of the town was not vital Christianity. Nevertheless, the treatise would have been more extensively beneficial, if, retaining all its seriousness, it had prudently refrained from advancing the peculiarities of a system. It failed also in its object, by aiming at too much, and by taking up religion in too high a tone. Its reproofs were more sensible than its recommendations. To set up the sentiments and manners of primitive times, or even the self-devotedness of the reformation, as a standard for present adoption, borders nearly on enthusiasm. Religious matters are now settled; and a man is not to be branded, as disgracing his character of a Christian, if, walking diligently in his secular calling, and attentive to the offices of his religion, and to the moral duties of social life, he may chance to be averse from certain gloomy austerities and peculiar sentiments; or though he may not choose to tincture his whole conversation with that religious phraseology, which may have . been in strict keeping with the temper, and proper for the character, of more unquiet epochs.

IV. Mr. Wilberforce, in the extent of his zeal, addressed men, generally, as Christians, and kept out of view several points, which the orthodox clergy deemed important, as distinctive marks of Christ's visible church. He introduced that equivocal attachment to the Church, which means attachment to peculiar doctrines; and while it denies the Church of England to be the church of

Christ, independently of these peculiarities, clings to any sect professing to teach them, regardless of its deficiencies in Apostolical government. To contract this widely extended embrace,-to fence barriers that had ever been held sacred, Archdeacon Daubeny published his "Guide to the Church;" wherein he pointed out the danger of schism, and contended for the necessity of adhering to the discipline, as well as to the doctrine of the ancient church. As an Arminian, he differed from Mr. Wilberforce in doctrine: "the one having sat at the feet of Leighton, and the other being the disciple of Bull*." But his leading aim was, to show that dissenters could not claim the privileges belonging to members of Christ's church; being left, as the phrase went, "to the uncovenanted mercies of God."

The next champion in the field was Sir Richard Hill, who with less of courtly moderation than the two former antagonists, pronounced Daubeny's zeal to be fitted for the meridian of Rome; and in an "Apology for brotherly love," or charity-most charitably-compared the Episcopal succession to the genealogy of a race-horse. His whole subject was handled with a disdain and a sarcasm, which fully evinced, that man may profess love in the language of hatred, and advocate his views of the doctrines, till he forgets the spirit, of Christianity.

* Middleton.

Mr. Belsham likewise broke a lance with the author of the Practical View, arraigning the doctrines of the divinity of Christ, of atonement, and of spiritual assistance.

V. Mr. Wilberforce, however, in publishing his volume, may be considered as a leader, who, with the sound of a trumpet, gathered together the dispersed professors of Evangelical principles; that their bands might be organized and brigaded, that they might be knit in a bond of union, and that to each might be assigned its post of cooperation. He has constructed a bridge between Establishment and Dissent in religion, which has opened some pacific communication, and some interchanges of friendship among the outposts; while it has maintained the main body, on one side, in a state of alertness, eager to make its advantage of the false security, and the treacherous liberality, into which the opposing army have been lulled.

VI. The dissenters were so quick to discern, and so keen to improve their advantage, in these approximations of a church party to their sentiments, that on establishing, in 1795, The London Missionary Society, they contrived to retain all the power, while they strengthened themselves by a coalescence with some Evangelical ecclesiastics; one of whom, they resolved, should preach at each anniversary, after the reading of the liturgy, in some church of the Establishment.

Here, with a show of liberality, the Church of England was eulogized, in compliments to the presumed Calvinism of its Articles, and to the maniple of its Evangelical ministers; while the great body of the clergy were covertly assailed in diatribes on lukewarmness, bigotry, and intoler

ance.

Of other philandering associations betwixt the Establishment and Dissent, and particularly of the Bible and Church Missionary Societies, in which the Church contributes all the spurious liberality, and Dissent gains all the substantial advantage, we shall discourse at large under a different head.

VII. Words were duly weighed by our great Reformers; and, accordingly, when they framed a supplication, in the Litany, for deliverance from heresy and schism, they employed terms neither synonymous nor tautological. Schism refers to the discipline, heresy to the doctrine of the church. Schism, or separation, may exist without heresy, and heresy may lurk in the church, without schism. Frequently, however, the ex-churchman and the church-heretic, may entirely accord in doctrinal points; the schismatic despising the heretic for his bondage to beggarly ordinances, and the heretic condemning the schismatic for violating the unity of the church; but both having a stronger affinity and affection towards each other, than

to the churchman who is neither heretic nor schismatic.

VIII. We have seen that two Evangelical bodies, the one within, and the other without the pale of the Church, have existed since the days of Whitfield and Wesley. We have seen that they have run in parallel lines, sometimes converging, and sometimes blending together; like a river and a canal contiguous to each other, with frequent channels of communication, and the ancient flood feeding the artificial stream. We have marked their kindred sentiments, their mutual predilections, their exclusive correspondences. We have traced in them that common understanding and co-operation, which have nearly removed the landmarks, and broken down the boundaries of the Church. The orthodox body maintains, concerning these two parties, that the Churchmen are heretics, and the Dissenters both heretics and schismatics. But the ecclesiastical Evangelicals, claiming to be the true church, retort heresy upon the orthodox, and impute to their dissenting friends only the minor offence of excusable schism; while these last, forgetting that such an offence as schism exists, amalgamate with the Evangelical churchmen, and strengthen them in opposition to the orthodox. Be it here observed, that the Whitfield Methodists, and some other sects, use the Liturgy; and, therefore, in passing, we should be glad to learn by what quibble they get over, the petition.