amination of the Constitution of the Church of Eng. land, as described in a rare tract of 1667, with all its An Analysis of the Church of England, as at present existing-The King, as its head, of no use but to plunder it, as it plunders the people-Instances of this head doing as it likes with its own- The Arch- bishops not to be found in Scripture-where they are to be found-The theory of Splendour and Grand Prizes dissected-The boasted Prizes of the Church the same which the Devil offered to Our Saviour- Bishops of England, and Bishops of Christ-Prelacy denounced by the early Reformers, and by many of the later Dignitaries-Old Hugh Latimer's opinion of Lord Bishops-Tyndal's testimony-Dr. King's -Blackwood's Magazine-Deans and Chapters an Excrescence-No effective Discipline in the Church -The Parochial Clergy independent of both Bishop and People-A drunken Curate, and his odd Work in the pulpit-Our anxiety about all elections but the election of our Preachers-only assignable reason for this Anomaly of National Character-Patronage of Government-of Bishops-Petticoat Simony- Hogarth's Ass laden with Preferments-Simony in general-A Holy Agent's Circular-Scott the Com- mentator's opinion of Dealers in Men's Souls-Si- monists not be bound by an Oath-Consequences of Patronage and Simony to the Church - Mr. Acaster's opinion-Blackwood's Magazine, on Church A CHAPTER OF WORTHIES-Impolicy of waiting for Bad his Country Parson, an excellent parish priest's manual-William Mompesson-The Missionaries, Eliot, Zeisberger, Brainerd, Swartz, Hans Egede, the Moravians in Greenland and Labrador-Oberlin and Neff-How is the Church of England to become filled with such Men ?-By asserting its Freedom Confirmation in the Country-its Picturesque and Poeti- Retrospective View of the Effects of Priestcraft-The PRIESTCRAFT IN ALL AGES. CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF PRIESTCRAFT. THIS unfortunate world has been blasted in all ages by two evil principles-Kingcraft and Priestcraftthat, taking advantage of human necessities, in themselves not hard-salutary, and even beneficial in their natural operation-the necessity of civil government, and that of spiritual instruction, have warped them cruelly from their own pure direction, and converted them into the most odious, the most terrible and disastrous scourges of our race. These malign powers have ever begun, as it were, at the wrong end of things. Kingcraft, seizing upon the office of civil government, not as the gift of popular choice, and to be filled for the good of nations, but with the desperate hand of physical violence, has proclaimed that it was not made for man, but man for it-that it possessed an inherent and divine right to rule, to trample upon mens' hearts, to violate their dearest rights, to scatter their limbs and their blood at its pleasure upon the earth; and, in return for its atrocities, to be worshipped on bended knee, and hailed as a god. Its horrors are on the face of every nation; its annals are written in gore in all civilized B climes; and, where pen never was known, it has scored its terrors in the hearts of millions, and left its traces in deserts of everlasting desolation, and in the ferocious spirits of abused and brutalized hordes. What is all the history of this wretched planet but a mass of its bloody wrath and detestable oppressions, whereby it has converted earth into a hell; men into the worst of demons; and has turned the human mind from its natural pursuit of knowledge, and virtue, and social happiness, into a career of blind rage, bitter and foolish prejudices; an entailment of awful and crime-creating ignorance; and has held the universal soul of man in the blackest and most pitiable of bondage? Countless are its historians; we need not add one more to the unavailing catalogue: but, of That sister-pest, congrégator of slaves I do not know that there has been one man who has devoted himself solely and completely to the task of tracing its course of demoniacal devastation. Many of its fiendish arts and exploits, undoubtedly, are embodied in what is called ecclesiastical history; many are presented to us in the chronicles of kingcraft; for the two evil powers have ever been intimately united in their labours. They have mutually and lovingly supported each other; knowing that individually they are "weak as stubble," yet conjointly, Can bind Into a mass irrefragably firm The axes and the rods which awe mankind. Thus, through this pestilential influence, we must admit that too much of its evil nature has been forced on our observation incidentally; but no one clear and complete picture of it has been presented |