for the first time, as to certain recent ecclesiastical proceedings. So long as any person is able to say, my doctrines and practices are not only in accordance with the Book of Common Prayer, but they are also in accordance with the views and principles of those to whom the revision of that book was solemnly confided, and so long as he can prove that this statement is substantially correct, so long is he entitled to maintain his place within the Church, to promulgate and defend his views, and to complain if any hindrance be thrown in his way. It is not the question with him whether those doctrines are to be found in the Bible or not. He has been obliged to declare ex animo his assent and consent to all that is contained in the Book of Common Prayer; the Church has exacted this consent from him, and has no right at any subsequent period to turn round and say, Your teaching is contrary to Scripture. Scripture is not the subject in dispute, and cannot, without manifest unfairness, be introduced into it. No one can more fully condemn the teaching of Archdeacon Denison than we do; no one can more fully vindicate him, if he is to be judged by that book to which the Church has demanded his assent ex animo; but we do not, therefore, allow the Prayer Book to be our authority, and not the Bible. We say, apart from all personal disputes, let us sorrowfully admit that we have entrusted the sacred duty of revising our Liturgy in times past to unworthy and incompetent hands; that they have forgotten their duties, and marred the scriptural character that did once distinguish the Book; and then, with the fear of God, and not of man, before us, let us have a new revision, and take the Divine Oracles for our guide.

We cannot rightfully condemn men who preach and write like Denison or Robert Wilberforce, while we accept men who write and preach like Mr. Gorham; each has a part of our formularies for him, and a part against him, and each, widely different as are their views, can range in support of them a multitude of the most distinguished divines of our Church.

We

The question will be asked by some, "Is it not well that it should be so? Are not comprehensive terms the best for us? Will they not enable us to keep within our pale, and to employ for the benefit of our own Communion, many whose virtues we acknowledge, and whose differences we regret?" reply, No! If our forefathers were right in their Protestantism -if the Reformation was really a blessing-then we must be wrong in our apathy, and whatever tends to make that Reformation a dead letter can only be regarded as a curse.

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ART. IV.-Church Extension. By the late THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. Published for Thomas Constable, by Sutherland and Knox, Edinburgh; Hamilton, Adams and Co., London.

GREAT attention has of late years been attracted to the factwhich, however slowly, seems at length fully admitted-that it is the new and proper theory of a National Church Establishment, that it should sUFFICE for the ministration of the Gospel to every man, woman, and child, within the realm. It is, further, generally acknowledged now that it is the duty of the State, if it maintains a Church Establishment at all, to give that Church the same efficiency, by using to that end all means at its disposal, that it does with respect to any other establishment which it supports for the good of the nation at large. Upon these principles it is evident that the State ought to look to it that nothing is neglected or left undone in promoting the utmost possible efficiency in the Church.

But, strange as it may seem, there are not a few of our evangelical brethren who repudiate this view of the position of the Church in reference to the State. They deny that the Church holds her revenues from the State, and that she is bound to render an account of the manner in which her duties are performed to any earthly tribunal. They say that she derives her endowments from the piety and zeal of individuals in days long gone by; that she has a property in those endowments resting precisely on the same basis as that of any other species of property; and that, although bound in conscience to look after the spiritual concerns of the people, she owes no account of her mode of doing so to any power, but conscience and God.

To say truth, had we not the evidence of our own senses that such a doctrine as this is deliberately held and avowed by not a few good evangelical men, we should have felt the utmost difficulty in believing it; and a few words in refutation of it may not be unseasonable, or out of place, in reference to the subject before us.

We would ask, then, is it true that pious individuals, and not the reigning power, conferred, ab origine, the revenues now held by the Church Establishment? Surely, had we nothing to go upon but our own reason, we might see that no individuals whatever, in any age, could have mapped out the whole king

dom into parishes, and conferred upon the Church a legal and indefeasible title to the tithes of all the increase. The very existence of the parochial system, and the fact that all land (except in a few special exceptions) is legally liable to tithe in this country, would in themselves be sufficient to show that the revenues of the Church are a provision allotted to her use by the State, and not by the bounty of individual donors. Again, the fact that involved in this parochial system is the stringent law by which each parish is a close spiritual preserve — would establish the same doctrine. An individual might confer property in a parish upon a Church on condition of its undertaking cure of souls within that parish, but he never could confer on the Church an exclusive right to undertake such a duty, nor could he impose penalties on all spiritual intruders and trespassers.

The fact, then, that the State allots the endowments enjoyed by the Church, and by its laws hinders the interference of others in the functions which the Church undertakes to discharge, most clearly proves that the State has a right to see that those functions are faithfully and properly performed, and that the Church owes to the State an account of her stewardship. She accepts wages for work to be done, and it does seem most inconceivable that the party paying the wages should be passed out from interference or oversight as to how the work thus-so to speak-contracted for had been performed.

The State does, in fact, charge itself with this supervision in a very striking way. It does not, as a principle, appoint individual ministers, but it entrusts their appointment to officers of its own choosing. These officers are bound by the most solemn obligations to oversee the actions of the subordinate agencies employed; they are, ex officio, members of the ruling power itself, in order, as it would seem, that they may serve as a connecting link between it and the clergy. Thus numbers—that is, the number of bishops-as we have seen in our own day, are diminished, added to, or left stationary, at the will of the State; and to them the State would naturally look for information if any difficulty should arise in the working of the machinery of which they were officially the directors and overseers. This may be a humiliating view of the matter to many whose views of church authority would lead to their placing the spiritual above, and paramount to, the temporal power; but we are not theorizing now on our own account, we are not enquiring what ought to be the relative positions of these two great powers, but merely stating what is their

status at the present moment, here in England, in respect of each other.

While these things remain as they are, the blame will be upon both, if in any part of Her Majesty's dominions it is found that the people are perishing for lack of knowledge. The theory of Church and State, viewed simply and without prejudice, seems admirably calculated to prevent such a deplorable condition of things. The State may lawfully be presumed to have had in view in the first instance the provision of sufficient religious teaching and ministration for itself—that is, for the people. A portion of the governing body is charged with an active local supervision of the working of this great machine all over the land. It is the bishop's most essential duty to inform himself, by his own senses exercised upon facts which no man can possibly conceal from him, whether all is going on according to the understanding subsisting between the parties. If he allow spiritual destitution and clerical negligence to keep pace with increasing population and abounding ungodliness, it cannot be said, in the first instance, that the State is to blame. It can only be so when the facts come to its knowledge indirectly, and not, as they ought to have done, through the report of its own accredited officer, the bishop.

But

Even then the guilt of the State is more moral than legal, for, humanly speaking, it has the same right to allow an institution no longer thought necessary to fall into decay, as it had to establish and endow it in the first instance. nothing of the kind can be said for the neglect of the bishop. He has no right to presume that the State intends otherwise than to carry out fully the theory with which it started at the first, and, whether or not, it is his duty to cry aloud and spare not when he sees that his people are dying of spiritual inanition, and only to fold his hands in despair when the State shall have formally refused to listen to his demands and prayers for assistance.

We firmly believe that had all parties thus understood the theory of a National Church, and been actuated by sincere and earnest desires of carrying out that theory, we should not now have had to deplore the fatal consequences of long years of neglect and apathy, and to mourn over the alienation of the great body of the working classes in this country from the National Church.

We are fully aware of the difficulties which lie, at present, in the way of a full realization of the original scheme, but we think that, if it cannot be realized, the surrounding cir

cumstances should be placed in harmony with the new condition of things. We shall have an opportunity, by and bye, of more fully explaining our meaning, and in the meantime we shall return to the subject of Church extension.

We acknowledge with sincere thankfulness, much has been done of late years, and that much still remains to do is but too clearly apparent. We would make some further observations upon the general question with a view of contributing our mite towards a solution of the great problem still engag ing the attention of all who feel for the best interests of this country.

When attention was first drawn to the fact that, in very many districts of England, population had enormously outgrown the means of religious teaching which formerly were considered sufficient, the most obvious mode of remedying the evil seemed, of course, the erection of new churches and the subdivision of extensive parishes. So far as these means have been used, they have been productive of much good; but it remains still a great and anxious question whether anything effectual has yet been done in checking the greatest evil of our day, an evil pregnant with others innumerable and immeasurable, namely, the alienation of the common people from the Church. If this has not been done as yet, there is, we repeat it, much, very much, still remaining to be accomplished. Our own belief is that in some instances the remedy has been effectual to a great extent; but that in many others, indeed in the great majority of cases, the increased church accommodation provided has done no more than suffice for the wants of the increased and increasing middle classes, and that the working man and his family are still just where they were before. Of course it cannot be expected that a workman's family will attend regularly a district church more than any other in which they cannot find sitting room. And, again, there are vast numbers of the working people who are either so poor or so improvident that they allege with great truth that, for want of clothing, they are not "decent" to appear within the walls of a church where all the rest are making a display of their finery. Special means should, we think, be taken to meet both these important cases.

Of course, church building alone could have effected little. In some instances, it might afford an opportunity to many for attending worship by bringing it close to their doors, even when additional men were not added to the working staff of the ancient parish; but evidently the great advantage of the new system is that it calls for subdivision, and the employment