pret the Scriptures for myself, then some one has the right to interpret them for me. Is it the Church? Then what is Protestantism but Papacy under a new name? If the Church has the right to do this for me, she may claim to do it for others; and if we must have a master, it is high time to think of returning to the mother of us all. A little further on, Mr. Parkinson makes his meaning still more explicit, and distinctly asserts that the Church's power is confined to the faithful guardianship and legitimate interpretation of the word of God' (p. 22); and again, 'we are justified in maintaining that, in things essential to salvation, every Christian ought to have due respect to the expositions of the Church, as having "authority in controversies of faith;" while, in things indifferent, (things indifferent!' who ever heard of them out of the schools?) and where no violence is exercised on the rights of liberty and conscience, every member of the Church should humble himself to the direction of those who bear rule among us, and "submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake."'-(p. 29.) Where, then, is liberty? In things essential to salvation take the Church for your guide; in things not essential, take the Church for your guide too.' And this is called Protestantism! A spirit of liberty! Believe as I believe in things essential and things not essential, and you shall think as you like on other matters-for I should be sorry to trench on liberty of thought.' If this is Church of Englandism' it is not Christianity. We, at least, have not so learnt Christ. Nor is it religious liberty-but an abuse of the name, and the veriest mental prostration, under a very thin guise.

We have not yet done with this exposition of a Christian's privileges. Every Christian is responsible to man as well as to God for the sentiments which he propagates,' and for the doctrines which may form the articles of his faith.' What is the comment on this bold assertion, which the conduct of Luther gave? Did he take counsel of flesh and blood before he ventured to blow the blast which brought to the ground the walls of the Papal Jericho? Did he ask the Pope leave to shake the stability of his throne? Did Cranmer and Henry the Eighth send a deputation to Rome, to acknowledge their accountability to his Holiness? But, leaving facts, let us to the principle. I am accountable to man for my opinions. Then, if I am led to any conviction by mature enquiry, I am to ask his Grace of Canterbury, whether or not I am to hold it. But I hold it already, and nothing his Grace can do, in the way of authority, can affect my conclusion. It is argument, not authority, that has to do in the formation of opinions. Not all the thunders of the Vatican, in the day of its power, could affect the premises which led to my conviction, and consequently the

conviction itself must remain scatheless. Suppose, however, the Church declares in favour of my opinion, am I a whit the more justified in holding it? Is it true to me? She cannot make it truer. Is it false to me? She cannot invest it with the attributes of truth. Suppose the Church declares against it. Am I therefore to give it up? Can I? It is still mine, and the only effect the interposition of the Church can have, is to convert me into a hypocrite; for if I yield to her authority, I, in effect, declare that I believe not what I really believe. And, let it be noticed, it is only with the declaration, not the holding of the opinion, she can by any possibility have an influence. She may tie up my tongue-she may make me say one thing while I mean another; it is wholly beyond her province to affect my convictions themselves by the interposition of her will.

But,' it may be said, you will surely concede, that if the Church cannot modify your sentiments, she is justified in restraining the expression of them. For their propagation, at least, you are accountable to man.' So, then, was Jesus Christ accountable to the Sanhedrim; and so were his fellowlabourers wrong when, being strictly charged not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus,' they answered, Whether it be right before God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.' And in the continuation of their noble reply, is answer enough to all those who, in the spirit of the priest of old, ask, Did we not strictly charge you, that ye should not teach in this name?'-the continuation is, 'We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.' A necessity,' said Paul, is laid upon me to preach the Gospel.' And a necessity is laid on every one to give expression to what he believes to be at once true, and, if promulged, likely to be beneficial to his fellow-man. If not, what hinders-what is of sufficient authority to arrest him? Other men's opinions? They may be of authority to them, but can have no authority with him. How can they? Where is the reason? Is it in the admission that they are right and he is wrong? In what? In the truth of these opinions? Then, if he admits this, it is his duty to give them up, nay, he does give them up, by the very act of admission. But this is a process of reason, not authority. Is it in their conviction that the promulgation would do harm, not good? Let him allow this, and he either allows that truth is baneful when divulged, or that what he holds is not truth. In either case he loses his warrant for a public declaration of his opinions. But then, notice, he is convinced of this, not compelled to it and he is convinced that he was in error, in other words, that what he took for truth was not truth. This is not to realise the actual case, which is of a man remaining convinced of the truth of certain opinions, and of their beneficial

tendency if published; and a man in this position, Mr. Parkinson contends, must first ask the Church before he ventures to announce his sentiments. The question, returns- why?' 'The Church has power to decide in controversies of faith.' Yes-so says the Church. But the Church's assertion is no plea for silence with me till I admit its force. How am I to come to this admission? The Church will show its credentials.' By what means am I to judge of them? By your reason, of course.' Here, then, is the Church advocate fairly on the horns of a dilemma. Either my reason is good or bad. If good, it is as good for my own convictions as for the authority of the Church. If bad, it is also bad for both, and certainty is at an end. • But your reason is good so long as it agrees with the Church, and bad only when it dissents from it.' We have arrived, at last, at the principle which lurks in every attempt to set up authority against individual judgment. It is this, You are at liberty to think for yourself, so long (and no longer) as you think as I think.' The Church is a tolerant mother, but she allows no diversity of opinion. Give her a blind obedience, and she will honour you, in return, with the title of a true and faithful son.

After this analysis of Mr. Parkinson's Protestantism, we shall take no further trouble with his other positions, except to note down, that at this time of day, and in the very midst of the intelligent population of Manchester, he has the boldness to venture on the oft-exploded claim of the regular apostolic descent of his own and his associates' office and authority. Here is the claim-the proof we must leave for his readers; it is not worth while to trouble ourselves to transcribe, much less confute so stale a paralogism.

We, then, of the Church of England, maintain, that a sacred order of men, exclusively set apart for the preaching of the word, and administration of the sacraments, and set apart, also, by those who have authority in the church so to do, as having received that authority in regular succession from the apostles themselves, we maintain, that such an order of men not only existed under the Jewish dispensation, but are continued under the Christian, by the express order of our Lord himself, and by the exclusive practice of the Apostles and of their successors, through many centuries of the past ages of the Church.'-(pp. 24-5.)

ON RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

A Few Observations on Religion and Education in Ireland. By the Rev. Edward Stanley, A. M., Rector of Alderley.' London, Ridgway.

It is refreshing to turn from the bigotry of most of those of the clergy, who have recently written on Irish affairs, to the truly Christian spirit which animates the writer of this pamphlet, and

it is in the hope of doing something to spread its influence more widely that we are induced to notice it in our pages. A less exceptionable witness than Mr. Stanley could scarcely be found, connected as he is with, and sincerely attached to, the Established Church, and possessing, moreover, such talents and culture, as could not fail to enable him to see things as they are, in the visit to Ireland, which led to the publication before us. Nor will those who know with what exemplary fidelity Mr. Stanley discharges the duties of his own cure, fail to form the conclusion, that very different statements from what commonly appear would be laid before the public, were those who write on religion and education in Ireland,' as competent to judge, and as disinterested, as the Rector of Alderley.

In the course of my enquiries (says he), many parishes came under my own immediate observation, and reports of others reached me from witnesses on whose veracity I could entirely depend, all tending to verify the same fact, namely, that where the Catholic and Protestant minister were on friendly terms (and I am confident that where there is a will there is a way, without the slightest concession of principle on either side), parochial peace and harmony invariably prevailed; where, on the other hand, they were at variance, as certainly were the effects of that variance visible amongst their respective parishioners; and further, that even where parishes were essentially Catholic, Protestant ministers were not of necessity either neglected or ill-treated, provided they conducted themselves as ministers of peace.'

How often do we hear it positively asserted in England, that by the entire Catholic population, Protestants are held in abhorrence, and their very lives in jeopardy. I doubted the fact before, but am certain, now, that nothing can be more false. On the contrary, if left to their own unsophisticated, warm-hearted feelings (for I am ready to allow that an ill-disposed, narrow-minded priest may infuse the worst spirit), they are inclined to live upon the best terms with their Protestant neighbours. I omitted no opportunity of probing them with a view to get at the truth, and in no one instance amongst the peasantry, and from them my information on this particular point was most likely to be correct, did I detect an atom of antipathy or repugnance.'

With the persecuting doctrines advanced in Den's Theology, he declares that he found no sympathy in Ireland; and, arguing that no conclusion against the Irish clergy can be deduced from the objectionable passages in such a work-passages which occupy not quite 1,800th part of the whole-he proceeds to ask how a mode of treatment such as that indulged in by the Exeter Hall fanatics, would affect the character of the Establishment in this country; and, in the sequel of his remarks, is led to statements which show but too clearly, that whatever Catholicism may be, the Anglican Church is obnoxious to the charge of favouring persecution for conscience' sake.

Because all the Clergymen and most Laymen of the Church of England have subscribed the proposition, that the book of Homilies

"to be read

" contains a godly and wholesome doctrine," and ought in churches by the ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understood by the people," are we to expect that every such clergyman and layman should, in obedience to the 25th Homily, believe "that God's terrible wrath and indignation against nations and individuals," cannot possibly be avoided without "the utter destruction and abolishing of all images and pictures in temples and churches;" and should therefore use his utmost exertions to destroy all the painted windows and all the carved images which adorn every one of our cathedrals and most of our churches? Because Jewell's Apology, re-published with the consent of all the English bishops, and according to the then Bishop of London, supposed to speak the sense of the whole church in whose name it was written," and used by the University of Oxford as one of her text books of theology, contains the following sentence:-"Ex illo (Verbo scil. a Christo patefacto et ab Apostolis propagato) nos solo omne genus veterum hæreticorum, quos isti nos aiunt ab inferis revocasse, condemnamus, et Arianos, Eutychianos, Marcionitas, Ebioncos, Valentinanos, Carpocratianos, Tatianos, Novatianos, eosque uno verbo omnes, qui vel de Deo Patre, vel de Christo, vel de Spiritu Sancto, vel de ullâ aliâ parte Religionis Christianæ impie senserunt, quia ab Evangelio Christi coarguuntur, impios et perditos pronuntiamus, et usque ad inferorum portas detestamur; nec id solum, sed etiam si forte erumpant uspiam, et sese prodant, cos legitimis et civilibus suppliciis severis coercemus?" Because this is the case, are we to suppose that all the tutors and scholars of Oxford, all the bishops, and the whole Church of England, think it a duty to abhor to the gates of hell, and to restrain by legal (and if the word suppliciis is used in its common sense) capital punishments, every dissenter in the land?'

Turn we to our Canons. Let us hear the voice of these documents; not, be it remembered, the production of an individual, like Dens,but constitutions of the church, "agreed upon with the king's majesty's license by the Bishop of London, president of the convocation for the province of Canterbury, and the rest of the bishops and clergy of the said province," "

How stands, then, our professed practice with regard to our faith? Let nine out of the twelve first canons, which alone refer directly to the subject of Church communion, and freedom of enquiry, answer the question. What then say they? They say, that every individual presuming to affirm, "that the form of God's worship in the Church of England containeth any thing in it that is repugnant to Scripture (we, of course, considering our own interpretation to be the correct one), that any of the thirty-nine Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or may not with a conscience be subscribed unto; that the rites or ceremonies of the said church, that its government or form and manner of its consecrations are either anti-Christian or repugnant to the word of God; and finally, that whosoever shall hereafter separate themselves from the communion of saints in the said church, combining themselves together in a new brotherhood,-shall be one and all excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored but by the archbishops, after their repentance and public revocation of such their wicked errors." And what is this excommunication? "It is," as one of the ablest writers upon our articles expresses himself, an ignomini