see the reunion of religious and free-born men? Is there to be no city of refuge, no home, no fellowship of kindred for one who dares to entertain within his breast these two noblest sentiments-freedom and religion? Is he aye to be thus an outcast from the pious, who neglect all political admini strations, except when they touch sectarian pride, or invade churchman's prerogative? Is he aye to be an outcast from the generous favourers of their country's weal, who have foregone, in a great degree, the noble virtues and christian graces of the old English patriarchs of church and state; and taken in their private character more of the manners and bertinism of Continental revolutionists, and have little left of the ancient blood of these islanders?

"But if England would make another step in advance, she must look to the strength in which she made her former steps; and if foreign nations would possess the blessings of England, they must look to the same era of her history, when her liberty struggled into light. It will be found that religion set the work in motion, and that religious men bore the brunt of the labour. The Puritans and the Covenanters were the fathers of liberty; the cavaliers and the politicians would have been its death. I find it so also among the Huguenots of France, whose massacre the star of liberty set to that ill-fated land, and cannot rise again for want of such men as Condé and Coligné. It was so also in the United Provinces of Holland, and every country in which liberty hath had any seat. Nevertheless, every religious man must wish well to the present shaking of the nations, as likely to open passages for the light of truth, which heretofore the craft of priests and the power of absolute tyrants have diligently excluded. I pray to Heaven constantly, night and morning, that he would raise up in this day men of the ancient mould, who could join in their ancient wedlock these two helps meet for each other, which are in this day divorced-religion and liberty. As it goes at present, a man who cherishes these two affections within his breast hardly knoweth whither to betake himself; not to the pious, for they have forsworn all interest or regard in civil affairs; not to the schools of politicians, who with almost one consent have cast off the manly virtues and christian graces of the old English reformers. But, by the spirits of our fathers! I ask again, are their child

ren never to see THE REUNION of RELIGIOUS AND FREE-BORN MEN? Have our hearts waxed narrow that they cannot contain both of these noble affections? or, hath God removed his grace from us-from those who consult for freedom, in order to

punish their idolatry of liberty, and demonstrate into what degradation of party-serving and self-seeking this boasted liberty will bring men, when they loose it from the fear of God, who is the only patron of equity and good government. But why, a Lord! dost thou remove thy light from thine own people, the pious of the land? Is it that they may know thou art the God of wisdom no less than of zeal, who requirest the worship of the mind no less than of the heart? Then do thou, after thine ancient loving-kindness, send forth amongst them a spirit of power and of a sound mind, that they may consult for the public welfare of this thine ancient realm, and infuse their pure principles into both its civil and religious concerns.

"It seems to my mind, likewise, when I compare the writings of these patriarchs of church and state with the irreverent and fiery speculations of modern politicians, and the monotonous, unimaginative dogmatizings of modern saints, that the soul of this country hath suffered loss, and become sterile, from the disunion of these two spouses, religion and liberty; and that the vigour of political and religious thoughts hath declined away. There is no nourishment to a righteous breast in the one class, and in the other there is no nourishment to a manly breast; and until harmony between these two be joined, we never shall enjoy such an offspring of mind as formerly was produced in this land to beget its likeness in every heart. When I read the 'Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, the most powerful, it seems to me, of all compositions, ancient or modern, and over against it set the Descent of Liberty, a Mask,' and such like works of modern reformers-when I read the Letters for Toleration,' or the Treatises on Government of Locke and Sydney, and over against them set the Defences and Apologies of moderns persecuted for conscience' sake, (or, as they phrase it, for blasphemy's sake,) I seem to be conversing with creatures in a different sphere in creation. Nor do I feel the element less altered upon me when I pass from the Ecclesiastical Polity' to any modern treatises or eulogies upon the church, or from the Saint's Rest,' to any modern work of practical piety. The grandeur of religious subjects is fallen; the piety of political subjects is altogether deceased. We are mere pigmies in the moral applications of intellect. The discrimination of the age is led astray or fallen asleep, and maketh more account of the most petty novice or student in art or science, of the interpreter of an Egyptian hieroglyphic, or the discoverer of a new Oasis in the great desert of Zaara, than it would, I verily believe, of

the GREATEST SAGE OR MORALIST, if there was ANY CHANCE of Such A PHENOMENON arising, in this physical age.”

And again, in the following passage, which we are not sorry, on many different accounts, to have an opportunity of quoting here.

"I would try these flush and flashy spirits with their own weapons, and play a little with them at their own game. They do but prate about their exploits at fighting, drinking, and death-despising. I can tell them of those who fought with savage beasts; yea of maidens, who durst enter as coolly as a modern bully into the ring, to take their chance with infuriated beasts of prey; and I can tell them of those who drank the molten lead as cheerfully as they do the juice of the grape, and handled the red fire, and played with the bickering flames, as gaily as they do with love's dimples or woman's amorous tresses. And what do they talk of war? Have they forgot Cromwell's iron-band, who made their chivalry to skip ? or the Scots Cameronians, who seven times, with their Christian chief, received the thanks of Marlborough, that first of English captains? or Gustavus of the North, whose camp sung Psalms in every tent? It is not so long, that they should forget Nelson's Methodists, who were the most trusted of that hero's crew. Poor men, they know nothing who do not know out of their country's history, who it was that set at nought the wilfulness of Henry VIII., and the sharp rage of the virgin Queen against liberty, and bore the black cruelty of her popish sister; and presented the petition of rights, and the bill of rights, and the claim of rights. Was it

*

chivalry? was it blind bravery? No; these second-rate qualities may do for a pitched field, or a fenced ring; but when it comes to death or liberty, death or virtue, death or religion, they wax dubious, generally bow their necks under hardship, or turn their backs for a bait of honour, or a mess of solid and substantial meat. This chivalry and brutal bravery can fight if you feed them well and bribe them well, or set them well on edge; but in the midst of hunger and nakedness, and want and persecution, in the day of a country's direst need, they are cowardly, treacherous, and of no avail." We were going to stop here, but the next paragraph, consisting of an ejaculation against the British Soldiery of the present time, is too rich to be omitted.

"Oh these topers, these gamesters, these idle revellers, these hardened death-despisers! they are a nation's disgrace, a nation's downfall. They devour the seed of virtue in the land; they feed on virgin

ity!!! and modesty, and truth. They grow great in crime, and hold a hot war with the men of peace. They sink themselves in debt; they cover their families with disgrace; they are their country's their country's crown, and her rock of deshame. And will they talk about being fence? They have in them a courage of a kind such as Catiline and his conspirators had. They will plunge in blood for crowns and gaudy honours; or, like the bolder animals, they will set on with brutal courage, and, like all animals, they will lift up an arm of defence against those who do them harm. But their soul is consumed with wantonness, and their steadfast principles are dethroned by error; their very frames, their bones and sinews, are effeminated and degraded by vice and dissolute indulgences."

In short, it is clear, that "whatis ruined till we get back the soldiery ever is, is wrong," and that England of Cromwell, the statesmanship of the Rump, and in one word, the political as well as the spiritual predominance of such Orators and Arguers as Mr Edward Irving.-There is all the sulky, savage, sneering malice of another crop-eared Prynne, in that one phrase about Cromwell's iron band making the chivalry of England to skip! It well becomes such a spirit, indeed, to talk about" former times," when "CHRISTIANS were in this island the Princes of human Intellect, the Lights of the world, the Salt of the political and social state," (p. 25.) Princes! Lights! and Salt indeed! This truly is the sort of oracle who is entitled to

power

bellow into the ears of the 66 accomplished," and "imaginative" classes of mankind, that "Christians never will be the MASTERS AND COMMANDING SPIRITS OF THE TIME, until they cast off the withered and wrinkled skin of an obsolete age! and clothe themselves with Intelligence, as with a garment, and bring forth the fruits of and of a sound mind!"-(ibid.) Such assurance would have done no discredit to the most acid roundhead that grinned in front of Charles's scaffold, We beg the reader to compare some of these last sentences of Mr Irving's with that passage quoted a little way back, where he laments over the impossibility of the "Christians" of this time coalescing thoroughly with those " GENEROUS

at Whitehall.

FAVOURERS OF THEIR COUNTRY'S

WEAL, who have foregone in a great degree the noble virtues and Christian graces of the old English patriarchs, and taken in their private characters, more of the manners and Libertinism of Continental Revolutionists." Who, pray, are these Generous Libertines, from whom Mr Edward Irving is so sorry in being separated? Are these the accomplished" and "imaginative" ones whom he would fain draw to his side? We believe, indeed, it could be no difficult matter for a child to answer such questions. The truth of the case lies in a nut-shell. The established order of things in England, above all, in the Church, is at present, attacked by two numerous, but, thank God! by two separate bodies of enemies.-The Generous Libertines on the one side, and on the other side, those who have the blasphemous audacity of arrogating to themselves exclusively, the name of "Christians." No wonder that they who hanker after the memory of "Cromwell and his iron band," should hate this division. No wonder that they should thirst for a coalition that might perhaps make once more the chivalry of England to skip! No wonder that these "Christians" should call the Libertines they want to gain by such pretty names as "Generous favourers of their country's weal,”— &c. &c. &c.

Mr Irving complains bitterly in another passage, thus: "We,we Christians, have lost the manly regard of our fathers for liberty and good government, and crouched into slavish sentiments of passive obedience." (p. 244.) Does not this furnish a sufficient clew to Mr Irving's drift?-Yes, we do not fear to say it, go who will to hear this man thunder out his orations and his arguments, that the book this man has published is embued throughout with a strain of most dangerous sentiment.

He wants to make the "Generous favourers of their country's weal" Christians, and he wants to make the Christians ashamed of having "lost the old manly regard for liberty," and "crouched into obedience!" Lay these two strings that he has to his bow together, and let any man, whether

accomplished and imaginative," or not, doubt if he can, what is the arrow that the reverend man would fain see his bow loaded with.-Such a way of judging may appear harsh and hasty

we assure our readers it is not hasty; and if it be harsh, let Mr Irving speak English, and we shall endeavour not to misunderstand him another time.

In spite of a few pretty complimentary phrases used now and then in the course of his production, we cannot doubt that Mr Irving's main intention it to attack the Church of England. It is certainly of no great consequence what, as an individual, he does, or does not attack; but we are extremely sorry indeed to observe, that this tone is by no means an uncommon one at present among the ultras of the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland. We can easily understand that these people should prefer having a church like their own established in the sister kingdoms, if they could manage that point-but it is clear enough, that of this they can have no serious hope whatever. They well know, that if the Episcopal Church of England perish, no established Church whatever can come in its place. They well know, that the Sectaries are too much divided, and too fierce in their spleen against each other. They are willing, therefore, to lend a hand in pulling down the present Church of England, although in the knowledge that there never could be any other Church of England. They flatter themselves that although the Church of England were pulled down to-morrow, the Kirk of Scotland would stand fast and be in no sort of danger. They therefore go on continually decrying the sister church and extolling their own in the same breath, and Mr Irving, among the rest, loses no opportunity of raving about Baxter, and the old non-conformists, as if these were the only clerical names really worthy of the gratitude and veneration of the people of England-really worthy of being reverenced on a par, to say no more, with those of the Knoxes and Melvilles, &c. of the Presbyterian Establishment in Scotland.

Not the least extraordinary part of this humbug is, that these people are eternally abusing the Church of England, as a Church too closely united with the state and the affairs of state-and lauding their own Church for its freedom from all such connection-and this at the very same time that they are hankering most eagerly after the restoration of that state-of matters which prevailed in the days

of the Knoxes and the Prynnes! There never were any churchmen in the world who interfered in politics more fiercely and proudly and sternly than John Knox and the men of his school, both in England and in Scotland. They were the most ambitious of priests-Bating the difference of their doctrines, they were just so many proud sulky popish monks-they had all the rancour of a Caste, all the thoroughgoing ambition of a plebeian faction. We do not mean to deny that, with all these faults, they had many excellencies, and that they produced much good in more ways than one to the country-quite the reverse. But we do think, and, thinking, we do not hesitate to say, that the idea of wishing for the resurrection of the political as well as ecclesiastical predominancy of men of that spirit, is absurdly at variance with the mind of the nation and of the age-and certainly most woefully at variance with the feelings of those more cultivated classes to which this Mr Irving seems so ambitious of exclusively addressing his

orations.

But the truth is, nothing can be more ridiculous than the notion prevalent among a particular class of our Scottish churchmen, that their establishment would not be shaken by the downfall of the Church of England. It is very true, that their stipends are moderate, and that their establishment is, on the whole, as little burthensome as any establishment could well be. But this is not the question. There is a very great body of Dissenters in Scotland too-a great and an increasing_body of Presbyterian Dissenters. The clergymen of these sects in Scotland are, it is notorious, just as well educated, as learned, as eloquent, and every way as respectable, as those of the Established Kirk. Nay, it is a singular enough fact, that in our own day, the two men who have done most for the literary reputation of the Presbyterian clerical order in Scotland, are not members of the Established Presbyterian Church at all. What has the Kirk of Scotland produced in these days that can sustain a moment's comparison with the Dictionary of Dr Jamieson, and the Historical Works of

Dr M'Crie? These are books which will keep their place hundreds of years after fifty Chalmerses, (yes,

even Chalmerses,) are quite forgotten. And will these people and the leaders they may so well be proud of having-will all these sit silently and submit to be held in an inferior place by the clergy of the Kirk, when they see England set free from a Churchestablishment altogether? The supposition is ridiculous. The thing will not stand for four-and-twenty hours.

But the Presbyterian Dissenters are not all. There is a prodigious body of Episcopalians in Scotland. At this moment, there is scarcely a single noble family in Scotland that is not Episcopalian. Almost all the higher gentry are in the same way. Perhaps it would not be saying too much to say, that fully Two-THIRDS of the landed property in Scotland are at this hour in the hands of Episcopalian proprietors. Now the land, and the land alone, is burthened with the maintenance of the kirk establishment. It is very true, that the burden is, comparatively speaking, light, and easy to be borne; yet, if the gentry of England were set entirely free of tithes, does any one believe that the gentry of Scotland would submit willingly to any payment, however moderate, of tiends? No; backed by the great Presbyterian dissenting bodies, the landed men of Scotland would certainly rise in an instant against the continuance of such a system. It is a great pity that it should be so; but, in point of fact, the nobles and the higher gentry of SCOTLAND, are, with very few exceptions, in these days, ENGLISHMEN. There is not one of the higher nobility of Scotland that spends, on an average, more than two nights in the year in the metropolis of Scotland. There is not one of them that has a house there; when they come thither, they are strangers, and put up at a hotel, just as they would do in Amsterdam or Paris. Every Scotch gentleman who can afford it, carries his family not to Edinburgh, but to London. With few exceptions, the young men of fashion and fortune are all chiefly educated in England. England is everything; Scotland is nothing but a place to get rents from, and to shoot grouse in for a few weeks after the rising of Parliament. These people are all English--their speech is English-their prejudices are English; more than half of their blood is in most instances English blood. These people will certainly oppose as much

as in them lies the downfall of the venerable Church of England; but, that once down, is it anything less than craziness and mere imbecility to dream that they will make a second, and a more successful battle, for the purpose of upholding the Kirk establishment of Scotland?- -a Church of which they are not, and have not for a long while been, accustomed to consider themselves as, in any true sense of the word, members an establishment with which they have long ceased to have any connexion, except that of paying for it, and of appointing the ministers, (which last benefit, by the way, cannot be supposed to be held at any very high value, seeing that the Kirks of Scotland bave long ago ceased to be looked upon as convenient shelves for the younger sons even of the poorer orders of the Scottish gentry.).

When Mr Irving laments over the want of sympathy and close union between what he is pleased to call," WE, WE CHRISTIANS," and "THE GENEROUS FAVOURERS OF THEIR COUNTRY's WEAL, WHO HAVE IN THEIR PRIVATE

MANNERS ADOPTED THE LIBERTI

NISM OF FRANCE," we are well aware that what he really weeps over is the Toryism, generally speaking, and certainly the steady loyalty, of that great party within the Church of England, which is commonly distinguished, we shall not ask how improperly, by the name of the Evangelical party. He preaches and publishes in London, therefore it cannot be doubted that this is what the orator means. It is, however, not a bit the less true, that there is a great deal too much sympathy and union just at present between certain infidel enemies of the Church of England and certain other enemies of hers. It is the great reproach of a very considerable party in the Kirk of Scotland, for example, that they have suffered themselves, on many very important occasions, to be led into a shameful copartnership and co-operation with men who abstain from attacking their church now, only because they see (what the others would have seen long ago, had not the bile of conceit and prejudice blinded them,) that the most effectual way of ruining that minor and poorer, but equally hated establishment, is to begin with sapping the foundations of the more extensive and imposing structure in the sister country. We need not go into close

particulars. What we say will be intelligible enough to everybody that lives in Scotland, and to the great majority of those who do not live in Scotland also. We may just hint, however, in a single sentence, that the subscription for HONE, to take one example, was aided and abetted here in Scotland, not only by the Edinburgh Reviewers, but by many ruling elders, who figure among the loudest and most strenuous orators in our General Assemblies upon the ultra-Whig and ultra-Presbyterian side of the Kirk. This is true; let who will say that this is right. It is really enough to make one laugh to see how good, worthy, shortsighted men are taken in by a few flummery paragraphs about them and their immaculate Kirk, and their liberality! by people whose real intentions are scarcely covered by any veil at all, except when, for particular purposes, they are endeavouring to conciliate those, who, if they had as much wit as we cannot doubt they have honesty, would be the foremost and most unrelenting enemies of such a crew.

There is much that the truly respectable clergy of the Church of England might do well to notice, and to imitate in the clergy of the sister Church here in Scotland-their strict resi dence; their humble, zealous visitations of their people; their uniform and undivided attention to the duties of their calling and their cures. There is, on the other hand, much that the clergy of Scotland ought to imitate and rival in the character of their English brethren; above all, in that thorough scholarship, both professional and extra-professional, which, in spite of all the sneers of the Irvings et hoc genus, has rendered, and now keeps the attacks of infidel writers and infidel orators ineffectual in Britain. The clergy of Scotland do their duty admirably, in their parishes most admirably; and they deserve, and they possess, the warmest good wishes of every lover of the Truth within the country where there ministry is exercised. But what would have become of the cause of Christianity over all Britain, long ere now, had there been no better fighters for that cause against the great army of infidel wits, than Scotland, and the Church of Scotland, has of late years reared? Had there been no Watsons, no Horsleys, no Paleys, in the last age, what would have been the condition