" with a state of mind groping after light, and with the purpose of eliciting light from others.' In consistency with this, we shall throw out, just as they occur to us, unmindful of order or connexion, answers to some of the queries in the above extracts, inquiries and appeals as to some of their positions-doubts as to the propriety and consistency, in some respects, both of the boasting and the censure in which the writers indulge.

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Dr. Halley says, 'Let any practice among us, however general, or however ancient, [infant baptism, for instance, on the one hand, and party, immersionist communion on the other,] be proved un'scriptural, and WHAT SHOULD PREVENT ANY OF OUR CHURCHES FROM IMMEDIATELY RENOUNCING IT? To this question we reply instantly, and without hesitation-The State would prevent you the state with which you have put yourselves into voluntary union; the law; the Lord Chancellor; in other words, the legal document, called a trust-deed, which has 'fixed your creed,' defined your practices, and determined and regulated what you are to believe and to be, for all time. To this reply, however, it would probably be objected, that it is unfair, inasmuch as whatever a trust-deed may connect with a certain building, the church assembling in it does so only in the exercise of its own libertyfreely and voluntarily holding the views required by the deed for legal occupancy; and that it is perfectly competent for it, in the language of Dr. Wardlaw, 'to alter its creed,' cancel it entirely, and adopt a new one ;'-that it has, and can exercise, as he further expresses it, this undoubted prerogative' of a church for nothing can compel it to remain in the building it can depart when it pleases, and, erecting another, or meeting for worship in an upper room,' can carry out, in its faith and practices, its own convictions of the Master's will.

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All this is undoubtedly true; but is this, we ask, all that is meant by Dr. H.'s eloquent sentences ?-Does he merely mean to say, that all the Dissenting churches in the land, have perfect liberty to make any changes they please in their doctrine and discipline, according as Scripture may seem to require them, at the expense of all the property of which they are possessed? Suppose a sect to have 5000 places of worship, which are worth on an average £1000 each; this would give property to the amount of five millions-suppose this property to be attached, by law, to certain definite opinions and practices, some of which, for the sake of argument, we will suppose to be unscriptural and wrong; would it be quite fair-would it be true-would the known principles of human nature permit the churches of this body to say, We can have no interest in any abuse whatsoever! We are 'bound by no obligation to the errors of our fathers, or to our ' own!' We do not admit our practices to be unscriptural, but we do say, that if they were, we could have no interest in main

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taining them an hour longer than our convictions might author'ize.' With us, every church can act upon the convictions of 'its members; and that church would be unworthy, which, through fear of singularity, or innovation, or any other motive 'whatsoever, would refuse-to renounce any unscriptural practice, however ancient, or popular, or prevalent.' The power ' of every church to regulate its own discipline, offices, &c., is a "reforming principle, diffused through the whole denomination, which, confined by no restriction, need wait for no enactments, but, independent of all considerations except truth, by its own energy, it may readily correct whatever is proved to be erro'neous.' Could all this be said in the circumstances supposed? Would it be true, that a body had no interest' in an error, when by holding it they retained property to the value of five millions? Would it be true, that they could carry out a 'reforming princi'ple,' 'independently of all considerations except truth,' when they would have to consider,' that if they advanced to a certain point, they must give up five millions? Would it be true, that they were bound by no obligation' to any thing,-were 'con'fined by no restrictions '-' need wait for no enactments '-had nothing to do with 'parliaments,'-when legal instruments, which nothing but the power of parliament could dispense with, bound them to the maintenance of a certain creed, and a certain discipline, at the peril of their parting with five millions?

Property, in the form of substantial and valuable buildings-in chapels, schools, vestries, &c., constitutes an endowment, as really as land or money yielding an annual income. A congregation possessing a freehold edifice worth £5000, is endowed to the amount of rent which such a building would bring, since they would have to pay that for the accommodation which they now enjoy for nothing. If, however, they only hired or rented a place, they could change their creed or their customs-alter their views upon any point-follow the Scripture wherever it led-consulting nothing, and caring for nothing but their own personal, conscientious convictions; but, as endowed, or entrusted with property, the uses of which are distinctly specified in a legal instrument,' they must consult that, if they wish to retain possession. In this latter case, they may boast, if they like, of their unfettered theo'logy,' their spiritual independence—their liberty to alter their 'creed' according to their conscience their right to appeal to the Bible, and the Bible only their freedom, as a church, from all secular, and legal, and parliamentary interference, and their consequent power to yield exclusive deference to Christ's authority, their only Head.' To all this, however, we submit, that Dr. Wardlaw's words, in the previous extract, may be fairly adapted by way of reply: When the creed has been fixed, [by 'a trust-deed, the church that accepts the endowments [the

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'building] is bound to maintain it, in all its articles, inviolate. The moment ...... that church presumes to introduce an altera'tion on its own authority, without seeking and obtaining the 'concurrent sanction of the civil power, [which alone can set aside a legal instrument,] it has violated its part of the formal or 'implied bargain; it has forfeited, by such infraction, all its right 'to the emolument [the trust property]. The distinction between the Church, as a church, and the Church as an endowed church, 'is manifest. Dr. Wardlaw may boast, on behalf of his own 'church, an 'unfettered theology;' but in no endowed church can there, by possibility, be any such thing. The endowment [the 'building held on condition of holding along with it a certain creed]-this fetters it. This chain of golden links passes round 'every article of it, and fastens the whole down. As a church, it may alter its creed,—may cancel it entirely, and adopt a new one. This is its undoubted prerogative considered simply as a church. But this is precisely what it has relinquished in accepting its endowment. As possessing this, its articles, discipline, directions for the worship of God, are prescribed to it by 'a trust-deed which rests on parliamentary authority :-and a change, unsanctioned by that authority, must involve a forfei6 ture of the endowment. The fact is, that when the faith and discipline of a church are originally settled by the legal authority 'of a trust-deed, although they may be afterwards sincerely and ' voluntarily adopted by a church, as a church, yet they are bind'ing on it, as an endowed church, not by the authority of the word ' of God, but solely by an instrument deriving its power from acts of Parliament, and by sanction of Parliament alone can any 'change be introduced. Is this unfettered theology? Is this the 'exclusive deference to Christ's authority, which he, as the 'church's Head, demands, and is so supremely entitled to? Away with the unworthy compromise of the Church's dignity, and 6 the honor of the Church's lord.'

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It is not our purpose to make out, that wherever there are endowments, in the form of chapels, secured to a certain church by law, there is the principle of a national, religious establishment. Dr. Wardlaw has noticed this opinion in his first lecture, and it is not our wish to repeat it here, or to say that he has not satisfactorily met it. We allow the difference between the government of a country appropriating public and national property to a certain church on condition of its teaching a certain creed; and a church, if we may so express it, endowing itself, out of its own property, and securing that endowment to the maintenance for ever of its faith and discipline. Without for a moment pretending, therefore, that the latter is an establishment, we desire to look at it just as what it is as if there were no national establishments existing, and no controversies respecting them afloat-and to

inquire, whether it can be clearly explained and defended on the avowed principles of Protestant Congregationalism.

The Congregational churches-Baptist and Pædo-baptisthave all their chapels secured by trust-deeds, not to them absolutely, but to the inculcation of their peculiar principles, and the maintenance of their distinctive discipline. These trustdeeds support generally, perhaps universally, Calvinistic theology -and adult, or infant baptism, as the case may be ;-they sometimes require, in Baptist churches, that the communion shall be strict, no individual not having been immersed in mature age being ever admissible to the Lord's table. They frequently contain very minute enforcements as to the manner in which the church shall conduct its affairs; and not seldom, we believe, prescribe, that, on a certain number of the church requiring it, the minister, and in some cases the deacons, shall be called upon to declare, in writing, their adherence to the doctrines and 'order' set forth.*

Now, we are not prepared to say that all this should not be; we are not prepared to say that property, held by a society, and therefore not private, is not to be secured to the society by some legal instrument, and thus preserved from individual usurpation; nor are we prepared, at present, to suggest any new form of doing this, short of those to which we have referred: but we are prepared to put a few questions on the subject, as it now stands, and to propose doubts occurring to ourselves, which, on the principles professed by Congregationalists, we find it difficult to answer or resolve.

Can it be said that Dissenters, Baptist and Pædo-baptist, repudiate creeds, when almost every chapel has one attached to it?

Can it be said that Dissenting ministers are entirely free from the slavery of subscription, when, at any moment, some of them at least, are liable to be required to sign their names to a doctrinal standard?

Can it be said that Dissenting churches are at liberty to appeal exclusively to the Scriptures to follow fully their own convictions-to adopt and profess whatever they deem to be the will of Christ-to alter their creed-their mode of baptism-their terms of communion-or, in short, to exercise the right of private judgment, each regulating its own discipline, offices,' &c., when they are all bound, by legal instruments, to their own, or their fathers', previous interpretation, at the peril of losing their places of worship?

Under such circumstances, can the language of Mr. Morison,

* We have been informed that the Congregational Board objects to sanction chapels the deeds of which contain this clause.

and the Essex Ministers, be faithfully and honestly used?-such as their objecting to the pretended apostolic scheme, because it puts 'down the spirit of inquiry:'-- their saying that they expect, by the 'careful study of the Bible, to clear its doctrines from the rust and the rubbish which the ignorance of former ages has heaped 'upon them;' (the trust-deeds of some of their chapels providing, 'perhaps, for the maintenance of that rubbish ;) their speaking of their society as an institution, all whose preachers say, and say 'without inconsistency and without reserve, the Bible, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants?"

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To all these, however, and a thousand such questions, it will be replied-have not those who build chapels a right to prescribe the doctrines to be taught in them? Have they not a right thus to endow whatever sentiments they please? and are they not justified, by defining in the legal deed the creed they patronize, to seek its preservation, security, and permanence?

Their right to do it is unquestionable, that is, so far as man is concerned. As to any responsibility to their fellow mortals, they may do what they will with their own.' But no man, or body of men, can, in the sight of God, have a right to do wrong. `If, therefore, the matter in question should be wrong, they have not a right to do it. That doubts, at least, respecting its rectitude might fairly be started, will appear from considering it for a moment, in connexion with the principle of Protestantism-the pretensions of Dissent-and the nature of Christianity.

The principle of Protestantism is the right-and what is more -the duty, of individuals and communities judging for themselves in matters of religion, and appealing directly and solely to the Scriptures. In addition to this, Protestantism having arisen after ages of ignorance, apostacy, and corruption, and it being therefore impossible that the rust and the rubbish' of accumulated centuries could be got rid of at once, it is to be expected that one generation of its genuine children will improve upon another, and that successive steps will be both made and required in order to get back to all that is apostolic, and (in the language of Mr. Morison) to see the doctrines and institutions of our religion in all the brightness and beauty of their original-the brightness and beauty in which they appeared when they first came from the hands of the Redeemer.'

Such is Protestantism. But is it consistent with this, for the men of one age to fix all that is to be professed and done by posterity? as if, in the first place, their successors had not the same rights and duties with themselves; or as if, in the second, they had done every thing that required to be done, and that nothing remained, in the way either of reformation or discovery, for others to accomplish?

But, it will be said, they do not mean this. Other generations