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PETITIONS.

SIR,-In your last Number, (p. 152,) your correspondent " B. P. M." is hypercritical on some of the petitioners to Parliament in support of the established church; and I am sorry to see a writer in the British Magazine cavilling at the members of the establishment for asserting their conviction," that the truths of the Christian religion are taught under no system in such purity as under that of the established church of this country."

I plead guilty to the charge of being one of those who signed such a petition; and I confess that I cannot acquiesce in the notion of its impropriety because "B. P. M." happens to "regard the episcopal church in Scotland as the purest in Christendom," or because he asks, "what would such a petitioner say in answer to Bishop Hobart or Bishop Skinner?"

My attachment, and that of my neighbours whom I joined in the petition, to the church of England arises from the honest conviction of our hearts, commensurate with our knowledge; from the result of our practical experience of what passes within us and around us, and under our own immediate observation. When we signed a petition in favour of our church, and expressed our preference of its doctrines and modes of worship, we thought not of Scotland or America, or of any country but our own; and where, Sir, are we to look for the consolations of our religion, or for a refuge from religious persecution, should our established church be unhappily destroyed? We can retreat neither to Scotland nor America; nor can we trust to the tender mercies of sectarists or papists. In the full conviction, therefore, that the saving truths of the Christian religion are taught under no system within our knowledge, or within our reach, in such purity as under that of our own church, we earnestly prayed in the the hour of peril, and still do pray, for the protection of Parliament to her interests.

Maidstone, August 19th, 1834.

I

am, your's, A CONSTANT READER.

PAROCHIAL REGISTRATION.

SIR,-As the Parochial Registration Bill will, of course, be revived the next session, and probably in a more offensive form, I think the friends of the church should apply their attention to the subject, and consider whether by petitioning both Houses something may not be done to mitigate at least, if not prevent, its evil. My great objection to it is, that its purpose is, and effect will be, to separate the people still further from the clergy, and render them more and more indifferent to the ordinances of religion. And to obviate this I think it would be policy in the clergy to act even as civil registrars in a case thus connected with religion, with the conviction that a majority of those who came to them for the civil registration would consent to receive at their hands the sacramental and religious ordinances of the church. This is objected to on the "high-ground principle." I can

not, however, be brought to consider that a condescension which tends to conciliate the people to the persons of the clergy and the ordinances of the church. I think, moreover, that the clergy have carried the os sublime a little too far, and have stood upon such excessively high ground that they have lost sight of their way altogether, and, in the grandeur of their altitudinous attitude, have permitted the people to desert their ministry, and seek the ministrations of more lowly pastors. I do not wish to be censorious, and may be quite wrong in my opinion; but I think we lose influence because we do not sufficiently condescend to men of low estate. Be this, however, as it may, the Registration Bill will be highly offensive and injurious to us, and very vexatious and oppressive to the laity; and all its legitimate uses for statistical purposes, and the relief of scrupulous consciences, might surely be answered by appointing the clergy joint registrars with the tax-gatherer, by permitting them, under proper regulations, to register church people as before, and letting dissenters, if they please, be registered by the tax-gatherer, requiring the clergy to send duplicates to the tax-gatherer, if the legislature still continues to think that amiable and popular functionary the fittest person to receive them. Church children then will be baptized and registered at the same time, and the absurdity and tyranny of the Registration Bill avoided, as far as we are concerned. Our children then will be shewn in person at the time they are registered, and the tricks and frauds which will be played upon the poor tax-gatherer by announcing the births of those that never were born, and whose existence or nonexistence he never will find time to ascertain, will be diminished, at least, if not prevented. The same mode might be adopted with respect to the registration of marriages. Let the clergy be allowed to register their own marriages as heretofore, and let all who object to our forms be permitted to go before the magistrate and publish and register their marriages there. Dissenters also might get their marriage licences from the magistrate, and no longer be compelled to get one from a man who calls himself bishop by Divine permission. This will be fair play. The churchman's conscience will be let alone, and the dissenter's conscience relieved. I propose, therefore, that all the clergy, the town clergy in particular, should do their utmost to get petitions sent to both Houses as early as possible next session, praying that the Bill" to establish a general register of births, deaths, and marriages," may not pass into a law; expressing an anxious wish to promote, by every exertion in their power, a sufficient register; and a most anxious wish to relieve all scrupulous consciences from the necessity of submitting to church ordinances; but praying that church consciences may not be burthened in order to relieve dissenting consciences, and that the births and marriages of church people may continue to be registered by the established clergy, and that the births of those whose parents object to the forms of the church may be registered by the collector of taxes, and their marriages published before and registered by the civil magistrate.

Your obedient servant, CLERICUS.

PHILIP HENRY.

The Crescent, Shrewsbury,
August 8, 1834.

SIR,-It was not till a few days ago that I was able to obtain a sight of your Magazine for last month. My attention was called to it in consequence of the mention one of your correspondents has thought fit to make of me in the humble capacity of an editor, under the rather odd title of " Philip Henry on the Independents."

I should have felt less reluctant to notice the statements had the writer vouched them with his name; besides which I must acknowledge that their tone is so very repulsive as to make the duty irksome.

The motive imputed to me I unequivocally disclaim; and I take the liberty to recommend " A Churchmen" to read pages ix and x of the Preface to Mr. Henry's Life: he will there find an exact representation of the case; and sure I am that, in proportion to acquaintance with the manuscripts in question, will be any person's conviction of the accuracy of those remarks. As I have no knowledge of the "remonstrance" to which "A Churchman" alludes, I hope he will tell the public by whom, and when, it was made.

That a difference of opinion may, under some circumstances, exist respecting the actual use of papers for editorial purposes, I cannot be ignorant; but, unless I am mistaken, the reason assigned by the "Churchman" for the non-introduction (as a note to p. 128 of Mr. Henry's Life) of more of the diary than was there printed, is, without any other, sufficient.

I would remark, however, that, independently of Mr. Henry's wellknown liking to an established church, and, consequently, disapprobation of independency, as unchurching the nation, enough appears, in different parts of the "Life," not only upon that topic, but upon each of the others which the "Churchman" accuses me of "garbling." Thus, at page 47, Mr. Henry's "testimony to parish order, where it may be had upon good terms, as much more eligible, and more likely to answer the end than the congregational way of gathering churches from places far distant," is affirmed. So is his "desire and wish for Archbishop Usher's reduction of episcopacy," p. 101; his habitual conduct, likewise, during a long period, in respect to the "Common Prayer," and other appointed services, pp. 101, 121; and his earnest desire, moreover, of a Comprehension with the Church of England, p. 188. In the very place to which the note that has irritated the "Churchman" was appended, Mr. Henry is represented as saying, "The danger is lest the allowing of separate places help to overthrow our parish order, which God hath owned;" and he adds, "we are put hereby into a trilemma, either to turn independents in practice or," &c., p. 128. At p. 394, besides the minute account given, at pp. 31 and 343, of his own ordination, his thoughts are exhibited at some length, concerning ministers;" displaying as well his objection to "unordained" preachers, as his wish for those who were ordained to be subject to "ecclesiastical superiors" in respect both of discipline and settlement.

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The very things, therefore, which Mr. Henry did not like in the "independent way,' are actually interwoven with the "Life," not to say expressed sometimes almost in the same words, and clearly to the same effect, as in the document from which the note was selected. Such being the case, I do not perceive any good reason why they should have been repeated; my object not being the reiteration of what was everywhere conspicuous, but simply to shew that, notwithstanding Mr. Henry's views were such as were narrated, so far was he from being prejudiced against the independents, that he noted what he thought commendable in them. If there be any just ground for complaint, which I do not admit, it appears to me to pertain to Mr. Matthew Henry, who wrote the "Life," for not inserting well nigh the only explicit commendation of the independents, which, so far as my knowledge extends, is to be found in the manuscripts.

It may not be amiss to observe further, that an annotation was inserted at page 47, which gave a clew to a "change," obvious enough in many of Mr. Henry's existing relics, as well as in the "Life." The fact is, that there was such an alteration effected by experience in the sentiments of the eminently good and learned man whose name has just been again mentioned, both as to the university, and some other matters, as to lead him to discontinue attendance at the parish church, and to use his barn at Broad Oak as a place for public worship. There, for several years, and until his death, he exercised his ministry, alike unshackled by Synod, Classis, or Presbytery; and unmoved, too, either by the insults or reproaches of those who then advocated the hierarchy. He collected, in short, and conducted the affairs of, a dissenting congregation, precisely as an independent, save only in the mode of admission to the Lord's table, p. 189, &c. "There wanted," says his son, "the formalities of officers and church meetings," p. 196.

Having thus trespassed at greater length than I could have wished, I shall only add, that the other charge, where the animus of the "Churchman" is so lamentably discovered-namely, of the suppression of a passage on account of its unsuitableness for my "purpose," is proof either of most dishonourable inattention on his part, or of desperate malignity. For in that page of the Life which precedes the one he quoted, is printed the very passage he adduces to sanction his strange and uncourteous violence.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, J. B. WILLIAMS.

* The Editor, knowing nothing of Mr. Williams, thinks it better, on the whole, to allow this language to stand, than to incur the risk of softening or suppressing words which he would be very sorry to admit often. The only point of any real consequence is, thanks to "A Churchman's" letter, clearly brought before the public-viz. that Mr. Henry gave constant and continued testimony to the necessity and advantages of parish order, regular ordination, episcopacy, the Common Prayer, &c. That his practice was inconsistent with these settled convictions of his mind may be very true; but the practice of one who chose to be "unshackled by synod, classis, or presbytery," and to reject the formalities of officers and church-meetings, i.e. to be his own law, is not likely to be very injurious even in these days.-ED.

WARNINGS FROM CLARENDON.

ŞIR, I never hear the word "Conservative" used without reverting almost involuntarily to what I cannot but persuade myself very many of your readers will remember-a most striking letter on that term in your July Number of last year. Notwithstanding the stubborn truths there stated, and which must strike every one who notices the common language of society, this most convenient and elastic of all denominations has thrust itself forward into universal use. If, however, it was applied, a short twelvemonths since, to many sorts of persons and principles, we may observe that it is now applied to even more. As dangers have thickened around us, more and more flock to shelter themselves under this grand universal. Yes, we are all conservatives-good, bad, and indifferent; men of all creeds and all politics; Christians and infidels all jumbled together in one great league, upon the general principle of keeping what they can-" Recte si possis, si non quocunque modo rem.' The way in which some now would "conserve' is just as reckless as that in which others have sought to "confiscate," and even many of those whose language and principles were, a year or two ago, most profligate, are now "aliique et iidem" most serious and solemn Conservatives. Yes, e.g., those who commenced with a loud and persevering outcry for the separation between church and state, in proportion as they find that separation involving difficulties which peep into their political souls-their pockets-are, and yet upon no acknowledged Christian principle, most vociferous for the preservation of the union;-so vociferous that many, in spite of themselves, are half led to doubt whether, under such circumstances, and with such defenders, it may not, some day or other, wear the aspect to some persons of an unholy alliance. Here, however, we are all generalized, as I have said,-all melted down and amalgamated in this great cauldron of" Conservatism." Forasmuch, however, as this generalization is formed by a contemplation of the points in which all agree, by a continued obstruction of their differences, and yet it is of greater importance that these differences should be clearly seen than this agreement; or, to take up the other metaphor, it is of mighty consequence to separate the pure metal from the baser. I shall trust to your having admitted that admirable letter, and to your love of Clarendon's authority, for a place in the British Magazine for a most vivid and amusing illustration, contained in the history of our former "confusions." The only point, so far as I can see, in which all agree is expressed by the verb "to keep," but to keep "what?" The following tale will most conveniently divide parties into two general heads instead of one-viz., those who care to keep principle to the complete disregard of property;— and “those who wish to keep property quite at the expense of principle." These are the two parties at present undistinguished, and held together in solution, as it were, under the word "Conservative.” Clarendon will give us the test by which we shall soon discover which will, in the end, be uppermost,-which of the two will, in the day of trial, keep at the top, whilst the other will be at once "precipitated" to the bottom. Yours, C. T. C.

VOL. VI.-Oct. 1834.

3 H

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