is known by, an external profession of Christianity, without regard in any respect had to the moral virtues or spiritual graces of any member of that body. "If by external profession they be Christians, then are they of the visible Church of Christ and Christians by external profession they are all, whose mark of recognizance hath in it those things which we have mentioned, yea, although they be impious idolaters, wicked heretics, persons excommunicable, yea, and cast out for notorious improbity. Such withal we deny not to be the imps and limbs of Satan, even as long as they continue such." (E. P. III. c. i. s. 7. Keble's edit. vol. i. p. 431.)

With this Warburton and Coleridge in general terms agree. (Alliance, &c. II. c. ii. s. 2.-Church and State, p. 139.) And the words of the nineteenth Article, though apparently of a more restricted import, may be presumed not to mean less.

But, further, Hooker insists that the Church, existing in any particular country, and the State are one and the same society, contemplated in two different relations, "A Commonwealth we name it simply in regard of some regiment or policy under which men live; a Church for the truth of that religion which they profess. When we oppose the Church, therefore, and the Commonwealth in a Christian society, we mean by the Commonwealth that society with relation unto all the public affairs thereof, only the matter of true religion excepted; by the Church, the same society

***

with only reference unto the matter of true religion, without any other affairs besides when that society, which is both a Church and a Commonwealth, doth flourish in those things which belong unto it as a Commonwealth, we then say, the Commonwealth doth flourish;' when in those things which concern it as a Church, the Church doth flourish;' when in both, then the Church and Commonwealth flourish together.'" (E. P. VIII. c. i. s. 5. vol. iii. p. 420—1.)

To this view Warburton, as is well known, is directly opposed. He argues that, although two societies may be so closely related to each other as to have one common suppositum,—that is, the same natural persons being exclusively members of each,―the societies themselves, as such, are factitious bodies, and each of them must therefore of necessity be distinct in personality and will from the other. "The artificial man, society, is much unlike the natural; who being created for several ends hath several interests to pursue, and several relations to consult, and may therefore be considered under several capacities, as a religious, a civil, and a rational animal; and yet they all make but one and the same man. But one and the same political society cannot be considered in one view, as a religious-in another, as a civil-and in another, as a literary-community. One society can be precisely but one of these communities." (Alliance, &c. ii. c. v.) Accordingly Warburton insists, in opposition to Hooker, that the Puritan

premiss,—that the Church and the State are distinct and originally independent societies,-was and is the truth; but he denies the Puritan inference, that such independency must therefore be perpetual; — affirming the existence of an alliance between these two societies upon certain terms; and a resulting mutual inter-dependency of one on the other; whereby the consequence from the position of the Puritans— an imperium in imperio, or subjugation of the State to the Church, and the consequence from the position of Hooker-the enslavement of the Church by the State—are equally precluded. The Church subordinates itself to the State upon faith of certain stipulations for support by the latter; and if the State violates, or withdraws from the fulfillment of, those stipulations, the Church is thereby remitted to her original independence.*

Now so far as the distinct inter-dependency of the State and the Church is in question, Coleridge agrees with Warburton. But the peculiarity of his system, as expressly laid down in this work and incidentally mentioned in many of his other writings, a peculiarity fruitful in the most im

* It is worthy of remark that, if Warburton had lived in these days, and had adhered to the principles advocated by him in this treatise, he must several years ago have declared the terms of convention between the Church and State in this country violated by the latter, and the alliance of the two at an end. See his third book, and especially the second chapter. It is to be observed, also, that Warburton confounds the Christian with the Established Church as much as Hooker. See B. II. c. iii. 3.

portant consequences—is grounded on a distinction taken between the visible Church of Christ, as localized in any Christian country, and the National or Established Church of that country. Distinction, be it observed, not separation,—for the two ideas

-bene conveniunt, et in una sede morantur;

they not only may co-exist in the same suppositum, but may require an identity of subject in order to the complete development of the perfections of either. According to Coleridge, then, the Christian Church is not a kingdom or realm of this world, nor a member of any such kingdom or realm; it is not opposed to any particular State in the large or narrow sense of the word; it is in no land national, and the national Reserve is not entrusted to its charge. It is, on the contrary, the opposite to the World only; the counterforce to the evils and defects of States, as such, in the abstract, asking of any particular State neither wages nor dignities, but demanding protection, that is, to be let alone.

With so much therefore of the preceding and all other theories as considers any branch of the Church of Christ, as such, in the character of a National Establishment, and arrogates to it, as such, upon any ground, worldly riches, rank or power-Coleridge is directly at variance. But we have already seen (V. VI. VII. VIII.) that there is, nevertheless, in this and in almost every other

country raised above the level of barbarism a Church, which is strictly and indefeasibly National; and in the ideal history herein presented of its origin and primary elements, its endowment, its uses, duties, ends, and objects, its relation to the State, and its present representatives, a solemn warning is recorded of the fatal consequences of either confounding it with, or separating it from, the visible Church of Christ.

The Christian Church is a public and visible community, having ministers of its own, whom the State can neither constitute nor degrade, and whose maintenance amongst Christians is as secure as the command of Christ can make it: for so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. (1. Cor. ix. 14.) The National Church is a public and visible community, having ministers whom the Nation, through the agency of a Constitution, hath created trustees of a reserved national fund, upon fixed terms and with defined duties, and whom, in case of breach of those terms or dereliction of those duties, the Nation, through the same agency, may discharge. "If the former be Ecclesia, the communion of such as are called out of the World, that is, in reference to the especial ends and purposes of that communion; the latter might more expressively have been called Enclesia, or an order of men chosen in and of the realm, and constituting an estate of the realm."

Now there is no reason why the ministers of the