and they feel and know that the venerable parent of the National faith dispenses blessings with an overflowing hand throughout the country which they love, and the prosperity of which they cannot separate from the prevalence of religion.-Study, then, I beseech you, with prayer for divine aid and direction, to know what the Church really is, and to estimate more experimentally her means of grace. You will find the benefit thereof by an increase of faith in the oracles of God; by a fuller reliance on the Saviour's merits; by a growing conformity to his example; by more fervent zeal in the promotion of his cause; by a patient continuance in well doing ; by an enlarged love towards "all who love Him in sincerity; and by ardent desire, in the spirit of the Church, for the hastening of the predicted time when "all who confess his holy name shall agree in the truth of his holy word, and live in unity and godly love." And, finally, whilst I would have you survey the beauty and strength of this city of your God, which will best appear when most contemplated, remember that it is a sanctuary built by sounder piety and holier zeal than any which this age presents; and that true patriotism and true religion, which are inseparable from each other, require you to sustain and hand it down to those who shall come after you. But take good heed that you place not your confidence in the outward comeliness thereof, but in the ever-guiding Spirit alone, who dwelleth within her, the Omnipotent Fountain of life, of sanctification, and of defence. Then, WALK ABOUT ZION, AND GO ROUND ABOUT HER, AND TELL THE TOWERS THEREOF. D NOTES. (a, page 1.)—I use the term National Church Establishments (and, when not used, would have it always understood); because Dissenters do not object to all Establishments; inasmuch as, according to legal definition, their own edifices are established, i. e. sanctioned in their use and property by law. Their Ministers also possess and exercise certain privileges derived to them, in their religious capacity, from the civil government, as exemptions from military and civil offices, imposts, &c. Nay, some of them receive direct payment from the state, by participating in the national grant to nonconforming Ministers, called the Regium Donum. The principle then of Establishments, i. e. ecclesiastical property sanctioned by law, and legal religious privileges and support, is recognised by them. Hence they are accustomed to speak of the National Church merely as "the Endowed Church," as for instance, Rev. G. Clayton, the respectable author of a Funeral Sermon upon an exemplary Christian, Mr. T. Preston, speaks of the preference of that good man, " for the forms and ritual of the Endowed Church." The phraseology, however, is inaccurate; for many of their places are endowed. Wherefore, it appears, that not to churches established by law, nor yet privileged by law, nor yet endowed, does the objection imply. The controversy then is much narrowed; and I believe that, if all could view it with an accurate and unbiassed eye, it would be found to rest upon a slippery basis. (b, page 9.)-The Christian Guardian for December last, contains a letter from Dr. Adam Clarke, in which that humble and holy scholar avows his heartfelt attachment to the Church of England, "the purest National Church in the world;" his love for her doctrines and sacraments, which constitute the essence of a church;" his "veneration for her orders, and esteem for her hierarchy;"-adding, "the Methodists as a body are not Dissenters; and, I trust, never will be; though we are not episcopally ordained, and hold places of separate worship; but this has been of necessity, not of choice. We (Churchmen and Methodists) can, not be one body, as we now stand, but we can be of one spirit. The Church has our warm attachment; and if the time should come (which Dieu ne plaise), that the bodies of various Dissenters were to rise up against the Church, the vast bodies of Methodists would not hesitate a second to be your light infantry. We call you Mother Church, because our founders were clergymen of your Church, and our religious principles are those, and those alone, of the Church of England. Yet shew us how we can be more readily united, so as not to be prevented from doing the work which God has given us to do, and my heart and hand shall be with you." It is justice to acknowledge, that the respectable organ of this body, the Wesleyan Magazine, has deservedly claimed to itself the honourable distinction of not joining in the ungodly outcry against the Establishment. (c, page 21.) That the original Non-conformists did not only sustain Establishments, but regarded themselves as still members of the National Church, I quote the following passages from Matthew Henry, speaking for his brethren : "We do hereby solemnly profess, and shall take all occasions to repeat it, that we celebrate our religious assemblies in communion with all that in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ as Lord, both theirs and ours. We neither say nor do anything to the reproach nor prejudice of the National Establishment. We take not upon us to arraign or censure the constitutions of it, or to prejudice or despise those who adhere to them. But in those few and small things wherein our apprehensions differ (whilst in the most and greatest of all we cordially agree) we desire faithfully and conscientiously to walk according to the light that God has given us; charitably believing that others do so too, whom we hope to meet in the general assembly of the first-born, though now we are divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel. This profession we make in the sincerity of our hearts, with a resolution, by the grace of God, never to act contrary to it. And now may we not claim it as our right to be owned and looked upon as members of the Catholic Church; though a weak and small part of it, yet a part of it, and, I trust, not a corrupt part; and being united with our brethren of the other tribes under one civil government, and being (abundantly to our satisfaction) within the same allegiance, and, even in our religious interests, taken into the same protection, we see not why we should not be looked upon as belonging to that part of the Catholic Church which God's own right hand hath planted in these kingdoms. "Let us much more give God praise for the National Establishment of our religion, with that of our peace and civil liberty. That our Canaan is not only a land flowing with milk and honey; but, which is of much greater advantage, that it is Immanuel's and (Isaiah viii.); that the Christian religion, that choice and noble vine, which was so early planted in our land, is still grow ing and flourishing in it, in despite of all the attempts of the powers of darkness to root it out; that it is refined from the errors and corruptions which the Church of Rome had, with the help of ignorance and tyranny, introduced; and that the Reformation was in our land a national act; that Christianity, thus purified, is supported by good and wholesome laws, and is twisted in with the very constitution of our government."-Speaking of the Protestant Dissenters, he adds, "The mercy is more sensibly great, because it is not long since our religion, and all the defences of it, with all its supports, were on the brink of ruin; and, like Isaac upon the altar, lay ready to be sacrificed to the malice of our Popish enemies; and had the ship then sunk, our cabin could not have been preserved."-Separation without Rebellion. In truth, the original Dissenters, be it ever remembered, did not leave the Church, though they were forced out of its ministry. They ever considered themselves its members, and occasionally attended its services and its ordinances. None of them declined appointment to spiritual charges by the State. Philip Henry, Howe, and Alleine (the celebrated author of the "Alarm to the Unconverted") are only names among a vast number of others less eminent. These, indeed, were men (to use the beautiful language of a living Prelate) "from whom it is matter of pain to differ, and with whom it is matter of satisfaction when we can agree. In various degrees, indeed, they had their errors and perplexities, their doubts and scruples. But they now enjoy their Sabbath; they now rest from their labours; in a world, where, to the sincerely pious, all honest errors are forgiven, all perplexities are disentangled, and all doubts and scruples are for ever at an end." -Bishop Jebb's Sermons, p. 158. It is also remarkable how near wise and good men approach, when a party object is out of sight. The view which the vast and holy mind of Hooker grasped at the first, and sustained against the Puritans, with argument, eloquence and piety yet unparalleled, in his imperishable work, has been embraced and enforced, in their controversies with different branches of non-conformity, by the two most commanding intellects that modern dissent can boast of, Fuller and Hall; the one against the Sandemanians, and the other on behalf of open communion. That the advocates of the modern notion of the utter discrepancy of Church and State, of the total opposition between religion and politics, and of the unscriptural character of the Church of England, are practically compelled to abandon all these principles, in a considerable degree, when removed from the pale of controversy, the evidence is not doubtful. Of national conversions, that of the South Pacific Islands, is the only one that has occurred of late ages. This was effected by Missionaries of the Independent persuasion; and the Almighty seems, in their case, to have |