of Dissenters — with a rancour of which even the bitterness of the controversy between Milton and Salmasius would fail to furnish a parallel example *."

Dissenters, if these accusations were merited, would be the most ignorant and wicked people upon earth, deserving universal execration. But their loyalty is beyond suspicion. Intelligence and piety are well known to be possessed by Dissenters; and it seems difficult to say, which is most astonishing, that learned prelates of the church of England should write so ignorantly, and such slander, or that the whole body of the dignitaries should sanction such violations of truth and charity as Bishop Gray's tract and others contain, against a body of Christian ministers, who are seen to live in the affections of their people, and many of whom are acknowledged, even by churchmen, to have no superiors in learning, biblical knowledge, or pastoral qualifications, as ministers of Christ.

"Many would hinder if they could," says a candid clergyman, "the success of the Dissenters' preaching, in cases where they would take little or no pains for the Church to succeed instead. And men, who never so much as pray from their hearts for the conversion of their brethren, would forbid those, who to their prayers for that end, add costly sacrifices and patience in well-doing, under the pressure of poverty, persecution, and contempt: as if it were not better that men should believe in Christ, though with some erroneous impressions, than that they should not believe at all! As if to rail at Dissenters were some kind of compensation for that practical indifference to the saving of souls, which when manifested in members of the church, is the most fruitful parent of dissent ! Hence it is, that many, who in other points are deemed kind and tender-hearted, pitiful and courteous, no sooner hear mention of a Dissenter, than they are harsh or contemptuous in their expressions, and in their conduct either rude and arrogant, or distant and cold. And hence it is-most strange consequence of all -that men, seemingly of lively faith and earnest piety, will often more readily associate with a suspected sceptic, or a nɛto

*See "A Remonstrance," addressed to Dr. Blomfield, by C. Lush ington, Esq. M.P.

rious profligate, so he but profess conformity to the Church, than with a Dissenter, who to a faith which has some shades of error, adds a life that has many rays of holiness and heaven*."

Literary and mathematical attainments are possessed by many high churchmen, in a superior degree: but clergymen of the church of England are considered as having no particular need of theological and pastoral training, because all their public forms of service are already published in the Common Prayer; and they need not make their own sermons, for which many of them are acknowledged to be incompetent, as they may be purchased of certain booksellers, who have them written and lithographed, and offered for sale to the clergy by advertisements in English and Latin. Clerical incompetency in this respect is deeply lamented by candid churchmen; and that most respectable organ of the evangelical clergy, the Christian Observer, remarks, "Almost every dissenting community has its theological seminary—and the advanced state of public information, the progress of popery, infidelity, and literary irreligion, the inroads to fanaticism, and the extension of schools of every class-all require high professional competency in the clergy of the established church. And yet to this hour there is no appointed seat of theological training for our clerical candidates. The universities afford the basis of a solid education, and require such a general knowledge of sacred literature as may be expected from lay as well as professional students: but they go no further, and the graduate must glean, where and how he can, the great mass of what is necessary to the efficient discharge of his function. The Word of God says, 'Not a novice;' but novices, so far as respects any public provision for instruction, must be not a few of our candidates for holy orders; and as the bishop can ordain only the best he can get, novices are every day thrust into our parishes to take the oversight of souls, and often with less scriptural information even to compose a

Affection between the Church and Dissenters, a Sermon, before the University of Oxford, July 27, 1833, on Luke ix, 49, 50, by the Rev, Charles Girdlestone, A, M.

sermon, or to follow up the details of pastoral duties, than falls to the share of many a well-taught national school boy

High churchmen, as may be supposed, were long unfriendly to the general education of the poor, especially as it was so zealously taken up by the Dissenters; and Bishop Horsley, in his famous "Charge" to his clergy, in 1800, only expressed the sentiments of this class: but the ignorant accusations and uncharitable insinuations of that learned prelate, against “the associations" which supported the "itinerant preachers and Sunday schools in conventicles, in many parts of the kingdom," were ably answered by the Rev. Rowland Hill and the Rev. John Townsend. Latterly, however, this party, perceiving the impossibility of arresting the progress of knowledge, has patronized Sunday schools in connection with the "National" school system, as the means of securing a portion at least of the children of the poor in attachment to the church.

"Nominalists," as these clergy are sometimes called by their evangelical brethren, constitute, not only the majority, but according to their own computation about four-fifths of the entire episcopal body, and a far greater proportion of the dignitaries; and though they are complained of, as being “to the establishment, as the dry-rot to the timbers in the roof of a cathedral-a silent, progressive, and unseen mischieft," the evil, it is said, cannot be remedied, so long as the church is furnished by the present mode,—patronage and simony. Reform from this class is hopeless: for "numbers, among the most eager sticklers for the divine right and secular privileges of the Episcopacy, will never advance-no, not an inch at the bidding of the entire bench, beyond their own calculations of self.interest, and a determination to allow Christianity no further influence than within the circle of profession and ceremony ‡."

High churchmen have contributed but very little to the advancement of biblical knowledge; the most valuable works in that department, by which the church of England has been adorned, having been almost exclusively produced by * Christian Observer, January, 1832.

† Church Reform, by Rev. John Riland, A.M. p. 38. Ib. p. 30.

the evangelical clergy. And as to vital religion, they have uniformly been its most determined opposers, not only as it has been advanced among the several denominations of Dis- senters, but by regular clergymen of their own communion. Hence, wherever high churchmen have continued as the successive parochial ministers, without an evangelical clergyman in the neighbourhood, the parishioners have remained deplorably ignorant of seriptural Christianity; as one short sermon, or rather moral essay, at most two such, constitute the whole of the direct instruction imparted weekly by this class of legal teachers. Cathedral cities, therefore, except Bristol, have been notoriously destitute, above other towns in the kingdom, of the manifest influence of Christianity.

Religious institutions are but few among high churchmen: their chief object has been to strengthen and extend the form of Christianity by an established hierarchy. Their principal institutions are,

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded in 1698 Society for Propagating the Gospel............

Society for Building Churches........

Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy.

1701

1818

Society for Relief of the Clergy and their Widows.

Indifference to the advancement of scriptural truth, as existing among this dignified and wealthy class, may be further illustrated by the fact of the "Society for promoting Christian Knowledge" circulating its publications almost exclusively in the English language, having upon its catalogue of books, Bibles in no more than two languages, besides the English and Welch: those are French and Arabic; in which very few copies of the Scriptures have been circulated by this Society. Several improvements have, however, taken place recently, by the determined zeal of a few evangelical clergymen, who succeeded in obtaining, Feb. 10, 1834, the appointment of a comnittee to arrange for the translation and circulation of the Scriptures in foreign languages: and for this purpose they voted "a sun or sums of money, to be drawn from time to time, as the Committee may require, to an amount not exeeeding 4,000,"

Section III. Low Church, or Evangelical Party.

Piety in the Church of England - Rev. S, C. Wilks's character of the evangelical clergy - Their increase during the last century-Several evangelical bishops – Instruments of revival in the church-Scott's Commentary on the Bible— Simeon's Homiletica- Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures - Evangelical writers - Church Missionary Society - Evangelical reform in the churchRevival of bigotry - Hon. Baptist Noel's Tracts "Unity of the Church."

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Genuine piety, truly scriptural and catholic, bearing the fruits of divine charity, flourishes among a considerable party in the church of England. This body in the Establishment forms a distinct class, variously denominated as "Realists," 'Evangelicals," and "Low Churchmen;" but though many of these co-operate cordially with other denominations of Christians, in the Bible Society and other Institutions, some of them hold the lofty notion of the “divine right of diocesan episcopacy," and cherish, in no small degree, the lamenta. ble bigotry of high churchmen, in relation to dissenters. But their general character and spirit at the present time, will be found most correctly exhibited in the following passage from one of their own body.

Rev. S. C. Wilks, the able editor of the Christian Observer, reviewing the "Charge" of Bishop Philpotts to his clergy, in 1833, says, "The truly pious members and miuisters of the Church of England were wont to be, and we believe the great majority of them still are, men of large understandings, liberal views, and warm hearts; men who, if Christ was preached and souls were saved, by whomsoever, or whenever, rejoiced at it; men who upon principle and conviction were zealously attached to the Established Church of these realms, but who bore no animosity to those who, though out of her pale as to matters of ecclesiastical discipline, yet agreed with her as to the great points of Christian doctrine; men who, in questions of secular import, instinctively inclined to the side of civil and religious freedom freedom restrained from licentiousness by salutary laws, peaceful contented habits, and above all by religious principle; but still freedom, large, liberal, expansive, as opposed to all that is unjust, slavish, despotic, or that gives one man the power or the authority to tyrannize over another; -men who felt their