The authority which we ascribe to the rulers of the church being no more than is derived to them from the commission of Christ, must be consistent with the liberty which he has left to the rest of his subjects. For in whatever instances he has given another power to preside over us, to direct or command us, in those, it must be owned, he has not left us free; and, consequently, whatever liberty they take from us, while they act within the limits of their commission, can be no part of that liberty which Christ has left us. Now those limits would seem to be,

1st, That no person can lawfully exercise his authority in obliging us to believe any doctrine which Christ has not obliged us to believe.

2dly, That no person can lawfully exercise his authority in obliging us to perform any action which Christ has forbidden.

3dly, That no person can lawfully exercise his authority in imposing on us any indifferent action which Christ has not empowered him to impose.

These are the limits within which the authority of the Church of England is upheld, and they are limits which she imposes upon herself. With regard to the first two: Every precaution that is possible, in the laying down of her creeds and articles, has been taken to make her in perfect agreement with Scripture, both in the doctrines she inculcates and in the heresies she condemns; the very words of Scripture being used in every case that was possible. And, for fear that ignorance, or the spirit of insubordination, should reject her authority upon the plea, or even the suspicion, that she wished to propose any thing for belief that was anti-scriptural, one of her Articles (the twentieth) states expressly that nothing contrary to the Holy Scriptures is intended or required. See also the sixth Article.

What possible excuse, then, can be imagined for the part the Dissenters are taking? She intends to enjoin nothing but what Scripture enjoins, and forbids nothing but what Scripture forbids; and if in any instance any one can shew that her commands are anti-scriptural, she tells him that in such instance she is not to be obeyed. What should we think of any member of the civil government, or any child under family law, who should do as our Dissenting brethren do to the Church under which God has placed them? Surely her authority is entitled to as much consideration as that of the civil or the parental. What should we think, for instance, of the Englishman who, instead of upholding the authority and laws of his country, in all cases where they did not contradict the word of God; and contenting himself with forbearing, paying the enjoined penalty, and bearing his testimony to the error, in every particular instance where he might think an unscriptural order was promulgated; should

withdraw his allegiance in toto from King, Lords, and Commons, and, with as many as he could persuade, choose new officers, and set up a little civil government of his own? How would a Dissenter answer one of the subjects of the kingdom who should so act; who should defend his defection from the state by declaring that there were so many corruptions that it could not be a lawful state; and his selection of new officers, by propounding the present favourite doctrine, that the people have the right of choosing their own rulers? In faith, we cannot tell how he would answer him; for those who have been unfaithful to the church, will, when the time and opportunity comes, see no good reason, we fear, for being faithful to the state. There is a wide difference between being passive to the obedience of any particular command of our lawful ruler deemed to be wrong, and throwing off our allegiance to his authority. While states and churches are fallible, there may be cases where the subjects both of the one and the other may hesitate actively to obey, and where a tender conscience, inducing to omit what, according to its light, it judges to be erroneous, causes the casting out of its subject: such a state and church is Babylon, the beast and the false prophet working together, and it is better to be cast out than to remain: but in such a land as ours, where neither the state that protects him, nor the church which baptizes him, wishes to entrap a man's conscience, nor would cast him out because his conscience is tender, it is the blackest ingratitude, and nothing less, which would lead him to take up arms against either the one or the other. But "divisions must come," and those that "separate themselves" these must needs be, for so the Lord hath written it of these last sad days.

As to the third of these limits, "That no person rightly uses his authority who imposes upon us any indifferent action which Christ has not empowered him to impose," it equally condemns the Dissenter with the other two. The church, which has no authority to impose what Christ has forbidden, and which, in enjoining what he has commanded, acts rather as the assertor of his laws than the propounder of her own, comes then into her appointed and prepared sphere, as to the visible things. around us, when, of all the things which are in themselves indifferent, and which, there being no command of lawful authority, may be either observed or unobserved, done or undone, she selects those which she thinks to be conducive to the decency and order of her society as a visible body of united men, and enjoins them. And against this authority to rebel is neither more nor less than to deny that boasted right of private judgment to our rulers which we claim for ourselves: for they, as responsible rulers, are bound to enact whatever, as conscientious men, they believe to be necessary for the good order and

right worship of the flock over which they are appointed. If the things be in themselves indifferent, that is, neither commanded nor forbidden-such as all order, mode, form, and time of worship, &c. &c.-they are the very things which cannot infringe upon our conscience to obey: and, while it is open for us to obey, it is not open for the ruler to leave such unenjoined, seeing that he knows the church ought, as far as possible, to" walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing." If the ruler thinks the things he would enjoin to be those that are necessary, "that all things may be done decently and in order," he is bound, unless he give way to the private judgment of another instead of exercising his own, which is his right surely as much as the other's, to command them. "If the superior thinks the action he commands is good and necessary, and the inferior that it is not; if the opinion of the one be contrary to the opinion of the other, and neither can convince the other; shall the superior act against his conscience, and omit the duty of his station, because the inferior does not agree with his opinion? By whose conviction is he to be governed, his own or his inferior's? If by his own, he must proceed to commmand the action, and upon refusal of obedience to inflict the penalty, as his duty appears to require him; (for laws without sanctions of some kind are nugatory). If by his inferior's, here is the conscience of one man subjected and overruled by the sentiments of another, with this additional absurdity, that this power is given to the inferior over the superior." He who has a commission to teach and govern, is to receive his directions how to execute this commission from him who is to be taught and governed by it! The result, in short, will be this, that there will be no commission or superiority at all, but every one will be equal and independent; and, consequently, the society will be dissolved, and the parts of it have no more connexion with one another.

We cannot, therefore, suppose that a wise Master would leave such a degree of liberty, or exemption of the inferiors from the authority of the superiors, as would in its consequences destroy the very being of that society which he intended should subsist till his coming again. Whereas, admit but this obligation on the subject, to submit in all things indifferent, and to bear the penalties of his refusal when he cannot in conscience perform the action required, rather than renounce authority altogether, and peace and order are provided for, and yet no violence is offered to the conscience of any. The ruler is not obliged to do any thing contrary to his private judgment, nor the subject any thing contrary to his, and both may be entitled to the approbation of the Master.

Popery has never been so unanswerably baffled as by the clergy of our Church. We have, in the constitution of the

Church of England, shewn the Papists a church which can find at once the ground of its own authority-which every scriptural church, they are forward enough to shew from Holy Writ, should have-and which, on the other hand, can conserve the right of private judgment, and throw open the word of God to the laity. But the line of argument which the Dissenters take, on the contrary, give great advantages to the Papists. For we cannot give Popery a greater advantage, than by reckoning any of the primitive truths of Christianity among the corruptions of that church: for, such truths being capable of clear and incontestible proofs, it is easy for the missionaries of that religion, by shewing how much it is injured in the condemnation of these truths, to persuade men that it is equally injured in every other respect, and that all the doctrines objected to will, upon examination, be found as well supported as these. The great object of the Papist is to shew that the Reformation cannot be defended but upon such principles as Mr. Vaughan and the Dissenting writers uphold-principles destructive of all church authority, and ecclesiastical polity: and then, since it may be proved, to any reasonable man, that an external order and polity were instituted in the church by Christ and his Apostles, and that without them it could not subsist, the conclusion must appear unavoidable to him,-that the Reformation cannot be defended but upon such principles as contradict an institution of Christ and his Apostles, and are in their consequences subversive of the Christian religion; and what his next inference must be, need not be suggested. Whoever looks into the books of the Romish Church, on this controversy, will see that the sole aim and drift of those books are to expose the Reformation as formed upon the following positions as its principles: "That no Christian has authority to be ruler over another in matters of religion; that, so far as any human authority is concerned, every one has a right to interpret Scripture as he pleases, to believe what he pleases, and to worship God in the way he pleases." And upon this supposition they proceed to shew, that "no heresy can be convicted, no order, no ministry, no discipline, no form or appearance of a visible society, be preserved in the church, upon the principles of the Reformation." We will take our leave of this subject by assuring Mr. Vaughan, that, if ever his book find its way to the Court of Rome, he stands a good chance of having the thanks of that august body formally and unanimously voted to him.

We now come to say a few words upon the 1260 days, which subject is discussed by our author at page 65 of his discourse. And we begin by transcribing a note, to which we cordially assent.

The following particulars are, I conceive, decisive with re

spect to the number 1260 as referring to years. 1. The seventy 'weeks of Daniel evidently meant weeks of years; and the ten 'days' persecution, foretold by John in the address to the church

of Smyrna, would not seem to possess any meaning, except as ' referring to the ten years of Christian suffering under Dioclesian. "This mode of expression, therefore, was not unusual with Daniel or St. John. 2. The language of the Scriptures (in Num. xiv. 33, 34, and in Ezek. iv. 4, 5, 6) supplies further examples of this mode of computation. 3. The 1260 days were to commence after, and probably not long after, the appearance of the ten 'kingdoms, which was in the fourth and fifth centuries; and they were moreover to be the measurement of events which, in their 'origin and duration, were to be contemporary with the eleventh 'horn of the beast. Those events, however, began many centuries 'since, and are yet passing; the interval accordingly which is meant by 1260, cannot be so many literal days, and must be so many prophetic years. 4. It is to be remembered, that the pre'dictions of Daniel and St. John describe a power which is to ob'tain a complete sovereignty within the Roman empire—to make war upon the earth-to change times and laws-to secure an 'ascendancy over all kindreds, tongues, and nations-to ensnare the rulers and the inhabitants of the earth into the practice of 'idolatry—and to become drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. It is preposterous to ask, whether all this could be done in three years and a half. Three days and a half are also allot'ted the adversaries of the two witnesses to rejoice over them as 'fallen and slaughtered in the street, and during this interval the 'people of the earth are described as rejoicing over them, and making merry, and as sending congratulations to each other. But can it be meant that all this is done in the space of eighty'four hours? See Faber on the Prophecies relative to the Great 'Period of 1260 Years. I. pp. 1-15.'

Now it appears to us, that if Mr. Irving and others had not taken up this subject, and forced it upon the attention of the church against their will, Mr. Vaughan and his ministerial brethren would have been as indifferent to this subject of the 1260 days, as to all other prophecy. But now, when shamed out of their contempt for prophecy, the same repugnance which induced them to discountenance the defenders of the study leads them to pervert their arguments. Mr. Vaughan rejects that interpretation of the 1260 days which makes them to commence with the acts of Justinian, in 532-3; but he keeps out of sight altogether the reasons for commencing them at that point, and confutes reasons which nobody gives.

There are four distinct grounds upon which the argument for so fixing them is established, taken from different parts of Scripture at least Mr. Irving confines himself chiefly to these