Christ's church as the authorized instructress of the people. Some would persuade us that such interference goes to annihilate the spiritual character of the society which admits it; that the patronage of the state is and must ever be more injurious to the church, as a spiritual community, than its severest persecutions; that the admission of state interference is so direct a renunciation of allegiance to Christ the head of the church, that true Christians are bound to renounce the society which allows it, however excellent in other respects; and simply, because she is " by law established," to come out from her pale and be separate; in conformity with which view of the case the national establishment in England is frequently stigmatized by Protestant Dissenters as well as Romanists, as an "Act of Parliament Church," and as the one party can discern no traces of our religion before Luther, so, since Cranmer, they would seem almost equally imperceptible to the other.

I. But surely this harsh judgment is not reconcileable with any obvious deduction of reason, and can only be ascribed to an entire misconception of the province assigned to the civil ruler in the establishment of Christianity within his dominions. When it comes to him in the manner I have described, it comes as a perfectly independent institution, already complete in all its internal regulations. He may reject and oppose it; he may stand aloof, giving it at the best only the weight of his personal countenance, the benefit of the general protection

which he affords to every association not at variance with the public peace; or, he may adopt its laws as the basis of his own; invest its ministers with such marks of civil distinction as may add to their personal influence with the several classes of his subjects; and so regulate both their sphere of labour and means of support, as shall bring the spiritual instructions and discipline, of which God has constituted them the dispensers, to bear most efficiently on all parts of his dominions, and every age and generation of his people. On either supposition, it is not easy to see what alteration has been made in the original character of the institution as a spiritual society. On the latter, the civil magistrate, in the exercise of an earthly power for which he is responsible to the King of kings, has received and recognized a branch of Christ's church and established it in his nation; but he has not thereby made it either more or less a branch of Christ's church than it would have been had he persecuted or scorned it. He may again see fit to withdraw his favour, and it shall cease to be established-it shall even be expelled his dominions: but it will not on that account cease to exist as a spiritual community. Its divine statute book, the Bible, altereth not; the authority of its ministers, "Go ye forth into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature: lo, I am with you always," is as manifest as ever; nay, its own enactments for the decency and order of worship may remain untouched. With respect to the ruler and the people of that nation, it is but where it was when it first addressed them; and as then, so now, if

they refuse to receive or hear, it may "shake off the dust from its feet for a testimony against them, and depart to another coast." We do not indeed deny that state regulations may so interfere with the independence and purity of a Christian church as materially to impair or even destroy its spiritual character, and render it the duty of those who would obey God rather than man to secede from it; but the point of inquiry before us is whether, there be any thing so necessarily contaminating in the establishment of Christianity by the civil authority of a nation, as to render the thing itself unlawful, and separation from the church a duty from the very moment of its contact with the state, a duty irrespective of all consideration as to the nature and terms of the alliance.

For such an opinion we see no ground in reason whatever, discovering nothing in the mere act (whether of parliament or any other acknowledged organ of legislation) whereby a nation at one time establishes Christianity; at another throws off its corruptions; at another modifies the local arrangements for its propagation; which can of itself affect its claim to acceptance as a spiritual system, or render the submission to it which would otherwise have been right, essentially and necessarily wrong.

II. And as little is there to countenance such an opinion in scripture as in reason. No passage is more frequently brought forward as bearing this unfavourable aspect on state establishments of religion, than that which I have selected as the text;

and I have selected it for the purpose of shewing how little, when viewed in its natural connexion, it can benefit the cause of our opponents, how fully the admission of its true import may consist with the conscientious support of an established church. Our Lord stood before Pilate accused of aspiring to a kingdom, a kingdom which encroached on that of Cæsar; and the great argument which beat down the efforts of the timid governor for his release, was —“If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend, whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar." It was in reply to this imputation that our Lord said " My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence;" as if he had said, I have sufficiently shewn my power to command all nature and all the armies of heaven, as well as to sway the wills of men in my favour, or to subdue their resistance by my word: my voluntary submission, therefore, is a proof that there is nothing in the nature of my kingdom opposed to the just authority of an earthly sovereign. I do not "make myself a king" in any such sense as to render me or my followers rebels to the rule of Cæsar.

Let those stand abashed at this answer whose religious principles incline them to refuse obedience to government in things lawful merely because they are enjoined by an earthly ruler; or who claim for Christ a kingdom which entitles his earthly representative to trample on the necks of princes;-it

leaves those undismayed and unreproved, who, acknowledging themselves bound to obey God rather than man, where the commands are contrary, see no such contrariety in the issue of a royal precept, that in all places of the sovereign's dominion men reverence the God of Christians, because he is the living God and his kingdom everlasting;-but rather presume to think that human authority is never so worthily exercised, never so entitled to entire respect and submission, as when engaged in advancing the kingdom of Christ. We have already asserted our full acceptance of the Saviour's words in their proper import-that his kingdom, his religion, as to laws, motives, object and authority, is not of this world but the next; that he came to war with no carnal weapons; to vindicate for himself and his followers no temporal jurisdiction, no claim which can interfere with earthly sovereignty; that his subjects, be they sovereigns or slaves, are to regard themselves as pilgrims on earth, and use all earthly things with constant reference to eternity;— and whatever in any human establishment is contrary to these maxims, we would condemn as decidedly as their warmest opponents:-but what is there in this to discountenance the exercise of human wisdom and zeal and authority, whether nationally or individually exerted, in furtherance of the spread of the gospel?—what to forbid Cæsar, should he choose so happy a course, from reaching forth his sceptre to direct his subjects to the cross, and exerting the best energies of his government to exalt it in their view and esteem?