facts have not long ago been well considered by Christian churches.

Another advantage of the highest moment attends Church Friendly Societies. A Christian church, with all its imperfections, presents such a selection of human beings as no general and conventional society can ever produce. Premature decay, sickness, and death are matters very much under the control of man. A society composed of a church furnishes a general guarantee not only for that course of life which is so conducive to health and longevity, but also for general honesty and 'high principle. There will be in such a society but few cases of feigned affliction, of pretended sickness after substantial recovery, of shuffling concealment of circumstances, and beggarly deception. The sense of truth, honour, delicacy, and self-respect which, in the main, pervade such a society, will render its history and management matters of beautiful contrast as compared with those of mere worldly associations. This superiority of character is no light thing; it will most materially affect the pecuniary position of the society, and exceedingly enhance the value of the subscriptions. The depredations so frequently committed upon the common stock of mere worldly societies by indolent, cruel, and rapacious cormorants, will here have little place, and the funds, to the extent of the deliverance, will be available for the support and comfort of proper objects. Here vice will not revel on the spoils of virtue; nor will idleness lean, with oppressive load, on the arm of honest industry.

These hints may suffice to introduce a subject, the importance of which will demand the more enlarged discussion of it in subsequent numbers.

UNION MEASURES FOR THE SUPPORT OF AGED MINISTERS.

THE organization, for some specific object, of numerous bodies of intelligent men, who canvass projects before embarking in them, is necessarily a work of time and labour. Thirteen years have already passed away since the formation of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, which has been constantly gathering strength, the Report of each successive Assembly proclaiming the adhesion of fresh pastors, churches, and associations; but still the organization is incomplete, and, perhaps, a considerable period may yet be required for its con

15

summation. No matter; should double the time be demanded, six-and-twenty years, although much of the life of man, is but a handbreadth on the line of the vast future, and a very brief space for the creation of any instrument, the limits of whose beneficent operation may be only the limits of our globe. At the outset, it was thought by some the Union did but little. By such it was forgotten that infancy is exempt from toil, and that strength is required to labour. It is not rational that an apparatus, only in the process of manufacture, should be expected, by actual experiment, to display its powers and manifest its utility. Patience ought, therefore, to be exercised, till it be at least nearly perfected, before its framers be summoned to prove its capabilities and assert its claims to public patronage. The Congregational Union is entitled to the benefit of these principles, although it hardly requires them; for before the years of its infancy had passed away it began its generous labours, and worked its way through many difficulties, till at length its necessity begins to be very generally confessed, and its worth appreciated. Of late years, each successive Assembly has brought forth some new development of its capabilities of promoting the highest interests of the Denomination, and the cause of Jesus Christ in the world. Among the various points which were discussed at the recent meeting held in Leeds, there was one which deserves especial notice-the condition and claims of aged pastors.

The time has at length arrived for the consideration of the claims of this invaluable class of Christian men, which have been long and grievously neglected. A minute and faithful history of many a devoted pastor's family could hardly be read without tears. Too often, in middle life, and still more frequently in old age, the servants of Christ have not received the due reward of their labours. We speak of justice, not mercy-of debt, not charity. Where the latter is needful, as in the course of Providence it will sometimes be, by all means let it be shown in the true spirit of the Gospel, and in the same spirit acknowledged; but let the just demands of the former be first satisfied. Justice, however, has divers measures, and we ask for them only the smallest. The majority of these ministers are picked men, in point of character, talents, and general capability, and such as would have stood a fair chance for more than an average share of success, in whatever line

16

of secular occupation they might have engaged. Now, preferring the service of the sanctuary, they have sacrificed the gains of law, medicine, and trade, in some or other of which many of them might have attained eminence and fortune, and the bulk of the rest, competence and comfort. Do they then ask compensation? No; they ask only bread! Do they ask too much?

As a doctrine, few will deny that the labourer, while he works, is worthy of his hire, however they may trample upon the precept which flows from it. But there is another question which has not been sufficiently considered by the churches. What is to become of the man who has laboured hard, usefully, and honourably, for thirty, forty, or fifty years, but whose physical strength, or visual organs, or intellectual faculties, have at length failed him, and who can labour no more? Is he to struggle on in a sphere for which he is no longer fit, till a cause, once prosperous, become a wreck, and he himself cumberer of the ground which he had so long ably cultivated? Is the answer, No? Well, but what is the wornout servant of Christ to do? If, as is generally the case, he never had more than a bare sufficiency for the day that was passing over him, even in his youth and prime, how can he have made any provision for the close of life?

What,

then, is he to do? Would you send him to the workhouse? The answer is plain. For all such there ought to be an honourable provision. Men of God ought not to be subjected to an agonizing struggle between a choice of two evils-retaining an office for which incompetency is hourly felt, or resigning it to plunge into the depths of destitution.

A first step towards a remedy for this evil was adopted at the recent meeting held in Leeds. The expenses of the Union have, heretofore, been met chiefly by the profits of its publications; an arrangement to which there are strong objections. On that occasion, therefore, it was resolved to appeal to the churches to clear off the existing balance, and to the friends of the Union for personal subscriptions to sustain the annual charges of management for the future. Should these appeals prove successful, it was further resolved that, "after the next Annual Assembly of the Union, all clear profits derived from its publications shall be devoted to a fund for the assistance of aged ministers.'

This project must commend itself to

every reflecting mind. Its success is beyond all doubt, if the parties concerned are not insensible to their duty. Another Christian community supplies a splendid example. The Methodists have their "Preachers' Fund," for the benefit of "superannuated preachers and the widows of preachers," who receive annuities according to the period of service, the highest being "forty-five guineas," when the preacher has laboured for thirty-five years, and the same sum to his widow. This fund is supplied by monies from the Book-room of the Connexion, and the subscription of the parties. Methodistic prudence, or rather justice, does not, however, end here; to this there is the Auxiliary Fund, formed by voluntary subscriptions, donations, and legacies among the people; and it is so arranged, that " every circuit, however poor, shall contribute to it. The object of this fund is to furnish additional aid to superannu ated preachers, whose annuity from the "Preachers' Fund" is inadequate to their wants; to assist preachers who have been visited by peculiar personal or family affliction; and to defray various miscellaneous expenses connected with the families of disabled and deceased preachers. It is also provided that the case of the "children of deceased preachers shall be taken into particular consideration," and sums "appropriated for their education and maintenance." These funds are an integral part of Methodism, and their management a principal department of the annual business of Conference.

It will be allowed by all that these arrangements are not more wise and humane than just and necessary; and while they do credit to the principles and piety of the people among whom they prevail, they supply to every communion a salutary example. Our brethren, the Independents of Scotland, also furnish another instance not less instructive and pleasing. They have their "Scottish Congregational Fund" for the same purpose, now in the twenty-fifth year of its age. The affairs of this Society form a regular portion of the business of the Annual Meetings. In a recent Report its merits were thus stated :-"The ex. perience of every year shows more clearly that the present constitution is admirably adapted to secure the benevolent object for which the Fund was projected. It is now realizing the highest expectations of the friends who formed it. It is an excellent bond of union among the churches, to which it is dispensing a large

benefit." For a long time, however, chiefly, perhaps, from the smallness and poverty of many of the churches, the Scottish Fund did not receive the support which it deserved, nor does it now; but of late years, through the public spirit of some of the leading laymen, the tide is turning in its favour, and the time is apparently drawing near when annual collections for it will be made in every church, free contributions generally obtained from men of opulence, and when it will form the subject of testamentary bequest. Is it too much to hope that, by similar means, in addition to the profits of

the Union publications, an English Congregational Fund will be formed and sustained, worthy of the Independent community, and adequate to meet the necessities of those of its shepherds who survive the ability to work, and of the families of those whose sun has gone down at noon? The churches will abundantly find their own account in the vigorous prosecution of this measure. Such a fund, existing in proper force, would greatly facilitate a class of arrangements which are now frequently the source of pain and difficulty, vexation and strife.

EVILS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY.

THE subject of ecclesiastical supremacy, whether Papal or Protestant, is one of the first importance to the people of England. It is, to a great extent, the root of many of our national troubles and social wrongs. The following are some of the lessons in relation to it which ought to be impressed on the minds of all classes.

I. Political collections of men formed by legislative enactments, and headed by sovereigns, are not Christian churches.

A church is a body of believers of the Gospel, who love Christ and one another for Christ's sake, and who walk according to his commandments. Of such churches he is the sole Head and Lawgiver. They have, they acknowledge, no other; to this they yield the most profound homage and the most implicit obedience. Earthly kings and governments, as such, have nothing whatever to do with them. Princes and rulers can only become connected with them in the same way, and remain in them on the same conditions, as the humblest peasant and the poorest artizan. Here while all are sinful, all are likewise immortal, none less, none more. All other distinctions vanish at the footstool of mercy. There, creatures appear simply as sinners; and in the church they are known only as saints, all amenable to the same jurisdiction. What, then, is the preparation for connexion with a Christian church? Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the sole and the unalterable condition; nothing more, nothing less. Reader! are you such? Have you ceased from evil,

VOL. I.

and received the Divine testimony concerning Christ? If so, give yourself up to his church. Oh! come to him. "Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him turn to the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

II. All political collections of men, formed by legislative enactment, and headed by sovereigns, are "traitorous combinations, and not true churches of Christ."

Such were the words of the fearless Richard Baxter. Churches of this stamp have not Christ's sanction; they are contraventions of his will; they are subversive of his authority. They are in all points essentially different from the churches planted by the apostles, as infallibly guided by the Spirit of Christ. Their first, fundamental, and most fatal error regards their Headship. It is a mere off-shoot from the baleful root of Papal supremacy. All national churches or establishments of Christianity must stand or fall with it. The stream can neither rise above nor outlive its source. such combinations as have sprung from it must perish with it. It seems probable that their respective extinctions will b contemporaneous. Well hath a great Popish advocate taunted us, that if we should succeed in overthrowing Papal supremacy, it would still remain for us "to prove that Christ had founded any part of it on Henry VIII., Edward VI., and their successors, or that he had given the mystical keys to Elizabeth and her successors. I have shown," says he, "that these sovereigns exercised a more

с

All

despotic power over all the ecclesiastical and spiritual affairs of this realm than any pope ever did, even in the city of Rome, and that the changes in religion which took place in their reigns were effected by them and their agents, not by the bishops or any clergy whatever; and yet no one will pretend to show, from Scripture, tradition, or reason, that these princes had received any greater power from Christ over the doctrine and discipline of his church than he conferred upon Tiberius, Pilate, or Herod, or than he has given, at the present day, to the Great Turk, or the Lama of Thibet, in their respective dominions."*

We, at least, have nothing to say in behalf of the power and headship of those princes. We hold that regal is as much opposed to the word of God as papal supremacy, and as a source of civil and political mischief is only second to it. There are, indeed, many points in which the former is more pernicious than the latter. The clergy of a king are far more secularized and more enslaved than the clergy of a pope. They are also beset with many more difficulties in the path of pastoral labour and usefulness, and in all attempts at the exercise of a godly discipline. They sustain much more the character of miserable bondsmen and crouching stipendiaries. A Popish priest is, in all that appertains to his office, much less fettered and much more independent than a state-paid Protestant parson. The aspect, too, of Papal supremacy, even in its more dominant form, has at least the appearance of greater sacredness. It professes to represent Christ, and so far his authority is acknowledged; while the temporal bows to the spiritual jurisdiction. But the sovereign heads of Protestant national churches make no pretensions to the representation of Christ; they represent only themselves; the spiritual is lost in the temporal jurisdiction. The ecclesiastical institution acquires a thoroughly carnal character, dependent equally for its existence and its permanence on human legislation. State churches are the mere creatures of law; a word called them into being, and by a word they may be annihilated. hereditary monarchies there is no guarantee either for the sex or the character of these sovereign heads. They may be now the weakest of women, and anon the worst of men ! But in either case, as occupants of the throne, they rule the temple. Oh! lamentable issue of the

Milner. Letter xlvi.

In

Reformation! State churches are everywhere merely systems of modified Popery, and that Popery, in several respects, not a little deteriorated. Is it said, 'But there the Gospel may be preached? To this there are two replies: it may not, and there is no assurance whatever that it shall; but so might it have been preached under the supremacy of the pope prior to the Reformation, and so it occasionally was; in this respect, therefore, the gain to the cause of God has been but small. Unless in countries such as England, where a large toleration is enjoyed, and where Dissent, in addition to its direct benefit, operates reflexly on the Establishment, the Reformation has done but little for the real interests of the true kingdom of Christ. It has, in all countries where Dissent is interdicted, left in full force the worst elements of the Papacy. The headship is still human; the laws, the sanctions, both are human. Christ's headship, laws, and sanctions are set at nought. If, in the one case, the ordinances be less corrupt, in both cases they are, and they are equally, prostituted. In both cases the ministry and the membership are, or they may be, and may be equally, carnal!

Men, Brethren, Fathers! are these things so? Take heed, then, how you think, and how you talk of them. The question here is not one of abuse, but of existence. It is not enough for you to say, We do not plead for the abuses of an establishment. The argument in our mind goes not against their abuse, but against their being. They do not admit of use for the true ends of Christ's spiritual kingdom. They are essentially carnal; and, in their operation, can only further carnal ends. The good is the exception; the evil is the rule. Ten times the good had been dearly purchased by a thousandth part of the mischief which has sprung, and is still springing, from them! They are a deadly accommodation of Christianity to human nature in its fallen state. They give to mankind bodily service without eternal salvation; a name to live, while they who bear it are dead in sin! Taken as a whole, they are fountains whose stream brings death, not life! They are strongholds of error. They are barriers to the progress of truth. They are the cross of governments, the curse of nations, the canker of charity among Christians.

III. All political collections of men formed by legislative enactment, are not only not true churches of Christ, but obstructive to the ends of such churches.

Shall we speak of the cruel laws which have been enacted by Protestant governments, of fine and confiscation, of the dungeon and the galley, of the axe and the halter, of the rack and the wheel, as means of making men Christians? Are those moral means? means adapted to a rational creature? Is this the way to produce conviction, conversion, and to work the religion of love to God and man? The voice of nations cries-No! These are not Christ's method of subjugating the world. In his kingdom force is impotence; the sword has no power and no place. Truth, not steel, is his weapon. Love, not fury, animates his soldiery. Whom they conquer they bless in deed, and are blessed by them in word. The hearts of the victors and the vanquished are at once cemented together in immortal friendship. All violence is foreign to the genius of the gospel.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN AMERICA,

WHEN the United States became independent, the Congregational churches in the north, and the Episcopalian church in the middle and south, were united with the civil power. Shortly after the Revolution, that union was dissolved in all those States in which Episcopacy had been established in the Colonial period by acts of their respective legislatures; a measure which, while it originated in higher principles, was not a little expedited by popular dislike to Episcopacy, the ministers and chief adherents of which had manifested a strong bias towards the mother country during the struggle for independence. But the Congregational churches, which had deeply sympathized with the popular cause, long retained the favour of the government; and in Massachusetts it is only ten years since the churches there cast off the last link of their bondage.

The history of this great event well merits the attention of Christian philosophers and statesmen in England. In the New World the obstacles to the dissolution of this union, at one time, appeared insuperable; and yet in the state where it was least of all to be looked for, it was first effected, namely, Virginia, a state the very soul of which was steeped in Episcopacy, and where Dissent in all its forms was virtually proscribed. Even after the passing of the Toleration Act in England, its benefit was but slenderly

enjoyed in that and the other colonies. In Virginia the friends of religious freedom were only a handful, composed of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Quakers; but they were men born for adversity. The two former of these bodies were, from the outset of the war of the Revolution, most resolute adherents to the patriot cause. The Presbyterians of Hanover, in Virginia, were the first ecclesiastical body in the States publicly to declare for independence; and after the appearance of the "Declaration," the first act of that same body was the presentation of a Memorial to the Virginia House of Assembly, calling for the separation of church and state, and the adoption of the voluntary principle, and demanding to be "freed from all the incumbrances which a spirit of domination, prejudice, or bigotry, had interwoven with most other political systems." They went on detailing their religious grievances, and arguing the matter with great earnestness and ability. "The only proper objects of civil government," said they, "are the happiness and protection of men in the present state of existence, the security of the life, liberty, and property of the citizens, and to restrain the vicious and encourage the virtuous by wholesome laws, equally extending to every individual; but the duty which we owe to the Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and conviction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge. Therefore we ask no ecclesiastical establishments for ourselves, neither can we approve of them when granted to others." They concluded by praying thus: that all laws which "countenance religious domination may be speedily repealed; that all of every religious sect may be protected in the full exercise of their mutual modes of worship, exempted from all taxes for the support of any church whatsoever, further than may be agreeable to their own private choice or voluntary obligation. being done," said they, "all partial and invidious distinctions will be abolished, to the great honour and interest of the state; and every one be left to stand or fall according to his merit, which can never be the case so long as any one denomination is established in preference to others."

This

This memorial was respectfully received, but no legislative action was taken upon it. It was, nevertheless, a useful and a noble lecture to statesmen upon the greatest of all great principles, and the