state: the patient in almost her last agony: powder-ofpost the best remedy, which the resources of the Doctor can supply him with.

A picture of disease-of disease radical, mortal, and remediless-is a prophecy of death.

Well then, Messieurs Quarterly Reviewers,-uncrowned, but not unpaid "Defenders of the faith, and so forth," come and see, and that a little more clearly than as yet you seem to have seen,-on what substantial ground this prophecy of yours is built.

Service-Pay-Discipline.-Under one or other of these heads may be condensed the most practical part of what presents itself in support of the demand for this innovation:-for this crowning super-innovation,—for which the system is quite sufficiently rotten, and for which the times will soon be ripe,—upon the innovation which, under the name of the Reformation, was, about 250 years ago, definitively made in the Church-of-England, by the Crown of England, upon the Church of Rome-made-half with, half against, the good liking of whatever was good among the people of England: who, looking to see corruption extirpated in England, as it was extirpated or extirpating in Scotland, saw it only shifted in part from hand to hand, and shared between the Mitre, the Crown, and the two Houses.

§ I.-Plan of this Paper.

Throughout the whole course of this Volume, and in particular in the body of it, viz. in pages from 113 to 148, there has been but too much occasion to bring and hold up to view, this or that particular exemplification of the worthlessness of the system of Church Government of

which the formulary in question is one of the principal instruments and supports. In further proof of the utter rottenness of this same system-of its complete ripeness for dissolution-the following recapitulation,—with here and there, for the sake of regularity and roundness, a word or two of addition,―may perhaps, in the eyes of a sincere lover of his country and mankind, appear not altogether ill-bestowed.

The system may be considered either in an absolute, or in a comparative point of view: i. e. by itself, without referring to any object other than the ends to which it is supposed to be directed, or in comparison with other systems, that may be seen professing to be directed to the same ends.

In an absolute point of view it may be considered, 1. in respect of the ends or objects, to the attainment of which it professes to be directed. 2. In respect of its actual structure, by means of which it professes to direct itself to the attainment of those same objects or ends. 3. In respect of the effects actually produced by it, with refer ence to these same objects or ends.

The objects, to the attainment of which it may be seen, or, without injustice, presumed, to profess itself to be directed, may be comprehended under the following heads, viz. 1. Advancement of Piety. 2. Advancement of Truth in Doctrine. 3. Melioration of the state of the intellectual part of the human frame. 4. Melioration of the moral part of the human frame, in the instance of the people taken at large. 5. Melioration, or at any rate preservation, of that same part in the particular instance of the Clergy. 6. Melioration of the state of education in all classes. 7. Increase or preservation of inward peace and comfort in the breasts on which it operates. 8. Pre

servation of the actual composition and disposition of the Government.

Service-Pay-Discipline.-Under these heads, for the purpose of the present brief review, will be comprised the arrangements, by means of which it professes to aim at the accomplishment of these same objects.

As to the effects actually produced by the system, they will need no other nomenclature or arrangement than that which has already been given to the objects or ends above stated as professed to be aimed at. Of these effects a brief sketch has been drawn up, but, for the present, the limits prescribed by necessity to the present work forbid the insertion of it.

As to those other systems which, in comparison with, and for the illustration of, the system principally in question, will all along be held up to view, they are-1. The equally Established Church of Scotland. 2. In one body (for, in relation to the three above-mentioned heads, viz. service, pay, and discipline,-they will be found to stand on all material points-all of them-on the same footing) in one body, accordingly, the several Non-Established Churches; understand of course Protestant Churches : for as to the original, and Universal Mother Church—the Church of Rome-no scrutiny into the particulars of her internal structure affords, to the present purpose, any promise of practical use.

For the mass of mischief here brought to view, nothing, in the character of a remedy, could present itself as affording any tolerable promise, but dissolution. Cacothanasia, bad death,-or Euthanasia, good death (to borrow a word from David Hume)*-under one or other of

* By Hume, in one of his Essays, the death of the existing constitution

these names will the end of the system, whenever it takes place, be found characterizable.

The object here being of course to recommend that which presents itself as the good or happy death, in preference to the bad and afflictive one, the following section may serve to give an idea of the characteristic circumstance, by which the two modes of dissolution may be distinguished.

The mode and body of instruction and guidance, by means of the existing Liturgy, with the addition of Sermons, is it by Church-of-Englandists generally approved of?-Assuming that it is so, it will be shewn-that, for the administering of this instruction and guidance, a distinct order of men, under the name of Priests,-according to the principles at present established in regard to doctrine, being completely useless,—and, for the keeping of this order of men to their duty, another distinct rank of men, under the name of Bishops and Archbishops,— of course equally useless,-thereupon, if both these classes of men were suffered to empty themselves by death without replenishment, the administering of instruction in this selfsame doctrine, throughout the kingdom, without any variation, and with at least as much effect as at present, might be secured, so long as the government lasts ;-secured, and that with a degree of plenitude and uniformity at present unknown, and, so far as depends upon Sermons, with a degree of improvement altogether unquestionable, even by the most zealous Church-of-Englandists :-and that, thereupon, with increased security for the identity, and

being considered as not far distant, absolute monarchy is stated as the form likely to be worn by it at its resurrection, and it is in contemplation of this result that the supposed approaching death is characterized by the name of a happy one.

with increase, moreover, to the efficiency, of the body of instruction at present administered by the Clerical to the Lay portion of the Church, the whole of the Ecclesiastical income of England, with the exception of a portion altogether inconsiderable, might be applied in diminution of those intolerable burthens under which the nation sinks.

§ 2.- Euthanasia-, in Contradistinction to Cacothanasia, what?-UTI POSSIDETIS Principle-Its Application to this case.

Before any thing further is said, either of the demand for, or of the mode and means of, reformation,-sound policy joins with humanity in paying homage to the saving grace of the uti possidetis principle.* In those international arrangements, by which war is terminated, uti possidetis-keep what each of you has got at present― forms but one out of a number of principles of pacification, among which the acting powers have to choose. In arrangements of internal national reform, in so far as concerns money and factitious dignity-in a word, as to every object of desire,-power excepted, which in this case can never be considered any otherwise than as held in trust, the principle of uti possidetis admits of no other to stand in competition with it.

The case supposed to call for the application of this principle is this.-The Church of England system is ripe

• Uti possidetis—i. e. as you possess:-understand as added, though not expressed--so, you shall continue-after the peace in question, you shall continue to possess:—uti possidetis, possidebitis.

See Bentham, par Dumont Legislat. civ. et penale ii. Ch. vii. p. 31. For the principle there laid down, the present appellative is here ventured to be proposed.