with assuring him, that if he could effect all that change in the pa-. tronage of the Anglican church, which would remove his objections, it would be in our view as much a thing of this world as it is now; a forgery still, though perhaps a better forgery. We are not, however, disposed to controvert another position of our author's, p. 345. The most effectual remedy for these, and for all other national evils, whether present or prospective, is to be found in the general conversion of the people to real evangelical Christianity." No doubt that would be a sovereign remedy for all internal evils in any country, and would form a nation such as never has yet appeared on earth. Mr. Bristed, with many other religionists, thinks the time will come; and yet he elsewhere quotes with approbation the following language from Bishop Burnet's exposition of the 25th article, p. 257. "The greater part, both of the clergy and laity, ever were, and ever will be, depraved and corrupted," &c. To much the same effect, but more to the purpose, does Mr. Bristed speak his own mind, p. 155. "Real

Christians are always fearfully outnumbered, in every human society, by the formal, the secular, the profane, and the profligate; and should, therefore, keep themselves pure from all contact with a mere worldly religion," &c. We shall leave Mr. Bristed to settle this point with Bishop Burnet and with himself.

While our author would be content with the state-religion of England, if he could get the ecclesiastical palaces and parishes filled with ecclesiastics after his own heart, he is so outrageously dissatisfied with the present distribution of the loaves and fishes, that he brings charges the most unfounded against the British government and hierarchy. What must any candid reader think of the following language?

"Indeed, now, the British government and its hierarchy unite in their efforts to DESTROY the evangelicals more cordially and more strenuously than has been done before, since the reign of the most execrable of the Stuarts."

The Anglican Church, ever since its establishment at the Reformation, has generally PERSECUTED pure evangelical religion, whether detected in its own members, or in those of other communions."

"Persecution seems to be a necessary adjunct of an established church; and, at this moment, formal English bishops PERSECUTE, to the utmost extent of their power, the unbeneficed evangelicals within their dioceses."

"The evangelical dissenters . . . must encounter the frowns and opposition of the established hierarchy; which, not contented with generally, as a body, neglecting the spiritual, the immortal interests of the people committed to their pastoral care, invariably calumniate and PERSECUTE all who are in earnest about the everlasting safety of their fellow-men."

We must say that we consider these assertions most unfair, and utterly unsupported by fact. We are aware that many religionists are very fond of raising the cry of persecution on every the most trivial loss which they suffer, or think they suffer, on account of their religious profession; and at the root of this generally lies the most contemptible and disgusting vanity. But in what consists that per

secution, that effort to destroy the evangelicals which Mr. Briste d imputes to the British government and hierarchy? In this, according to his own statement, p. 145, that, in the dispensation of church preferments," for the most part, effectual care is taken to exclude from the mitre, the stall, and the benefice, those who faithfully preach the evangelical doctrines of the Bible, of the Reformation, of the public formularies of the Anglican Church." Now, we not only think there is much meanness in this, Et mihi dividuo findetur munere quadra; but we must beg to put one plain question to Mr. Bristed's conscience. If he, with his present views of those evangelical doctrines, and the present zeal for them which we suppose animates him, were prime minister or Lord Chancellor of England; would he not similarly persecute those of opposite sentiments, those whom he terms formalists? Would he not take effectual care, as far as he could, to exclude them from the mitre, the stall, and the benefice? And would he not, perhaps, be forward to expose the absurdity of his being, therefore, charged with a persecuting effort to destroy them? As to his imputing to the English hierarchy any persecution of the dissenters at present, we can only say that we are utterly unable even to conjecture what he alludes to. That they should dislike, and oppose, and frown upon dissenters, is very natural; that they should calumniate them as schismatics, for not choosing to join the train of the ecclesiastical state-coach, is very comical; and equally comical we consider Mr. Bristed's language, about the people committed to the PASTORAL care of the English hierarchy. Our author seems unable to disconnect certain ideas, borrowed from the Christian revelation, with a political system which has really nothing to do with it.

While we honestly vindicate the present English hierarchy from the charge of persecution, and while we avow our belief that individuals of that body are men of enlarged and liberal minds, indisposed to persecute even if they had the power; we yet acknowledge that the tendency of every religious establishment is to persecute nonconformists and for the non-persecuting character of our Establishment, we think ourselves indebted, rather to the general prevalence of the principles of civil liberty, than to any general change in the character of ecclesiastics. At them we must always look, in this respect, with a jealous eye. Nor can we be at all surprised, that both they and the government look with a very jealous eye at those whom Mr. Bristed distinguishes as evangelicals. He indeed broadly asserts, p. 153, that "the comparatively small portion of evangelical clergy in the Establishment alone preserves that establishment from impending perdition." Unconnected as we are with either of the parties, we must candidly avow our conviction, that the opposite of Mr. Bristed's assertion is true. We are aware that this will bring our evangelism with him into discredit. But let him calmly consider what we proceed to offer in vindication of the reasonableness of that hostility to the evangelicals, which is generally manifested by the English government and hierarchy.

Mr. Bristed himself truly remarks, p. 179, that "the English established church is a political machine." (We might be disposed to extend the remark.) Now, in every political machine, its quiet

and regular operation is obviously important. And this machine being designed for nominally religious objects, every thing which tends to make a stir about religion, to set men a thinking seriously about religion, to institute a comparison of the movements of the machine with a different and higher rule,-every such thing, we say, is evidently to be deprecated. Mr. Bristed frequently notices the tendency of religious establishments to formalism. But we beg of him to consider, whether what he calls formalism be not necessary to the well-being and safety of every religious establishment. For instance, the system of augury and idol-worship in heathen Rome, so far as it was incorporated with the civil polity, must it not consistently have been hostile to the disturbance of men's minds, which the Christian revelation was calculated to produce? And can Mr. Bristed seriously wonder, that men whom he himself describes as secular and worldly, and proposing only political objects in their religious profession, should regard with a hostile eye the zeal that calls the people to higher principles? Or can he honestly think, that this zeal is not ultimately hostile in its tendency to the merely political machine which they employ? We are not afraid to declare that we think it is.

That

That the hierarchy, therefore, should generally set their faces against the so-called evangelicals, and against the indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures, we consider perfectly consistent. the government should make themselves a party in the matter, we deeply lament. However, while they think that the ecclesiastical is essentially interwoven with the civil constitution of the country, we cannot wonder at this. We are persuaded that the latter might continue to subsist in full vigour if totally disconnected from the former; and that the present connexion is a dead weight upon the state, however it may contribute to the purpose of swelling the patronage and influence of the crown." But without entering on the discussion of that political question, which we may be very incompetent to treat, we must positively assert that Protestantism is not nearly so well adapted as Popery, for the politico-ecclesiastical machine. The fundamental principle of Protestantism, (however widely nominal Protestants have departed from it,) that the Bible is the one standard of divine truth and religious practice, must always expose the machine of a Protestant establishment to disturbance, from the agitation of scriptural inquiry, and the progressive elucidation of scriptural principles; whereas the unchangeable stagnation of Popery in its system of darkness and of death, guards against all such danger, as far as the wicked policy of corrupt religion can guard against the diffusion of divine truth.

Mr. Bristed, therefore, must excuse us for maintaining against him, that Archbishop LAUD formerly, and the Rev. SAMUEL WIX recently, have been most consistent in pursuing a reunion between the old lady of Babylon and her reformed daughter. If it could be affected, we are persuaded that this would be the wisest possible measure next to one other. But in England we see, and are glad to see, great (if not insurmountable) difficulties in the way of the attempt; from the formidable numbers and weight of the Protestant

dissenters, and the comparative paucity of the Popish. But perhaps it might not be impracticable in Ireland, where the absurdity of the most expensive of all existing religious establishments, including among its nominal adherents only one-fourteenth part of the entire population, is more and more forcing itself upon general attention; where a vast majority of the inhabitants steadily maintain their attachment to the see of Rome; and their hierarchy (always aspiring at domination, even when they assume the most modest garb and the most lowly language,) must of necessity cherish the hope that they will yet recover the rights, of which they conceive themselves unjustly dispossessed; and must therefore feel it their interest to keep alive the distractions which prevail in that unhappy land. Long has Ireland been presenting to statesmen a lesson, which every year becomes more and more legible. But if our statesmen should ever think of attempting a coalition there with the papal see, they must be prepared to find that the mother-church is too politic to meet them half way. She will be glad to receive the advances of her repentant daughter, but she will take care'not to give up her own immutability; though she might perhaps be induced to concede the cup to the laity, and a liturgy in the vernacular language.

NADA.

On the whole, we apprehend that the time has gone by, when the reunion might have been effected; and how, therefore, a remedy is to be applied to the evils of unhappy Ireland, assuming that the religious establishment is to be maintained, we confess ourselves utterly unable to conjecture. If any of our readers should think it extraordinary that we have at all admitted the idea of a Protestant government establishing Popery, we only say to such-look at CAIt is sufficiently evinced by existing facts, that, in the political establishment of religion, the truth or falsehood of the religious system is a question altogether out of contemplation. And this certainly is one of the circumstances which render every religious establishment an eminent instrument of promoting irreligion. The populace may be very slow to notice this merely political character in the state church; but thinking and observing men must perceive it, and will call the attention of others to what they see themselves. Naturally indisposed to view the revelation which the only true God has made in the Scriptures, and willing to draw their puny conclusions against all religion from what they perceive to be the character of state religion; they find in this a ready justification to their consciences for laughing at every thing sacred, either openly, or under the profession of ardent zeal for the church.

But it is time for us to pass with Mr. Bristed from Great Britain to America. To us by far the most interesting part of his book, is that which describes the state of religious affairs in the New World. We shall here, therefore, extract more copiously for the satisfaction of our readers; premising that Mr. Bristed, throughout his work, employs the barbarous compound American-Anglo-Church, to designate that which, in his title-page, he more correctly terms the Anglo-American.

By the fourth article of the constitution of the American-AngloChurch, it is enacted, that the bishop or bishops, in every state,

shall be chosen agreeably to such rules as shall be fixed by the convention, which consists of both laity and clergy of that state. And the second canon ordains, that no diocese or state shall proceed to the election or appointment of a bishop, unless there be at least six officiating presbyters, or priests, residing therein; and who, agreeably to the canons of the church, may be qualified to vote for a bishop-a majority of whom, at least, shall concur in such election. At present there are nine in the American-Anglo-Church, to wit, &c. There are two dioceses, the state of Delaware and the State of North Carolina, which have no bishops. Every state in the Union may become a diocese whenever its Protestant Episcopalians are sufficiently numerous, and deem it expedient.

The whole church is governed by the General Convention, whose power pervades every diocese. It sits regularly once in three years, but may be specially convened in the interval. It consists of an upper house, composed of all the existing bishops, and of a lower house, containing a delegated portion of clergy and laity from each diocese. The state conventions are held, for the most part, annually in each diocese, and consist of clergy and lay delegates from every separate congregation. These bodies legislate for their respective dioceses; but their canons must not contradict the constitution of the general church.

The liturgy, articles, and homilies of the Anglican-Church are adopted, with some few slight local alterations. No particular revenues are attached to the episcopate; and the bishops, generally, are parish priests, in addition to their bishoprics. But efforts are making, in several dioceses, to raise a bishop's fund, in order, &c. Archbishops there are none, nor prebendaries, &c. &c. The senior bishop presides in the House of Bishops during the session of the General Convention.

"The parish priests are elected according to the charters of the congregations. Some churches choose their minister by the vestry, consisting of persons elected annually by the freeholders. Others by ballot, the whole congregation voting. The bishops have no direct patronage-no livings in their gift. The clergy are settled by the choice or call of the people to whom they minister; and the stipend is fixed by the compact between the pastor and the congregation ; and the common law enforces the fulfilment of this contract on both sides, whence all undue dependence of the clergy upon the people is prevented."

We must pause a little here, to tell Mr. Bristed plainly, that we consider the thing which he describes in his Anglo-American church, as a thing just as carnal, worldly, and utterly unscriptural, as that which he so often reprobates in the political Anglican church—only much more ludicrous. There is something consistently pompous in the Anglican episcopacy, in the mitred fronts of the prelates, their palaces, their lordly endowments, &c. &c. But the republican imitation of this finery in America presents a most heterogeneous compound. We could have wished for more minute information on many points, and are somewhat curious to know how those bishops, who are not parish priests, get their bread, where no particular