ation with the millions of their communion through the world, by their persuasion of its exclusive authority, and their anticipation of its universal prevalence. Whatever obstacles may be opposed to their success, in the general circulation of the Scriptures, and the diffusion of practical and popular science; still it must be acknowledged that there are many circumstances which conspire to favour their exertions, many openings through which their tenets may be presented with attractive associations to the public eye. The Catholic peers have entitled themselves to general respect; some for their distinguished virtues, and all for their firm adherence to their principles, when these principles were proscribed, and could not be held without exclusion from their hereditary rights, and from the path in which every other family of the nobility was seeking political distinction and honour. The Catholic commoners have won a considerable share of public admiration for their talents and enterprize. There are the lengthened shadows of a venerable antiquity still lingering around the scenes of their worship, and connecting the rites in which they engage with all that is romantic and chivalrous, and much that is truly sublime and imposing, in the olden page of our history. There is the encouragement of the arts, the gratification of taste, and the excitement of what may be easily mistaken for devotional feeling, in the arrangements of their religious edifices, and of the imposing ceremonies which are performed in them. Above all, there is the congeniality of the whole system with the tendencies of the carnal mind; the substitution of union to a secular church, for reconciliation to a God "glorious in holiness;" and of reliance upon the Her visible and tangible rites performed by the priest, for a spiritual and purifying faith in the invisible Redeemer. In the work of proselyting, the Roman Catholic has this peculiar advantage, that his church proposes no troublesome questions to her converts. In true accordance with the designation given to her in the Apocalypse, she is more concerned for the admiration of her meretricious ornaments, and the payment of her hire, than for the promotion of rational piety and unblemished virtue. traffic is with the souls of men, and her profits increase with the increase of their sins. Whoever desires the consolations of religion without the labour of obtaining scriptural knowledge, or the trouble of exercising self-denying duties, may find them offered by her for his acceptance; and may easily come to the conclusion, at which the libertine Charles is said to have arrived; that the Catholic religion is the only religion which is suitable for a gentleman. The habits of dissipation which prevail to such an alarming extent in the upper classes of society, and the looseness with which religious attachments are held by multitudes in the middling and lower classes, may predispose them for a communion, in which, though certainly large demands are made upon the faith, yet every accommodation can be yielded in the matter of practice. Let the aversion to popery, which the men and women of the present generation imbibed as one of the primary elements of thought and feeling in their infancy, and which, having too commonly been founded in prejudice, rather than in principle, is beginning to be classed with the illusions of the nursery, die away; and then, a powerful re-action of the public mind in its favour may possibly take place. Connect with the zeal of the Catholic, the adventitious advantages of the system with which he works, and its adaptation to the corrupt nature of those to whom it is presented; and it will be seen, that if this is not the time to raise the vulgar cry of "No Popery;" if that watchword with which the welkin has been wont to ring, must henceforth only be whispered in secret, or be heard in the desponding sighs of discomfited intolerance, still it is the proper time, seriously to consider, by what honourable means the great interests of scriptural protestantism, in which are involved the liberties of our country, and the progress of political and religious improvement through the world, may be preserved, and strengthened, and extended. It is the time, especially, for Congregational Dissenters to ask, what do our principles, and our advantages? What does the cause of truth, of liberty, of religion, of God, require from us? These questions cannot be intelligently answered, unless we glance at the present position of other Protestant communions, on which, in common with our own, devolve the duty of opposing and counteracting the encroachments of the Roman Catholic church. Our attention will naturally be directed, in the first place, to the Episcopal Church, as by law established. The stores of learning which it contains, and the weight of influence which it can employ, should qualify its ministers to take the lead in the war of principles," which a late eminent political prophet foresaw, and the first confused murmurs of which are already, from various quarters, beginning to break upon the ear; while the temporal interests which they have at stake, might lead us to expect them to be the first and most valorous in the field. There are, however, several considerations which must considerably moderate our expectations from this quarter. Clinging, as its members do, to the political alliance by which it is fettered and debased; cramped, as its champions are, by the antiquated and cumbrous formularies in which their mental powers are incased, they cannot move with that freedom and force which a new system of warfare will require. They will, indeed, especially in their present divided state, have enough to do in defending their own mouldering walls, and tottering battlements; and if they venture beyond them, the weapons which they employ can be easily made to recoil with redoubled force upon themselves. Those, who have read the published reports of the discussions which have taken place in Ireland between Clergymen and Roman Catholic priests, will have observed many illustrations of this point. Indeed, so much of the leaven of popery still remains in the constitution of the Established Church, that instead of being the firm bulwark of the Protestant cause, she presents the weakest and most assailable point; and consequently we hear of Catholic noviciates maintaining their newly taken ground against her dignitaries, and of a clerical scion of her nobility making an easy transition from the English to the Romish priesthood. What the Episcopal church might become, if her divisions were healed, her frame-work remodelled, her courts cleansed from those who make them a place of merchandize, and her doctrines disencumbered from the traditions of her elders, we presume not to say; but in her present condition, notwithstanding the manifest increase of true piety and sterling worth amongst her ministers, and the members of her communion, she will be materially restricted and fettered in her efforts for the support and extension of the Protestant cause. Next, perhaps, in numerical strength, to the members of the Episcopal communion, is the body of Wesleyan Methodists. And no case can more clearly illustrate the advantages of union and consolidation, than does the fact, that a community, so recent in its origin, and acknowledging one individual only as its founder, should, in a single century, have enlarged its boundaries beyond the extent of every other denomination which has seceded from the Established Church; although others originally possessed, if they do not still retain, the vantage ground in education, and in the command of lines of communication with the public mind. It is admitted, that it would be impossible to combine Congregational churches into a body equally subordinate in its parts, and systematic in its operations, without the relinquishment of the principles by which they are distinguished; but still, with such an impressive example of the results of union before us, does it not become us to inquire, if there is not some way, in which, without a compromise of these principles, we may, by a voluntary and harmonious federation, co-operate in their support and extension? And, in order that we may form a correct estimate of the advantages of union from the example before us, we must not only compare the Wesleyan Methodists with other bodies of Dissenters, we must also compare the two branches of methodism with each other. In all the elements which qualify a man to be a popular leader, Whitfield appeared superior to Wesley, and was certainly the chosen instrument, in God's hand, for giving an impulse to religious zeal, from which must be dated a new era in the Christian church. His gifts were pre-eminent, his popularity unbounded, his character commanding, his connexions powerful and extensive. Imperfect and broken as are the reports which we have received of him from those who saw him, who heard him, and who felt the power of truth as delivered by his fervid and persuasive lips; incompetent to their work as were those who have given to us the only meagre sketches of his biography which we possess, still, his career is associated with "times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord," and his memory is enshrined in a halo of glory. Yet Wesley, with qualities much less dazzling, by the clear insight into human nature which he possessed, was enabled, first to knit men to himself as their apostle and leader, and then to combine them in a system, which by its increase and moral energy has arrested universal attention, and presented one of the most remarkable phenomena which have occurred in the history of the church. The course of Whitfield resembled that of the angel in the Apocalypse, flying through the midst of heaven with the everlasting Gospel, and concerned only that a most momentous, but rapid and temporary mission should be fulfilled. Wesley felt that he was moving upon the earth, on which the feet of successive generations would tread; he calculated what their wants, as well as those of the generation among which he lived, would require, and he arranged a system to perpetuate and extend the principles which he published. Still, however, those who most highly appreciate the zeal and usefulness of the Wesleyans as a body, may be allowed to question, whether, they are the best qualified for efficient operations either of defence or aggression against the Roman Catholics. Their extensive circle encloses the region of strong but variable feeling, rather than firm and settled thought; the system is arranged rather on profound principles of human policy, than on plain and explicit scriptural requirement; and its workings occasionally develop, rather the shiftings of expediency, than the open and dignified manliness of unswerving consistency. With a considerable portion of the fervour of primitive Christianity, there is also amongst them a leaven of the spirit which the apostle saw so early at work, and out of which its subsequent corruptions grew. Were it not that outward circumstances must effectually obstruct the progress of that spirit, there would be little, if any, inherent security against an ultimate assimilation to some of the features of popery; for that, originating in excessive and indiscriminate reverence for the work and authority of good and devoted, yet imperfect and fallible, men, terminated, in the utter prostration of the soul beneath the despotism of priestly ambition. And now, in considering the position of what we are accustomed to call our own body, the denomination of Independent or Congregational Dissenters, a previous question suggests itself. Have we, strictly speaking, any body at all? Members we have in great abundance, and many of them strong, intelligent, and active; but there are others in the feebleness of infancy, or the decrepitude of age, which do not sufficiently enjoy either the sympathy or succour which the more vigorous are able to render, because there is no visible tie by which they are connected with each other. Unison of thought and feeling also, to a remarkable degree, exists among us; so that let a powerful chord be struck, and you will hear, through every part of the country, the distinct vibrations of the same sound. But unison of sound, however pleasant it may be to the ear, is a very unsubstantial substitute for reciprocation of aid, consolidation of strength, and energy of united effort. Members we have, and such as by their harmony are prepared for union; but the ligaments, which shall unite them into a body, need yet to be supplied. A body, which shall arrest the public eye, which shall attract the attention, and fix the regard of those who, in the present shaking of unscriptural systems, may be looking around them for more firm and settled ground than that on which they stand; a body, which shall impress the imagination, enlist the sympathies, and excite the energies of the youthful members of our families; a body, which shall animate and sustain the exertions of its respective members by the conviction, that they are moving in firm phalanx through the toils of the warfare to the rewards of victory; such a body we have not. The question is, can such a body be formed? And here, premising that the object of the present paper is to call the attention of the readers of the Congrega. tional Magazine to this question, to elicit their opinions in reference to it, and to prepare the way for its full and serious discussion in all its bearings, rather than to furnish any digested plan of an actual union; the following considerations are suggested. 1st. That men holding common views and principles on almost all other subjects, can, and do unite for their support and extension; acting under the conviction, that in no other way can they so effectually promote their common object; and that it would be strange, indeed, if those religious principles which we are accustomed to consider the most clear, the most authoritative, the most conducive to true harmony, the most efficient for the moral improvement and regeneration of the world, did not admit of a similar union for their support and propagation. 2dly. That such an union does exist, and has for many years existed, in Scotland, where the churches of our denomination are fewer, weaker, and more scattered than they are in England; and where, as the reasons for a union appear less urgent, so the purposes to be accomplished by it cannot compare in the result which might be expected from one, the organs of which, would dwell in the metropolis of the empire, have access to the functionaries of the State, and be able to open a correspondence with any part of the world. 3dly. That in no other religious denomination is there to be found, to an equal extent, either agreement in essential truth, or charity in non-essential opinions and unimposed observances. The agreement, being voluntary, is so much the more firm, and displays the power of truth when left to operate by its own light and strength; the charity, being associated with the firm hold of essential truth, is so much the more pleasant and satisfactory in its exercise; and in their combination, we have the most clear, and healthful, and bracing atmosphere in which a federation could be brought into life and action. 4thly. The facilities, still increasing, of intercourse and communication. 5thly. The progress of public opinion, the setting in of that tide which is already sapping the foundations, and will at length sweep away the structure of every ecclesiastical, as well as commercial incorporation, whose chartered privileges are injurious to the people; rendering it immensely important for the preservation of religion in the country, that greater prominence should be given to churches formed upon a popular, which is, in fact, the apostolic model. 6thly. The special responsibility which lies upon us, in reference to the Roman Catholics, together with the peculiar advantages which we possess for counteracting their efforts, and preventing the spread of their principles. As to our responsibility, let it be remembered, that it was the infusion into the public mind of those principles of religious liberty which originated with us, and which we still most dearly cherish, that kept down the spirit of intolerance which lingered in the country, and prevented the erection of an insuperable barrier in the path which has been thrown open to the Catholics. Even should the consequences which some anticipate follow that measure, the share which we had in its accomplishment is never to be regretted. Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum, has been, and must still be, our motto. Yet the share which we had in their political emancipation, lays us under the strongest obligation to meet them at every point, at which they may attempt to make ecclesiastical encroachments. This, if we are only wise enough to consolidate our strength, we are able to do. The basis of scriptural authority on which we stand is impregnable against all their hostile assaults, while our movements against any part of their |