equally on those who are adverse and those who adhere to them, and to judge whether such a change as we suggest would not be useful. We give them full credit for zeal against Popery-we know their conviction of the truth and their earnestness for it, and we are convinced that they feel the peculiar state of Ireland. A small Protestant and a large Popish population-darkness that may be felt, and partial illumination: if that little light flash irregularly, it will be impotent to dispel the settled shades; and a division of force gives real power to our opponents. It is useless to talk of an identity of purpose, if there be not an identity of interest-the least appearance of division is seized on by the foe, and a separation on grounds which do not implicate in the least, any essential differences, is yet made to assume the appearance of an opposition on the grounds of salvation. There is not one point more likely to impede the progress of the Reformation, than a division among Protestants, even when the division is but nominal; and by the anxiety of the Roman Catholics to separate the cause of the Church and the Dissenters, we may learn how injurious to their interests they believe an union* to be. We can assure our Presbyterian brethren, that so sensible are our foes of the importance to them of disunion that they have ever grounded on it their strongest arguments against Protestantism, and ever put forward on that point their claim to superiority. To excite this in Ireland and in England, have all their efforts of late been directed, and we know not with what effect, had not the madness of their priests, and the folly of their leaders, by attacking the Word of God, developed the true character of their pretensions, and divided the Protestant Dissenter from the Papist.

But we have another and a more personal argument to offer to our Presbyterian friends: There is a deep and a serious wound implanted in their own vitals; there is an arrow infixed, which no power of their own can remove, so long as they continue a separate body, disunited by country from Scotland, and by discipline from Ireland. We need not tell their friends, for they feel it; and we need not tell their enemies, for they rejoice in it; that for nearly an hundred years, the boast of orthodoxy in Ulster, has been an empty boast; that heresy has crept into the very sanctuary, and under the specious pretext of liberality and freedom, has placed Arianism and Socinianism in those pulpits which had been consecrated to the worship of the Triune God, by the Confessors of another period. The Presbytery of Antrim, and the Synod of Munster, will not deny the charge, which published sermons can prove, and authorized statements lament; while these very statements exhibit the insufficiency of the discipline of the Church to counteract or to amend it. Any portion of the Synod of Ulster,

This feeling was manifested in a remarkable degree, when some Episcopal chapels in the diocese of Dublin lately received the sanction of the Archbishop.

may assume to itself the power of dispensing with the only criterion which they have for orthodoxy, or correctness of faith: and if a Lindsay, or a Disney, happen to gain the upper hand in a Presbytery, the creed of Martyrs and Confessors is laid aside; and an Arian, or a Socinian, may mount the pulpit of à Livingston and a Kirkstone. Indeed, we have read with deep regret and sorrow, the confessions of the excellent men who were examined by the Commissioners of Education; but while réjoicing that we belonged to a Church which had no such anomaly as they complained of, we felt that in that Church there was to be found a comprehension, ample as liberality could desire, yet narrowed as much as orthodoxy could wish, and the thought of this article was conceived on the perusal.

The Presbyterians of Ireland are, we believe, either Calvinistic, Arminian of the class properly termed evangelical, or Arian, and of the lower grades. Now the Articles of the Church of England, while they would admit both the former classes, which the too precise limits of the Westminster Confession separate, exclude effectually the last, who are now by the relaxation which has crept in, deemed members of that very Church against whose creeds and confessions they protest. To these Articles, which assuredly have been framed with great prospective prudence and wisdom, the orthodox among the Presbyterians have declared their willingness to assent; they admit all who hold the grand essentials of Christianity, who adore in the mysterious scheme of man's unmerited redémption, the wisdom, the love, the sanctifying influence of a Triune God, while they reject every approximation to the errors which would with unhallowed boldness degrade the Saviour of the world. They explicitly preserve all that is important in the mysterious and half revealed councils of the Godhead; and they allow the humble-minded Christian, where they are silent, to follow out under the guidance of Scripture the mind of the Spirit. They avoid, on one hand, the too accurate definitions which by overstraining the Calvinistic confessions, assisted in introducing latitudinarianism and schism; and on the other they most carefully eschew the tendency to coldness of doctrine and laxity of discipline which it would seem more difficult to shun. While they are so precise and definite that the Pelagian or the Arian cannot find footing in the Church for the sole of his foot, they pretend not to systematise the unrevealed councils of the Most High, or to define with philosophic accuracy his mode of dealing with his creatures. Within the bounds of scriptural limits they permit the utmost freedom of enquiry, but the bold speculator who would soar beyond the circuit of revelation finds his flight narrowed and checked. Highly as we respect the Wesminster Confession, and deeply as we admire that ornament of the Irish Church who framed the Irish Articles, in vain do we look in either for the tempered moderation, or the scriptural accuracy which marks the creed of the National Church, and we cannot but think that less precision and more moderation would have perhaps impeded the schism in Ireland,

and prevented the too common reproach of latitudinarianism in Scotland. To those articles we believe that very few of the Presbyterians either Calvinistic or Arminian would have any objec tion; they would be common ground on which all evangelical pastors might meet; they would be, in the best sense, articles of peace against which no one would contend, but they who reject all creeds and articles, except those which they themselves impose; and even such, though they might shrink from the word impose," must join in commending the union of orthodoxy and moderation which is so conspicuous in our formularies.

We trust that in the preceding observations we shall be forgiven for having spoken perhaps too freely of the lamentable division in doctrine and laxity in discipline which prevail in the Presbyterian body: it is a matter of notoriety; it is now a matter of record, and we have the solemn confession and regrets of their most valuable ministers. We might hope, that pressed by heresy on one side and schism on the other, the excellent men who take philosophic and Christian views of the affairs of their body would see the advantage of a second union with a Church which could guard them against both, which would enable them to repel the charge of indifference to the truth, and without compromising one principle, would gain them a vantage ground from which to repel equally the Papist and the Arian; which would leave those who adhere to error unsanctioned by the respectability of a name, would vindicate themselves from the reproaches of impotence or coldness, and would remove the anomaly which they lament of having an orthodox creed which they cannot enforce, and members of the same synod to whom they cannot give the right hand of fellowship.

We are aware that although very many would assent to the force of the above observations, and perhaps the respectable individuals on whose evidence we have remarked would be the foremost, yet the distance between such assent and a junction with Episcopacy may seem to be very great. We confess that it is so, and we confess too that there is a power in the scruples of a conscientious objector, which equally disarms censure and weakens argument. Never be it our task, as assuredly it is removed from our wish, to trample on the feelings of a delicate mind, or to undervalue the force of principle however strained. We seriously deem our cause sufficiently strong in its appeal to reason and to feeling, and that our Church admits no sacrifices but the free will offerings of affection and reason. We do then believe that many have a scrupulous objection to Episcopacy, but we feel convinced that the objection is very much more matter of tradition and feeling than of reason-we believe that the days in which Prelacy was linked with Popery have given place to clearer and less refracting skies, and that the horror of lawn sleeves has ceased with the morbid terror of the other vestments. Even they who found their dissent upon principle have, we are inclined to think, come to opinions not very remote from those of

many conscientious Episcopalians; and believing that Church Government is not so defined in Scripture as to render its form an object of faith, adhere to the presbytery from the very principle of expediency which attaches the Episcopalian to his mitred hierarchy. To such persons, arguments from expediency must have weight, and these arguments in favour of a regular Charch Government, and derived from the evils of independence and popular election, are ministered by every moment. We now see respectable and conscientious Presbyterians educating their sons for the ministry of the Established Church, and they themselves attending the service of that Church, and participating in its most sacred rites; and we rejoice that the days of bigotry and of persecution are over, and that no imaginary differences, no unreal spectres can fright from "the bond of peace" those who agree in "the unity of the Spirit." The Church of Ireland too is on an high and a commanding elevation: she has vindicated her rights without asperity, and reformed her abuses without revolution. She has maintained in a very trying period the ecclesiastical purity of her character, without sullying it by party or political broils; and she has brought into the controversies of the day a zeal, an earnestness, a piety and a talent, which have won her the affections, and have secured her the respect of the candid and Christian dissenter. Union with such a Church, with whose principles the Ulster Presbyterian agrees, and with whose lay and clerical children he deems it a privilege to hold communion*-union with such a Church may be proposed without offending a single prejudice, if prejudices indeed exist;-but if they exist they are on the wane, the dissenting congregation is frequently found filling the aisles of the parish Church; the parish Minister frequently hallows the dedication of the Presbyterian's infant to its God, and social spiritual intercourse is not as heretofore determined by the walls of the meeting-house and the Cathedral. We deem it unnecessary to anticipate any obstacles arising from minor objections, from such as would have possessed some force in the days of Baxter or Cartwright. We are inclined to believe that very few Dissenters would seriously object to a liturgical service, which has the sanction of great antiquity, and the authority, we believe, of every Protestant Church on the ContiOur prayer-book, we know, has many admirers among them, and that a very slight indulgence of prejudices, or a very

nent.

*For testimony to the feelings with which the Presbyterians regard the Church of Ireland, and the advantages which they enjoy from its zeal, we would refer to the evidence of the Rev. Mr. Cooke, before the Commissioners of Education.

+ That the Liturgy is not unacceptable to our Presbyterian brethren may be inferred from the fact, that they have for domestic devotion'a selection of our prayers; and it is well known that Bishops Hacket and Bull have excited the admiration of the dissenters to our Offices when they recited them from memory. We have had occasion to know that one of the most deservedly respected ministers of the Independents in Ireland, has used without scruple the Marriage Service of our Liturgy.

partial correction, to which the most zealous Churchman might consent, (for we do not claim infallibility,) would induce them universally to give up what has a tendency to become rather the form than the reality of extemporaneous addresses, and ad. mit them to the exquisite spiritual enjoyment of that form of sound words which is intelligible without being familiar, fervent without being enthusiastic, which possesses all the comprehensiveness of premeditated devotion, with all the freshness of occasional effusion. This and other objections would be met and remedied in the detail, if Providence would consummate what is so much to be desired. Even what is apparently so formidable, the elective power in the congregation, would be far from insurmountable. This same power is enjoyed in the licensed Episcopal Chapels connected with the Establishment, and no inconvenience is found to result from the acknowledged superintendence of the Bishop. Great disadvantages we know have arisen from the popular mode of appointment, where the government is too democratic; congregations have remained for months without a pastor; and when introduced, he has been received but by a portion of his flock, who have lost the bond of Christian peace in the anxieties of a popular canvass. It should be remembered too, that these very inconveniences have induced in many Presbyterian places of worship a modification of this right, and that the Church with which they are, at least in name, united, has a system of patronage far more objectionable than that which is placed in the guardians of the Establishment, and sanctioned by individual interest and public opinion.

We know not but that we may have contemplated this subject until we have given an imaginary value to its attainment, and diminished proportionably the intervening obstacles. We may be accused too of entrenching on ground which belongs only to the dignified guardians of our Church to occupy, and that it is not our part to propose measures which should, ab initio, have been sanctioned by them. If we know ourselves, we shall never be wanting in the respect and obedience to those Prelates, which it is our duty and our privilege to pay; we doubt not that such convictions as our's have frequently been presented to their minds; but while their station perhaps prevents them seeing as minutely, and feeling as keenly the agitating circumstances of middle life, that very station imposes a restraint on the declaration of opinion, because that opinion would be invested with the importance of rank and office. We have therefore ventured to put forward, with hesitation we confess, but we hope equally with respect and affection, those observations, which are the result of some experience, and the dictates of sincere good-will. At a time when in this country,*

• Ireland is peculiarly fitted for trying this interesting experiment. No political rivalry exists between the Establishment and the Presbyterians. "The disqualification of the Test Act, late imposed and early removed" has left both in possession of equal political privileges, and the protection afforded by Government to the Pres