that it has framed man a religious being, and in that department of his nature subjected hint to no intermediate superior, but directly to God, we are taught neither to prescribe, nor limit, nor enforce the inward or outward homage to which that subjection calls him. The state which, acting upon this lesson, anxiously provides for freedom of worship, and sensitively withdraws its rulers from the province of conscience, is of all states the most holy and religious, presents in its laws a perpetual homage to Divine Providence, and may be truly said to have laid its foundations in an act of worship. This is not to rearm' Atheistic constitution. Commit to an Atheist the erecting of a commonwealth, and he will assume without scruple the control of religion, because he thinks God a dream and conscience a prejudice. Such

man, owning no rights of conscience, yet unable to cure his subjects of their religious propensities, will make provision for giving them indulgence according to his !we ideas of what is pleasing and politic. He will therefore erect and set In motton a kind of religious pageant. Thus the principles of the Atheist and the :principles of the High Churchmen lead to the same result, the one from dis

behef„.theother from superstition. They concur in erecting a species of civil conatitution, to which alone, if to any, the epithet Atheistic applies; for it subyeas the law& .of Heaven: and whereas in religion, nature has given us God onlifeir,our meter, his will fur our law, and conweience to paid and enforce it, this constitution presumes to intercept our allegiance; and, presenting us wi!h some miserable niortals fur rulers, fulminates its anathema against all who will not tie themsceves to their parchment-creed and policy-begottemworship.

RELIGIOUS INDEPENDENCE OF THE DISSENTERS.

This canAict in principle and in policy between the vast parties which now divide the empire, has been brought about, because, after having waived its elaim to the obedience of its subjects in matters of religion, our constitution Insists upon upholding the ecclesiastical institutions which had no other basis. Hence the confusion. It will not cease till we emerge from that traneition state between persecution and freedom termed toleration. In the meantime, let us remark, as gratifying to Dissenters, the contrast which it has produced betweeii the independence of their churches and the slavery of that of the law. Volutetary churches, viewed by themselves, are in the possession of almost pellet freedom. The abolition of the Establishment would relieve Dissenters, as individuals, from an enormous grievance, and their religious institutions from a legal stigma ; but to the practical liberty of the latter it would briug but a small accession. Over them the State can at present exercise no peculiar authority : it dare not lay upon them so much as its little finger. Its power, which ones ranged at will over the whole religious institutions in the country, now expends itself within the temples of the law. Into the churches called national it has, indeed, the right to enter, and there to work its pleasure ; to set up or pull down Bishops, to remove or to impose the tyranny of patronage, or to do any other deed of policy or sacrilege: but into the smallest, obscurest, weakest Dissenting church in the most defenceless district of the land, not the King or Parlie:mut, nor any prince or potentate of this world, may dare to set the foot of authority.

FINAL CONDITION OF AN ENDOWED CHURCH.

The prostration of the Church, to which all these measures tend, is, for the vulgar purposes of its patrons, complete and beyond recovery, when dissent springs up, and is protected by a tolet ation. The rise of other churches accomplishes the subversion of its dominion more effectually than any devices of the state, whether direct or ciicuitoue, because it at once drains off strength from the establishment and gives it rivals. Of this truth, statesmen are so well aware, that they dislike that the Church and the Dissenters should be on friendly terms, and would rather inflame their animosities : of which a striking proof is recorded by Bishop Burnet, who tells us, that after the Revolution the patriotic statesmen of that day were averse to certain measures for reconciling the Nonconformists to the Church, because they wished, by keeping up their irritation, to maintain a strong party against it. Meantime, the power of the civil ruler is unimpaired by what is sapping the foundations of the establishment, or rather it is cemented and enlarged. Gradually the Church loses her haughtiness, and the State its jealousy ; and between these two authorities, which held each other for rivals and enemies—while the former wae in reality what it always profeeses to be, the mistress of the people's religion—a league is at last struck, in which the one stipulates for protection amid the other for subserviency. Thenceforward the submission of the Church respects no scruple, and knows no bounds, those only excepted that are prescribed by the instinct of self-preservation, which still remains in the most servile nature, and largely qualifies its servility. In this altered condition of affairs, the State, like a despot with power unopposed, can affect the indulgent patron, and will applaud the merits, humour the pretensions, and at times even relax the chains ot its enfeebled ally. And thus the Church finds in the increasing kindness of Government, and an allowance of larger kberty, sonic consolation for the desertion of the people. A recovery of its original sway over them would supplant that kindness by jealousy, and retighten its fetters. As for freedom, true and rightful freedom, that " nuble thing" is for ever beyond its reach. The minciple of servitude deeply seated iu its constitutiou, works in it with the smoothness and the power of a natural law, producing an obedience which seems to anticipate command, and is so prompt and passive that its undiscerning admirers are apt to think it freedom. But to impartial and more prying observers its secret springs are visible. By many churches their sulmrdination to the state is openly acknowledged; and against that Church in this island which makes loud pretensious to independence, it may he proved by the confession of its chief men, that it has hitherto obeyed, as obsequiously as any other, the dictation of the Government of the day, in all those matters in which it has interposed to control it. On this point, I avail myself of the authority of an eminent historian, who thus admirably expresses both the fact and its came: " The Church of Scotland," says Hallam, " in her General Assemblies preserves the forms, and affects the language of the sixteenth century; but the Erastianisna against which she inveighs, secretly controls and paralyzes her vaunted liberties ; and she cannot but acknowledge that the supremacy of the Legislatnre is like the collar of the watch-dog, the price of food and shelter, and the condition upon which alone a religious society can be endowed and established by any prudent commonwealth." • After all, quotations can give no true idea of the character of this work, or of the power of the author; those who would appreciate either must procure the book. The very first paragraph will tell the reader that he is in the hands of a master of logic. The student may he apt to think that there is too great a display of professional skill—the pleader superseding the philosopher, and exhibiting somewhat too skilfully all the strong arguments of his own case, whilst the weak points of the other side are alone brought out. It must, however, be borne in mind, that Mr. Dim( is discussing the abstract question of a church establishment; not looking at it with a worldly eye, and balancing its good against its evils. During the darker ages,for instance, the monasteries were the repositories of manuscripts (though they destroyed a good many); but this was a fortunate accident, and our author looks only at the essential tendencies of the system.

• Hallam's Constitutional History, Vol.11. p. 690.