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Ireland. It is therefore now an established truth, and not a matter of surmise, that the Parliament of this country does not deem it necessary to consider for a moment the existence of the church as a body possessing, in its collective capacity, powers and rights of great importance, but simply holds that there is a number of bishops and clergy, who are the mere creatures of the state, who do not own allegiance to any other body, and who are to be dealt with as the state pleases. On the other hand, at what particular moment Parliament may please to apply these doctrines to England is, no doubt, as yet uncertain. It is also possible, that Parliament may be inconsistent, and may next year maintain the very principles which it rejects this. But, as things are, and supposing the bill to be carried, and Parliament to be consistent, the position of the church of England is entirely altered, whatever may be the case with the religious establishment of England. Whatever Parliament may hold, churchmen who know what the meaning of the word church is, and clergy, who are bound to know, can hold no such doctrines as these, and can submit to no such doctrines. Take, indeed, the individual dissenter, who, being sincere, shall have the lowest possible notions even of the ministry, and ask him whether it is tolerable that a secular legislature, many of its members, too, sworn and avowed enemies of his religious persuasion, shall take upon themselves to settle how many or how few the heads of his body shall be, and how the funds left by pious individuals* for their maintenance shall be regulated. And if this is so, is the fact that one form of religious belief has been held to be so excellent as to become the established system of religious belief in the country, and to obtain many rights and privileges of a remarkable kind, is that fact to deprive it of these essential privileges which every other form possesses, nay! which it avows that it would not submit to lose? With this disposition on part of the legislature, it is indeed high time that churchmen, without entering on the question what are and what are not spiritual matters, should at least seriously consider with themselves, what are matters in which they will and can conscientiously allow themselves to be dictated to by a secular body, and what are matters in which they cannot allow such interference, if they wish to preserve a good conscience, and must not, even if they only wish to save themselves from the contempt of their enemies. That contempt always has deservedly followed, and always will follow, those who are blown about by every wind of secular expediency, and are perpetually seeking, not openly to renounce their old principles as false, but a loop-hole large enough to let them creep quietly out with the bag in their hands. Let it not for a moment be supposed that any rash course is recommended, or that the enormous importance of observing an establishment is overlooked. Every sacrifice but the

That the State could take back what it had given would be a dangerous doctrine; that it can take away what it never gave is monstrous. Intolerable evil must be shewn to arise from an existing state of things; evil, too, incapable of any other remedy, before such doctrines can be allowed.

sacrifice of principle should be made to retain it, because, without an establishment, religion, humanly speaking, will decline amongst us! But we are connected with the established church, not only as an establishment, but as a true member of Christ's church, and we cannot recommend it to be the established form on any other principle whatever. If, therefore, any of its principles are violated, we cannot conscientiously consent to any farther connexion with the state. It is on this ground that it behoves us all to consider well with ourselves how far we can go, and where we must stop. If the legislature only spoliates and persecutes us, as far as our temporal goods are concerned, we are bound in conscience to submit, and to go on doing God's work in the world while we can. When the legislature goes farther, we must give up our connexion with the state at once, and leave it to have what form it pleases. Great as the evil will be, the evil of consenting to any violation of principle is greater still. The Archbishop of Dublin may again condescend to hold this up to ridicule, and, in one of those pithy sentences which one often meets with, with much point and no meaning, talk of the absurdity of men thinking that there is anything of the spirit of martyrdom in contending for the preservation of property. His Grace unquestionably sees no harm in Parliament diminishing the number of bishops, or alienating their property, or, as a man of principle, he would oppose these measures. But it is to be presumed, in justice to his Grace, that there are some church principles, quite independent of the grand doctrines of Christianity, which he would not submit to see violated. And all that is here recommended to every honest churchman, is to weigh well with himself what these principles are, and consider how far he can in conscience go, and to do so quickly, as in all human probability the day is fast approaching when his decision will be required. For it is not to be concealed, that public men for the most part come forward as vehement enemies, or only lukewarm friends of the church; that to Parliament the church cannot look either for friendship or warm support; and that, not direct destruction, but unjustifiable interference, is the shape which things will probably take. There are obvious reasons why direct destruction may not be deemed expedient, and why there is strong temptation to interfering, and introducing intolerable alterations, by intolerable authority.

These may be some of the truths, the profound truths, which the Archbishop of Dublin thinks it not wise to proclaim, for fear our enemies should thus learn what they would not otherwise have known! He may not think it wise to let the Dissenters know what they cannot, of course, have observed, that the church is ill used by the legislature, and that if principles are violated, the church of England will be torn asunder and divided into two parts, the one the church without the establishment, the other the establishment without the church! But, undismayed by his Grace's anathema, I venture to make this statement, and to intreat those who are inclined to submit very far indeed, to say the least, to consider the point well, to be assured themselves, and to assure their friends,

that there is a very large portion of the clergy who will not submit, and that, if a rent in the church is thus produced, on the one hand they who retain their opinions are not to blame; and on the other, that such an event will teach the legislature that the church of England has a strength which they do not dream of if it is called out-that though political writers clamour, though interested landowners join the clamour, though dissenters swell the cry, though unbelievers raise their voices too, the church of England is deep in the heart of the people of England-that they will answer to her call, if she is compelled to call for help-and that if the legislature chuses to oppress, the church may safely commit herself to the people, who will make her cause their's.

H.

NOTICES AND REVIEWS.

On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man. By the Rev. T. Chalmers, D.D. London: Pickering. 1833. 2 vols. (Bridgewater Treatises, vol. I.)

DR. CHALMERS has here added another to the many unspeakable services which he has rendered before. No praise can add to his character, and no words could express the reviewer's sense of Dr. Chalmers' merits. It is a great pleasure to think of such a man; for without agreeing with him on every point, it is impossible not to feel that he has devoted a mighty mind to the best of causes-that every feeling and thought are pure and disinterested that he is always labouring in the cause of God and man-and that many of the truths which he is scattering will, at last, by God's blessing, be instrumental in destroying existing errors, when he is low in the dust. He has here entered on an inquiry almost new, and of the greatest difficulty, as a due consideration of the title of his work will shew. He sets himself at once, however, free from the trammels which the wording of his commission might seem to impose on him, and takes the case, not of the human mind in general, but of a single mind, to shew how completely it is placed in a fitting theatre for the exercise of its powers, understanding by external nature all that is external, not to mind, but to the individual possessor of a mind, who is surrounded by other men and other minds than his own. Before he enters on the point, and tries to shew the adaptation of nature to the mind, he feels compelled to make some observations on the phenomena of the mind itself; and here he is more on Bishop Butler's ground, for whom he expresses an almost boundless veneration. In this place it is impossible to follow Dr. Chalmers in the line of his argument; but a few sketches must be given, that the reader's appetite for the work may be whetted.

Dr. Chalmers, in this part of his work, (and it is all that can be noticed here,) points out a grand distinction between the laws of matter and the disposition of matter, which is of great consequence, and has been much overlooked. In the eye, for example, the laws of refraction would exist in vain unless all the lenses were rightly constructed, in size and shape, and the retina placed at the right distance. All this one may call arrangements for using the laws of matter previously known; and it is obvious, that if the laws could be proved to be inherent in matter, these arrangements would still go as far as we can go to prove a benevolent Designer. Again, as to the laws VOL. IV.-August, 1833. 2 c

of nature, they may account for the transmission of our system as it is, but not for its production; they may keep up the working of the machinery, but could not set up the machine. Allowing then all to be independent on a God, a God is as much required to construct the system. They could neither construct it at first, nor reconstruct it if it fell to pieces. This remark Dr. Chalmers applies very pointedly to the geologists who so confidently build new systems out of the wreck of old ones, as if blind laws could do this without the intervention of God.

The boundless variety of particulars from which, in the arrangement of matter, a combination for some useful end can be shewn, makes the study of the material world most important for natural theology. In the phenomena of mind, from our ignorance probably, there is so much greater simplicity, that they do not afford the same evidence of design; but though not so useful for proving that God is, Dr. Chalmers shews that they are of eminent use to prove what he is. Thus a succession of mental phenomena is all that we know of the constitution of mind. But this is of the highest importance. If we find benevolence always followed by complacency, malignity by discomfort, we shall see at once that this succession must have been established by a benevolent and righteous Being.

Dr. Chalmers then argues, in the most admirable way,—from the supremacy of conscience, from the pleasure of virtuous and pain of vicious affections, and from the power and operation of habit,—that man has been constituted as he is by a moral being. He proceeds, after these preliminary observations, to his more immediate object. He shews how conscience is brought into action by external things, and by other men-how kind affections would contribute to our happiness in the existing state of the world-how the power of habit may be used to produce a new era in the moral history of mankind. There is then an admirable chapter on the uses of anger and shame, to a being placed in such an order of things as man is; and a still more admirable one on the necessity of the principle of family affection to the well being of society at large, with a masterly exposure of all the foolish and mischievous fancies as to universal philanthropy, so often set afloat, and on what Dr. Chalmers calls the possessory feeling-i. e., the sense of property, which he most powerfully maintains to be the work of the Creator in the heart, and a proof of his wisdom and goodness in thus adapting man to his condition.* In this portion of the work he shews how by a peculiar property of the soil a certain number of men are saved from the necessity of actual labour, a provision which ensures the civilization of the world and the progress of science. He shews afterwards, (turning to a different quarter,) that there is an habitual disposition to truth in the world,-that society could not go on without this tendency; and again, that the law of affection is, that its intensity is proportioned to the helplessness of the object. Then he proceeds to the cases of strict adaptation of the external world to the moral constitution of man; for instance, the power of speech-the adaptation of the organs of man, and the aerial medium for sound to the forming a path-way from one understanding and another. On the whole, perhaps, there are no chapters in the book more admirable than that on the capacities of the world for making a virtuous species happy, and the argument deducible from this for the character of God and the immortality of man, and that on the intellectual constitution of man. In this latter chapter Dr. Chalmers shews how the law of association-of expecting the

Dr. Chalmers considers the English systems of tithes and poor laws to be contraventions of natural feelings, and therefore mischievous. The reviewer differs on both points, and will take another opportunity of saying why. Now he will shortly say, that he denies Dr. Chalmers' facts, i. e. as to the quantum of evil caused by either system. Would that Dr. Chalmers could be for two or three years, at least, an English country clergyman to gain practical knowledge on both points!

uniform succession of natural phenomena is adapted to their natural uniform occurrence-how the results of abstract intellectual processes, and the realities of external nature, so strikingly harmonize-how an isolated phenomenon is converted, by the plastic intellect of man, into an application of mighty effect on the interests of the world-how, in fine, the highest efforts of intellect, requiring great leisure and abstraction, are necessary for discoveries capable of application, the value of which is felt by all. If the truth of this latter observation was felt by the possessors of wealth and fortune, how might it enable them to preserve their own influence, prevent changes, and keep society in a healthful state; how clearly was it intended by God to do so!

But there is no more room to discuss the rest of this admirable book. Let all read it, and (with the two exceptions noticed) they will find a store of truth by which their intellect will be expanded, and their hearts improved. As to style, it might be wished that in a philosophic treatise the amplification desirable in the pulpit could be avoided, and that Dr. Chalmers would not give the weight of his authority to new words.

The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as evincing design. By Sir Charles Bell. (Bridgewater Treatise IV.) London: Pickering. pp. 288. LORD BRIDGEWATER has been a great benefactor to mankind in calling forth the powers of so many eminent men in the service of truth. In the present treatise it is a matter of the warmest satisfaction to find an anatomist of Sir C. Bell's great eminence professing his contempt for the late fashionable doctrines of materialism held by so many anatomists, and now coming forward to present the fruits of his wide researches and great ability in a treatise so full of curious and interesting matter, expressly intended to prove, by the examination of one particular point, that design which is imprest on all parts of the creation. Sir C. Bell has here given us an examination of all those parts of various animals which in some degree answer the purposes of the hand, and has shewn that the hand is not the source of contrivance, nor consequently of man's superiority, as some materialists have maintained. To this he has added some very valuable remarks shewing the uses of pain; and he has illustrated the work with a variety of the most admirable and interesting woodcuts.

Medulla Conciliorum Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ ab A, D. 446, ad A. D. 1548. Opera et Studio Ricardi Hart, Presbyteri, A.B. T.C.D. Norwich. 1833. PP. 92.

MR. HART is entitled to great praise for his diligence in collecting and bringing together into so small a compass and price the decrees and canons of our various national councils. It is a branch of study which ought to be recommended to every clergyman, who cannot understand our Church History or our church without it. Perhaps it would have been as well to have given the original part of the work in English; and, at all events, Mr. Hart, in a second edition, must look carefully to typographical errors in the Latin.

An Essay on the Quadripartite and Tripartite Division of Tithes. Part II., with a Supplement on the Quarta Pars Episcopalis of the Irish Church. By the Rev. W. H. Hale, M.A. London: Rivingtons. 1833. pp. 61. MR. HALE has, in this pamphlet, shewn in a most able and convincing manner, that the right of the poor to assistance from clerical funds was always considered as a moral, and not a legal right. The only exception was in certain cases of appropriate rectories, where by statute, in order to make up to the

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