society, and send a minister to the vacant district, paid by voluntary subscription,-or for the people of that district to unite among themselves and support a minister congregationally. Either of these steps could be taken, and no parish churches closed. The objection you have stated comes to nothing more than this, that a government might by a most unrighteous and unprincipled act withdraw the funds for the payment of a minister in certain places, and compel the church to raise funds some other way. And what objection is all this to the church? It is an objection that tells with equal weight against any established church-against the Scottish church-against yourselves. Might not a government withdraw the legal provision by which many a pastor in Scotland is supported? Might not a government by one act of legislation withdraw one fourth, one half, any or all, of the regium donum, and make it impossible, or next to impossible for a minister to subsist in certain districts. And in this sense, would it not be as true of you as of us, that an infidel government might determine how many ministers the Synod of Ulster might have.' 'Nay,' you reply for if a government so acted, we would not have our number of ministers determined by them, we should support the number deficient ourselves; we should raise collections, we would allocate a portion of our own stipends to provide for the support of the disinherited pastors.' And, I pray you, Reverend Sir, could not we do the same; what could there be to prevent the church from determining that if the government cut off one hundred ministers (that is withdrew the incomes of one hundred ministers,) we would provide one hundred in their stead. I repeat it, this

objection of yours is an utter sophism. No government could tell the church of England that the number of her ministers must be limited at its pleasure. I cannot express the church's power, or what I think would be her resolution in this matter, in better language than your own, 'Did the queen or parliament lay a finger on some of our congregations, and say, you shall have no pastor there, we would reply, we planted one there without your leave, and we shall keep one there despite of your command.' The case has been tried. An effort was made for six long and trying years to banish the clergy of the church of Ireland from their parishes. Intimidation was tried, and spoliation was tried, and assassination was tried. There were many of our ministers suffering during that period the want of all things; many who saw their children destitute of comforts, of decencies, of necessaries. But were the churches closed, or the ministrations abandoned. No, the servants of Christ maintained their posts and refused to turn back in the day of battle. The sympathy of Britain was roused, and the generosity of episcopalian England told an irresolute government that the Irish church should not be abandoned. The resources which were poured in were pledges on the part of the Anglican church that her sister should not perish while she could uphold her. They were more, they were an indignant summons to a timid legislature to arouse and do their duty. The

things that have been, shall be.' Let the hour come, when a government decrees the withdrawal of income from any of our parishes, and the innate and as yet undeveloped energy of the church will fill up the channel from which the usual tide may have ebbed.

LETTER V.

THE POWER OF A CHURCH TO DECREE CEREMONIES. -FORMS OF PRAYER-THE LITURGY.

TO THE REV. ALEXANDER P. GOUDY,

PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER OF STRABANE.

REV. SIR,

I do not intend to offer any observations on the style or temper of your discourse. On you they would be lost, and for the public they are unnecessary. A discourse which has deservedly received the condemnation of all who can discriminate between Christian controversy and sectarian bitterness, purchases for itself the indignity of being uncriticised.

We are at issue upon principles and practices. The usages of the Church of England are not the alone objects of your censure, your condemnation falls with equal severity upon the principles on which most of them are built. It must therefore be my duty to examine these heads of disputation in detail.

In the volume entitled, Sermons on the Church,' a considerable portion of one discourse is devoted to

the examination of the principle asserted in the 20th Article, the power of a Church to decree rites and ceremonies. It is this power which you question, and that on several grounds, the solidity of which I shall consider presently. It is my immediate object to substantiate the proofs on which I vindicate that principle, and to shew that you have utterly failed in your attempt to overthrow them.

You have

hinted a doubt' respecting the genuineness of this Article ; not going the full length of explicitly asserting that it was not framed along with the other articles in the time of the Reformation, but labouring to leave an impression on the mind of your readers, that it was forged by Archbishop Laud, and that he was accused of the forgery at his trial. To this it is only necessary to reply, that his accusers must have been equally unfortunate with yourself in their ideas of chronology, inasmuch as the 20th Article is found in all the copies of all the Articles of the times of Elizabeth, and the trial of Laud took place in the reign of Charles I. How a man could have forged an Article which was printed, attested, and registered before he was born, I must leave it to your learning to explain,'

I perceive that with the usual dexterity, which distinguishes controversalists of your school, you have done but half justice to the Church of England, You have

1 I have mentioned the copies of the Articles of the times of Elizabeth, because the original copies were consumed in the fire of London. It is however, amply sufficient for my purpose, that the copies of 1562 contain this article as we have it. Certain it is, that Laud met the absurd accusation by appealing to the ancient documents which he obtained from the library of Lambeth.

seemed to exist no necessity for either the possession or the exercise of such a power as that for which I contend, that was the Church of Israel. And now what is the fact respecting that Church? Does her history prove that she acted upon the conviction that God had so arranged every thing, as to make it sinful or presumptuous in her to add any thing to his appointments? Does it shew that Israel's ecclesiastical system remained from first to last absolutely the same as it had been in the lifetime of Moses,-that no alteration, no addition ever took place within it? Quite the reverse. If we examine that church in the days of David, of Ezra, of Christ, we shall find many things introduced into it, I which were neither ordained or alluded to when God constructed its platform at Sinai. We find the feast of Purim regularly observed, the feast of the dedication statedly celebrated, festivals commemorative of different remarkable events in Israel's history, fixed and solemnly kept;1 we find that baptism was administered, that ceremonies accompanied both marriages and burials. that a peculiar hymn was sung at the celebration of the passover, and the cup of charity on the same occasion constantly used. Nay, more, we find that matters of infinitely greater moment than the introduction of a few ceremonies were sanctioned by the competent authorities in the Jewish Church, that a new order of service, different in all respects from that of the tabernacle or temple was permitted, that synagogues were built in the length and breadth of the land, and ministers appointed for the conduct of the worship peculiar to them. And if we ask for Bible

1 Zech. viii. 19.