holders of that belief should now be busy and strenuous in its defence, so also, if their agency is to be effective, permanent, and conscientious, must they be earnest and patient in its examination.

4. The point of view from which it is now proposed to contemplate and discuss the question, is that which men occupy as members of a State; and the aim is to show, that the highest duty and highest interest of a body politic alike tend to place it in close relations of co-operation with the Church of Christ. It is from this position that I propose to regard it; first, because the combatant in defensive warfare naturally resorts ἐπὶ τὸ κάμνον, to the quarter which is threatened and in danger; because the Church is not likely to be the moving party in measures for the dissolution of this connection, while the State has, it is too certain, given signs, though I believe unconsciously, of that inclination; and therefore it is the mind of the State, not of the Church, which requires to be more fully exercised upon this subject, in order to the better knowledge and fulfilment of its duty.

5. But besides the fact that we are more ignorant of our duty as citizens than as churchmen, in respect of the connection, we shall find another reason for instituting the investigation in the former capacity rather than the latter. The union is to the Church of secondary though great importance. Her foundations are on the holy hills. Her charter is legibly divine. She, if she should be excluded from the precinct of government, may still fulfil all her functions, and

carry them out to perfection. Her condition would be anything rather than pitiable, should she once more occupy the position which she held before the reign of Constantine. But the State, in rejecting her, would actively violate its most solemn duty, and would, if the theory of the connection be sound, entail upon! itself a curse. We know of no effectual preservative principle except religion; nor of any permanent, secure, and authenticated religion but in the Church. The State, then, if she allows false opinions to overrun and bewilder her, and, under their influence, separates from the Church, will be guilty of an obstinate refusal of truth and light, which is the heaviest sin of man. It is, accordingly, of more importance to our interests as a nation, that we should sift this matter to the bottom, than to our interests as a Church. sides all which, it may be shown that the principles, upon which alone the connection can be disavowed, tend intrinsically and directly to disorganisation, inasmuch as they place government itself upon a false foundation.

Be

6. These are the main reasons for handling the question in that sense which most applies to individual Christians, anxious to be informed how they may best discharge their duties in respect of this connection, as members of the State: while, at the same time, we shall find ourselves led by the proposed inquiry to exactly the same conclusion, as if, setting out from an opposite quarter, we were called upon to assist in directing the operations of the Church, with reference

to the best means of extending its utility. There is a substantial conformity between our several duties, though not always an apparent one. The only question is, respecting the order of the processes by which they are demonstrated.

7. Further, the argument which follows is not specifically addressed to infidels; hardly, indeed, to persons in a state of systematic separation from our national Church; nor, on the other hand, to such as have deliberately considered all its conditions, and their own obligations as its members; but to those, who form the mass of the educated community, and whose minds have imbibed a general belief of the lawfulness and duty of the public support of religion, yet without any clear and reasoned conclusions either upon the grounds or the limits of that duty. I presume, therefore, on but a very small portion of favourable predispositions in the mind of the reader, while I shall hope to show him, that a sincere believer in no more than the general principle of Theism will, upon looking attentively at the nature and necessities of the State, and its capabilities in respect of religion, be led on, by regular and progressive inferences, to the full adoption of the principle which demands the continued union of the Church with the constitution of the country.

8. Our principal inquiry, however, is into the grounds and reasons of the alliance, not into its terms. The precise arrangements, by which the respective rights of the contracting parties are to be preserved,

are matter of very great importance, but they are entirely distinct from the preliminary question, whether they ought to be contracting parties at all; and perhaps we shall scarcely have reached the time for discussing the first with advantage, until our policy and the tone of public opinion shall have shown, beyond all doubt, that the latter is set at rest. There are indeed, points of contact between the two subjects, but they are incidental; and it is enough here to indicate that which is the specific object of these pages, and which constitutes an object of adequate magnitude when taken alone while the other, it is true, is not less important than neglected. Milton* wrote to Sir Harry Vane the younger,

besides, to know

Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,

What severs each, thou hast learnt, which few have done :

and the praise which was rarely due in his days ought, I fear, to be still more rarely given in our own. For then was the time of Selden and of Falkland; the time when the polished society that met in the mansion of the latter, not far from Oxford, spent its hours in the pursuit of truth, or, according to Lord Clarendon, in a perpetual convivium philosophicum, or convivium theologicum.†

9. But the phraseology which it has been usual to employ may suggest another question-how far are we to consider the alliance of Church and State as an historical compact? I cannot but think that the

* Sonnet xvii.

Clarendon, Life, i. 47.

representation of the relation between sovereign and subject was unworthily and unfortunately, as well as inaccurately, handled, when it was exhibited as dependent upon the fiction of an original compact. This is both a rude and a feeble manner of representing duties to which no date can be assigned, and it much more than loses in truth and in impressiveness what it may gain in clearness and facility. It was doubtless intended to strengthen the sense of personal obligation; but it produced a very opposite result, because it seemed to found on option, and on a computation of results, what is indeed more deeply based in the original constitution of our nature. The same objections will apply in a more limited degree to the application of a similar phraseology to the connection between the Church and the State. There is this difference between the two. In the case of civil society, the relation has in general been practically recognised and its duties fulfilled long before any notion of a compact in specific terms has been entertained; and the only pretext for such language as that of Locke is found in the fact, that it have been necessary in the course of time to define and modify the general relation by verbal conditions. In the case of State religion, we should probably find it impossible, for the most part, to define its historical commencement; but we can usually mark the period when the powers of this world, in their respective spheres, began to own submission to Christ, so that the contract or alliance has here a substantial basis in history. But that basis

may