potentates; how much more is it true of Christian rulers? The atheist should stand alone in placing conventional rights at utter disunion from religious obligation. Princes as well as people, nations as well as societies, have ever been dealt with by God as such, they have their respective duties as such. And, as far as the analogy of natural and social offices extends, public conduct must be inspired by the same motives, and walk in the same path, as private. Christianity deals not in details merely; but it has also broad, impelling, universal principles. We cannot speak too strongly the solemn conviction, that a government reckless of the truths and institutes of religion, is a heavy judgment upon any land; and deep and awful is its guilt in wilfully allowing the people to perish in ignorance of Him "whom truly to know is everlasting life."

To meet these arguments by the remark, that the blessed Head of the Church does not want human authority, or political enactment, to promote his cause, savors rather of an arraignment of His Providence.-Did He ever want human means of any kind, as though he could not act without them? Surely not. Yet in every age he has employed them. All redemption has proceeded by them. He needs not the letter of the Word, nor the ordinances of the Ministry and Sacraments. But he employs them all; and, in the common path of his dispensations, he works in no other way. He might, if he so pleased, convert the world by the miraculous effusion of his Spirit upon all hearts. But he does not so please. He distils his grace in genial drops upon human agency, by inspiring devotedness of mind, as well in the use of rank and authority, as of every other talent committed to responsible beings : talents which are alike blessed with his favour when devoted to his glory, and alike withered by his frown

when employed in opposition to, or buried in neglect of, his Gospel.

Thus have I endeavoured, with great imperfection, I am aware, but I trust with no perversion of truth or candour, to shew that the argument for National Church Establishments rests upon the universal obligation of Christian duty; upon the Jewish dispensation, instituted by God himself; upon the sanction of Christ and his apostles; upon the example of all the pious rulers that scripture brings before our eyes; upon the future predicted interference of the civil power in the diffusion of the Christian faith; and upon the testimony of the universal Church in past ages.-Allow me then, in conclusion, to remind you, that trial and assault are the destiny of the household of Christ. They are a testimony borne to every church, in proportion as she арproaches closer to the Gospel standard. That testimony is borne to the Church of England now. It is against her alone that the combined host of popery, of infidelity, of heresy, and of all ungodliness, directs its efforts; approved, unhappily, (and I name it with unfeigned sorrow) by the smile of many whom we could wish to honour, as we do the memory of their pious forefathers; who would have started from such an alliance, with the horror-struck deprecation of the patriarch, "O my soul, come not thou into their secret: unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united."

But I speak to you even weeping when I say that our weakness is within: in the coldness and formality, the impiety, the ignorance, and vice, of nominal professors. Here, the accusations of our enemies find a resting place, though not a justification for, as the Gospel is to be judged, not from its carnal professors, but by its intrinsic evidence ; so is the Church to be tried by its authorized tests, not by members whose whole conduct those tests

B

condemn. To you, she presents the scriptures, the volume of your Maker's will, of your Redeemer's love. To you, she imparts helps and models of devotion so spiritual, that it is even numbered among her reproaches. These avail, I doubt not, to the salvation of a greater number of the people of God than any other community can boast. But unto thousands what do they avail, save to their condemnation? Devoid of abiding love to Christ, and indwelling holiness, what would be the frame work of an Establishment, but a carcase which no breath vivified, no spirit animated: for, as the body without the soul is dead, so the church of faith without the works of faith is dead also. Vainly shall we strive for the preservation of the sanctuary and its holy censers, unless we trim and quicken the sacred flame that burns therein. A National Church is, in itself, a glorious object; a trophy of the Redeemer's triumph; an omen of his universal conquest, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. A torch it is, diffusing light through the dark places of the land. But each and every member should regard himself as a particle of that holy fire; as a light shining before men, that they may see his good works, and glorify his heavenly Father: "compelling even the adversary to confess, "Be their Church what she may, the spirit of God is in her of a truth."-You it behoves to sustain her walls and defend her cause; identical as she is with the constitution of your land, and with the eternal interests of your fellow subjects. But, let me beseech you to take good heed that in her defence you neither manifest the spirit, nor sanction the principle, nor use the weapons, by which she is assailed. Though attacked on every side by calumnies the most awful, by alliances the most unholy, she has neither provoked them by intolerance, nor hitherto opposed them by

equal uncharitableness. Never may she do so: nor ever may we exemplify, in such a cause, that temper which it is the object of our blessed religion to subdue and extinguish. Let not our instruments, at least, be dipped in the venom of the Serpent, nor borrowed from his armoury.

"Be ever ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." The Holy Spirit has here dictated the duty of the Christian disputant. May he diffuse the disposition also in the hearts of all; thus to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints; and for the Church, which the wisdom of martyrs hath conveyed to us, cleansed and sanctified through the instrumentality of their sufferings and death. God cannot bless the efforts now made against her, opposed as they are to every feeling sanctioned by his holy will. But though he cannot bless, he may employ, the direful passions of men, as heretofore he hath done, to visit her offences with the rod, and her sin with scourges. Then, in a consciousness of what our transgressions have deserved, let us "hear the rod and who hath appointed it." Let us be purified in the anticipation of these corrections; and then we may confidently hope that his loving kindness will not be utterly taken from our Church :" that he will never forget the truth she has preserved and maintained; the holiness which his grace hath produced within her; the saints and confessors he hath raised, and raises daily, in her pale: but that, through the chastisements his wisdom may allot, the beams of his consolation may shine upon the faithful hearts within her; and that she may enjoy the participation of his promised love to one of the tribes of his chosen Israel,

DAY IS, SO SHALL THY STRENGTH BE.

" AS THY

DISCOURSE II.

OF THE EXPEDIENCY AND BENEFITS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT.

PSALM xlviii. 12-14.

Walk about Zion, and go round about her tell the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks ; consider her palaces; that ye may tell the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our Guide unto death.

THE scriptural lawfulness of National Ecclesiastical Establishments rests upon a variety of practical arguments, each of which seems well nigh conclusive in itself. The most prominent of these, are-the instance of the Jewish Church, established or sanctioned in conjunction with the civil government, by God himself; the conformity of our Lord and the Apostles to the same; the declarations of prophecy, predicting an active interference of potentates in the affairs of the Christian Church, in her future and purest state: united to the universality and identity of obligation upon all classes, rulers as well as people.

But the arguments for the lawfulness of Establishments are of a kind to include the expediency, and humanly speaking, the necessity of them; and it is