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 THOUGHTS 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
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 THOUGHTS 
 
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 THE SEPARATION 
 
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 BY THE 
 
 REV. EDWARD BURTON, D.D., 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 
 AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 ROAKE AND VARTY, 31, STRAND; 
 
 J. H.PARKER, OXFORD; AND 
 J. AND J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 1834.
 
 Z UIUC 
 \ /
 
 THOUGHTS, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 The question of Church Reform, which has 
 amused so many writers, and wearied so many 
 readers, for the last two or three years, appears to 
 be now giving way to a question of still more ex- 
 tensive interest — the separation of the Church 
 from the State. Some bodies of Dissenters have 
 expressed their determination to demand this sepa- 
 ration, and not to desist from agitation until it be 
 effected. I have also met with persons who are 
 called " extremely high church," who denounce 
 the present connexion between Church and State 
 as an unholy union, and who feel it a solemn duty 
 to pray for their separation. When extremes are 
 thus seen to meet, we may, perhaps, suspect that 
 the two parties, though using the same terms, do 
 not really mean the same thing ; or that, at least, 
 they desire the same object from very different 
 motives, and with ve^^ifferent expectations. I 
 propose, therefore, to consider what is meant by a 
 separation of the Church from the State : in doing
 
 /v 
 
 which, I sliall confine myself principally to the 
 steps which would be necessary or desirable for 
 effecting the separation, and to the consequences 
 which would be likely to ensue. 
 
 That the Church is united to the State, and that 
 it derives peculiar advantages from the union, is 
 openly asserted by Dissenters, and is admitted by 
 some persons at least of all parties : and it would, 
 perhaps, appear not only unreasonable, but absurd, 
 to demand a proof of either of these points. I do, 
 however, demand it. With respect to the first of 
 the two points, I call upon Dissenters to point out 
 the act or acts which united the Church with the 
 State, and to mark the time at which they became 
 united : and as to the second, I assert that, so 
 far from the Church being favoured by any 
 connexion with the State, she labours under dis- 
 advantages from the interference of the legislature, 
 which no other church in Christendom has expe- 
 rienced, and which no other church would tolerate. 
 
 That the Church of England is a parliamentary 
 church, was asserted, for the first time, by Roman 
 Catholic writers, who employed their pens in 
 attacking it at the time of its Reformation. This 
 is an important fact, because it narrows the ground 
 of dispute between modern Romanists and our- 
 selves ; and because it proves us to be of one 
 mind as to the nature ol^ie connexion between 
 Church and State before the Reformation. When 
 the Romanists called the Church of England, as it
 
 existed in tlie days of Ilonry VIII. or Edward VI. 
 a parliamentary cluircb, they applied the epithet 
 as a reproach ; and they meant to say, that the 
 Church of Endand before the Reformation was 
 not a parliamentary church. They were, un- 
 doubtedly, right : and if Dissenters should say in 
 the present day, that the union between Church 
 and State depends upon Acts of Parliament, or 
 upon any compact which Parliament is able to 
 dissolve, our Roman Catholic brethren will, I trust, 
 join with ourselves in exposing the ignorant false- 
 hood. 
 
 It might, perhaps, be true in one sense to say, 
 that the State united itself with the Church in 
 this country : and it is important to remember, that 
 the Church of England existed for centuries before 
 there was any State, to which it could unite itself. 
 A Church or body of Christians existed in this 
 country, and was governed by Bishops, Priests, 
 and Deacons, not only for many centuries before 
 Unitarians, or Quakers, or Infidels were allowed 
 to sit in Parliament, but for many centuries before 
 Parliament itself was thought of. There is great 
 reason to think, that Christianity was introduced 
 into this island in the first century : and there is 
 positive evidence, that it had spread very widely 
 in the second century, while the government w^as 
 still Pagan. In the fourth century we read of 
 Bishops from British churches attending Councils 
 in different parts of Europe : and no fact in his-
 
 tory is more clemonstrable, tliaii that the Episcopal 
 form of Church Govermnent prevailed at that time 
 in Britain, as it did in the whole of Christendom. 
 If we ask why our British ancestors preferred an 
 Ej)isc(tpal Church, we shall be drawn into the con- 
 troversy concerning Episcopacy, for which I have 
 no fancy at present : and it is sufficient to observe, 
 that the Christian inhabitants of the island settled 
 the matter for themselves : all Christians were then 
 Episcopalians : there were no Presbyterians, no 
 Independents, no Quakers, no Baptists, no Unita- 
 rians : there were, in fact, no Dissenters : all be- 
 longed to the Church of England ; and the frame- 
 work and constitution of that Church were precisely 
 the same then as they are at present, with this 
 difference in part of its arrangements, that the Epis- 
 copal sees were not established by any act of the 
 civil power, nor was the nomination of Bishops in 
 the hands of the Government. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the fatal effects which 
 were caused to the Church of England by the 
 inroads of the Anglo-Saxons. They are known to 
 all persons, who are acquainted with the eccle- 
 siastical, or even the civil, historj'^ of their country; 
 who will also remember, that Christianity was 
 revived in Britain by the arrival of Augustin and 
 his companions from Rome, in the year 597. The 
 different Kings of the Heptjf^xhy embraced Chris- 
 tianity : and tlnis the State may be said to have 
 allied itself to the Church : but if we use such an
 
 expression, we can only mean by it, that the 
 Church, which before comprised a small part of 
 the population, now comprised the whole of it. The 
 existence of so many independent kingdoms made 
 any formal act of union between Church and 
 State, throughout the whole island, impossible : 
 and in each kingdom, the union consisted merely 
 in the heathen part of the population coming over 
 to the religion of the minority. Two important 
 changes in the English Church may be dated from 
 this period. One was the endowment of the Clergy 
 by donations from Kings and other possessors of 
 property : the other was the more intimate con- 
 nexion between the hitherto independent Churches 
 of Rome and England. We will proceed to con- 
 sider each of these changes separately. 
 
 The Episcopal form of Church Government, as I 
 have already stated, was the one originally intro- 
 duced into Britain : nor was any other form known 
 in Christendom till the sixteenth century. The 
 exact number of British sees, which existed before 
 the seventh century, has not been ascertained : and 
 consequently, there are doubts as to the number of 
 new sees, which were created after the conversion 
 of the Anglo-Saxons. It is sufficient, however, to 
 state, that 21 out of the present 26 sees were in 
 existence before the Norman Conquest : and it is 
 needless to add, that Parliament could not have 
 interfered with them for several centuries. How 
 far the Kings were concerned in creating Bishops'
 
 sees, is a different question. It was the opinion of 
 Lord Coke, that all the bishoprics in England were 
 of the King's foundation, and that consequently 
 the right of patronage belonged to the King. But 
 the Church was not more united with the State by 
 this arrangement, than if Bishops had continued 
 elective. It was the primitive practice that the 
 laity should take part in the election of a Bishop : 
 and if the King, upon creating a new see, retained 
 the nomination of the Bishop, and if the Clergy 
 consented to this arrangement, there was no reason 
 why it should not be acted upon. The King, after 
 all, could not make a Bishop : he could only no- 
 minate him : and it still remained with the Clergy 
 to follow what rules they pleased about his con- 
 secration, and to give him the power of exercising 
 the episcopal functions. It is worthy, however, 
 of remark, that the two archiepiscopal sees of Can- 
 terbury and York did not owe their establishment 
 to any act of the civil power. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon Kings contributed liberally to 
 the endowment of bishoprics. Private individuals 
 followed the royal example : and the same spirit 
 led to the erection of parish churches in various 
 parts of the country. The division of parishes soon 
 followed, the boundaries of which are often com- 
 mensurate with those of manors ; because the lord 
 of the manor had built and endowed the parish 
 church : and hence the patronage of churches con- 
 tinued in the hands of laymen, as the nomination of
 
 Bishops continued in tlie hands of the King. But 
 this union of Church and State (if such an expression 
 can be applied) was not the result of any compact, of 
 any surrender of rights on the one hand, or of en- 
 croachment on the other. Kings and Nobles may 
 have been superstitious, and the Clergy may have 
 been self-interested and rapacious : but I should 
 not estimate highly the historical knowledge or the 
 Christian charity of that man, who traced the en- 
 dowments of the Anglo-Saxon Church to such an 
 origin. The King and the owners of property 
 throughout the country knew only of one religion. 
 They had not to decide between a State Church 
 and any other denominations of Christians. They 
 were themselves members of the only Church, and 
 they felt it their duty to see that the ministers 
 of this Church were well provided for. Hence 
 came the donations of tithes and glebe-lands to the 
 Bishops and Clergy. The date of most of these 
 donations is lost in remote antiquity : but in a few 
 cases, the original grants or copies of them have 
 been preserved : and it is interesting to know, that 
 so much property has continued in the same hands 
 from centuries before the Norman Conquest. 
 
 These donations of lands or tithes were purely 
 voluntary. They were given by persons who had 
 a right to give them, to persons who were compe- 
 tent to receive them. The monstrous notion was 
 never then entertained, tliat they were given for 
 the use of the State, and that the State employed
 
 8 
 
 them for the maintenance of the Clergy. The 
 State had nothmg whatever to do with them. It 
 might, perhaps, be not difficult to prove, at least to 
 Christians, that it is the duty of the State to main- 
 tain the preachers of the Gospel. But in the Anglo- 
 Saxon times provision was made for this purpose 
 by the piety and munificence of individuals. The 
 ministers of religion were made independent of 
 that precarious support which the State might 
 have afforded them : and the Church is no more 
 connected with the State in consequence of these 
 bequests, than a hospital or a lunatic asylum are 
 connected with the State, because they have been 
 founded by private charity, and because they con- 
 tinue to enjoy the original endowment. 
 
 During this same period, the Bishops had a seat 
 
 in what may be called the Great Council of the 
 
 nation, to which they were invited on account of 
 
 their learning, being the best advisers whom the 
 
 King could consult in those times of darkness and 
 
 ignorance. On the same principle Abbots and Priors 
 
 of religious houses attended the King in Council : 
 
 but this did not interfere with the diocesan and 
 
 provincial synods, which were held by the Clergy 
 
 for the settlement of their own spiritual concerns. 
 
 These were convened by the Archbishops and 
 
 Bishops, without any permission being granted by 
 
 the King : a right, which had been exercised by 
 
 the Church from the first beginning of Christianity. 
 
 In England, when an ecclesiastical synod had
 
 9 
 
 agreed upon any rules or canons, they were laid 
 before the great council ; and as soon as they were 
 ratified by the King, with the advice of his great 
 men, they became binding upon all the people ; 
 and thus the constitutions of the Church became 
 the laws of the realm. But this does not support 
 the notion of a formal alliance between Church and 
 State, in the modern sense of that expression. 
 Every member of the State, or rather every person 
 in the kingdom, was a member of the Church : 
 and when the Clergy wished to enforce any laws 
 upon the laity as well as upon themselves, they 
 naturally went to the highest authority in the 
 country : but if the State did not lose its inde- 
 pendence in matters purely secular, by calling in 
 the wisdom of the Clergy, so the Clergy did not 
 lose their independence in matters purely spiritual, 
 by submitting their determinations to the civil 
 power. 
 
 The other change, which I mentioned as follow- 
 ing the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, was the 
 more intimate connexion between the Churches of 
 Rome and England. Here it must be acknow- 
 ledged, that the Church of England in some mea- 
 sure, and after the lapse of some centuries, lost her 
 independence. But this proves any thing rather 
 than the connexion between Church and State. 
 Whatever we may say of the power which was ex- 
 ercised or claimed by the Church of Rome over 
 that of England, it was grounded upon reasons of
 
 10 
 
 a purely spiritual nature. It was the case of one 
 ecclesiastical body trying to lord it over the other, 
 and every encroachment of the Church of Rome 
 was a fresh proof of the Church of England not 
 being under the control of the State. The Kings 
 of England after the Norman conquest were con- 
 stantly trying to bring the Clergy more under their 
 power. The Popes considered this as an invasion 
 of their own authority, and hence the English 
 Clergy M^ere more willing to submit to the Pope 
 than they might otherwise have been, because the 
 privileges of their order seemed less compromised 
 by their acknowledging a spiritual head. The 
 Church of Rome in this instance overshot her 
 mark ; and the earliest interferences of Parliament 
 in matters of religion, without the consent of the 
 Clergy, were to check the encroachments of the see 
 of Rome. The Clergy, however, were bound by 
 these Acts of Parliament, not as members of the 
 Church, but as members of the State, or as Eng- 
 lishmen. If any of these Acts are still in force, 
 and should be infringed by a Dissenter, he would 
 be liable to the same penalties as a member of the 
 Church of England ; so that if the Church and the 
 State were united at that period, it was merely, as 
 I said before, that every member of the State was 
 a member of the Church ; and every Englishman 
 felt himself interested in preserving his own church 
 from foreign encroachments. 
 
 At a somewljat later period, the Church of
 
 11 
 
 Rome was itself the cause of the civil power inter- 
 fering in matters of religion. When heretical 
 opinions, as they were called, began to increase, 
 the spiritual arm was not strong enough to suppress 
 them without calling in the secular. Hence sta- 
 tutes were passed for the burning of heretics ; and 
 from this time we may certainly say, that one form 
 of religion was supported by the State to the ex- 
 chision of every other. The struggle, however, 
 was maintained between rival doctrines, not 
 between rival churches. The leaders of the Refor- 
 mation in this country never thought of separating 
 from the Church of England. They only endea- 
 voured to purify her from the corruptions of the 
 Church of Rome : and when, by the blessing of 
 God, they accomplished their purpose, they did 
 not boast of having founded a new church, but of 
 having reformed that, which had existed in this 
 country from the beginning. Cranmer and Ridley 
 did not become Bishops of new sees, as soon as 
 they abjured transubstantiation, nor did they stand 
 in a different relation to their Clergy. The laws 
 and constitutions, which had been settled in former 
 synods, and ratified by former Parliaments, conti- 
 nued still in force, unless they had been repealed 
 by the same authority which had enacted them. 
 With respect to doctrines, the Church had always 
 exercised the right of deciding questions of this 
 kind ; though their decisions, as before stated, 
 were ratified by the King and Parliament. I do
 
 12 
 
 not mean to say, tliat all the changes, which were 
 sanctioned by Parliament at that period, originated 
 with the Clergy, nor that Henry VIII. did not exer- 
 cise powers, as head of the Church, which he had 
 no right to assume : but I cannot see how this 
 affects the rights and condition of the Church in 
 the present day. If Henry VIII. did illegal and 
 imconstitutional acts in spiritual matters, they can 
 no more be drawn into a precedent, than his equally 
 illegal and unconstitutional acts in civil matters. 
 If any person should contend, that the King has 
 now the right to dissolve a Chapter and seize its 
 revenues, or to create a new bishoprick, because 
 Henry VIII. did such things, let him be consistent, 
 and say, that the King may do every thing else 
 which was done by that self-willed and unprinci- 
 pled tyrant. My feelings of liberty, as well as of 
 religion, prompt me to try all the acts of Henry 
 VIII. by the test of the civil and ecclesiastical laws 
 of the country. If he only exercised a power, 
 which the legislature had exercised before, he may 
 have erred in judgment or in doctrine, but he only 
 did what a king had a right to do toward the 
 church of which he was a member. If he acted 
 illegally, his acts were no more a precedent 
 against the Church of England, than against a 
 congregation of Independents, or any other descrip- 
 tion of Dissenters. 
 
 The reader must again be reminded, that the 
 King and his Parliament were legislating for the
 
 13 
 
 Churcli of England, and that tlie\^ considered 
 every person in the kingdom to belong to that 
 churcli. It is true, that Dissent already existed ; 
 for the Roman Catholics were from that time Dis- 
 senters. But they were not acknowledged as 
 such : and when the Clergy agreed upon laws in 
 Convocation, which were afterwards ratified by 
 Parliament, they looked upon themselves as repre- 
 senting the whole community, lay and clerical, as 
 it had always been hitherto represented. If the 
 Parliament enacted laws, which had not been pro- 
 posed by Convocation, they were adopted subse- 
 quently by the Clergy; and no person, therefore, 
 whether lay or clerical, who holds communion 
 with the Church of England, need have any scru- 
 ples as to obeying these laws. That there were 
 anomalies at the period of the Reformation, was to 
 be expected, and cannot be denied : but as the 
 Church of England does not refer to that period 
 for her first existence, so neither does she refer to 
 it for the first promulgation of her doctrines. I 
 deny that the Bishop of Rome has any jurisdiction 
 in this realm of England, not because it was denied 
 by Henry VIII. and by an Act of Parliament, but 
 because that Bishop had no jurisdiction in England, 
 nor in any diocese except his own, in primitive 
 times. I abjure the doctrine of transubstantiation, 
 not because it was abjured by Parliament in the 
 time of Edward VI., but because it is contrary to 
 Scripture and to the belief of the Church for seve-
 
 14 
 
 ral centuries : both of which points 1 am prepared 
 to prove against any Roman Catholic, who will 
 maintain the contrary. 
 
 If therefore it be still said, that the religion of 
 the Church of England is a state religion, or a 
 parliamentary religion, I answer, that the charge 
 is either no reproach, or it is positively false. If 
 it be meant, that members of the Church of Eng- 
 land now adhere to their doctrines, because they 
 were imposed by Parliament, the assertion is a 
 simple falsehood. If it be meant, as a matter of 
 fact, that the doctrines were embodied in an Act 
 of Parliament, we come to the question, whether 
 this was not the legitimate, or rather the only 
 method of establishing the Reformation. We must 
 again remember, that there were then only two 
 parties in religion contending for the mastery, the 
 Papists and the Reformers. The Anabaptists and 
 Socinians had come into existence, but they were 
 not yet known in England : there was in fact no 
 religious sect of any kind in this country ; and the 
 only dispute was, whether the Church of England, 
 i. e. the Church to which all Englishmen belonged, 
 should adhere to the Romish tenets or not. It may 
 be said perhaps in the present day, that it would 
 have been better if the State had taken no part at 
 all in the dispute, but if every person had been 
 left to adopt his own religious creed. Such a 
 course may be very liberal and philosophical, but 
 it was absolutely impossible in those days. The
 
 15 
 
 extirpation of heresy was an article of faith with 
 the Church of Rome, and the civil power had 
 hitherto assisted her. The Protestants therefore 
 had no chance of enjoying even their life, much 
 less their religion, unless they ohtained the sanc- 
 tion of the civil power. The corruptions of Popery 
 had been forced upon the country by Acts of Par- 
 liament. The Reformers obtained the repeal of 
 these Acts : and when the changes in religion, 
 which had been agreed upon by the Clergy, were 
 ratified by Parliament and became the law of the 
 land, the Clergy were only following the constitu- 
 tional course which had prevailed in this country 
 from the earliest times. 
 
 During the whole period of the Reformation, 
 the form and polity of the Church of England 
 continued exactly the same as before. Her doc- 
 trines were changed, but these also were not new. 
 She discarded the doctrines, which had been intro- 
 duced in the dark ages by the Church of Rome, 
 and returned to those which had been held by the 
 primitive Church. She called upon the State to 
 ratify this return to a purer faith, and the State 
 consented : but she did not call upon the State 
 to establish for the first time a national Church. 
 The Church and the State had been united be- 
 fore, and the State had sanctioned erroneous 
 doctrines : the same union still continued, but tlie 
 Clergy had provided for the laity a better and 
 purer creed. If the Churcli of England was a
 
 16 
 
 pfirliamentary church after the Reformation, it 
 was a parliamentary church before ; or if it was 
 not a parliamentary church before, it was not a 
 parliamentary church after the Reformation, The 
 Romanists will adopt whichever of these state- 
 ments they please : but they must not refer to the 
 Acts of Parliament under Edward VI. and Eliza- 
 beth, without also referring to the Act of the Six 
 Articles, to the Act de comhurendo hcsretico, and to 
 others of the same kind. The Romanists made 
 use of the civil power to make men slaves : our 
 Reformers made use of the same power to set men 
 free. 
 
 I must now call upon the Dissenters to assist me 
 in the remainder of this discussion. Since they 
 cry aloud for a separation of Church and State, 
 they will perhaps tell us, at what time the two 
 bodies became united, and what is the process 
 which they would recommend for the separation. 
 They sometimes speak, as if the Church had been 
 united to the State by an Act or Acts of Parlia- 
 ment : and if this were so, the Acts might be 
 repealed, and the separation w^ould ensue. But 
 unfortunately we may search all the volumes of 
 the Statutes at large, and no such Acts will be 
 found. The Church of England, as I have already 
 stated, existed for many centuries before there was 
 a Parliament : and if every member of the State 
 was also a member of the Church, it was a neces- 
 sary consequence that there was one national reli-
 
 17 
 
 gion. If Cliristiauity existed for fifteen centuries 
 under no other form than that which is preserved 
 by the Church of England ; if for that period 
 there were no Independents, no Baptists, no 
 Quakers, no Unitarians, we may wonder at the 
 want of invention in our forefathers, and we may 
 be puzzled to account for their uniformity, but the 
 fact is not less true for being contrary to modern 
 ideas. Again then I ask, what do the Dissenters 
 mean, when they call for a formal and legislative 
 separation between the Church and the State ? 
 They must mean, that some advantage accrues at 
 present to the Church from the union ; or that at 
 least some disadvantage is caused to Dissenters : 
 but if the}'^ mean that Dissenters are not now on a 
 level with the Church of England, I am afraid that 
 it is beyond the power of Parliament to give them 
 relief. 
 
 It will be asked, perhaps, do we not speak of the 
 Church of England as being "by law established ?" 
 Undoubtedly we do : but this phrase appears to 
 me to be greatly misunderstood. The religion of 
 the Church of England was established by law, 
 because her doctrines were not only agreed upon 
 by the Clergy, but sanctioned by Parliament. If a 
 person says, that he belongs to the Church of Eng- 
 land, as by law established, we understand fully 
 what he means : his statement is precise and defi- 
 nite, because he refers us to an authoritative docu- 
 ment which is still in existence : but if a person 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 says, that he does not belong to tlie Church of 
 England as by law established, does he thereby 
 violate an Act of Parliament ? I hope not : or 
 else our dissenting brethren can only be handed 
 over to the tender mercies of the Attorney-Ge- 
 neral. It appears, therefore, that all the Acts of 
 Parliament which have "established" the Church 
 of England, have defined her doctrines and disci- 
 pline, and required them to be maintained in one 
 particular way by all those who belong to the 
 Church of England : but I have yet to learn, that 
 any Act of Parliament is now in force, if it ever 
 existed, which requires all the inhabitants of the 
 country to conform to the doctrines and discipline 
 of the Church of England, "as by law esta- 
 blished." 
 
 Let a person look, for instance, to the Acts of 
 Uniformity, which were passed in the 1st of Eliza- 
 beth and the 14th of Charles II. It is true, that 
 these Acts enforce the use of the Book of Common 
 Prayer : but they enforce it merely upon those 
 persons, who officiate as Clergymen of the Church 
 of England. The lay members of the Church of 
 England are not prohibited by the Act of Unifor- 
 mity from using any other book of prayers : and I 
 need not add, that those who act as ministers in 
 dissenting congregations need not use the autho- 
 rised book. The observance of the Act of Unifor- 
 mity is only binding on the Clergy of the Church 
 of England : and though the Book of Common
 
 19 
 
 Prayer is said, in virtue of these Acts, to be part 
 and parcel of the law of the land, it does not fol- 
 low, that every person in the country is affected 
 by every Act of Parliament. The marriage-act is 
 part and parcel of the law of the land ; and every 
 person who is married, must conform to it, except 
 in certain cases which are specially exempted : 
 (and so there are exemptions specified in the Act 
 of Uniformity :) but every person is not obliged to 
 be married. The form of affirmation to be made 
 by a Quaker is part and parcel of the law of the 
 land : but every person is not obliged by law to be 
 a Quaker, or to make this affirmation. Or, to take 
 an instance of a different kind : there is an Act of 
 Parliament, which requires all bricks to be of a 
 certain size, which might be entitled. An Act for 
 the Uniformity of the making of Bricks. Every 
 brick-maker is bound by the provisions of this Act : 
 but every person in the country is not obliged to 
 make bricks : and so every Clergyman of the 
 Church of England is bound by the provisions of 
 the Act of Uniformity ; but every person is not 
 obliged to be a Clergyman of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 If it be asked, why the religion of one portion 
 only of the community was settled by Parliament, 
 the person who puts such a question must be 
 reminded, that the state of things was very diffe- 
 rent in those days from what it is at present. The 
 unpalatable truth must be repeated, that Dissent
 
 20 
 
 is of modern growth. When the Clergy assem- 
 bled in Convocation, and submitted their decisions 
 to the ratification of Parliament, they submitted 
 them to men who belonged to the same church 
 with themselves. The two bodies of Convocation 
 and Parliament were the real and legitimate repre- 
 sentatives of the Church of England. They were 
 the same bodies, which had for centuries enacted 
 laws for the whole population of the country in 
 spiritual matters ; and nothing had occurred to 
 make them think that they had lost this power, or 
 that it was inexpedient to exercise it. Events 
 have shewn that they were not legislating for the 
 whole of the community : but if the body, for 
 which they did legislate, is willing to abide by 
 their decisions, and if the rest of the community 
 is not bound to obey them, I cannot see what 
 cause they have for complaint. The party to com- 
 plain is the Church of England, which is still 
 obliged to receive laws from tlie State, though all 
 the members of the State are not, as formerly, 
 members of the Church of England. But of this 
 hardship I shall say more presently. 
 
 I shall now proceed to examine more closely 
 what is meant by the Dissenters, when they ask 
 for a separation of Church and State : and I shall 
 select two documents, not as expressing the senti- 
 ments of all Dissenters, (for many, if not most, 
 would disclaim them,) but as shewing what is 
 intended by those who openly avow that they will
 
 21 
 
 be satisfied with notliing less than the granting of 
 these demands. The first is from the Christian 
 Advocate, where we are informed that 
 
 " The Dissenters are determined upon the 
 entire and absolute separation of the Church from 
 the State. Nothing less than this will, or ought 
 to, satisfy them.— The practical grievances, for 
 removal of which the Dissenters are preparing 
 petitions, are, ' An abolition of all exactions from 
 Dissenters for the support of the Church ; an ad- 
 mission to all the national seminaries of education; 
 the right of marriage without the Church service, 
 or payment of fees to a Clergyman ; the right of 
 burial in parochial burying-grounds, their own 
 ministers officiating ; and a general registration of 
 births.' " 
 
 The other passage is from the " Sheffield Inde- 
 pendent," and is as follows : 
 
 " In addition to the grand and fundamental 
 subjects of protestation against the union of Church 
 and State, the following are the principal objects 
 which the Dissenters should resolutely claim : 
 
 " The repeal of all laws which sanction the 
 extortion of money for the support of the Church. 
 
 " The repeal of all invidious legislative distinc- 
 tions between the members of the Established 
 Church and the Dissenters ; and especially of all 
 oaths and tests touching their religious sentiments. 
 
 " The reformation of the national seminaries of 
 education, and an unrestricted admission to them.
 
 22 
 
 " The right of marriage without the forms of 
 the Church service, or the payment of fees to the 
 Clergyman ; and equal rights in places of public 
 burial. 
 
 " The reformation of the laws relating to regis- 
 tration." 
 
 It will be seen, that there is a remarkable agree- 
 ment between these two passages, which may be 
 said to contain the ultimatum of the Dissenters: and 
 in considering each of the demands separately, I 
 shall refer indiscriminately to both documents. 
 
 The first and most comprehensive demand is, 
 *' the entire and absolute separation of the Church 
 from the State :" but the persons who make it, 
 have not told us what they mean either by the 
 Church or the State ; and I suspect that they do 
 not exactly know. The Church is sometimes used 
 for all members of the Church of England ; and 
 this is the proper sense of the expression : but it is 
 sometimes used erroneously for the Clergy of the 
 Church of England. So also the State sometimes 
 means the whole population of the country'', or spe- 
 cially the laymen ; and sometimes the Govern- 
 ment or Legislature. Now I deny, that in any of 
 these senses the Church is united to the State, 
 so as to cause a disadvantage to persons not being 
 members of the Church of England. That the 
 aristocracy, and what is called the more respect- 
 able part of the inhabitants, belong to the Church 
 of England, is perfectly true. But this cannot be
 
 23 
 
 helped. No legislative enactments can affect this. 
 It is true, that the royal family, the nobility and 
 the gentry, are not in the habit of going to meet- 
 ing-houses : but if an Act of Parliament was to be 
 passed, enacting in the plainest terms, that the 
 Church should be separated from the State, these 
 persons would not be more likely to go to meet- 
 ing-houses. Persons of education will still decide 
 for themselves, whether an Episcopal church, 
 which has existed in this country for at least 
 seventeen centuries, is most likely to be of aposto- 
 lical origin, or certain independent congregations, 
 none of which were heard of more than three cen- 
 turies ago, and some of which have only existed a 
 few vears or a few months. Persons of education 
 will compare the doctrines of these sects and of 
 the Church of England. They will perhaps find, 
 that in many points they are agreed ; and they 
 will wonder why some of these sects separated 
 from that form of Christianity which was followed 
 by their fathers : but where there is a difference, 
 they will refer to the records of the primitive 
 Church, and to the works of the Reformers. 
 Where these writings support the doctrines of 
 tlie Church of England, persons of education will 
 adhere to that church : but they will do so, be- 
 cause they believe it in their consciences to be an 
 evangelical church, and not because it is united 
 to the State. 
 
 Again then 1 call upon the Dissenters to |)oint
 
 24 
 
 out, what Acts of Parliament they wish to have 
 repealed, and what is the process, by which they 
 would effect the separation of Church and State. 
 One of the documents quoted above demands " the 
 repeal of all invidious legislative distinctions be- 
 tween the members of the Established Church and 
 the Dissenters : and especially of all oaths and 
 tests touching their religious sentiments." It 
 would have been better, if the writer had specified 
 the invidious statutes, which he wishes to have 
 repealed. I am not aware of any. That there 
 are bodies, which were founded by members of 
 the Church of England, which are now composed 
 exclusively of members of that Church, and which 
 choose to admit no persons who are not of their 
 own religious persuasion, is perfectly true : and 
 in an age which is described as peculiarly liberal, 
 and peculiarly sensitive in matters of conscience, I 
 trust that tlie exercise of this liberty will not be 
 denied. I am aware that the statute-book has 
 contained legislative enactments, which might be 
 called invidious with respect to Dissenters, and 
 which conferred privileges in matters purely civil 
 upon members of the Church of England. Nearly 
 all of them were passed to meet something which 
 was thought to be politically dangerous in parts 
 of the Roman Catholic creed : and they were 
 passed when many of the modern sects were either 
 not in existence, or were of no numerical impor- 
 tance. I rejoice to think that they have since
 
 25 
 
 been repealed. I was always an advocate for the 
 repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and for 
 what was called (though with an impropriety in 
 each term) Catholic emancipation. I know that 
 the Protestant Chnrch of England rose into exis- 
 tence, and achieved her trinmph over the Roman 
 Catholics, without any of these exclusive laws. 
 They are not necessary for the support of truth : 
 and if any remain upon the statute-book, of which 
 I am not aware, let them be repealed : but unless 
 I am greatly mistaken, when every one of them 
 has been withdrawn, the Dissenters will complain 
 as much as ever of the Church of England being 
 unduly favoured by the State. 
 
 The next demand, which I shall notice, is *' an 
 abolition of all exactions from Dissenters for the 
 support of the Church." This is perhaps another 
 instance of an equivocal use of the word church ; 
 and more may here be meant than meets the eye : 
 but if allusion is intended to the payment of 
 church-rates, I am very much disposed to think 
 that the demand is just. If a person is not a mem- 
 ber of the Church of England, I can hardly think 
 it right to make him pay for the repair of the 
 fabric, or for any of the appendages of a worship 
 in which he takes no part. I am aware, that 
 there is a practical difficulty in admitting this 
 doctrine : because when the churchwarden goes 
 to collect the rate, it holds out a pecuniary induce- 
 ment to every person to say that he is not a mem-
 
 26 
 
 ber of the Church of England; and thus not only 
 will many parish churches go without repair, but 
 hundreds and thousands of persons may be tempt- 
 ed to tell a falsehood in a matter of religion: it will 
 in fact be a man's interest (in a worldly sense) to 
 attend no place of public worship. 
 
 I have sometimes thought, that the legislature 
 might reasonably call upon every person in the 
 country, who is now liable to be rated to church 
 and poor, to pay a small annual rate (and it need 
 be but very small) to the maintenance of some 
 place of public worship. It would hardly be into- 
 lerant in a Christian legislature to require that 
 every person in the country should declare himself 
 to belong to some form of Christianity. In pa- 
 rishes, where there are no Dissenters, the whole of 
 this rate would be expended, as now, for the repair 
 of the parish church, or for uses connected with the 
 ritual of the Church of England. In parishes, 
 where there are several sects, the money would be 
 divided in proportion to the relative members be- 
 longing to each sect : and it might be made impe- 
 rative upon each sect, as upon the Church of Eng- 
 land, to appoint some responsible officer, who 
 should account publicly for the expenditure of the 
 money. If it should happen, that the Church of 
 England or any of those sects did not want that 
 exact sum in any particular year, I can see no ob- 
 jection to its being put by as a fund in case of need ; 
 but the rate should be collected every year, and
 
 thus no pecuniary inducement given to any person 
 to declare himself a member of the cheapest church. 
 There may be difficulties in the plan, of which I am 
 not aware ; and I only put it forward to be considered 
 by others : but at all events the payment of church- 
 rates by Dissenters ought to be abolished. If they 
 feel the payment to be a grievance, it is one. 
 
 The Dissenters however must weigh well what 
 they are doing in refusing to pay church-rates. 
 They must be prepared to take the bitters with 
 the sweets. Their great principle is, (and it seems 
 a very just one,) that every church or community 
 of Christians has a right to manage its own con- 
 cerns. One of these privileges is that of deciding 
 who does and who does not belong to the commu- 
 nity. The power of excommunication is the most 
 ancient which the Church possesses. Some persons 
 say that it is the only penal power which she can 
 exercise : but at all events it is exercised by Dis- 
 senters, though it is virtually laid aside by the 
 Church of England. Now when a man refuses to 
 pay a church-rate, he makes a public and unequi- 
 vocal declaration, that he is not a member of the 
 Church of England. By that act he separates him- 
 self from the Church of England : and from that 
 moment he ceases to have any part in its concerns, 
 or in any advantages which may be supposed to 
 belong to it. I cannot conceive, that the Dissenters 
 would question the truth of this position : and if an 
 Act should be passed, to exonerate Dissenters from
 
 28 
 
 paying church-rates, I trust that a clause will be 
 added, which will say, that such a refusal to pay 
 church-rates shall be taken as a public acknow- 
 ledgment, on the part of the person refusing, that 
 he is not a member of the Church of England. 
 
 We should thus be saved from ever again seeing 
 a Dissenter become a churchwarden. I know that 
 such cases have occurred ; and that no scruple of 
 conscience, of which we now hear so much, has 
 hindered Dissenters from interfering in the inter- 
 nal concerns of a church, to which they did not 
 belong. A refusal to pay church-rates would pre- 
 vent the recurrence of such anomalies. If a per- 
 son, who refused to pay a church-rate, possessed 
 a pew in the church, he would immediately forfeit 
 it. If I was rector of a parish, in which such a 
 case occurred, I should, without any ceremony, 
 allot the pew to some other person : nor could the 
 Dissenter on his own principles object to my doing 
 so. If the Dissenter argues that he has no interest 
 in the parish church, it seems to follow necessarily, 
 that he has no interest in the church-yard. But 
 he does not admit this conclusion : and we have 
 seen that one of them demands " equal rights in 
 places of public burial:" and that another de- 
 mands, still more plainly, " the right of burial in 
 parochial burial-grounds, their own ministers 
 officiating." 
 
 If a member of the Church of England had told 
 me that the Dissenters made this demand, I should
 
 29 
 
 have supposed it to be a calumny. They deny 
 that they have any thing to do with the church, 
 and refuse to pay rates for its repair ; but they lay 
 a claim to the church-yard in which it stands, 
 which is fenced and preserved by the same rates, 
 which they refuse to pay ! The distinction is con- 
 venient : but the only intelligible principle to 
 which I can reduce it, is this : that where there 
 is a burthen connected with the Church, they 
 are exempt from bearing it ; but where there 
 is a benefit, they have a right to share it. The 
 ridat of the Dissenters in this matter is still more 
 strongly stated by Mr. T. Binney, in his celebrated 
 " Address delivered on laying the first stone of 
 the New King's Weigh-house." He speaks of 
 " an equal right to the use of the national bury- 
 ing-grounds :" and speaking of parish churches 
 he says that " the building and burying-ground 
 are national property, created by taxes levied on 
 the public." Mr. Binney seems to apply the 
 word national to the Church of England, or to re- 
 fuse to apply it, as suits his purpose. When de- 
 claiming against it, he says that it is not a national 
 Church, that it is only a sect : when asked to pay 
 a church-rate for the repair of the parish church, 
 he refuses because the fabric is not a national one, 
 but belongs only to a sect : but when he wants to 
 bury a friend or relation, he says that the burial- 
 ground is national property. 
 
 When Mr. Binney says that the building and
 
 30 
 
 the biirying-gTound were '' created by taxes levied 
 on the public," he must know that he is speak- 
 ing very incorrectly. It is true, that of late years 
 there have been several new churches erected with 
 cemeteries annexed, the expense of which was 
 defrayed in part by church-rates : but this, per- 
 haps, does not make the church and church-yard 
 national property. An Act of Parliament may 
 empower a gas-company, or a water-company, or 
 a bridge- company, to levy a certain rate or toll : 
 and the payment is as compulsory as that for 
 building" a church : but it would not be correct to 
 say, that the gas-works, or the water-works, or 
 the bridge are national property. The legis- 
 lature intended the church for the exclusive use 
 of the members of the Church of England : just 
 as it intended the College of Maynooth for the 
 exclusive use of the Roman Catholics, though it 
 was so largely endowed out of taxes paid by Pro- 
 testants. The legislature may have been wrong in 
 both these instances ; and if the Dissenters think 
 so, they are perfectly justified in petitioning that the 
 wrong may not be repeated. But if it would be a 
 breach of faith for a Protestant to claim to be 
 educated at Maynooth by teachers of his own per- 
 suasion, because it is a national seminary, it would 
 be equally so for a Dissenter to claim a right in a 
 church or burying-ground of the Church of Eng- 
 land, on the score of their being national property. 
 Mr. Binney must also know very well, that
 
 31 
 
 parish churches in this country were originally 
 founded by private munificence. The ground, on 
 which they stand, and which forms the church- 
 yard, was part of the estate of some rich or pious 
 man, which he alienated for this holy purpose. 
 He never gave the ground, or erected the building, 
 to become national property, in the sense in which 
 that expression is now used. He intended them 
 for the use of all the inhabitants of the parish, be- 
 cause they were all of the same religion with him- 
 self. How he would have acted, if he had heard 
 of "a congregational church," which met at 
 " the New King's Weigh-house," is what we can- 
 not tell, when he died so many hundred years be- 
 fore the Weigh-house existed : but this we know 
 for certain, that 99 parish churches out of every 
 100 in the country, together with their church- 
 yards, were not " created by taxes levied on the 
 public." They were as much a voluntary appro- 
 priation to one specific form of religious wor- 
 ship, as a chapel of the Wesleyans or the Baptists, 
 or as the New King's Weigh-house. Mr. Binney 
 has placed himself in an awkward dilemma by 
 saying that " the building and the burying-ground 
 are national property," and by saying that the 
 Church of England is only a sect : for how can 
 national property belong exclusively to one par- 
 ticular sect ? and that the parish church does be- 
 long to one particular sect, is the foundation of the 
 argument put forth by Dissenters, when they refuse
 
 32 
 
 to pay church-rates. But if the church is the 
 property of one particular sect, the church-yard is 
 so also : and the refusal on the part of Dissenters 
 to pay church-rates establishes the latter point ; 
 for the preservation of the church-yard, as well as 
 of the church, is paid for out of the church-rates. 
 The refusal, therefore, to pay church-rates is an 
 acknowledgment, on the part of Dissenters, that 
 they have no interest in the church or church- 
 yard, and that both of these belong exclusively to 
 the Episcopal sect, which has hitherto been known 
 by the name of the Church of England. If this 
 Episcopal sect has not a right to do what it pleases 
 with its own church and its own church-yard, but 
 if Christians of other denominations have a right to 
 make use of them, "their own ministers officiating," 
 the Dissenters have, indeed, reason to assert, that 
 liberty of conscience is violated. 
 
 Mr. Binney makes one remark, which will have 
 its weight with all right-minded persons, to what- 
 ever sect they may belong. Speaking of Dissenters, 
 he calls the church-yard " the place with many 
 of us of our fathers' sepulchres." And so un- 
 doubtedly it is. The fathers of all Dissenters lived 
 and died in communion with the Church of Eng- 
 land, with that Church which has existed in this ' 
 country from the earliest period of its becoming 
 Christian ; and, therefore, their remains repose in 
 the cemeteries belonging to that Church. I must 
 be allowed to mention, that the ancestors of the
 
 33 
 
 Binneys were members of ihe Cluircli of Eiiglaiiil, 
 of tliat Church, of which it is said by one of their 
 descendants, (in a part of his Address which ap- 
 pears to have been spoken at Billingsgate) " that 
 it destroys more souls than it saves." We may 
 charitably hope, that the ancestors of the Binneys 
 were among the more fortunate minority : and 
 their uncharitable descendant may be well assured, 
 that no Clergyman of the Church of England will 
 refuse interment in the church-yard to any Dis- 
 senter, whose ancestors are buried there ; but they 
 will resist to the utmost the intolerant and into- 
 lerable principle, that one sect may claim a right 
 in the property of another. 
 
 The next demand of the Dissenters which I shall 
 notice is "a general registration of births ;" or 
 as it is otherwise expressed, '' the reformation of 
 the laws relating to registration." The last is the 
 best mode of expressing the demand, for "a 
 general registration of births" would not satisfy 
 the country, which now requires more than usual 
 accuracy in the lists of births, marriages, and 
 deaths. As far as the Church of England is con- 
 cerned, this is amply provided for, and every in- 
 formation is afforded by the parochial Clergy at 
 no cost to the country. But the Dissenters, having 
 refused to contribute to the preservation of church- 
 yards, and having thereby declared that they have 
 no interest in them, they of course cannot be 
 buried in them : and, therefore, the parochial 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 Clergy can for the future give no account of tlie 
 burials of Dissenters. I infer, also, from the de- 
 maud for a general registration of births, that the 
 Dissenters are not satisfied with having their chil- 
 dren baptized by the parochial Clergy ; and that 
 consequently the latter will not be able to make a 
 return of the baptisms of Dissenters' children. The 
 Dissenters are bound to suggest some other method 
 of furnishing these returns : but they have nothing 
 to complain of in this respect against the Church 
 of England. It is a matter which concerns exclu- 
 sively themselves. The parochial Clergy are still 
 ready, as they alwa3^s have been, to perform the 
 offices of baptism and burial : they will perform 
 them, if required, for persons not of their own com- 
 munion : for we give admission by baptism, not 
 into the Church of England, but into the Catholic 
 Church of Christ : and we believe, that every per- 
 son, whatever may be his creed, who died in the 
 faith of Christ, may be a partaker in his resur- 
 rection. The parochial registers give perfect satis- 
 faction to the country : and if Dissenters will not 
 make use of them, they must devise some other 
 method which will be equally satisfactory. If they 
 complain of any grievance in the article of regis- 
 tration, they have brought it upon themselves, and 
 themselves must find the remedy. 
 
 I should make the same remarks upon the other 
 demand of " the right of marriage without the 
 Church service, or payment of fees to a Clergy-
 
 35 
 
 man." Dissenters often speak upon this subject, 
 as if the Church of England was opposed to tlieir 
 demand. But they have hitherto been opposed 
 by the voice of the country. The fact is, liowever 
 they may dislike to hear it, that parties who wish to 
 be married, particularly the females, have no fancy 
 to dispense with the Church service. The feeling 
 may be weak or superstitious, but it is ancient and 
 respectable : and I much doubt whether the Dis- 
 senters will persuade many persons, even of their 
 own communions, to be married in any other place 
 than the parish church. They have, however, a 
 perfect right to make the attempt, and the Church 
 of England will never oppose them. The Church 
 of England will constantly oppose any attempt to 
 alter the marriaoe service, to suit the tenets of 
 Unitarians, or of any other sect. If Parliament 
 should order any such alteration, the parochial 
 Clergy will treat the order with contempt : and it 
 will then be seen, whether our religion is a Parlia- 
 mentary religion or no. Let Dissenters obtain an 
 Act of Parliament to regulate their own marriages : 
 or why do they not suffer the Church of England 
 sect to use its own form, and adopt some other form 
 themselves ? They can either do this without the 
 aid of Parliament, or they cannot: if they can, let 
 them do it immediately, and let them persuade the 
 country that their marriages are as respectable and 
 as valid as those in the Church of England : but if 
 they cannot, let them petition Parliament on the
 
 36 
 
 subject, without saying so much about wounded 
 consciences and a state religion. 
 
 The last demand which I have to notice is "an 
 admission to all the national seminaries of educa- 
 tion :" or as it is more fully expressed in the other 
 document, " the reformation of the national semi- 
 naries of education, and an unrestricted admission 
 to them." I have long been trying to make out 
 what Dissenters mean by claiming admission to 
 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge : but I 
 can neither understand the grounds, on which they 
 rest their claim, nor the process by which they 
 expect to gain admission. The two documents 
 quoted above speak of Oxford and Cambridge as 
 "national seminaries:" but in what sense are 
 they national ? Some persons will reply, because 
 the national religion is taught there : but I am 
 arguing with Dissenters, who will not allow that 
 there is any national religion : and I therefore ask 
 the Dissenters, what they mean, when they speak 
 of our Universities as national seminaries. Were 
 they founded by the nation ? Certainly not. Are 
 they supported by money paid by the nation ? 
 Certainly not. I shall confine my remarks to my 
 own University, though the two cases are perfectly 
 analogous. Some few colleges in Oxford were 
 founded by Kings : but the foundation was the act 
 of an individual, not of the nation. Kings in those 
 days had means of their own, out of which they 
 could be munificent, without in any sense burthen-
 
 37 
 
 ing the nation : and even now, when the King* is 
 spoken of as the first servant of the people, we 
 have not got so far as to say, that every act of 
 royal bounty is the act of the nation. But with 
 these few exceptions, all the colleges in Oxford 
 were founded by individuals ; by men, who had a 
 perfect right to do what they pleased with their 
 estates ; who might have left them all to their 
 children or relations, but who chose to leave part 
 of them for the purpose of education. In no pos- 
 sible sense of the term can it be said, that they left 
 them to the nation. 
 
 Some persons write and speak, as if the Univer- 
 sities were now supported by the country, or at 
 least received some part of the public money ; and 
 I am willing to believe, that some Dissenters are 
 really persuaded of this. There are, indeed, some 
 payments made to certain Professors, which are 
 annually accounted for to the House of Commons, 
 and of late have given rise to annual discussions. 
 The whole amount of payments made to the Uni- 
 versity out of the public purse is a little more than 
 1,000/., part of which was granted by the Crown 
 before it had disposed of its hereditary revenues : 
 and part was originally given by the Sovereign for 
 the encouragement of learning and science. The 
 House of Commons has shewn more than a dispo- 
 sition to grudge the scanty payment : and some 
 wise senators are reported to have asked, Why 
 does not the University pay its own Professors ? The
 
 38 
 
 answer to this question is very simple : the Uni- 
 versity has no funds for paying Professors. Persons 
 have perhaps been led to consider the University 
 as very rich, because they hear of it contributing 
 largely to public subscriptions, or because they see 
 the stores which are annually deposited in the 
 Bodleian library. It is true, that the University 
 does often vote liberal sums out of what is called 
 ''the university chest:" but unfortunately this 
 chest, which has only a figurative existence, is 
 always empty : and the University, like an extra- 
 vagant spendthrift, or like a Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, is too apt to forestall its income. 
 
 The annual income of the University is raised 
 by a voluntary tax imposed upon all its members : 
 out of which tax it pays the whole expense of the 
 city police, which it has taken upon itself; and it 
 also lays out a large sum annually upon the Bod- 
 leian library, which is open gratuitously to all the 
 world. It does not receive from the country a single 
 sixpence beyond the sums already mentioned, 
 and these will probably be withdrawn. Posterity 
 will then have to say, that while Parliament voted 
 thousands and thousands of pounds to found and 
 support a College for Roman Catholics in Ireland, 
 it refused to continue the royal bounty of 1,000/. to 
 the Protestant University of Oxford. Will posterity 
 also add, that while the College in Ireland, though 
 supported by public money, was confined exclu- 
 sively to Roman Catholics, the English Universities,
 
 39 
 
 which maintained themselves without any assist- 
 ance from the public, were forced to admit Roman 
 Catholics, and every species of Dissenter ? 
 
 I feel myself utterly at a loss to argue with per- 
 sons who say that the University of Oxford is sup- 
 ported by public money. On the contrary, the 
 University contributes largely to the revenue. In 
 the year 1833 the stamp-office received 2,498/. 
 from the University, for degrees conferred within 
 the year. If the House of Commons should with- 
 draw the royal grant to the Professors, let it at 
 least be even-handed, and release the University 
 from the payment of stamp-duty upon degrees. 
 The expense of taking a degree, which is felt 
 severely by many a poor man, would thus be ma- 
 terially lessened. The University, as a body, 
 would not be in the smallest degree richer : the 
 persons principally benefited would be the younger 
 members, who are anxious to take a degree, but 
 who are now often deterred from it by the expense. 
 It is still more hopeless to argue with a writer, 
 like Mr. William Howitt, who says in his Popular 
 History of Priestcraft, that " the best apartments 
 of every college are set apart for a Priest, who en- 
 joys, at the expenseof the public, every luxury that 
 the most sensual can desire." The Fellows of 
 Colleges, who are the persons intended, and who 
 are not always or necessarily Priests, do not enjoy 
 anything whatever " at the expense of tlic public." 
 Their incomes come from estates and tithes, which
 
 40 
 
 were left by founders and benefactor^ : and they 
 can no more be said to live ' ' at the expense of the 
 public," than the heirs and representatives of those 
 persons, who possess the remainder of that pro- 
 perty. The Fellows of Colleges are also the tutors. 
 Many of them could not live, if they did not in- 
 crease their incomes by tuition or their profes- 
 sional exertions. It is the income of fellowships 
 which enables tutors in the Universities to give 
 education at a cheaper rate than any other teach- 
 ers of the same kind in the kingdom. The average 
 payment made by a commoner in Oxford to his 
 tutor is 12/. a-year, which is probably less than 
 the sum paid at any dissenting academy : and the 
 tutor is able to educate his pupils at this moderate 
 charge, because he also enjoys the settled income 
 of his fellowship. The room-rent paid by a com- 
 moner may be averaged at the same annual sum of 
 12/. : and these are the only sums, which can pro- 
 perly be said to be received by the College. 
 
 If any person should ask what it is, which makes 
 education in Oxford and Cambridge so expensive, I 
 can truly answer that it is nothing in the system of 
 the Colleges themselves. If parents and guardians 
 will allow young men 200/. or 300/. or 600/. a-year, 
 they may depend upon it that the young men will 
 spend the allowance, and that they will not be 
 hindered from doing so by any college discipline, 
 when their own friends and relations support them 
 in their extravagance ; but let parents know tliat
 
 41 
 
 by this system they are ruining the bodies and 
 souls of their children. I speak of commoners, 
 because they are generally the persons, to whom 
 cheap education is the greatest object : and I. as- 
 sert, that the most expensive colleges do not 
 require a man to spend more than 120/. a-year ; 
 while there are many, in which he need not exceed 
 70/. or 80Z. : and for this sum he may be provided 
 with tuition and all the necessaries of life, except- 
 ing clothes : he may live in the best society with- 
 out meanness ; and no person need suspect that he 
 is practising economy. My statement will perhaps 
 be doubted, but I make it confidentl3^ It is an 
 easy thing for Dissenters to demand " the reforma- 
 tion of the national seminaries of education :" but 
 Dissenters have not to deal with the same persons 
 who send their sons to Oxford and Cambridge : if 
 they had, they would know the difficulty of check- 
 ing the sons of noblemen and gentlemen, who come 
 with double and treble the income which they 
 want, and are surrounded with temptations for 
 spending it. Let the reformation begin with the 
 parents : let them not encourage their children in 
 setting discipline at defiance ; and they will find 
 heads of colleges and tutors too happy to second 
 them : but no place of education can originate a 
 reform of this kind. Sumptuary laws are certain 
 to be followed by evasion and deceit : and punish- 
 ments for a breach of discipline or morality, are 
 cither too slight to be regarded, or too severe to be
 
 42 
 
 applied. An education based upon religion is the 
 only safeguard. 1 know that Colleges do provide 
 this : but I know that it is thwarted and frustrated 
 by parental indulgence. But I must return to my 
 subject. 
 
 I have perhaps said enough to shew, that no per- 
 son, whether Churchman or Dissenter, can de- 
 mand admission to the Universities on the ground 
 of their being supported by the public. The 
 question then presents itself, whether Parliament 
 has the power to gratify the Dissenters in the 
 demand which they are resolved to make. I do 
 not mean to dispute the power of Parliament to 
 pass any Act. I will suppose an Act to be passed, 
 which shall express in the most precise and posi- 
 tive terms, that all persons shall be admissible to 
 the Universities without distinction of creed. I will 
 suppose it to be made a capital offence for the Vice- 
 Chancellor to apply any religious test upon admis- 
 sion. The Dissenters might still be as far as ever 
 from obtaining their demand : and for this simple 
 reason : the Colleges need not take any members 
 at all, except those on the foundation ; and for the 
 election of these they may appoint any system of 
 examination which they please. 
 
 It seems to be forgotten, that a person cannot be 
 a member of the University, without being pre- 
 viously admitted at some College : and who would 
 or could compel a College to admit a member 
 against its will ? Without going to questions of
 
 43 
 
 religion, the Head of a College may refuse to admit 
 a man for a cast in his eye, or for a halt in his 
 gait, or for any reason of whim or caprice, or for 
 no reason at all. But let us suppose him to believe 
 in the doctrines of the Atonement and of Sanctifi- 
 cation by the Holy Spirit, as they were believed by 
 the primitive Church, and as they are expounded 
 by the Church of England. Can he, with these 
 sentiments, admit an Unitarian ? Let us hear 
 Dr. Lant Carpenter, as he states the tenets of 
 Unitarians upon these points. " We do not believe 
 the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, to be a distinct 
 being from God himself. We regard the expression 
 as denoting, in the Scriptures, either God himself, 
 or, most commonly, the influence or agency of 
 God, in whatever way employed, and particularly 
 his miraculous agency." " We reject, as utterly 
 unscriptural, the doctrine of Satisfaction, and every 
 other which represents the death of Christ as ren- 
 dering God merciful, or as enabling him to extend 
 his mercy to the sinner." Now let us remember, 
 that at present the University consists exclusively 
 of persons who adhere to the Church of England ; 
 who adhere to it deliberately, and as a matter of 
 conscience. Each College is a Corporation, con- 
 sisting of a Head and a certain number of Fellows, 
 who are empowered and required by the statutes 
 to fill up the vacancies in their body by election. 
 I will not now inquire whether the statutes, 
 which were generally drawn up by the Founders,
 
 44 
 
 require the Fellows to be members of the Church 
 of England ; though upon this there can hardly be 
 any dispute : but let us only assume that the Head 
 and Fellows think fit, as a mere matter of opinion 
 among themselves, to elect no person who is not a 
 member of the Church of England. Are they not 
 to have the power of exercising their own judg- 
 ment ? Are they not to have the right, which is 
 possessed by every corporation, by every club and 
 society, of electing their own members ? Is Par- 
 liament to interfere, and alter their statutes, and 
 force their consciences? The Dissenters surely 
 are not the persons to advocate such an outrage. 
 Such tyranny would not be avowed even by the 
 Church of Rome : and that Church, in the utmost 
 plenitude of her power, could not have carried it 
 into practice. 
 
 It is idle therefore, and worse than idle, to talk 
 of Parliament interfering to throw the Universities 
 open to Dissenters. If Parliament has the will, it 
 has not the power, to force men's consciences. 
 The experiment was once tried by a King : and 
 the firmness of a single college was the first step 
 in that resistance, which ended in removing him 
 from his throne. Let Parliament make a similar 
 attempt, and every college will produce a Hough, 
 who will resist the illegal interference. We have 
 heard much of late concerning the religious tests, 
 which are applied to young men upon matricula- 
 tion in the Universities : and a foolish order was
 
 45 
 
 made in tlie last Session for a return of these tests 
 from both Universities. I call it foolish, because 
 the persons who asked for it seem to have assum- 
 ed that the Dissenters are excluded from the Uni- 
 versities by these tests. But they know nothing- 
 about the matter, and ought not to take up the 
 time of the House and the Universities with such 
 useless motions. The University of Oxford requires 
 every person to subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles 
 upon matriculation. The University of Cambridge 
 applies no religious test at matriculation ; but 
 every person, who takes a degree in Arts, Law, or 
 Medicine, is required to say " I do declare that I 
 am bona fide di member of the Church of England." 
 Now let us suppose an Act of Parliament to forbid 
 subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Would 
 the Universities be necessarily open to Dissenters ? 
 By no means. The University of Oxford might 
 immediately adopt the test which is used at Cam- 
 bridge, and which is really more exclusive than 
 her own ; or both Universities might invent a still 
 stronger test. If any person should say, that Par- 
 liament may forbid their imposing any test at all, 
 I say that Parliament has not power to forbid it. 
 The Colleges will set Parliament at defiance, and 
 laugh to scorn the impotent attempt at persecu- 
 tion. Members of the Church of England have 
 consciences, as well as Dissenters, and will not 
 allow violence to be done to them. Let Dissenters 
 have seminaries of their own. Those which they
 
 46 
 
 have already, are quite as exclusive as Oxford and 
 Cambridge, and must necessarily be so. A Dis- 
 senter can only give religious education according 
 to his own creed. If he does not, he must be either 
 dishonest or irreligious, or both. It is for this 
 reason, that members of the Church of England 
 do not send their sons to Dissenting academies : 
 and why should Dissenters seek to send their sons 
 to the Universities ? 
 
 They will perhaps say, that the Universities 
 have privileges, and they claim that these privi- 
 leges shall be thrown open to men of all persua- 
 sions. But this demand involves a contradiction 
 or an impossibility. The Colleges, like all other 
 corporations, have certain privileges ; one of which 
 is the right of deciding who shall belong to their 
 body. Exclusion therefore is one of their privi- 
 leges, and must necessarily be so with all elective 
 bodies ; so that one of these very privileges which 
 the Dissenters are demanding, makes it impossible 
 that their demand should be granted. They will 
 perhaps say, that they allude to privileges, which 
 the University enjoys as a body, such as that of 
 granting degrees. This privilege is supposed to 
 attach to all Universities incorporated by charter. 
 Let the Dissenters therefore found Universities, as 
 members of the Church of England have founded 
 them : let these new^ foundations obtain charters of 
 incorporation, and then they may grant degrees. 
 Or why do not Dissenters grant degrees in their
 
 47 
 
 own academies without a charter? Degrees are 
 only artificial distinctions, the value of which de- 
 pends upon public opinion. If the Church of 
 England is merely a sect, why should not degrees 
 conferred by any other sect be as respectable in the 
 eyes of the public as those conferred by members 
 of the Church of England? In this case, as in 
 many others, the privilege of the Church of Eng- 
 land consists merely in its having existed for many 
 centuries before any denomination of Dissenters. 
 The Scotch Universities exercise the same privi- 
 lege of granting degrees : so that the privilege has 
 nothing to do with belonging or not belonging 
 to the Church of England. But the fullest and 
 final answer to this demand is, that Parliament 
 has not the power to compel the Universities to 
 grant degrees to Dissenters. 
 
 As far as my own opinion is concerned, I should 
 not object to under-graduates being admitted at 
 Oxford without subscribing the 39 Articles ; but I 
 should agree to this change, not with a view to ad- 
 mitting Dissenters, but because I am afraid that 
 young men often subscribe what they have never 
 read. With respect to the admission of Dissenters, 
 I should not have the least objection to it, if their 
 parents chose to send them among us, but I cannot 
 conceive how some of them are to be educated or 
 to take degrees. We undertake to teach Chris- 
 tianity, and to make it a fundamental, indispen- 
 sable, part of education. Not Deism, or natural
 
 48 
 
 religion, but Christianity ; the doctrine of Justifi- 
 cation and Salvation by faith in Jesus Christ : and 
 we make our text- book the 39 Articles of the 
 Church of England. If there is such a thing as 
 liberty of conscience in the country, we have a 
 right to do this : and, by the blessing of God, we 
 will continue to do it. Those who do not like our 
 mode of teaching Christianity, will not come among 
 us : and on the same principle, as I said before, 
 our own youth do not go for education to Dissent- 
 ing academies. A tutor in Oxford could not teach 
 his pupil religion, unless his pupil admitted the 
 doctrine of the 39 Articles : and if he could not 
 teach him religion, he would not teach him at all. 
 If I was Head of a College, and a young man was 
 to say in the words of Dr. Carpenter, that he does 
 not believe the Holy Spirit to be a distinct being, 
 or that he rejects the doctrine of Satisfaction, I 
 should immediately dismiss him. Unitarians might 
 call me intolerant : but my only other alternative 
 would be to snatch him as a brand out of the fire, 
 by endeavouring to convert him ; and what would 
 Unitarians then say concerning me ? 
 
 Enough has been said to shew the practical im- 
 possibility of all Dissenters being educated at Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge ; but I cannot help noticing the 
 manner in which this grievance is worded in the 
 " Brief Statement of the case of Protestant Dissent- 
 ers,"put forth by "The Committee of Deputies of the 
 tliree Denominations of Dissenters — Presbyterian,
 
 49 
 
 Independent and Baptist.' The fourth of the 
 grievances is here said to be " the exclusion of 
 Protestant Dissenters from the privileges of the 
 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge." The de- 
 mand therefore is only made for Protestant Dis- 
 senters, and Roman Catholics are still to be ex- 
 cluded. A caricaturist might represent this body 
 of Dissenters with the head of Janus ; one of his 
 faces looking; towards the Universities with a be- 
 seeching, or perhaps a menacing air ; as if asking 
 or demanding admission : the other looking back 
 upon the Roman Catholics, with a repulsive ex- 
 pression which seems to say, '' No, no : we mean 
 to have the good things of Oxford and Cambridge 
 for ourselves, but we cannot allow you a share in 
 them. There is a point, beyond which toleration 
 must not go. All persons will allow, that the Uni- 
 versities ought to be open to Presbyterians, Inde- 
 pendents and Baptists ; but when we are established 
 there, we will keep you out." The distinction here 
 drawn between Protestant Dissenters and Roman 
 Catholics may be very intelligible to the " Com- 
 mittee of Deputies," but I cannot see the force of 
 it. My objection to admitting Dissenters at Oxford 
 is because they cannot receive religious instruction 
 there : but if this objection could be waived, and 
 if all persons are to be admitted to the Universities, 
 as to " national seminaries," the Roman Catholics 
 have quite as good a right to be received as Pro- 
 testant Dissenters. The spirit of exclusivenesi 
 
 £
 
 50 
 
 appears to be not altogether confined to the Cliurcli 
 of England. 
 
 I have now gone through all the demands which 
 are put forth by Dissenters, when they ask for a 
 separation of Church and State, and for the aboli- 
 tion of all inequalities between themselves and the 
 Church of England. The substance of what has 
 been said is briefly this : There never was any 
 formal compact, which allied the Church of 
 England with the State : nor is there any Act of 
 Parliament, the repeal of which would cause them 
 to be separated. The Church of England is the 
 same now, as it was at its first introduction into 
 this country, and the form of its government has 
 always continued the same. Its doctrines are the 
 same now with those which it held for at least the 
 three first centuries, and the temporary usurpation 
 of the Romish See, though it corrupted its doc- 
 trines, did not alter the constitution or identity of 
 the Church. It was not a Parliamentary Church 
 before the Reformation : and as it was not created 
 at that period, nor at any subsequent, it cannot be 
 a Parliamentary Church now. The religion of the 
 Church of England was established by law, because 
 its doctrines were agreed to by Convocation which 
 represented the clergy, and by Parliament which 
 represented the laity, of the Church of England : 
 but no Act of Parliament has established it as the 
 religion to be held by all the community. The 
 statutes, which gave exclusive privileges in civil
 
 51 
 
 matters to members of the Church of England have 
 been repealed; or if any remain, they had better 
 be repealed. Dissenters ought not to pay rates for 
 the repair of a church, or for the maintenance of a 
 form of worship, which they cannot conscientiously 
 join ; and by refusing to pay rates, they make a 
 public declaration that they are not members of the 
 Church of England. Being not bound to contri- 
 bute to the preservation of the church or church- 
 yard, which never were the property of the public, 
 but belong exclusively to the Church of England, 
 they can have no right to be buried in the church- 
 yard ; and for them to demand to be buried there, 
 " their own ministers officiating," is opposed to 
 their own fundamental principle, that every church 
 has a rio:ht to mana2:e its own concerns. With 
 respect to registration. Dissenters have a perfect 
 right to keep registers of their own, if Parliament 
 is satisfied with their system of registration : but 
 the Church of England is wholly unconcerned in 
 this matter, having already registers of its own 
 which are sanctioned by Parliament. It is the 
 same with marriages of Dissenters. They have a 
 right to marry according to their own forms, if the 
 country will allow the validity of such marriages ; 
 but the Clergy of the Church of England will not 
 allow Parliament to prescribe a form to be used in 
 marrying members of the Church of England. 
 Dissenters have no claim to be admitted at the 
 Universities on the ground of their being " national
 
 52 
 
 seminaries ;" for the nation contributed nothing to 
 their foundation, and they contribute much more to 
 the nation than what they receive from it. Parlia- 
 ment has not the power of forbidding the Univer- 
 sities to apply a religious test on the admission of 
 members ; and if Colleges think fit to exclude Dis- 
 senters, no Act of Parliament can hinder them 
 from doing so. 
 
 So much for the demands of the Dissenters ; 
 some of which, it appears, cannot be granted, be- 
 cause Parliament has no power to grant them. But 
 let us suppose the petitioners to have obtained so 
 much of their petition, as is morally practicable, 
 and to have accomplished what they so ardently 
 desire, the separation of Church and State : what 
 will be the result ? I will first state the eflfect pro- 
 duced upon all parties in the words of Mr. Binney : 
 
 ' ' We wish the entire and absolute dissolution of 
 Church and State : the Establishment, as such, 
 terminated : the episcopal community to become 
 an episcopal denomination, on a perfect equality 
 with every other : then each of them may carry on 
 its own religious reforms for itself, or promote the 
 improvement of the rest by reason and argument. 
 — All sects stand in need of some religious reforms; 
 all may be brought nearer to what a church ought 
 to be than any one of them is at present ; but this 
 is their own concern — it is to be done by them as 
 churches, and cannot be done for them by any 
 secular assembly. All, if placed on a level, would
 
 53 
 
 exert an influence, direct or indirect, in promoting 
 the purity and perfection of the rest ; and that one, 
 which is now bound, and fettered, and enslaved, 
 would be free to take full and efficient measures for 
 its own. " 
 
 It appears therefore, that the Church of England, 
 that courtly and gorgeous establishment, which 
 basks in the sunshine of the State, and tramples 
 sectaries in the dust, is, notwithstanding her pomp 
 and pride, " bound and fettered and enslaved. " 
 Alas, my poor church ! and art thou really come 
 to this, to be pitied by Mr. T. Binney, founder 
 and minister of ^the New King's Weigh-house ! 
 But in good truth, when the Dissenter penned 
 this sentence, he was in a milder and more com- 
 passionate mood than he is wont to be ; and since 
 w^e cannot have his charity, we must be content 
 with his pity. The history of the binding and 
 fettering and enslaving of the Church of England, 
 is as follows. 
 
 I have already stated, how the legislature came 
 to interfere in the doctrine and discipline of the 
 Church of England ; that it was, because Parlia- 
 ment consisted entirely of members of the Church 
 of England, and therefore represented the laity, 
 while Covocation represented the Clergy. The 
 whole community therefore was represented by 
 these two bodies : and so long as there were no 
 Dissenters, there was no difficulty in passing laws 
 in spiritual matters which bound the whole com-
 
 54 
 
 munity, At length Dissent came : after which, 
 there were some persons in the country, who were 
 represented in Parliament as to civil matters, but 
 who did not allow themselves to be bound as to 
 spiritual matters by Parliament or by Convocation. 
 They set up a form or forms of religion different 
 from that which had been established by Convo- 
 cation and Parliament. The practical result of 
 this was, that although Convocation and Parliament 
 continued to legislate for the Church of England, 
 their legislation did not affect the w^hole of the com- 
 munity, for some persons had withdrawn from the 
 Church of England. The Church of England had 
 no reason to complain of this, so long as all the 
 members of the Legislature were members of the 
 Church of England ; for all the members of that 
 Church were represented in Convocation and Par- 
 liament : and so long as they were satisfied with 
 this arrangement, they continued to be bound by 
 laws which were sanctioned by Parliament. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the temporary depression 
 of the Church of England in the middle of the 
 17th century : for since it was restored to all its 
 rights by the return of Charles II. the question 
 would only be embarrassed by this consideration : 
 and from the accession of Elizabeth (when the Church 
 of England was fully and finally established) to the 
 end of the 17th century, no member of the Church 
 of England had much reason to complain of the 
 method of legislation pursued in spiritual matters.
 
 55 
 
 At the beginning of the 18th century, a change 
 took place in the legislature, involving a question 
 of principle rather than practice, which perhaps 
 for this reason was not noticed by the Church at 
 the time, and which appears to have been passed 
 over by persons who have studied the history of 
 the Church of England. I allude to the union 
 between the two kingdoms of England and Scot- 
 land, from which time it was lawful for persons to 
 sit in Parliament, professing the religion of the 
 Church of Scotland. The number of Presbyterians 
 returned to Parliament was perhaps small, and 
 they were not likely to shew any hostility to the 
 Church of England : but still as a matter of prin- 
 ciple, the Church of England ought to have pro- 
 tested against these persons taking part in any 
 question which exclusively concerned the Church 
 of England. It either ought to have been settled 
 by law, that these persons were not to vote upon 
 questions affecting the Church of England, or that 
 Church ought to have been made independent of 
 the decisions of Parliament, and some other me- 
 thod devised for obtaining the consent of the laity 
 to the measures proposed by the Clergy. Neither, 
 however, of these expedients was put in practice ; 
 and the phenomenon was witnessed for the first 
 time in this country of a Church being bound by 
 the decisions of the legislature, when all the mem- 
 bers of the legislature w6re not necessarilv mem- 
 bers of the Church.
 
 56 
 
 It was about the beginning of the same century, 
 that we may place the date of another event, which 
 gave a still more fatal blow to the liberty of the 
 Church of England, though I ought perhaps to 
 have placed its date several years earlier. I allude 
 to the virtual extinction of the powers of Convoca- 
 tion. In the year 1664 it had been agreed, that 
 the Clergy should give up the privilege of taxing 
 themselves in Convocation, and should be taxed 
 with the rest of the people by the votes of Parlia- 
 ment. This made the meeting of Convocation of 
 no importance to the Government in a financial 
 point of view : and from that period to the year 
 1700, Convocation very rarely met, and passed no 
 synodical acts of any importance. From the year 
 1700 to the present time Convocation has regularly 
 met at the beginning of every Parliament : but the 
 Act of the 25th of Henry Vlll. having been inter- 
 preted to mean, that the Clergy could not assemble 
 in Convocation without the assent of the King, that 
 assent has never been given to enable them to 
 meet for the purpose of discussion, and no laws 
 have in fact been passed by them. 
 
 The Church of England was thus placed in a 
 most anomalous position, if compared with any 
 other church or body of Christians from the first 
 beginning of Christianity. It had been decided 
 by the highest legal authorities, that the Clergy 
 were bound by the acts of Convocation : and it is 
 reasonable, as well as supported by the practice of
 
 57 
 
 all churches, that questions of doctrine or disci- 
 pline should first be discussed and decided by the 
 Clergy. But this had ceased to be the case in the 
 Church of England : and during the 18th century 
 various Acts were passed by Parliament which 
 affected the internal arrangement and the spiritual- 
 ties of the Church of England. A question might 
 perhaps be raised, how far the members of that 
 Church were bound by these Acts. It is plain, 
 that the mere fact of being returned to Parliament 
 did not give the power of legislating in spiritual 
 matters : for Dissenters, though they had voted at 
 elections, and were represented in civil matters, 
 were not bound by these Acts. It would seem, 
 therefore, that members of the Church of England 
 were not more bound by them than Dissenters, un- 
 less they had consented to be so represented in 
 spiritual matters ; and it is certain that the Clergy 
 at least had never given this consent, either in 
 fact, or by the theory of the constitution. The 
 Clergy, however, made no resistance : and they, 
 as well as the laity, continued to be bound in 
 spiritual matters by Acts of Parliament, although 
 the Acts had not originated, as formerly, in Convo- 
 cation. Something like a reason for their ac- 
 quiescence might perhaps be found in the fact of 
 the Bishops having a seat in the House of Lords : 
 thus the Bishops, who constituted the Upper House 
 of Convocation, might still originate measures of a 
 spiritual nature in Parliament, and the Church
 
 had still some sort of a vote in binding members 
 of their own church by Acts of Parliament. It 
 must be admitted, however, that this is but a poor 
 safeguard to the Church of England, since it has 
 been ruled, that an Act of Parliament concerning 
 a spiritual question would be valid, though all the 
 Bishops voted against it. 
 
 The anomalous condition of the Church of Eng- 
 land became still greater, when Dissenters obtained 
 seats in Parliament ; which they are known to 
 have done for many years before the law allowed 
 it, under the sanction of an annual Act of Indem- 
 nity. The repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts 
 gave them the power of sitting in Parliament. The 
 Roman Catholics shortly after obtained the same 
 power : and the number of Roman Catholic and Dis- 
 senting members has been considerably increased 
 by the operation of the recent Act for the Reform 
 of the House of Commons. During the whole of 
 these constitutional changes, some of which were of 
 silent growth, and therefore unobserved, the mode 
 of legislation for the Church of England by Acts of 
 Parliament continued exactly the same. Measures 
 of a spiritual nature are not proposed, in the first 
 instance, by the Clergy assembled in Convocation, 
 nor by the Bishops in the House of Lords. Any 
 member of either House of Parliament is at liberty 
 to propose any measure of a purely spiritual na- 
 ture ; and if it is carried, the members of the 
 Church of England are bound by it. But can
 
 59 
 
 any anomaly be stronger than this, that members 
 of all religious persuasions should agree in making 
 an Act of Parliament, which is binding on the 
 members of one persuasion only ? Some persons 
 deluded themselves with the notion, that when 
 Roman Catholics were allowed to sit in Parliament, 
 they would be restrained by scruples of conscience 
 and a sense of propriety from voting upon questions 
 which concerned the Church of England. But 
 Mr. O'Connell has laughed to scorn the simplicity 
 of such an expectation. He has not only openly 
 avowed, that he feels himself at liberty to vote upon 
 questions connected with the Church of England, 
 but he has actually done so : a member of the most 
 intolerant church in Christendom has actually 
 taken part in deciding how many Bishops are neces- 
 sary in a church to which he does not belong !* 
 
 It will be said, perhaps, that the measure, to 
 which I have just alluded, affected the Irish 
 Church in her temporal concerns only. I am not 
 questioning the policy of the framers of that Bill, 
 
 * I may perhaps be accused of inconsistency for speaking thus 
 of the admission of Roman CathoUcs to Parliament, when 1 stated 
 at page 25 that I was always an advocate for their admission. But 
 my answer is obvious. 1 wished to admit them to an equality of 
 civil privileges : but 1 never imagined, that they would interfere in 
 the concerns of the Church of England. Still I do not repent of 
 having admitted them. If I give a beggar sixpence, and he turns 
 round immediately after and robs me, I do not repent of having had 
 the feeling of charity, though I pity the ingratitude and wickedness 
 of my assailant.
 
 60 
 
 when they entitled it, A Bill for the Temporalties 
 of the Irish Church. The blind was, perhaps, not 
 necessary, because the House of Commons would 
 have been equally ready to legislate, if it had 
 been entitled a Bill for the Spiritualties of the 
 Irish Church. But let us consider the provisions 
 of the Bill. The preamble recites, among other 
 matters, " Whereas the number of Bishops in Ire- 
 land may be conveniently diminished." Conve- 
 nient, forsooth ! And who were to judge of this con- 
 venience 1 Will the framers of this Bill stand up 
 and say, that any number of the Irish Clergy pro- 
 nounced the abolition of ten Bishoprics to be con- 
 venient ? Do they not know, that the Clergy, al- 
 most to a man, were opposed to the abolition ? It 
 will be said, perhaps, that the Clergy are not the 
 only persons to decide spiritual questions, even 
 when the number of Bishops is the subject under 
 discussion. I fully admit it. I have said several 
 times, that the only principle, on which Parlia- 
 ment could legislate at all for the Church of Eng- 
 land, was because the lay members of that Church 
 were represented in Parliament : but this principle 
 can only be allowed, when the persons who vote 
 upon such questions in Parliament, are also mem- 
 bers of the Church of England. It might be con- 
 ceded, for the sake of argument, that a question 
 affecting merely the temporalties of the Church, 
 may be decided by Parliament, as it is at present 
 constituted ; though the Church of England is,
 
 61 
 
 perhaps, the only church whicli woiikl concede 
 even this. But I contend, that there never was a 
 greater outrage upon the rights of an independent 
 Church, than when a question concerning the 
 number of Bishops, was called a mere temporal 
 question, and was decided by persons not belong- 
 ing to the Church of England. 
 
 Is it not the office of a Bishop to watch over the 
 souls of men ? and may not souls be lost by a 
 Bishop not being able to attend to his spiritual 
 concerns ? The question, therefore, of the number 
 of Bishops which are necessary to watch over the 
 souls of men, is entirely and absolutely a spiritual 
 question. The amount of their incomes may be 
 called a temporal question, though that is inti- 
 mately mixed up with the discharge of their spiri- 
 tual duties : and when Bishops receive nothing 
 from the country, but possess estates which were 
 originally bequeathed voluntarily by the owners, 
 the amount of their incomes is a question of in- 
 ternal arrangement in the Church itself. Would 
 Roman Catholics allow the number of Roman Ca- 
 tholic Bishops to be settled by Parliament ? Would 
 Wesleyans and Independents allow the number of 
 their Ministers to be settled by Parliament ? These 
 cases are precisely the same with that of the 
 Church of England. The Wesleyans and Indepen- 
 dents have never consented that members of the 
 Church of England should legislate for their body: 
 neither has the Church of England ever consented
 
 ()2 
 
 that Wesleyans and Independents, or Roman Ca- 
 tholics, or Unitarians, should legislate for the 
 Church of England. Why is an illegal usurpation 
 tolerated in one case, which would not be tolerated 
 in the others ? 
 
 I contend, that the Irish Church was not bound 
 to comply with the provisions of this unrighteous 
 Bill. If the Clergy of the diocese of Waterford 
 had elected a Bishop according to the forms of the 
 primitive Church, and if the Primate of Ireland 
 had thought fit to consecrate him, he would have 
 been as much a Bishop of the United Church of 
 England and Ireland, as any of the Bishops ap- 
 pointed by the Crown. But Roman Catholics and 
 Dissenters have decided it to be convenient that 
 the Irish Church should henceforth have fewer 
 Bishops : and thus the Church, in the language of 
 Mr. Binney, is " bound and fettered and en- 
 slaved." But will she not burst her bonds ? Will 
 not her Clergy rise from one end of the country to 
 the other, and tell the Legislature, in a voice which 
 cannot be mistaken, that they will not allow Dis- 
 senters from her creed, to dictate to her in mat- 
 ters of religion ? How long shall our modern Uz- 
 zahs be allowed to lay their unhallowed hands 
 upon the ark of our Zion ? It is time to assert our 
 rights. It is time to act upon the principles, which 
 Dissenters have so ably vindicated, to demand a 
 liberty of conscience, and the power of legislating 
 for ourselves.
 
 63 
 
 I am no advocate for violence or factious opposi- 
 tion. I have been brought up in the old fashioned 
 notion, that Christians are to try t o obey the 
 powers that be. But I have also been taught, that 
 liberty of conscience is the birthright of English- 
 men. Thoug-h Parliament has now no constitu- 
 tional right to legislate for the Church of England, 
 I would cheerfully submit to its enactments, when 
 they are for the good of religion. Let such Bills 
 be passed as that brought in by Lord Harrowby 
 for enforcing residence, and for the maintenance 
 of curates, and I will not stop to inquire whether 
 it was brought in by a layman, and whether Dissen- 
 ters voted upon it. But if Dissenters proceed, as they 
 have hitherto done, in violating their own funda- 
 mental principles, and in interfering with the con- 
 cerns of another church, though they will allow no 
 interference with their own, there are no laws of 
 God or man which require the Clergy to submit. 
 If the House of Commons should undertake to alter 
 the Liturgy, and if a Prayer-book thus made for 
 the use of the Church of England should be sanc- 
 tioned by an Act of Parliament, 1 state candidly and 
 openly, that I shall not use it, unless my Diocesan 
 should order me. There is no power in the State 
 to make me use it. The Act itself would be null, 
 a mere piece of waste paper : and if all members 
 bring forward the motions, for which they have 
 given notice, the next Session will perhaps produce 
 many such sheets of waste paper, printed at the
 
 64 
 
 expense of the country. Thus Mr. Faithful, who 
 is a Dissenter, and who is not reported to have 
 blushed when he said," I hate the Establishment,"* 
 has given notice of two motions ; one, for a Bill to 
 regulate, and render more equal, the incomes of 
 the Bishops ; the other, to do the same for 
 the Clergy. If these Bills should in the slight- 
 est degree affect the spiritual duties of the 
 Bishops, Parliament, as at present constituted, 
 has no power to pass them. Neither are the 
 incomes of the Bishops under the control of the 
 present Parliament, (tliough they may have been 
 so formerly,) unless the principle is established, 
 that the incomes of all ministers of religion are 
 under the control of Parliament. I wholly deny, 
 that the Church of England has any prescriptive 
 or exclusive right to be pillaged. If Dissenters 
 may take part in deciding what is the proper in- 
 come of a Bishop, members of the Church of 
 England may take part in deciding, what is the 
 proper income of a Dissenting minister. The 
 Bishops have a more ancient, and perhaps a more 
 settled income than the Dissenting ministers : but 
 the one was in its origin as much a voluntary 
 offering as the other ; and length of time ought 
 rather to strengthen the tenure on which the 
 Bishops and Clergy held their property, f 
 
 * " If a man say, Hove God, and hateth his brother, he is a Uar." 
 1 John iv. 20. 
 
 t There is in my parish a piece of land, which is the property of
 
 65 
 
 Notice of another motion has been given ])y 
 Colonel Williams, for leave to bring in a Bill for 
 the Reform of the Church, and for the appointment 
 of a Commission for its execution. I am not afraid 
 of being abused as an enemy of Reform. My sen- 
 timents upon the question are before the public, 
 and I have no wish to shrink from them : but the 
 fantastic notion never passed across my mind, that 
 persons not connected with the Church were to 
 effect its reform. The House of Commons, as at 
 present constituted, cannot entertain this question. 
 Dissenters cannot assist in reforming a Church, to 
 which they do not belong : and if they abstain 
 from the discussion, their constituents, who belong- 
 to the Church of England, are not represented. 
 Whether the Church of England would gain or 
 lose by becoming independent of Parliament, is a 
 question which Dissenters would have no difficulty 
 in answering ; but it is closely connected with the 
 subject originally proposed for discussion, the 
 separation of the Church from the State ; and it 
 leads us to ask another question, for which my 
 readers are perhaps not prepared, whether the 
 
 a meeting-house in an adjoining parish. There is also land which 
 belongs to my own parish church, as well as land and tithes belonging 
 to myself as Rector. I would thank any lawyer to tell me, what is the 
 difference, as to tenure, between these three parcels of land. If the 
 parcel belonging to the Rector is " the property of the country," 
 whose property is that which now belongs to the meeting-house ? 
 Let the Dissenters beware lest they prove too nuicli.
 
 66 
 
 separation of Church and State lias not ah*eady 
 taken place ? 
 
 I may here repeat the observation made above, 
 that the two terms Church and State are liable to be 
 used ambiguously ; and many persons speak of the 
 imion of Church and State, without attaching any 
 very definite ideas to the words. The term Church 
 in this expression is perhaps the most easy to be 
 defined : and it certainly does not mean merely the 
 Clergy, though this is one of its senses, and though 
 Lord Henley and other writers upon Church Reform 
 have run into this fallacy. The Church (as we 
 apply the term in this country) means all those 
 persons, lay and clerical, who call themselves 
 members of the Church of England, and who pro- 
 fess to receive her Articles and Liturgy. It is also 
 essential to remember, that this Church existed 
 before her present Articles and Liturgy were 
 framed ; and if the whole body should agree in 
 altering the Articles and Liturgy, it would still 
 continue the same Church. We must now inquire, 
 what is meant by this Church having become 
 united with the State ; or rather, what is meant in 
 this expression by the term State. When we speak 
 of the State, we sometimes mean the whole commu- 
 nity, and the word is nearly synonymous with 
 realm ; as when we speak of all the people of the 
 state, or of the realm. In this sense, the Church 
 and the State were united for many centuries, and 
 from the first moment of the whole country being
 
 G7 
 
 converted to Christianity ; tliough I liave endea- 
 voured to shew, that this union was not the result 
 of any formal compact, but was naturally and ne- 
 cessarily the case, when every member of the State 
 or realm professed the same religion and belonged 
 to the same Church. In this sense, the union of 
 Church and State cannot be said at present to 
 exist ; for every member of the State or realm is 
 not a member of the same Church. 
 
 But the term State is used in another sense for 
 the civil power, either legislative or executive, but 
 most commonly for the two united, and the term is 
 nearly s^^nonymous with the Legislature or Go- 
 vernment. It conveys the idea of that power, 
 wherever it resides, which makes laws to be bind- 
 ing on all the community ; and in England the 
 State may be said to mean the King and his Par- 
 liament. In this sense also, the Church and the 
 State were united for many centuries : for not only 
 were the King and his Parliament members of that 
 one Church which comprised the whole country, 
 but all laws relating to religion were confirmed by 
 the King and Parliament, and every person was 
 bound to obey the Legislature in spiritual as well 
 as temporal matters. The question now presents 
 itself, whether the Church and the State can be 
 said still to be united in this sense ; it being re- 
 membered, that the Church does not mean, as for- 
 merly, all the persons in the country calling them- 
 selves Christians, but those persons only who con-
 
 G8 
 
 form to tlie Cliiirch of England. The King is cer- 
 tainly united to the Church, for he is not only a 
 member of it, but the Head of it. But the King is 
 not the State, and cannot make laws without the 
 concurrence of Parliament : and if the union of 
 Church and State depended upon every member of 
 the Leo-islature being also a member of the Church, 
 we could only conclude that the Church and the 
 State are not united ; for there is no limit to the 
 number of Dissenters who may sit in Parliament. 
 
 This however does not seem to be the meaning 
 of the union between Church and State, which 
 rather means that the Clergy and the Legislature 
 together can make laws about religion, which shall 
 be binding upon the community. The union of 
 Church and State is not the same thing with the 
 union of Religion and the State, though the two 
 expressions are often confounded. Religion and 
 the State may be said to be united, when the 
 State encourages Religion, and enforces it by laws: 
 and where the Christian religion is the one thus 
 supported, the Church and State may in one sense 
 be said to be united : for the term Church, in its 
 widest sense, means the universal Church, or whole 
 body of believers in Christ. But this would be an 
 equivocal meaning, and is not what is generall}'^ 
 implied by the union of Church and State, which 
 means that the State supports by its laws one par- 
 ticular Church, or one form of Christianity to the 
 exclusion of others: and if we add to this notion.
 
 69 
 
 that these laws are binding upon all persons who 
 are bound by the laws of the State in civil matters, 
 we shall perhaps have the fullest and most correct 
 idea of the union of Church and State. 
 
 Such an union of Church and State undoubtedly 
 existed in this country formerly, when every mem- 
 ber of the State or Legislature was also a member 
 of the Church, and when the Clergy and Parliament 
 had a concurrent power of enactinglaw^sin spiritual 
 matters which were binding upon the whole com- 
 munity. But can the same union be said still to 
 exist, when every member of the State is not neces- 
 sarily a member of the Church, and when the 
 Clergy and Parliament together have not the power 
 of binding the whole community in spiritual mat- 
 ters ? The Dissenters seem to think that the union 
 does still continue, for they are louder than ever 
 in their demands that Church and State should be 
 separated : and it is this which leads me to call 
 upon them to state explicitly what they mean by 
 the union of Church and State, and to point out 
 the process by which the separation can be effected. 
 I am aware, that the Dissenters are not the only 
 persons, who consider the Church and the State to 
 be still united, and who contemplate their separa- 
 tion. Mr. Wilks, the Member for Boston, has 
 published a letter to the Bristol Dissenters, in which 
 he assures them that, " the opinion of the Govern- 
 ment'''' is, that " any immediate and urgent attempt 
 at the severance of the Church and State would
 
 70 
 
 utterly fail." My question is therefore likely to 
 be answered, if not by the Government, at least by 
 the member for Boston in the present session : but 
 perhaps the Government knew nothing of this 
 " opinion " till they saw it in Mr. Wilks's letter. 
 It might have been thought, that the Dissenters, 
 instead of uttering complaints and making demands, 
 would have felt that they had already gained even 
 more than they could possibly have expected. They 
 demanded equality, and they have obtained supe- 
 riority. So completely have they turned the tables 
 upon the Church of England, that not only has the 
 Church no power to get laws passed which bind 
 Dissenters, but Dissenters have themselves power to 
 vote upon laws which bind the Church of England. 
 Thus Mr. O'Connell can give his vote for dimi- 
 nishing the number of Bishops in the Church to 
 which I belong ; but my representatives in Parlia- 
 ment have no power to vote for diminishing the 
 number of Bishops in Mr. O'Connell's Church. 
 Mr. Faithful, who hates the Establishment, and who 
 was once, if he is not still, a dissenting preacher, 
 can give his opinion and his vote for reffjrming the 
 Church of England : but no member of the Church 
 of England can interfere in reforming the church, 
 in which Mr. Faithful is or was a preacher. Surely 
 the Church of Eno;land ouo'ht rather to be the 
 complaining party. If the Church and State are 
 united,, let us see them seated side by side : but let 
 not the union consist in the Church being fastened
 
 71 
 
 to the chariot wheels and dragged in the dust, while 
 the state equipage is driven by Dissentei's. 
 
 We will suppose, however, that the Dissenters 
 have brought their Bill into Parliament, and carried 
 it ; that the Church and the State are separated by 
 law. What will be the consequences of the sepa- 
 ration to the Church and the State ? Mr. Binney 
 has told us, that the Church of Enoland will thence- 
 forth become " an Episcopal denomination, on a 
 perfect equality with every other/' We shall be 
 allowed therefore to retain our Bishops ; and as I 
 am not now arguing with thieves, I shall add, that 
 we shall be allowed to retain our present endow- 
 ments. But Mr. Binney has perhaps not consi- 
 dered all the consequences of his measure : some 
 of which I shall proceed briefly to state, though 
 rather as proposing questions for the decision of 
 others, than as attempting to answer all of them 
 myself. 
 
 The first and most important question is that 
 which relates to the King, as Head of the Church 
 of England. Dissenters will probably allow, that 
 the King is, and may still continue to be, the Head 
 of the Church of England, if the members of that 
 Church agree to it : but they will, of course, 
 restrict the Church of England to " the Episco- 
 pal denomination :" and what then is to become of 
 those Acts of Parliament, which give to the King 
 the adjudication of all causes, spiritual as well as 
 temporal, within his dominions ? All the King's
 
 72 
 
 subjects are, at present, bound bj- the letter of 
 these Acts : and this leads to the still more gene- 
 ral question, whether all the Acts of Parliament, 
 which assume the Church to be united to the 
 State, will be ipso facto repealed ? and whether the 
 Church will henceforth be at liberty to obey those 
 Acts or no, as she thinks fit. If this is not the 
 case, the Church, i. e. the Episcopal denomination, 
 is as much united to the State as ever : she will 
 still be " bound and fettered and enslaved ;" she 
 will still be bound by laws, to which she gave no 
 consent, and which were passed, in part, by the 
 votes of Dissenters. 
 
 The religious part of the ceremony of the Coro- 
 nation will, perhaps, in future, be dispensed with : 
 and to avoid any awkwardness which might arise 
 as to precedence between an Archbishop or Bi- 
 shop, and a Dissenting Minister, the King may be 
 crowned by the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord 
 Mayor of London : but what is to be done with the 
 Coronation oath? As the law now stands, the So- 
 vereign is asked by the Archbishop, " Will you 
 preserve unto the Bishops and Clergj^ of this 
 realm, and to the churches committed to their 
 charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law 
 do, or shall appertain unto them, or any of them ?" 
 to which he answers, " All this I promise to do." 
 Is this oath to be repealed or altered ? Or if it is 
 not altered, what meaning is henceforth to be at- 
 tached to the word "Clergy?" The Church of
 
 73 
 
 England being only an " Episcopal denomina- 
 tion," all Ministers, and Preachers, whether or- 
 dained or no, whether appointed by themselves or 
 others, will, perhaps, be considered Clergy : and so 
 they will all have their rights and privileges pre- 
 served, which will be a great gain to the Clergy of 
 the Episcopal denomination. At present the King 
 is not considered to violate his Coronation oath, 
 when he does not preserve the rights of the Bishops 
 and Clergy : that is, when he gives his consent to 
 a Bill for reducing the number of Bishops, al- 
 though the Bill has not obtained the consent of the 
 Clergy or Laity : the Clergy, therefore, have not 
 their privileges preserved to them, but are bound 
 to obey a statute which did not originate with 
 them, as all statutes about religion ought to do, 
 and which was debated in an assembly containing 
 several persons who do not belong to the Church. 
 When the Church is separated from the State, the 
 Clergy will regain the privilege of settling these 
 matters for themselves, and they will be able to 
 propose measures to the lay members of their own 
 communion, which both parties may agree to or 
 no, without being obliged to submit to the inter- 
 ference of the Dissenters. 
 
 Another very important question will be raised 
 concerning the patronage in the gift of the Crown. 
 If the Kino- should cease to be Head of the Church 
 
 o 
 
 by Act of Parliament, will he, in future, present 
 to Benefices in his public or private capacity ; that
 
 74 
 
 is, will he do so by his own personal act, as a pri- 
 vate patron, or will he continue to do it through 
 his responsible advisers ? If he is merely Head of 
 the Episcopal denomination, because that denomi- 
 nation has chosen him to be so, there seems no 
 reason why the Lord Chancellor should be keeper 
 of his conscience in the disposal of livings : or 
 rather, there is no reason why the Episcopal de- 
 nomination should allow him to be so. The King 
 wnll no longer have the appointment of Bishops as 
 a matter of prerogative, for the Church and the 
 State will be separated : and the Episcopal deno- 
 mination must not be exposed to interference in 
 the appointment of its Ministers, any more than 
 any other denomination. With respect to private 
 patronage, the owners of advowsons seem already 
 in some danger : for the doctrine, that the pro- 
 perty of the Church belongs to the country, can 
 only be interpreted to mean, (as far as it applies to 
 livings) that all the advowsons, which are now sup- 
 posed to belong to private patrons, belong really 
 to the country, and may be applied to the purposes 
 of the State. When the Church and the State are 
 separated, this notion will^ of course, be aban- 
 doned : or, if the State can still claim the pro- 
 perty of the Episcopal denomination, it will be able 
 to claim the property of all denominations ; for the 
 grand principle of the Dissenters is, that all deno- 
 minations should stand in the same relation to the 
 State ; none is to be favoured more than another,
 
 75 
 
 and, of course, none is to be pillaged more than 
 another. Private patrons will, however, remem- 
 ber, that when the Church is separated from the 
 State, she will make her own regulations as to the 
 qualifications of Incumbents : and if Bishops re- 
 fuse to institute to a living which has been bought 
 and sold, there will be no power in the State to 
 compel them to do so. The question of Church 
 Reform would be much more simple, if patrons 
 could be brought to feel, that they hold a trust for 
 the benefit of men's souls, and not for their own 
 pockets. 
 
 Some persons will perhaps think, that the ejection 
 of Bishops from the House of Lords will be an imme- 
 diate consequence of the separation of Church and 
 State : but it ought first to be shewn, that the 
 Bishops sit in the House of Lords in consequence 
 of the union of Church and State. We often hear 
 it said in the present day, that the three estates of 
 the realm are the King, Lords, and Commons : 
 and such a statement may do very well to amuse 
 the newly-elected members of the Reformed Par- 
 liament, whose occupations may be supposed to 
 hinder them from studying the constitutional his- 
 tory of their country. But a little reading would 
 tell them that the three estates are the Lords 
 S})iritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons : 
 and since the Bishops sat in Parliament before the 
 House of Commons had any existence, it would be 
 difficult to prove, that the Constitution gives to the
 
 76 
 
 House of Commons any power to bring- in a Bill 
 for depriving Bishops of their seats. I am aware 
 that the step was once taken, in the year 1642. 
 But Bishops were not the only persons who were 
 deprived of their seats during that unsettled period : 
 and a parliamentary lawyer would hardly draw his 
 precedents from those times. The Bishops were 
 restored to their bishoprics and to their seats in 
 Parliament in the year 1660 : that is, the Act of 
 1642 was then reversed : but there is a question, 
 whether legally and constitutionally they ever lost 
 their seats. The same power, which ejected 
 Bishops from the House of Lords, ejected also the 
 King from the throne : and it was decided by Act 
 of Parliament, that there should no longer be a 
 King of England. Nevertheless, when Charles 
 n. returned in 1660, that year was not called the 
 first, but the 12th year of his reign : so that the 
 law and the constitution have recognized him as 
 King during the whole of that period, when ac- 
 cording to Acts of Parliament he was not King. In 
 the same manner it might be argued, that the 
 Bishops had seats in the House of Lords during the 
 whole period from 1642 to 1660, though they were 
 unconstitutionally hindered from exercising their 
 right of sitting. 
 
 I perceive that Mr. Rippon, the member for 
 Gateshead, has given notice of a motion to bring 
 in a Bill to remove the Bishops from Parliament 
 by repealing the Act of the 13th of Charles H. :
 
 77 
 
 but if this Act was repealed, it would perhaps not 
 follow, that the Bishops were removed from Par- 
 liament. If Mr. Rippon thinks that they sit in the 
 House of Lords by virtue of that Act, he is very 
 unfit to bring a Bill into Parliament : and I should 
 wish to put this question to the law-officers of the 
 Crown, whether the King has not a right to sum- 
 mon spiritual, as well as temporal, peers to Parlia- 
 ment, if he so think fit. 
 
 The questions, which I have proposed, are among 
 the most important wliich would arise out of the 
 separation of Church and State. Many others would 
 also present themselves ; and some thousands of 
 Acts of Parliament would probably require to be 
 altered, or at least to have some of their terms in- 
 terpreted in a sense totally different from what 
 they have hitherto borne. I will only mention the 
 terms spiritual person, or person in holy orders, or 
 parson, or priest, or clergy, wherever such terms 
 occur. These words have hitherto had a fixed and 
 definite meaning, being restricted to persons Epis- 
 copally ordained, according to the forms of the 
 Church of England. When that Church becomes 
 merely the Episcopal denomination, and on a level 
 with all other denominations, it must be settled by 
 Act of Parliament, that every preacher of the Gos- 
 pel is a spiritual person. It will be difficult indeed 
 to give a definition, which is sufficiently compre- 
 hensive. Some preachers are commissioned by 
 nobody but themselves. Many have no kind of
 
 78 
 
 parochial cure, but merely preacli a weekly sermon, 
 and are engaged on all the other days in the most 
 secular occupations. With the Quakers, either 
 there are no spiritual persons, or all their members 
 must bear that title, and females as well as males. 
 There are other sects, in which women claim " the 
 liberty of prophesying :" and in these times of 
 equal rights, when there is to be no exclusiveness 
 in matters of religion, I cannot see that the male 
 sex is justified in appropriating the clerical title to 
 itself. When the Church is separated from the 
 State, it must be understood that all persons, male 
 or female, are to be considered by law as "spiritual 
 persons," who declare themselves to be so. Any 
 definition less general or comprehensive than this 
 would give an undue preference to some denomi- 
 nations over others. 
 
 I have now brought my remarks to a close. The 
 reader will perceive, that in many cases I have 
 rather started doubts, than attempted to solve 
 them. From the first I have professed myself 
 ignorant of what is meant by Dissenters, w^hen 
 they demand a separation of Church and State. If 
 I have seemed to say, that they are separated 
 already, I do not mean, that they have been sepa- 
 rated by any formal act ; but that a large portion 
 of the community has withdrawn from the Church, 
 and is not bound in matters of religion by any Acts 
 of the State. The Church of England must still 
 be said to be united with the State ; and the ques-
 
 79 
 
 tion remains, whether it is expedient for them to 
 be separated. 
 
 In discussing this question, I should take higher 
 ground than the Dissenters, who talk of effecting 
 the separation by applying to Parliament : whereas 
 I contend, that the Church of England has herself 
 the power of separating from the State. If the 
 State consists in part of Roman Catholics and Dis- 
 senters, I wholly deny, that these persons have 
 any right to give an opinion or a vote in matters 
 relating to a church, to which they do not belong. 
 If a Bill was to be past affecting the Church, with- 
 out the consent of the clergy, and enacted in part 
 by the votes of Dissenters, and if my Diocesan 
 should give me instructions at variance with this 
 Bill, I should obey my Diocesan rather than the 
 Act of Parliament. I cannot look to history with- 
 out feeling convinced that the union of Church and 
 State is a blessing to a country : but I can con- 
 ceive circumstances to arise, which may make the 
 separation desirable and even necessary. As a 
 Protestant, I cannot wish to see the Church and 
 the State united in France, if by the Church we 
 mean the religion which used to be established 
 there, and if the State is to exert itself in hinder- 
 ing every other religion. In our own country the 
 separation of Church and State might become 
 desirable from other causes; as for instance, if 
 the State, instead of supporting the Church, acts 
 in hostility to it, and deprives it of the liberty
 
 80 
 
 wliich every other Church enjoys. 1 would never 
 defend the union of Church and State, merely 
 because it gives to my own Church exclusive pri- 
 vileges, but because I believe it to be a means 
 of upholding religion, and of extending Christ's 
 kingdom upon earth. If the Church is crippled 
 in its energies by being imited to the State ; if the 
 legislature, instead of advancing religion, should 
 retard it ; if the Church is forced against her will 
 to submit to reo;ulations which she knows to be 
 bad ; not only has she a right, but it is her duty, 
 to assert her independence, and to act for herself. 
 
 One of ni)^ objects in writing these remarks is to 
 induce my brethren of the Church of England, 
 whether lay or clerical, to consider the anomalous 
 position in which our Church is placed ; to see, 
 how completely we have lost the power of making 
 laws for ourselves ; and then to observe, whether 
 the body wliich legislates for us, exercises its 
 power judiciously and religiously. I confess can- 
 didly, that I cannot look upon the present House 
 of Commons as a religious body. The Dissenters, 
 who have seats there, and who have voted upon 
 measures connected with the Church of England, 
 have lost all title to confidence, by thus violating 
 their ow^n fundamental principles. Those of their 
 constituents, who belong to the Church of England, 
 are, in fact, unrepresented upon questions of reli- 
 gion : and the unwillingness to allow the Bishops 
 even to have a voice in a matter which intimately
 
 8i 
 
 concerned the Church, can only be taken as an 
 acknowledgment that the case would not bear in- 
 vestigation. And yet these are tlie persons, who 
 legislate for the Church of England ! If I could 
 feel certain, that the only consequence of a sepa- 
 ration of Church and State would be our getting 
 rid of the interference of the House of Commons, 
 I could hardly, as a friend to the ^Church and to 
 Religion, continue to wish for their union. 
 
 In conclusion, I have only to obviate one re- 
 mark. It may be said to follow from the prin- 
 ciples laid down in the preceding pages, that there 
 is no power anywhere to legislate for the Church oi" 
 England, and that consequently all alteration and 
 reform are impossible. I have said, it is true, that 
 Parliament, as at present constituted, has no 
 authority to bind the members of the Church of 
 England in matters of religion : and such is my 
 deliberate opinion. I have said, that, according to 
 the ancient practice, and even the present theory 
 of the Constitution, all measures affecting religion 
 originate with the Clergy, and are made binding 
 upon the community by receiving the sanction of 
 Parliament : but Dissenters have assumed the right 
 of refusing to be bound by these laws : and I 
 would simply ask, why may not members of the 
 Church of England assume the same right ? There 
 are many points affecting the Clergy, in which 
 Parliament even now does not exercise the slightest 
 control, and has no power to exercise it. The 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 mode of examining- candidates for orders is entirely 
 at the discretion of the Bishops : and if a candidate 
 is rejected, the patron, who would have presented 
 him to a living, can get no redress. This is only 
 one instance out of many : and if the Church is in 
 such cases independent of the legislature, it is very 
 difficult to say, where this independence ends, and 
 the right of interference begins. The Dissenters 
 have settled the question for themselves, and resist 
 all interference. Let the House of Commons treat 
 the Dissenters, as it has treated the Church of 
 England, and it will not find the same patient 
 submission. But the Church of England may 
 perhaps regain its liberty, without having recourse 
 to any violent measures ; and I will attempt to 
 answer the question, whether there is at present 
 any power of legislating for the Church of England. 
 I conceive that the Church may be extricated 
 from its present awkward position by the King, 
 who is Head of the Church. He has power to 
 grant a commission for settling, or at least for in- 
 vestigating, any ecclesiastical matters ; and there 
 never perhaps was a time, when the Head of the 
 Church could exercise this power more reasonably 
 or beneficially. In the Preamble to the Act of 
 Uniformity, which was passed in the l4th of 
 Charles H., the following passage occurs, which 
 shews the course of proceeding adopted at that pe- 
 riod, and might furnish an useful precedent at 
 present :
 
 83 
 
 " The King's Majesty granted his Commission, 
 under the great seal of England, to several Bishops 
 and other Divines, to review the Book of Common 
 Prayer, and to prepare such alterations and addi- 
 tions, as they thought fit to offer ; and afterwards 
 the Convocations of both the Provinces of Canter- 
 bury and York, being by his Majesty called and 
 assembled, (and now sitting) his Majesty hath been 
 pleased to authorize and require the Presidents of 
 the said Convocation, and other the Bishops and 
 Clergy of the same, to review the said Book of 
 Common Prayer ; and that after mature considera- 
 tion, they should make such additions and altera- 
 tions in the said books respectively, as to them 
 should seem meet and convenient ; and should 
 exhibit and present the same to his Majesty in 
 writing for his further allowance or confirmation ; 
 since which time, upon full and mature delibera- 
 tion, they the said Presidents, Bishops, and Clergy 
 of both Provinces, have accordingly reviev/ed the 
 said Books, and have made some alterations, which 
 they think fit to be inserted to the same. — All 
 which his Majesty having duly considered, hath 
 fully approved and allowed the same, and recom- 
 mended to this present Parliament, that the said 
 Books of Common Prayer, &c., with the alterations 
 and additions, which liave been so made and pre- 
 sented to his Majesty by the said Convocations, be 
 the book which shall be appointed to be used by 
 all that officiate in all cathedral and collegiate 
 churches, &c."
 
 84 
 
 It may be well to add to this document, that 
 when the Bill came down to the House of Com- 
 mons from the Lords, the question was put, 
 Whether debate shall be admitted to the Amend- 
 ments made by the Convocation in the Book of 
 Common Prayer, and sent down by the Lords to 
 this House : and the question was decided in the 
 negative ; though it was also decided at the same 
 time, that the amendments might have been 
 debated. 
 
 Such was the feeling of the House of Commons 
 in those days, when a measure affecting religion 
 was brought before it : but I have referred to this 
 case for the purpose of shewing, that the King may 
 issue a Commission for any purpose connected with 
 the Church. If an older precedent is required, 
 we have it in " his Majesty's Declaration"' pre- 
 fixed to the 39 Articles, where we read, 
 
 " That out of our princely care, that the church- 
 men may do the work which is proper unto them, 
 the Bishops and Clergy, from time to time in 
 Convocation, upon their humble desire, shall have 
 licence under our Broad Seal, to deliberate of, 
 and to do all such things, as being made plain by 
 them, and assented unto by us, shall concern the 
 settled continuance of the doctrine and discipline 
 of the Church of England now established, from 
 which we will not endure any varying or departing 
 in the least degree." 
 
 I am no advocate for the meeting of Convocation^, 
 in which I can see many inconveniences ; but dio-
 
 85 
 
 cesan synods, where each Bishop might meet his 
 own clergy, might be productive of much good. 
 Some lay members might also attend these synods, 
 and thus the interference of Parliament might be 
 altogether unnecessary. The first step which seems 
 requisite is a royal commission to ' ' several Bishops 
 and other Divines," as in the time of Charles II., 
 who might deliberate upon the best method of ec- 
 clesiastical legislation. The whole question of 
 Parliamentary interference, and of the right of 
 Dissenters to vote upon Church matters, would 
 come before these Commissioners ; and it would 
 perhaps be decided, that the Church would in fu- 
 ture legislate for herself, without allowing any 
 dictation from the civil power. If in the mean 
 time the Dissenters should gain their object of ob- 
 taining a formal separation of Church and State, 
 there will be no farther difficulty ; Parliament will 
 then have no more power to legislate for the 
 Church of England, or rather for the Episcopal 
 denomination, than for Dissenters; and the House 
 of Commons is certainly a very unfit place for 
 theological discussion. 
 
 Whether the Church of England is left to legis- 
 late for herself, or whether she is still forced to 
 submit to Acts of Parliament, her Ministers have 
 one plain course before them, which is, to w^atch 
 for the souls of men, as they who must give an 
 account. If their great object is to spread the 
 Kingdom of Christ, they will be as far from gain-
 
 86 
 
 ing that object by intolerance and violence, as by 
 indolence and neglect. They will sometimes meet 
 with Dissenters like Mr. Faithful and Mr. Binney, 
 whose hearts are still untouched by the charity of 
 the Gospel, and whose conversion is not to be 
 effected by human means. But even such cases 
 are not hopeless, if Christians will unite in prayer : 
 and my knowledge of Dissenters leads me to say 
 with confidence, that for one instance of such deep 
 and bitter hostility, we may meet with hundreds of 
 persons who differ from the Church of England, 
 but who feel towards her no ill-will, and would 
 sincerely lament her destruction. The common 
 object in which we are embarked, can never be 
 injured by our being ready to give the right hand 
 of fellowship to all who differ from us. The great 
 principles of Gospel truth must not be compro- 
 mised. The doctrines of Justification by Faith, 
 and of Sanctification by the Spirit, must not be ex- 
 plained away, or reduced to a name : but while I 
 think that the Church of England is most likely, 
 by the blessing of God, to plant these doctrines in 
 the hearts of men, I am not insensible that the 
 Master may have admitted other labourers into His 
 vineyard, to stimulate our exertions and reanimate 
 our zeal. Churchmen and Dissenters may soon 
 have to unite against the common enemy. We 
 may soon have to answer the question, Who is on 
 the Lord's side? and if my clerical brethren, who 
 chance to read these pages, should remember any
 
 87 
 
 portion of them, I hope it will be the sentence, 
 with which I shall conclude, that if we wish our 
 Church to prosper, we must be at peace among 
 ourselves, and in charity with those who are 
 without. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ROAKE AND VARTY, PRINTERS, 31, BTRANU.
 
 •* "* 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 
 
 FIRST THREE CENTURIES, 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS CHRIST TO THE YEAR 313. 
 
 In Two Vols. Octavo. 
 £\.2s.6d. 
 
 Oxford: — J. H. Parkeu.
 
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