matter, too generally vanish, when even the baits of pleasure are presented to our view. How much, then, is he to be pitied, who knows no other method of approaching his God than that of discussion and argumentation. "There is a far more certain path for conducting us to the Supreme Being, and a far more certain method of confirming our communion with him, than that which we too generally have embraced: I mean, that of relish and sentiment. Happy is that Christian, who, in his conflicts with the enemies of his salvation, can oppose pleasures to pleasures, delights to delights; the pleasures of prayer and meditation, to the pleasures of the world, the delights of silence and retirement, to the delights of gaiety, of dissipation, of grandeur: such a man is fixed in what is right, by the very bias of his nature. There is only need of the common feelings of human kind, to make a man love the source of his joys. Such a one is attached to religion, by the same powerful motives, as bind the people of the world to the objects of their passions: the love of pleasure being not less a tie, in the one case, than in the other. Such a one will never yield wholly to temptation; because, according to the expressive language of an apostle, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, guards all the avenues to his heart; that is, it counteracts the seductiveness of temptation, by the far higher delight with which it fills the soul." 48 ON THE SITUATION AND PROSPECTS OF THE MY DEAR Bellevue, June 4. 1816. I HAD begun a letter to you, but was deterred from proceeding, by seeing your name amongst arrivals at Bath. I learn this morning, by a letter from that you went merely for a few days, and on an occasion for which I am sincerely sorry, though glad to know that there have been such speedy signs of convalescence. I feel, with you, that the times are pregnant with new events, and that the Church of England is likely to undergo unprecedented trials. I confess, how ever, the modified adoption of the proposition respecting tithes, by Mr. Vansittart and Lord Castlereagh, and even Sir William Scott, was rather more than I should have looked for; and Mr. Peel's wish that the project should extend to Ireland, on the ground of the Churches being now united, vexes me more than I can express. It bottoms a rash speculation, on a basement of absurdity. How are the two Churches one-except in the arbitrarious, impractical position of the articles of union? In political matters, union between the countries has been substantiated by effective arrangements; in the ecclesiastical instance, it consists solely in a gratuitous assertion, to which every circumstance in both Churches gives self-evident contradiction. To lay stress on this asserted unity, therefore, as a reason for including both churches in all measures of ecclesiastical legislation, is worthy of a statesman, who thinks, that multiplying schools, and distributing tracts, will cure the long-rooted and long-rankling malady of this mysteriously afflicted and miserably ill-managed country. It cannot be dissembled, that, in what concerns the Established Church, the House of Commons seems to feel no other principle, than that of vulgar policy. The old high Church race is worn out. The conscientious members are too generally under an opposite bias ; and the majority are mere men of the world, if not men of yesterday, and, therefore, on every account, "caring for none of these things." So soon, therefore, as the majority of the active public (which, unfortunately, is a very different thing from that of the thinking public) are seen to desert the church, the House of Commons will, I suspect, no longer shelter her. The crisis may be resisted, for a time, by the still remaining habits of the House of Lords; but it can be only for a time. And who can say to what political results, even such a temporary effort may lead? The House of Lords and the Established Church are specially united to each other. They fell together before; and it would be hard to imagine, how the one could long continue to exist, without the other. In truth, we actually see the reverence for both aristocracies (the ecclesiastical and the political), scarcely by slow, but certainly by sure, degrees, going down together; and, amongst other causes, this similar one has clearly operated in both, that the aristocratic character has been injured by a neutralizing blendure; that is, by making men of low descent, Peers, and by making men of low Church principles, Bishops. Whether an opposite course, in either case, would have averted the catastrophe, amid the present providential changes in society, I will not presume to say. But, that the present state of things, in our twofold constitution, is, in part, attributable, to the choice of Bishops since 1714, and to the choice of Peers since, at least, 1783, might, I think, be not hard to demonstrate. It was But, according to my creed, things are what they are, because God has willed them to be so. Providence which left an open path for John Wesley and George Whitfield to commence their career; and (as if still more to facilitate their work) placed in the see of Canterbury a corrected dissenter, all whose habits and feelings, inclined him to forbearance, and almost to indulgence. But, how remarkable, that, at the same time, two disorganizers, of a completely evil kind, should be exerting, in their bad way, like zeal in France; and that they too should be sheltered and countenanced by the ruling powers, until their influences diffused themselves through the great body of society, so as to produce those consequences which the world has witnessed. At length it begins to be felt, that what the two emissaries of Satan effected, respecting Christianity and social order in France, the two contemporary instruments of mysterious providence have been doing, little less effectually, respecting the church establishment in England. The two results have not coincided as to time; and it probably would not have suited the views of overruling Wisdom, that they should: it was no doubt necessary, that England should remain undisturbed within, until she had been the means of restoring order to the world. But, that the deep anti-ecclesiastical spirit, which has been working for half a century, and now works more strongly and extensively, and on a higher level than ever, will go off in mere noiseless, insensible evaporation, is more, I confess, than either the reason of the thing, or the signs of the times, authorise us to conclude. But, amid these apprehensions, I am comforted by the persuasion, that, whatever befalls the English Church, will be for its greater good. If "gold be tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity," it is natural to suppose a like discipline necessary, for the perfection of collective bodies, and corporate institutions. Such has been the lot of the church at large; and the same may, of course, be reckoned upon, in its subordinate portions, and perhaps the more, in proportion as they partake of the essential spirit of the whole. That the Church of England eminently possesses the spirit, we are happy to be assured; but that she has yet attained the faculty of diffusing it through her members, daily experience forbids our asserting. No church on earth has more intrinsic excellence, yet, no church, probably, has less practical influence. Her excellence, then, I conceive, gives ground for confiding, that Providence never will abandon her; but her want of influence, would seem no less clearly to indicate, that Divine Wisdom will not always suffer her to go on, without measures for her improvement. Temporary adversity is that, to which, in all such cases, as far as we know, the providence of God has hitherto resorted; and we can form a clear idea of the manner in which a temporary depression of the English church, might exalt its moral qualities. It is now an object with worldly men, for the sake of worldly, considerations:-"The birds of the air come and lodge in the branches." Let, then, its worldly honours and opulence be withdrawn, and its adherents will be those |