tithe for nearly 650 years. The dean and chapter of Ely, who possess the rectory and vicarage of Lakenheath, have availed themselves of this difficulty, to revive their claim of tithe over the fen. For nineteen years have the owners of the fen-land been harassed by their spiritual oppressors; they have already expended £5000 in litigation, and more. law is now threatened them; the dean and chapter having granted a concurrent lease of the rectory to Mr. Evans, their solicitor and agent, who has renewed the persecution for the tithe of the fen.

A modus, or accustomed rate of payment for tithe, no more than a composition, is never allowed to stand after the clergyman wishes to terminate it, unless it can be proved to have existed prior to A.D. 1189. Day after day rank moduses, as they are called, though they have continued from time out of mind, yet bear evidence of not having existed before the return of King Richard from the Holy Land, are set at naught. Why our legal sages should have adopted this antiquated era for the bounds of legal memory, and to which, for the validity of a custom or prescription, it is necessary to trace an uninterrupted observance, no one can divine, unless it arise from the obvious interest they have in involving every rule regarding the rights of persons and property in the greatest possible obscurity and contradiction. The parsons, however, avail themselves of this dictum, and set aside every customary payment for tithe they do not like, which cannot be proved to have continued, without interruption, from the twelfth century. Hence no modus for hops, turkeys, or other thing introduced into England since that period, is valid. The keenness with which, on various occasions, the clergy have litigated these points is astonishing; and their conduct, both as regards compositions, first fruits, and tithes in London, shows the inherent rapacity of the order, and that there is no stratagem to which they will not resort, in order to avoid payments to which they are justly liable, or to fasten on the public some of their own dormant pretensions. They cannot, therefore, expect any indulgence, nor complain if a similar measure of justice be dealt to them. One mode of retaliation would be to insist on the payment of first fruits and tenths, according to the present value of benefices, whereby the condition of the inferior clergy would be improved out of the redundant incomes of the rich ecclesiastics.

But quite as equitable and a more effective blow might be dealt the priesthood, by the POOR insisting on their old common law right' to one-third of the tithes of benefices. If the clergy will persist in reviving worn-out claims, why should the people suffer their own just rights to remain in abeyance? That the poor are entitled to one-third of the tithes has been unanswerably proved by Ruggles and Eagle. No time has elapsed to defeat the claims of the poor any more than the claims of the Church. There stands their right, guaranteed to them by the old common law of the land, sanctioned by centuries of uninterrupted usage, and never repealed by any statute of the realm.

VI. ORIGIN AND DEFECTS OF THE CHURCH LITURGY.

New religions are seldom genuine. Like new constitutions of government, they are mostly established by being incorporated with preexisting opinions and institutions. This observation will appear evident from an advertance to the origin and history of the Church Liturgy, by which will be seen the successive gradations of Paganism, Popery, and Protestantism, through which it has emerged and been transmuted.

Dr. MIDDLETON, an eloquent and learned divine of the Church of England, was the first to lead the way in this inquiry. In his celebrated letter from Rome, he exhibits, in a very perspicuous manner, the great conformity between Paganism and Popery, and proves that the religion of the present Romans is entirely derived from that of their heathen ancestors in the use of incense, holy water, tapers and lamps, in their worship; in the practice of pomps and processions, penance, pretended miracles, and pious frauds; in the making of votive gifts and offerings, and erecting rural shrines; in the orders of their priesthood, nuns, monks, and begging friars, and in the use of boys clothed in sacred habits, to attend the officiating priest: all of which he has shown to have been practised by the Pagans, and by the Papists, in imitation of them. But here Dr. Middleton stopped in his comparison, unaware, apparently, that in his zeal to depreciate a rival church, he had furnished weapons of no ordinary temper, with which that to which he belonged might be assailed.

This task has been executed in the well-known work of DE LAUNE, in his Plea for the Nonconformists, where he has exhibited learning and ability not inferior to Dr. Middleton. He shows that in the several particulars of kneeling at the Sacrament, the use of the surplice, the sign of the cross, the rite of confirmation, the use of sponsors in the baptism of infants, of a liturgy or form of prayer, and of altars, the observance of fasts and festivals, the ceremony of marriage, bowing at the name of Jesus, and towards the east, the authority of episcopacy, and the dedication of churches to saints; the church of England symbolizes not with primitive Christianity, but with the idolatrous forms of Popery. Such resemblance ceases to be matter of surprise, when it is known, on the authority of Calderwood, that the English service was put together out of three Romish channels: viz. 1. The breviary, out of which the common prayers are taken; 2. The ritual, or book of rites, out of which the administration of the sacraments, burial, matrimony, and the visitation of the sick, are taken; and, 3. The mass-book, out of which the consecration of the Lord's supper, collects, epistles, and gospels are taken.

The Rubric, or Service-book of Henry VIII.'s time, was no other than the Romish liturgy, partly translated into English. In the reign of Edward VI. the whole was rendered into the vernacular tongue, but otherwise was little altered. This fact was distinctly avowed by the proclamation of the king and council made at the rebellion of some en

thusiasts in the West of England, who had been excited thereto by the priests; it is thus: "As for the service in the English tongue, it perchance seems to you a new service, and, yet, indeed, it is no other but the old, the self-same words in English; for nothing is altered but to speak with knowledge that which was spoken with ignorance, only a few things taken out, so fond, that it had been a shame to have heard them in English."* Between that period and the reign of James I. it is true that some alterations were effected, but notwithstanding we find that monarch thus speaking of the same service. “As for our neighbour Kirk of England, their service is an evil said mass in English ; they want nothing of the mass, but the liftings." It is allowed, that after this period there were some other alterations made in the service, but we find that Charles II. in his preface to the Common Prayer, annexed to the Act of Uniformity, thus expresses his opinion: "the main body and essentials of it (as well in the chiefest materials as in the frame and order thereof) have still continued the same unto this day, notwithstanding all vain attempts and impetuous assaults made against it." Now the obvious inference from these testimonies is, that the service of the Church of England, with little alteration, is the same as that of the Church of Rome. But, to show more satisfactorily the resemblance between the two churches, we shall insert the following comparison from an ingenious and elaborate publication, entitled "The Church Establishment founded in Error:"t

"The breviary and calendar of the Church of Rome divides the year into fasts, vigils, feasts, and working days. The same division is adopted by the Church of England, with this exception, that there are less of the former; but of those that are observed they stand in the same order, and are evidently borrowed from the calendar of the Roman Church. Their feasts are divided into moveable and fixed; so are ours; and of thirty-six of them the observance is the same in both churches. The fast-days of both are alike. In the Church of Rome the service itself is divided into matins and even songs; so is ours; theirs is appropriated to the particular feasts, fasts, vigils, &c.; so is ours; the substance of their service consists in collects, confessions, absolutions, psalms, epistles, gospels, prophets, apocrypha, litanies, anthems, &c. so does ours. In the Church of Rome, the people kneel at confession or absolution, repeat after the priest the pater-noster, stand at gloria patri, stand up and repeat the apostle's creed, kneel and repeat after the minister, Lord, have mercy upon us; Christ have mercy upon us; make responses at the saying of the litany, kneel at the altar when they partake of the eucharist, or Lord's supper, kneel and ask mercy and grace after the rehearsal of the decalogue; read the psalms alternately with the priest, verse by verse; sit at reading the lessons, say the psalms to the accompaniment of music, bow to the

* Acts and Mon. vol. ii. p. 1189; quoted by De Laune.

+ Calderwood, Hist. Ch. of Scot. p. 256; quoted by De Laune. ‡ London, E. Wilson, 1831.

east and at the name of Jesus. All this is done in the Church of Rome, and so is it performed in the Church of England. The places of worship which the Church of England at present occupies, and the endowments it possesses, were built, consecrated, and bestowed by the Papists, and as they were dedicated by them to various saints, so they continue dedicated by the Church of England. The Church of Rome has its archbishops, bishops, deans and chapters, prebends, archdeacons, and other graduated dignities; so has the Church of England, which retains also distinguishing habits for each, as formerly practised by the Roman Church. And the ordination services in both churches so closely resemble each other, that, with a few unimportant alterations, they are verbatim the same. A parallel so singular and striking cannot fail to convince every unprejudiced mind, that one system has given rise to the other."-pp. 44-5.

Having gone through the historical part of our inquiry, we shall next come to a notice of the church service as now administered. Apart from the temporalities of the Church, we do not think there is much to give offence in the established worship, notwithstanding its impure and idolatrous origin. Man is said naturally to be prone to religion, and were he deprived of his present idols, it is not improbable he might create others with more onerous pretensions. Those, however, most attached to the national establishment, cannot deny there are defects in its ritual, which, if they could be quietly abscinded, would be a great improvement. The church has partaken, in some degree, of the improvements of the age. It has been argued out of intolerance towards every Christian sect. Some doctrines still retained, as part of the Athanasian creed and Thirty-nine Articles, are viewed, we apprehend, in the same light as special pleading and other legal fictions, rather as curious relics of a past age than as dogmas of practical use and belief. In its rites and ceremonial, the services it exacts are of easy performance to every class. The enforcement of the sabbath is an unmixed good to the industrious orders, while the hebdomadal inculcation of a future state of reward and punishment supports with hope or restrains with fear those who cannot appreciate the claims of a more enlightened morality. Philosophers can hardly begrudge the devotion. of one morning out of seven to a parish church; if their feelings are not interested in the iterations of the Liturgy, their souls may be soothed by music and psalmody, and thus be enabled to range, with less disturbance, through the regions of science.

Mere politicians, who usually look on the sanctions of religion as more useful than credible, are little under its influence. The Tories were formerly a godly race of men,-they had religion at the heart, but with the Whigs it never went beyond the lips. Speaking of these once notable factions, the late Mr. Fox observes, "While the Whigs considered all religion with a view to politics, the Tories, on the other hand, referred all politics to religion. Thus the former, in their hatred to Popery, did not so much regard the superstition or even idolatry of that unpopular sect, as its tendency to establish arbitrary power in the state;

"

while the latter revered arbitrary monarchy as a divine institution, and cherished passive obedience and non-resistance as articles of religious faith." With few exceptions, both parties are now agreed in treating religion as an engine or ally of the state,-a branch of the police, or civil power, very useful for repressing disorders, or assisting that famous tax machine, a mock representation, in extracting money out of the pockets of the people.

The Church appears inclined to cultivate a spirit of indifference and quietism, the most favourable course it could take for a lengthened duration. It prosecutes no doctrine, controls, with a gentle hand, the passions of the multitude, gives full scope to the pleasures of the great, and is mostly prompt to throw the weight of its influence into the scale of government. So far is well and judicious. But there are some parts of the Liturgy so staringly preposterous, and so inconsistent with genuine Protestantism, that we think, if they are not shortly got rid of, they must, ere long, attract a dangerous share of popular attention. The reformation of Henry VIII. from the first needed reforming, and, after an elapse of more than two centuries, the task cannot surely be deemed premature.

The portion of the book of Common Prayer, to which we shall first call attention, is the Church Catechism. This includes the elements of Church of Englandism, and is of the utmost importance from being first impressed on the minds of the rising generation. To the bad grammar and logic of this manual we do not attach much importance, though, entering as it does into early instruction, it ought to be unobjectionable on these points. But what is more serious, is the impracticable, superfluous and unintelligible matter it contains.

For example:-in the baptismal service, the godfather and godmother renounce, in the name and behoof of the child, the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh;" and this engagement the child solemnly promises to fulfil. But the utter impossibility of performance reduces the whole to an unmeaning ceremony: sponsors offer up their pledges without consideration, and christenings next to marriages are scenes of the greatest levity and indecorum.

That part where the child engages to make "no graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth," is superfluous, inapplicable, and liable to be misunderstood. Though the golden calf was never more worshipped than at present, it is the most romote possible from a religious worship. The injunction was delivered to the Jews when they were surrounded by nations of idolators; but the nearest idolatry is distant from England at least a thousand leagues, and children can find no type of it in this country, except in the productions of the artist, to which they may mistakenly think it applies.

In another place occurs the phrase "all the elect people of God," which savours strongly of that Calvinism against which Lord Chatham directed

* History of James II.