f

creed, which they justly assert is the strict literal creed of the church according to the Thirty-nine Articles ; and advocate a reform in the manners, and a renewed zeal in the spirit of the clergy. Mr. Acaster, one of their own body, tells us that almost all varieties of doctrine have been, or may be, found amongst the ministers of the Establishment. When we add to this that whereas in other countries the church is under the government of one deliberative body, and is in this split into two houses of convocation, we have before us a picture of unconnectedness that is perfectly amazing.

This is but a melancholy sketch of the history of this celebrated church; but it is one so broadly, copiously, and overwhelmingly delineated in the annals of the nation at large, that it cannot be controverted; -a history, as that of every state religion must be, of power usurping the throne of conscience; thrusting the spirit of the people from free address to, and communion with their God; and in refusal of obedience-an obedience more deadly and shameful than the most outrageous resistance could possibly be-following them with the fire and sword of extermination; or if that were not allowed, with the sneers and taunts of contempt. Alas! that such should be the miserable results of the reformation, which at first promised such glorious fruits; that the blood of martyrs, and the fervid prayers and mighty exertions of the noblest intellects, and holiest men, should be spent so much in vain.

But such ever has been, and ever will be the result of that great fundamental error, of linking in unnatural union church and state; of making the church of Christ, who has himself declared that "his kingdom is not of this world," a tool of ambitious kings and rulers.

The nature of the Christian religion is essentially free; the voice of Christ proclaims to men-" the truth shall make you free!" The spirit of Christianity is so delicate in its sensibility, that it shrinks from the touch of the iron and blood-stained hand of political rule; it is so boundless in its aspirations, and expansive in its energies, that it must stand on the broad champaign of civil and intellectual liberty, ere it can stretch its wings effectively for that flight which is destined to encompass the earth, and end only in eternity. And what has been the consequence of attempting to chain this free spirit to the car of state? Why, that in its days of earlier union, arbitrary power sought to quench in its own sacred name, its own very life!-pursued with fire, sword, fetters, dungeons, and death, its primest advocates. The history of dissent is full of these horrors: and Ireland, in which the same system was pursued; and Scotland, that sooner than submit to it, rose and stood to the death in many a mountain pass and bloody valley, can testify to the same odious policy. The oppressions and splendid resistance of the Scottish Covenanters,-the bloody havoc made amongst them by the soldiery of reformed kings and a reformed church; and their undaunted and most picturesque celebration of their own simple worship, lifting up their voices amid the rocks and desarts whither they were driven for their adherence to their religion, are well told by their own historians, but have been made of immortal interest by Sir Walter Scott. From the first to the last-from the accession of James I. to the throne of England, to the expulsion of James II. from that throne, a period of upwards of eighty years, the Stuarts persisted in the most tyrannical endeavours to force on their native country of Scotland the episcopal church; and, in con

sequence, deluged that high-spirited and beautiful country with blood. Many a solitary heath, many a scene of savage rocks in that land, where the peasant now passes by and only wonders at its wild silence, are yet loud in the ear of heaven in eternal complaints of the bloody and domineering deeds of the English church, wrought by its advice and by the hireling murderers of its royal head; many a name—as Kilsythe, Killicranky and Bothwell Bridge-will rise up for ever in the souls of men against her. But it will be as well to go a little more particularly into these matters in a separate chapter.

CHAPTER XVI.

ENGLISH CHURCH CONTINUED A CHAPTER OF
PERSECUTIONS.

I love to see a man zealous in a good matter, and especially when his zeal shows itself in advancing morality and promoting the happiness of mankind. But when I find the instruments he works with are racks and gibbets, galleys and dungeons; when he imprisons men's persons, confiscates their estates, ruins their families, and burns the body to save the soul, I cannot stick to pronounce of such a one, that, whatever he may think of his faith and his religion,-his faith is vain, and his religion is unprofitable. ADDISON.

RECORDER.-My lord, you must take a course with that

same fellow.

MAYOR.-Stop his mouth, gaoler. Bring fetters, and stake him to the ground.

PENN. Do your pleasure;-I matter not your fetters.

RECORDER.-Till now, I never understood the reason of the policy and prudence of the SPANIARDS, in suffering the INQUI SITION among them; and certainly it will never be well with us, till something like the SPANISH INQUISITION be in England. Trial of William Penn and William Mead, at the Old Bailey, for Preaching, in 1670.

THE desolating effects of a political religion never were more conspicuous than during the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts in this country. The combined influence of royalty and priestcraft upon the reformation deserves the most solemn consideration. Never were their evil powers more evilly exerted.

The rising fabric of religious freedom was suddenly stricken into a melancholy ruin; and to this hour we feel the wounds inflicted on our fathers.

Henry VIII. made himself the most absolute of monarchs;-his will was the sole law. He declared that his proclamation was tantamount to an act of parliament, and acted upon it both civilly and ecclesiastically. He dealt out royal murders abundantly. This throned Bluebeard slaughtered his wives one after the other; he attainted of high treason sixteen people at once, and executed their sentence upon them without trial; and at another time, burnt six persons together, half papists, half protestants, tying a protestant and a papist arm to arm. The papists

He

he killed because they did not go far enough for him, the protestants because they would go too far. made his parliament pass in 1539 the famous Bloody Statute, or Statute of Six Articles, by which the actual Presence was declared to be in the sacramental bread and wine; priests were forbidden to marry; vows of chastity were to be observed; and mass and auricular confession maintained. This act was in force for the remainder of his reign; those who opposed it were to suffer death;-yet this was called a reformation! This singular royal reformer issued his fiat, that no doctrine should be believed contrary to the Six Articles; no person should sing or rhyme contrary to it; there should be no book possessed by any one against the holy sacrament; no annotations, or preambles in Bibles or Testaments in English; no women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen, serving-men, husbandmen, or labourers, should read the New Testament in English; nothing should be taught contrary to the king's instructions ;yet this was a reformation! The bishops and priests took care to oppose his will no further than