its support, and yet are not so fully convinced of this, or do not so fully act upon the conviction, as really to decline to pay. If they are convinced, let them remember their responsibility, and not know their Master's will in vain. If these are not faithful, where is fidelity to be found? How shall the Christian churches be purified from their defilements, if those who see and deplore these defilements, contribute to their continuance? Let them show that their principles are worthy a little sacrifice. Fidelity on their part, and a Christian submission to the consequences, might open the eyes, and invigorate the religious principles of many more: and at length the objection to comply with these unchristian demands, might be so widely extended, that the legislature would be induced to withdraw its legal provision; and thus one main constituent of an ecclesiastical system, which has grievously obstructed, and still grievously obstructs, the Christian cause, might be taken away.

"As an objection to this fidelity of practice, it has been said that since a man rents or buys an estate for so much less, because it is subject to tithes, it is an act of dishonesty, afterwards to refuse to pay them. The answer is this,-That no dishonesty can be committed, while the law exacts payment by distraint; and if the law were altered, there is no place for dishonesty. Besides, the desire of saving money, does not enter into the refuser's motives. He does not decline from motives of interest, but from motives of duty."— Dymond's Essays on the Principles of Morality, and on the Private and Political Obligations of Mankind, vol. ii. Essay iii. Chap. xvi. Lond. 1830.

RULES OF DISCIPLINE.

The following extracts from " The Rules of Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends," a work of public authority in that denomination, will still farther explain the grounds on which that respectable body refuse to pay church taxes. "Our testimony against tithes and forced maintenance in this gospel day, being received from Christ our Head and High Priest, is not of our own making, or imposing, nor from the tradition of men."-" If all friends had been faithful in their testimony against tithes, the time of our deliverance from that oppression under which this nation yet groans, would have been nearer at hand."-" As we have been convinced of the inconsistency of tithes with the nature of the Gospel dispensation, it is our necessary duty to act agreeably to such convictions; and if sufferings for our testimony shall be the consequences of our obedience thereto, it will become us, after the example of the primitive Christians, cheer

fully to submit, and to take joyfully the spoiling of our goods; that so we may preserve a conscience void of offence toward God, and at the same time, by our Christian meekness and innocent deportment, give reasonable evidence of our sincerity to men."-" We tenderly exhort that this branch of our Christian testimony be not laid waste by connivance or private agreement with priests or impropriators, but that all abide patient under that testimony which the Lord hath called us to bear, not doubting but that the gradual progress of real Christianity will at length operate to the removal of a yoke so directly contrary to the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free."— "The forced maintenance of the ministers of religion is in our view a violation of those great privileges which God in his wisdom and goodness bestowed on the human race, when he sent his Son to redeem the world, and by the power of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide mankind into all truth." " The vesting of power by the laws of the land in the King, assisted by his Council, whereby articles of belief have been framed for the adoption of his subjects, and under which the support of the teachers of these articles is enforced, is, in our judgment, a procedure at variance with the whole scope and design of the Gospel, and as it violates the rights of private judgment, so it interferes with the responsibility by which man is bound to his Creator."-" It is our firm conviction, that in proportion as the heavenly precepts, and the blessed example of the Son of God, who is given of the Father to be Lord of all, spread and prevail, and effectually rule in the hearts and consciences of men, in proportion as the pure doctrines of the gospel gain the ascendancy, it will be seen that to uphold any church establishments by compulsory laws, which oppress the consciences of sincere believers in the Lord Jesus, is at variance with his holy law, and is calculated to retard the universal spread of his reign."—Rules of Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends, with Advices, being Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of their Yearly Meeting held in London, from its first institution, pp. 254–261, third edition, 4to. London, 1834.

NOTE XXXV.

DR WATTS' DISAPPROBATION OF A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, AND REASON FOR PAYING CHURCH TAXES.

In his valuable tract" on Civil Power in Things Sacred," the Doctor clearly and satisfactorily shows the impropriety of a civil Establishment of religion. "Another question," says he, "arises here: If the supreme power of the state, or civil government, professes some particular revealed religion, or worships the great God with some peculiar modes and ceremonies of its own, may not the rulers of the state authorize and appoint men to be public teachers of their own religion in all the forms and ceremonies thereof? And may not these men celebrate these ceremonies by public authority, and lead others into the worship of their God, according to these special forms and ceremonies? And may not the rulers appoint those teachers or priests to be paid out of the public revenue, or by tithes, &c., that is, tenths or twelfths of the improvement of the land, or by taxes imposed by the government?

“ To this I answer, that every governor, every teacher, and every single person seems to have a natural right and liberty, not only to practise their own religion themselves, but to persuade as many as they can, to worship the God they worship, and that in and by their own approved forms. If duty to God should not require it, benevolence and love to our neighbours will incline men to this. But we must attempt it only so far as reason and persuasion can prevail, without any compulsion or force, for conscience and religion must be ever free. Whatsoever is done by mere compulsion and terror of men, is not voluntary; and, therefore, it is not religion, and can never be pleasing to the great God.

"But yet I cannot see any sufficient reason why a state should appoint the peculiarities of any revealed religion, or the special rites and ceremonies of any particular worshippers, or the men who celebrate them, to be supported at the public charge: for these peculiarities are not necessary to the preservation of the state, nor to the common outward civil welfare of a people: and I think the power of the magistrate reaches no farther.

“ Nor will I venture to say that taxes, or tenths, or twelfths, or any subsidy, should be raised by the state for any other end, than the civil welfare of the state requires. If a heathen prince impose a tenth

penny on all his subjects, as a tax to maintain heathen worship, would a Christian willingly pay it, and think himself bound in conscience to do it? Is not this evidently the reason why the people called Quakers, in our nation, at home or abroad, refuse to pay the tithes to the clergy of the Church of England, or of other Christian churches, because they preach and practise many things in religion which the Quakers do not believe, which the light of nature and reason does not dictate, and which are not necessary to the outward and civil welfare of mankind."

All this is quite as it should be; but what a sad falling off is there in the apology which he immediately offers for the payment of Church taxes by Dissenters, who conscientiously disapprove of an Established Church? "I do not, by any means, here pretend to vindicate the refusal of tithes and dues to the Church in our nation; for they are to be considered as a civil or national tax or incumbrance, belonging to every piece of land, or house bought or rented, and so appointed by our laws: and, therefore, every man knowingly buys or hires his land, or his house, with this incumbrance fixed on it, and belonging to those whom the state appoints to receive and possess it. But on the first framing or erecting a civil government, one would not choose to have such laws made, or such taxes or incumbrances established at first, which would afford any colour and occasion for such a refusal and disobedience in times to come, as may arise from real scruples of conscience."- Watts' Works, vol. iv. pp. 24, 25.

The sophism in these words is fully exposed in the preceding note. Can time make wrong, right? And am I to be prohibited from being a proprietor of land, or an occupier of a house, unless I am ready to do what to me is sinful, as being inconsistent with my conscientious convictions though quite prepared to suffer the penalty?

NOTE XXXVI.

CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES IN REFERENCE TO THE PAYMENT OF CHURCH TAXES.

Few things can more strikingly illustrate the assertion made in the text, than the following letter, by an esteemed Christian friend, which has been addressed to the Chamberlain of the City of Edinburgh, in consequence of legal measures for enforcing the payment

of the annuity tax having been suspended during the trial of the question as to the legality of the appointment of the Stent-masters, according to whose valuation the amount of the tax on individuals was apportioned.

"SIR,-I understand I am likely soon to be applied to, for payment of annuity tax,' and therefore think it proper, through you, to inform those who have the direction of the collection, that, as matters now stand, I cannot conscientiously comply with the demand, and therefore must decline compliance. Hitherto I have paid the tax on demand, being satisfied that the enactment by which it was imposed, proceeding, as it did, from unquestionable legislative authority, merely required me to pay money, and thus to bear my share of a 'tribute' which the government I have the happiness to live under, saw it fit to require, a government which I am, and hope ever shall be, disposed cheerfully to obey. The enactment in no way either required or authorized me to judge of its propriety, or to concern myself with the application of the money,-the information conveyed by the Collector's receipts being merely the mode of my knowing that the demand was legal, and of my being able to show that I had complied with it.

"It is now matter of public notoriety that payment of the tax is not enforced, and thus that the statutes by which it was imposed are at present in abeyance. It is therefore left to every one to judge of the propriety of the purpose, for which the demand is made; and that judgment every one is bound to form, every one being responsible for the consequences of what he does.

"It will be granted, I presume, that government can take cognizance only of overt acts, and that religion, as distinguished from the mere forms of it, must be matter of conviction, which being entirely a state of mind, is a matter of which governments cannot take cognizance. Any Establishment of religion, therefore, which governments can frame, can only be the adoption of its forms, and thus must become a prostitution of these, to what I think can be viewed aright only as a mode of police, and a mode of a most objectionable kind. That such an adoption has been followed by some good, I readily admit; but, in so far as this has not been, through that gracious arrangement, by which some of the greatest evils have been made productive of good, I conceive it must have been, from the excellence of many of the men, who have been engaged in the service,~men whose labours, if legitimately employed, I cannot doubt, would have effected