kers of the blues and the greens whiz and bounce about till the poll is finally closed, and the borough resumes its former quiescence. But the controversies of scholars and gentlemen are not supposed to be susceptible of the vulgarities of an election squabble. Local disputes are indeed generally popular; and by no means the less so when connected with religion. But in proportion to their popularity is their power of effecting mischief; and if the combatants do not faithfully draw a line of demarcation between what they read, and what they hear, suspect, and assume; between their actual knowledge, as derived from the adversary's own avowals, and their own private jealousies ; they may stand well, it is true, with their own party; but before the tribunal of the world at large they will be arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the death of their reputation. We are compelled to say, that Mr. Law has transgressed the line; if in no other point, yet in this, that he has insinuated a most uncourteous suspicion of Mr. Gisborne's veracity. We shall press this point, no further, but take a lesson of moderation from Mr. Cooper and Reflector; neither of whom has so much as alluded to this unpardonable violation of the common courtesies of the world. There was no cause indeed for them to appear in court on this occasion, in the witnesses' box, in evidence of character. Mr. Gisborne himself appears to be all but unconcious of his censor's attack; and in his answer (of less than one hundred lines,) has released himself from the assailant's effort, by a very indolent exercise of his powers, and with such admirable calmness of temper that we much doubt whether he distinctly recollected four and twenty hours after his Observations had been dispatched to the printer, that he had been in the skirmish; and we do not mark, in the pamphlets of his friends, the least solicitude whatever

to rescue a reputation which, as they silently argue, never_came within sight of danger. Mr. Cooper has also exhibited on the present arena his uniform spirit of moderation, and has conquered without violence. He has left to the less sensitive feelings of an anonymous reviewer to express the public astonishment, that a Vicar-general should transform a ball-room into a spiritual court, and solemnly pass sentence upon a man of Mr. Gisborne's name and consideration; and for what offence? For the opinion, that various Protestant churches, out of our own pale, and severally, holding some minor tenets which he deems erroneous, may be, and are, substantially sound in the faith of Christ.

Few phenomena are more extraordinary in these times than the infatuation-we might use a much harsher term-which could delude a high ecclesiastical officer into the notion, that what are termed (whether correctly or otherwise) liberal opinions on church government constitute our national guilt, and expose the hierarchy to peril and loss. Sentiments such as those which are opposed by the counsel for the defendant, do very well to circulate with wine and walnuts, at the tables of common rooms, spread with Sunday newspapers, and quarterly periodicals, studied permissu superiorum; but beyond these limits all their ef fectis, to augment the hostile disposition of the excluded party. Mr. Law's Remonstrance is, throughout, a premium upon disaffection, both to the church and to its ally the state. He has gratuitously exposed his pretensions to the rude gaze of an enemy. The gentlemen who in this controversy have written against him are his most efficient friends. Mr. Law says to Mr. Gisborne,— . "You, sir, are the pledged, not to say paid, advocate of a particular communion of Christians. - You, sir, are in possession of one of the most lucrative pieces of preferment which that church has to bestow upon.

her most favoured servants. 1, too, never cease to offer up my thanks to the great God who ruleth on high; to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; that my lot has been so favoured and so blessed." (Remonstrance, p. 9.) We have no personal knowledge whatever of the writer of the Remonstrance. He may be far better, or even far worse, than his book. But it is no violation of the law controversial, as laid down in a former page, to advert to what an author avows in print. And here we have an ecclesiastical dignitary announcing his gratitude-we will say nothing of the singular phraseology employed to describe it-for his own ample preferment, and chiding a brother for not bearing in mind his obligation to do something for value received! The shade of Dr. Johnson pursues us even into this corner of the discussion; recollecting, as we do, what is thus recorded by his biographer;—" Lord Loughborough told me, that the pension was granted to Johnson solely as the reward of his literary merit, without any stipulation whatever, or even tacit understanding, that he should write for the administration. Lord Bute said to him expressly, 'It is not given you for any thing you are to do; but for what you have done.'"-If another instance were needed to illustrate the obsolete system, it might be found in the pension granted to Cowper for what he also had done; and this, though his Majesty's government were fully aware that he, like Dr. Johnson, had written very freely indeed on state affairs. There was Cowper the Whig, the satirist of ministers, the decided and even acrimonious accuser of the clergy, the censor of pluralists and cathedral dignitaries; and there was Johnson the Jacobite, the sneerer at successive administrations, the caustic defmer of pension and excise; and yet these radicals of the eighteenth century basked in the sunshine of the royalty of England, and received an act of oblivion for

all their crimes.-Will it now be believed, can it be believed, that Mr. Chancellor Law's act of thanksgiving has been deliberately published in the face of the world by an apologist for the Church of England? If this be not the act of an enemy, we know not what is. We have always understood that the general sense of mankind had decided against the interference of a witness interested in the success of his own evidence. It was in reference to this decision, that Newton, Locke, Addison, West, Lyttleton, and many other lay advocates of Christianity, congratulated themselves on their serving in the army of faith, without bounty, and without pay. They were volunteers in the highest sense of the word; provided their own accoutrements; and at the close of hostilities, abandoned the spoil to the regular forces. But the system upheld by the Remonstrant before us entirely subverts this established order of things. We are now to fight upon calculation; to be bargained for as a Hessian, or, like the Swiss, to stipulate for ourselves; to sell the wear and tear of our own bones and muscles to the highest bidder. When the contract is made, we are to march-no matter in what direction; so that the best quarters and the most responsible pay-office terminate the route. The abettors of the system thus illustrated may be very unconscious of the mischief they are contriving. But it is thus that we are violently impelled to use an enemy's arms, when our own soldiers desert to the enemy's standard. And it is thus, that many a sound supporter of our ecclesiastical system has been falsely accused of filial disobedience to his mother, when he has ventured to find fault with those who have managed her affairs. But if faithful are the wounds of a friend; and if such inflictions are capable of being speedily healed; what shall we say of an advocate for the church, whose very pleas in her behalf cause an opponent to smile in scorn at

their feebleness? When an ecclesiastic blazons his gratitude for the amount of his preferment, he awakens what (as far as he may be concerned) might have slumbered; we mean, the spirit of inquisitive jealousy, brooding, in these times, over colleges, cathedrals, and episcopal palaces, and occasionally disturbing even the quiet of a vicarage by the transient rustling of its pinions. The real point for the Remonstrant to have considered

was, what answer have we prepared for an avowed and direct assailant? It must be one which will either silence him, or make him feel that he ought to be silent. We are satisfied ourselves; and the arts of persuasion, and the powers of argumentation would be employed superfluously in our own circle. Our partisans are won already. Deans and prebendaries, and chancellors and vicars general, and even the subaltern of ficers, down to the verger and apparitor, are formed into battalion ; and are ready to charge at double quick time, the moment the enemy is in sight. What we want is, to convert that enemy into an ally. Our policy is, not to convince where conviction previously exists in all its perfection; but to transmute Dissenters, and neutrals, into sound Churchmen; or, if this is expecting too much, to impart, as we can, to non-conformity a negative and innocuous character. And how will this be effected? By the means to which Mr. Law has not resorted. Apologists of his cast enfeeble the cause they aspire to strengthen.

They

erect their fortifications on swamps and quicksands. In more direct terms, they awaken the spirit of the Vatican within the bosom of a Protestant communion. Let us hear a true churchman on this subject. Mr. Cooper writes:

"You have also, in my opinion, greatly misrepresented our church; and, by your exhibition of her, have tended to convey a very unfavourable impression of her spirit and character. If a person were to derive his knowledge, and form his opinion of the Church of England exclusively from

the data with which you have furnished him, I do not see at what other conclusion intolerant in her principles; uncharitable in her spirit; arrogant and exclusive in her pretensions; claiming to herself almost the very infallibility which she denies to the Church of Rome; saying to every other Protestant community, Stand by thyself, I am holier than thou;' and setting herself up for the only sound Protest

he could arrive, than that she is a church

8

ant Church in the world! I adduce the in support of this allegation. At following passage from the Remonstrance, page you introduce the following interrogations. Sound Protestant churches! What, sir, do you mean here? Is it possible, sir, you can believe the faith of those churches the faith, I ask you, of the Church of sound and pure, which differ from us? Is Scotland, sound and pure? Is the faith, I ask you, of any of those sects which overIs there, I ask you, any sect on this or the spread this kingdom, sound and pure? other side of the Tweed, of which you have any knowledge, which differs from us merely in discipline? Do not the differtrine? What then do you mean by talking ences of them all involve points of docof a pure faith, distinct from your own church? Sound Protestant churcheswhere do you think they are to be found out of your own pale?'

your

"I cannot but deeply regret that a passage like this should have found its way into your publication; and that misrepresentations, so injurious to our church, so readers the most unfavourable impressions calculated to convey to the minds of respecting her, and even to expose her to the obloquy and reproach of her enemies, should be circulated under the sanction and authority of your name.—I hesitate not to call them misrepresentations: because the view, which this passage gives of our church, is not merely defective; it is altogether erroneous. It bears no resemblance to the original. It reflects no feature belonging to her. It presents not a trace, or lineament, of her real spirit and character. Whither are we to go for a faithful exhibition of these, but to her accredited formularies-to her Articles, her valuable documents, which have been beLiturgy, and her Homilies-those inqueathed to us by the very fathers and founders of our church; and to which therefore we must refer, if we would see her correctly and accurately pourtrayed.But what part of these formularies coincides in spirit and sentiment with your interrogations; or substantiates the view which they give of her intolerant character? In which of these documents does she assume to herself the haughty distinction of being the only sound Protestant church in the world?

"I know indeed, that there are members of our church, who, in the very face of these her established formularies and au

thorized documents, yet persist in maintaining unfounded and extravagant pretensions in her behalf: and such persons, while they will approve and applaud your statements, will not fail to accuse me of a want of attachment to our church, for thus openly impugning them. But it is by openly impugning such statements, and, so far as I may be able by counteracting their injurious tendencies, that I am, in my own view of the case, most decidedly proving my attachment, and fulfilling my duty to her. I am warmly and cordially attached to the Church of England; and in a due regard and predilection for her, I I will in nothing yield, even to the persons in question. I am attached to her from principle. I am attached to her by affection. I love her-not because I regard her as a perfect church, without spot or blemish (for she is a human institution, administered by human agents, and must therefore, in some measure, partake of their imperfections and infirmities), but because I believe her to be a truly Christian church, built on the foundation of the

Apostles and Prophets; a church primi

tive in her constitution, Protestant in her principles, sound in doctrine, salutary in her institutions; the bulwark, under God, of the reformed religion; and a living member of the body of Christ. I love her, because of the spiritual provision which she has made for the nurture of her children, from the cradle to the grave; and for the ample means, with which she furnishes her ministers for fulfilling their sacred office, and for feeding the flock of Christ. I love her, because of her catholic, comprehensive spirit-charitable towards those who are without her pale-and embracing within her widely extended arms, persons, who, while holding the Head together, may yet differ in their judgments on many secondary and inferior pointsthe pious Arminian on the one hand, and the no less pious Calvinist on the otherhealing and binding up the spiritual wounds of both; pouring into their bosoms the cordials and consolations of the same Gospel; and teaching them alike to pray 'with the spirit and with the understanding' in the words of the same liturgy, and to unite in fellowship together at the same table of their common Lord.

"These are the views which I have been accustomed to take of our church. It is in this light that I have been taught to contemplate her. And thus viewed and contemplated, I regard her with sentiments of veneration and affection.-But is not this enough? In proof of my veneration and love, am I also to make her my idol; to put her in the place of God, or of His word? Am I to set her up, like the golden image of old, as the object of universal adoration and worship? Am I to require all men to bow down before heram I even to insist that they shall see her with my eyes, and love and venerate her

as I do on pain of being excluded, as unsound, from the communion of saints, or of being assigned over, as heathen, to the uncovenanted mercies of God?-It is not thus that I have learnt to understand things that differ, and to discriminate between good and evil. Such idolatry, our church would be the first to protest against, and to condemn. If she were not, she would be unworthy the name of Protestant. In vain would Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer have been bound for her to the stake. In vain would they have died to reform and purify her. She would still be nothing more than another modification of Popery: and partaking of Babylon's sins, she would soon receive of her plagues." Remarks, pp. 11–15.

With regard to this same Lichfield controversy, we shall generally observe upon it, that whatever be the importance attached to the discussion in the provincial circle where it arose; they who take a bird's-eye it to be no otherwise important, view of it, from a distance, will judge than as affording another painful evidence of the disunion existing in the bosom of the national church, and also of the poverty of the religious system maintained by such as aspire to be the exclusive defenders of the national faith. In looking through the pamphlets advocating the cause of the Remonstrance, we observe nothing like that-laying aside, for the moment, the recognition of the principle, the political bearings of the subject-the one great end of the established church is to prepare her members for eternal happiness in the world to come. There may be here and there an incidental hint in reference to moral purity; but religion itself is not woven into the texture of the piece. Their writers are anxious to perpetuate what, in their estimate, forms the discipline

an edifice, which may advance no farther: the interior may never be begun, and the whole undertaking remain for ever useless. Every church, and especially every church formed on the common basis of Protestantism, is valuable no farther than as it trains up its adherents in the practical knowledge of Christianity; in that Christianity which existed before the Reformation, and would survive the destruction of any given branch of the universal church. We say this without the most remote disparagement of any community either at home or abroad; and we say it under the full conviction, that the prosperity of our own establishment will advance or recede, in proportion as its friends recognize or disown the main principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as they are developed, for the edification of the Christian world, in the holy Scriptures. We ourselves, as members of the establishment, do not found our attachment to it on its enforcing a certain interpretation of Scripture; and, as it were, providing us with a scheme of religion ready made to our hands, and delivering us from all care and anxiety to examine its consistency with the Bible; but because we find that the religion of the New Testament is incorporated into the national creed. Consequently, we do not subscribe the Articles before, but after, we have examined their professed origin, and we find that the stream tastes of the fountain. But this supposes, that, had the Church of England never existed, nothing of Christianity would properly have been lost. Its doctrines might not indeed be found in the condensed and methodical form of creeds and articles; but the original materials would have still been accessible, and neither jot nor tittle could have passed away from them. Again: when disputants write about the peculiar principles of the united church, it might be well for them to be aware, that all the leading doctrines of her creed are the common proCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 292.

perty of other anti-papal communions; and, more than this, that these same doctrines have been long embodied in the confessions of the continental churches, and owned by their ministers and members as the standards of their faith. This may be surprising intelligence to many who felicitate themselves on their fidelity to the Anglican church, and on their entire freedom from the errors which, as they are convinced, degrade all other divisions of Christendom. Have these divines ever read the Sylloge Confessionum, published and re-published within these few years at the Clarendon press; and originally arranged under the care of the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, Bishop Randolph? It might really be supposed from the representations of some writers, that even the three creeds, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer were the exclusive possession of the Church of Eng land; that she monopolized all the spiritual treasures of the Reformation; and that the Scripture itself was accessible only through her own portals. So thought not Cranmer, Jewell, Andrews, Hooker, Hall, and many mighty names enrolled among the prelates, and theologians of the Protestant church of England! These great men were not deluded by that half-knowledge, which pollutes whatever it touches, into expressions of jealousy and disgust against other branches of the church of Christ, then separated from

tic, Augsburgh, Saxon, and Belgic ConTheOxford Sylloge contains the Helvefessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of the Synod of Dort. The Confessions are taken from a scarce book Fidei, &c. &c. They were contemporary called Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum with our own Articles. The Helvetic document received the express approbation of our church; and several parts of traced to those of Augsburgh and the Neour public formularies may be evidently therlands. The latter part of the final clause of the Seventeenth Article, so frequently appealed to as deciding the anticalvinistic sense of that article, is a literal translation from Calvin's Institutes!Vide Inst. I. 17. 5.

2 G