with the good faith of apostates, they may still keep the money. For why do these clergy now hang together, seeing there are such fierce contentions and vital differences amongst them? There is but one link of union, the golden link of State pay it is not the communion of saints, but the communion of mammon. If then any clergymen are gulled, let them throw off the yoke; but let them not frame and pad to ease their shoulders, that yoke which they have stipulated, and are paid to bear,in its integrity. For what do these Convocationists aim at?

"All I want is, that She, in common with every other religious body, and with private individuals, should be protected in the quiet possession of her property.

But who is "She?" Not a private individual; but the Church of En land, as by law established: she has no property, but chiefly as conferred by Parliament: who had the property before? Why then are not other religious bodies under control? Because they are not under pay: the Church of England is not a religious body; BUT A CODE OF LAWS: and the property is legally attached to obedience to those laws, and the whole may be distributed by the law-makers.

This is why "the Church is the mere slave and tool of the State," and why the Church officers are bound to take State-control, as the inseparable accompaniment of State-pay. But they cannot make a new Church OF ENGLAND. This belongs to the Legislative power of England.

The cases of clerical infamy, the absence of clerical discipline; may be evils, but the Rev. K. M. Pughe should come out, and touch not the unclean thing-a clerical Convocation must be composed of his brother clergy, who are thus either tainted or aspersed.

"I will content myself," says he, "with demanding that Convocation be permitted to enact Canons for the discipline of the clergy, upon the ground that all the attempts hitherto made by Act of Parliament have utterly failed."

No doubt Parliament has failed in the whole business, but will yet more nobly retract its error, than by a Babel Convocation of clerical sects, viz., by undoing all it has done, and letting religion stand on its own merits.

Whether the laity of England, will admit this gentleman's suggestion, respecting a code discipline for them, we leave to the good sense and independence of the laity. Besides this discipline for clergy and laity required" for several years past," we are told, "the Church has been torn, by DOCTRINAL DISSENSIONS:" whereas in truth, the Church cannot be torn; the Articles, Prayer-book, Canons, and Homilies remain intact: we have a clear copy of each, the whole is still sound, only the clergy are divided, from each other and from their Church: therefore, we say, let the pay be stopped, and the "depravers" of the Church silenced!

"Now in asking that Convocation should be permitted to interfere in

"The Discipline and Government of the Church of England: and the Disadvan tage at which the Church is placed, as compared with Dissent, by her existing connexion with the State. A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, M.P. By K. M. Pughe, B.A., Clerk."

these dissensions, I do not ask that it should be permittted to alter, or add to, or take from the doctrines of the Church, but that it should be permitted To DECLARE THE MEANING of her acknowledged standards."

This is a mere evasion; for if Convocation declare the meaning, against the Evangelicals, will not these say that the Church's doctrines are altered? And so with the others.

Nay, WHAT IS THE GOOD OF DECLARATIONS,-may not the various sects of clergy, still say of the new declaration, it is "hypothetical," or "non-natural," and that these two theories, are what is meant by "the plain grammatical sense?" So then you will want ANOTHER DECLARATION: and then again another.

"At present," says our author, "ALL SORTS OF DOCTRINES are maintained within the Church, from the verge of Romanism, to the verge of Socinianism. YET all alike subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles: all alike give their solemn assent to the Book of Common Prayer: all alike profess their approval of the general teaching of the Homilies."

Well, and does not all this prove, that new and old declarations of senses, will be wrested to any sense, so long as there are public national prizes appended to any doctrines whatever, and, therefore, subscriptions are entirely vain-mere waste paper, and a deception of the people, who in clinging to the Church, suppose they have a secured national doctrine? Now of whom would this Convocation be composed, but of the different clerical sectaries?-nay, we are told," its' first act should be a reconstruction of itself!" Here is work enough cut out for our united brethren. Our author notes the objection, that

"The deliberation of such a Convocation would keep the Church in a perpetual ferment; yet not more than it has been for the last ten or fifteen years. As regards DOCTRINAL MATTERS, it hasbeen in a state of COMPLETE ANARCHY: and as regards matters not strictly doctrinal, I might, perhaps, with truth say, that a ferment is what we want to WORK OFF THE SCUM. We have been too long stagnant already, and are grown somewhat foul and fætid."

May we not then say, the Constitution is breaking up; and that a Convocation would be the last dying convulsion, after this "speech and confession?"

It is needless to take up space, by enumerating the practical omissions of the services and catechising set down in the Canons, and still binding as the Canons are: the departures, by the clergy, from the Church, are fragrant, manifold, and acknowledged: therefore, it is time the Church awoke her sleeping powers, and silenced her unprofitable and disobedient servants.

This argument is new only in its general application: it has been applied to Gorham in the Court of Arches, and has long been recognised in prir ciple. Both the Court of Arches and Privy Council acknowledged, they had only to decide what the Church teaches, that is, what the Prayerbook says.

"The Church," says Mr. Gladstone," allies herself with the State, in consideration of advantages accorded to her; which are accorded in respect to her PECULIAR CONSTITUTION AS A CHURCH, and which would CEASE TO BE DONE if she violated that Constitution. Therefore, the State must have the means of observing all her movements, judging what change is violation, and interposing the veto, which means simply,-if you do so you must no longer enjoy civil advantages."

Now we contend, that the Church clergy have done so, and that they are virtually condemned by the laws of the Ecclesiastical Constitution, imposed by the State, and agreed to by the clergy.

Speaking of the Universities, Benjamin Dann Walsh, in a letter to Lord Radnor, has observed, that "the old laws neither have been, are, nor can be observed," though "we are all generally sworn to the observance." This is precisely the condition of the Church: and the legal consequences may be inferred from a note by the same writer :

"It is maintained by lawyers, and has I believe been decided in the Court of the King's Bench, (Rex v. Vice-ch., 3 Bur. 1756,) that a code of statutes, unless it has been accepted in the gross, by the corporation for which it was compiled, is only binding so far as the corporation can be proved to have acted upon the laws contained therein. Now the code by which the University is at present governed, was not so accepted."

That is in the gross but the Church code was necessarily so accepted, and, therefore, is binding as a whole but not having been conformed to by any, the Church corporation, is legally deprived of all right to its places

and revenues.

"The national Church," says Coleridge, "is a public and visible community, having ministers, whom the nation, through the agency of a Constitution, has created trustees of the national fund UPON FIXED TERMS, and with defined duties: and whom in case of breach of those terms, the nation through the same agency may discharge."+

We maintain, that in law and equity, every clergyman is thus discharged, and awaits only the legal expression of this fact.

This "legal expression" is what the people should demand of Parlia ment and no longer be deluded by the senseless clerical cry-"hear the Church," but repeat the salutary lesson to the Church's paid servants: and enforce obedience, or the proper penalty-dismissal. There is no clergyman in existence, that does or can obey in "the grammatical sense," the teachings at once of the Articles and Prayer-book, Protestant and Popish, or each a mixture of both.

Our conclusion then is, that a certain portion of national property, has been consigned to the usufruct, or beneficial holding of the established clergy, on the condition of having first taken office under the State, and

"The State,in its relations with the Church."

+ Coleridge's "Church and State," quoted by Wardlaw.

promised to teach what is contained in State documents, (called the Church that teaches): that this office could by the mere will of the appointer and creator of it, be abolished; but the holders, have of themselves forfeited all claim to the emoluments of the office; through not fulfilling the stipulated conditions; not obeying the Church to which they in every particular subscribed "willingly and ex animo:" that further, these stipulations (this Church) cannot be entirely conformed to, without contradiction; nor altered without creating a new Church, (i. e., ecclesiastical constitution,) and so transferring the property: and, therefore, the whole system falls through, and the emoluments revert to the Crown, that is, the nation, which annexed this money to these doctrines and duties, and to no other. And the clergy in seeking a Convocation to alter the Church, commit treason against it, whilst they by the same same act, aim to legalize rebellion.

The saying of Bishop Horne, in his "Essays and Thoughts," will be found appropriate to this proposed Convocation :—

"If the proposed Reformation of the Liturgy goes on, our Reformers may hereafter bring us in a bill like that of the Cirencester painter:'W. Chas. Terry,

"To J. Cook, Dr.

'To mending the Commandments. -altering the Creed.

'And making a new Lord's Prayer.”

To which we may add as TOTAL of work-Making a new Church,

By which desire and necessity they are proved faithless to the old one, and, therefore, ought legally and morally, to be deprived of its incomes, and not be allowed either to retain the Property with their present illega lities, or to transfer it, to the legalizing of what is unlawful.

IV.

SCEPTICS' RELIGION.

Under this department, sceptical objections, and systems or principles advocated as hostile to, Christianity, are dispassionately considered.

THE DANGER OF THE SOUL.

(Concluded from page 237.)

It would be pleasant still to linger amid the bright prospects of a blissful immortality, did not the actual condition of man and his highest wellbeing imperatively demand of us to turn our thoughts in another direc tion. It is not certain that every man will realize the blessedness of which he is naturally capable: nay, more, the certainty is that a vast proportion of those who are passing out of time into eternity are exchanging the evil of this present condition for evil of a more permanent and direful nature in the world of spirits. It is right that we should contemplate with admiring desire, the things which God has prepared for them that love him; but if we are wise, our next and immediate inquiry will be,-— "What ground have I to hope for a share in this favour? Is there any risk or danger which jeopardizes the happiness of my deathless and inestimable soul?" In ordinary cases we guard with the greatest care those things which are of the highest value; and if, at the same time, they are in special danger of being injured, lost, or destroyed, our cautious attention is the more diligently bestowed upon them. There is nothing that belongs to us in such danger as the soul; no dangers are so terrible and fatal as those by which it is encompassed; while in respect to no other thing is man so thoughtless-so systematically and voluntarily off his guard. Hence arises the necessity of pointing out these dangers with special clearness; and of sounding the alarm with all possible solemnity: and hence also the duty of every human being most honestly setting his heart to investigate the perils which beset his path, and of sternly charging his memory to cherish an ever abiding sense of their magnitude.

Man in this world is a probationer for an eternal existence, which existence will be honour and bliss, or shame and misery, according as the state of his heart at death, shall fit him for the one or the other. Probation implies that failure may ensue: and, as failure results in spiritual and eternal evil, so, exposure or liability to it constitutes a danger of proportionate magnitude. On the one hand, it is certain, that God, through his Son, has prepared a rest for the soul; on the other, it is equally certain, that punishment is in reserve for every impenitent transgressor: but that any