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1..t • .36-piokiT ,---1 I l'Ad ',i13•! y,!, ••• 1 'rtiraos ei suornmi as LCO aEW ,RIII II inims-rounni J a-ni *di "to no ilYgtarala.stothsia lisinang osttofon ChrisAums,h fiwIgfwattst poet.pf ouritime dradvAetig-etutetafertlitiii .bsticulato inipth .the -lapel and, premise, oif their jafbillintitatteb‘aufenv-noihliad!alliEngland itip 'with Aleettentatitni tai stfulft,Whitilf ecluidd; ht angelico an- ifilthatfid °vIR Inyg tiWIltRIPPYetis soltrun iiiiiekirefie./It3 011 FM.110,11310 RIO1O1 i4t(thittIS • Theridgfitfifl° lf.Clistat the rf,o,k of a r,.e0T,r,•• tidfrnriltr , -el voyee- of theii"bi n, s, byfIcfltg"Odl 4-14e 'Ogress,. -We f, ,t1 prowl) far to tUltOY' r. Temaysoni, coapecf with the retura utbe sacred, seaScai ai1„ few mmarks upon.priamples at work in our late religious manifestations, and-which when expanded seem likely to realize for us a higher degree of unity than our society can yet pretend to. Nor is it paradoxical to fix on a period of religious agitation, which, many think, is the precursor t6 revolutionary action, for the indulgence of a hope that an opportunity of closer union than has been practi- cable since the Long Parliament is likely to open for English Pro- testants. for agitation and revolution are processes necessary to the progressive.,,•rowth of nations, harmonizing ancient institu- tions with the altered condition of a Community, and rendering ,theta Adequate expressions of the wants and opinions of a people. The united protest with which an ostentatiously offensive revival of obsolete claims has been indignantly met, can moan nothing less than that Englishmen aro determined to regard their nationality as the deepest filet Concerning them ; and that even the rights of conscience and the sacred name of religious liberty cannot sanction the establishment of any ecclesiastical organization which implies danger or even affront to the nation at large. And the general in- dignatien: against those Churchmen whose conduct has seemed to invite the aggression, what is this but saying, that no dream ef Catholicity, no loogiug to return into the Catholic fold, shall eir- case Englishmen for forgetting that our history has not been the sport of chance ; that its great epochs must not be branded by psendo-prophets its national sins, but that in them must be sought • the leis's of our political progress, which cannot be ignored, ex- cept at the risk of leaving future changes to the guidance of spe- culative theories not based upon and possibly opposed to expe- rience. Yoder the conviction that national .history has this sig- . nificance, we would attempt, while ;up are talking everywhere of the crisis that is imminent, to discern' beforehand the principles that are coming into play, that so we may be prepared to act, when the hour strikes, with a clearer consciousness of the ends to be worked out, and of the leading ideas which must shape the course and-result Of the struggle -unless it is to end in chaos and disunion and confusion worse confounded.

The principle, that men are spirits, and then only realize-their true nature when their lives, and especially their acts of worship, witness to an immediate relation to their Maker, was the root and strength of the Reformation, the life of English thought and action . for a, .century afterwards, and has after a long. and . almost fatal lethargy again in our time given vigour to literature and begun its process Of reparation on Society. BY its grand article of justifica- tion by faith it asserted this principle ; and in the mode of its asser- tion combined a profounder sense of the worth of man as made in the image of God, with a deeper acknowledgment of his inherent incapacity for perfect goodness, and of his departure from his the self when he loses the revelation Of the Infinite, and bows down in idolatrous homage to objects which do but reflect broken lights of his own nature: Thus, the Reformation was in its fiuuliunental principle u. protest against all which denied those truths, and especially against that -notion of a church which changed a man's personal relation to God MO a legal status depending on formal admission into a visible corporation ; and against that priest- hood which, thrusting itself with all its full-blown vices as ap- pointed mediator between God and man at once dimmed the reli- gious consciousness and blunted the moral sensibility.. Still, though this was the Main article of the Reformation, the centre of Lu- ther's teaching, and the secret of the reverence in which the fore- most men of Europe have ever held his name, it remained to a certain extent barren of its logical results. Especially in England —whether it was owing to political expediency, and so may be called a compromise, or to the feet that great principles are ori- ginated or revived by men With no very distinct consciousness of all that is involved in them—the fact remains, that embedded in the fabric of the new building fragments of the Old ruin were allowed to retain their place, and have never since been removed: Our protest was not sufficiently pronounced against the sacerdotal system, or the theory which. has ever served for its Main prop, that .a mystical virtue is given to the Christian 'Symbols by the manipulation of the priest. Among the mixed con- sequences of this reticence, one strange anomaly stands prominent —that while a large and influential body of our fellow-oitizens, -who agree in every essential of doctrine with the Established

Church, are dissenters from her communion, many of those who fill

her offices of power and emolument are in heart and speech opposed to the central principle-of the movement which called her into ex- istence. -The old theory of a sacerdotal caste, lineal descendants of the Apostles, and empowered to impart the miraculous qualities of the sacraments, has found acceptance with many of the clergy ; and they have not wanted colour in the letter of the law to .which they have .sworn unqualified assent. Certain as we are cif the general lay feeling upon this subject—knowing that.they hold this priestly theory with its sacramental appendage to be unwarranted by Scripture and mischievous in practice, except when ,subtilized into intangible abstractions, or into types of a sacredness com- mon to all men and to all acts of men,—that; on the contrary, they look upon the clergy as men set apart like other professional men for a specific purpose, which in this case is to perforM duly the public services of religion, to preach the pure word of truth, and to, bring,to their office such aids of learning, science, and moral fitness, as are requisite to render their interpretation of Seripture harmonious with the conscience and reason pf their hearierpe-7 we cannot but suppose that a distinct enunciation of their clowns will form a leading object in any reopening of ecclesiastical ques- tions.

A second principle, which the prevailing sentiment seems likely to bring prominently forward, is the right of the Church to legis- late for itself; in other words, the introduction of the representa- tive principle into the Church, which, having for a long time had no legislative organ, has only obeyed the inevitable influence of sur- rounding movement, at the expense of contradiction between the belief of the majority of its members and its unchangeable authori- tative formulae. The Church has thus sacrificed the power of growth and self-correction to the supposed danger of intermeddling with its enunciations of permanent truth. And we are not disposed to deny that this danger exists. Every generation of men has its own modes of viewing truth, and cannot by any means get out of them. The peril therefore is, that our age should in its alterations sub- stitute merely its partial views for the partial views of the Re- formers of the sixteenth century, and so we should, at an infinite cost of turmoil and agitation, only exchange one narrowness for another. But in this matter, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. No one can doubt that a conviction is become general, that theo- logy has been too scholastic, and that many of the points which have rent churches asunder, and sown jealousy and discord through society, have been either beyond the cognizance of man, or on which men differently constituted must necessarily enter- tain different opinions. Such points would henceforth be left to the individual judgment ; while those truths that can fairly be deduced from our sacred records duly interpreted by learning and reason could not fail to come forth from the trial with renewed lustre and reinforced authority. Some would remain, which apparently admit of no amicable solution. But even on these, men would scarcely again frame for a church arti- cles of exclusion -without a solemn acknowledgment of lia- bility to adulterate their enunciations of divine truth with human infirmity of understanding and human immaturity of knowledge. Such a declaration would perhaps be the crown- ing result of a reformation of religion in the nineteenth cen- tury; though it would only accord with what Melancthon propo- sed for the Confession of Augsburg, and what was the actual prac- tice of the Protestant Church of France. And we should hail it, not because under its ample shadow scepticism and latitudinarian- ism could sleep or doubt in peace, but because we know no surer safeguard against both, and against orthodox infidelity which is worse than either, than the distinction thereby drawn between the forms of thought, -Which shift with the ebb and flow of opinion, and the objects of faith, to which the soul of humanity points with varying but approximate polarity. A third question, which must be proposed for solution before many years are past, and which will keep us disunited till it be solved, is the connexion of Church and State. Into the theoretic propriety of such connexion we do not intend to inquire, because in its abstract shape only a mere section of the English people feel much interest in the question. It is against certain definite evils that one portion of the public loudly protests and another no longer secretly murmurs; mainly against the irresponsible appointment of Bishops by the Crown, without any but the most indirect in- fluence from the public opinion of those whose spiritual interests are chiefly concerned in the appointment, so that a bishopric has become as notoriously a means of political influence in the handsel the Prime Minister as the merest court sinecure. Another practical grievance is the exclusion of the congregation from the least cooperation in the appointment of their ministers. In both cases, those whose highest desire is peace and quietness have much to urge for this bureau-

cratic despotism: but the English nation has never shown a tendency to sacrifice its loftier interests to a lazy dislike of trouble and agita- tion. These have been the price paid for our political liberties, and they must be paid for our religious freedom. Probably in neither case, espeoially in that of bishops, would the principle of direct election be found expedient. We are aware that plausible ar- guments have been advanced against all endowments; but the very general reception of the Government grants for education proves how exceptional any deep-rooted abhorrence of their principle is so that we should reckon on no violent dissension on this ground. The two former grievances form the strong points of objection to the Establishment. And now that our recent experience has shown that they pinch all parties but the "peace and quietness "section, and that even they can scarcely find their repose soothed by Ramp- den agitations and Gorham controversies, we can hardly be thought premature in suggesting the whole question of the " connexion " as a topic of probable discussion with a view to practical measures. We feel at the same time, that the English people will not be hastily induced, on any theory, or for any partial inconvenience, i to give up the security which they possess n the machinery of the

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