Tried by this test, we have no fear for the catholicity of independency. It recognises no intermediate ecclesiastical constitution between that of the particular society of believers who maintain an habitual visible fellowship, and that of the church universal. It recognises all as belonging to this latter church who belong to Christ himself, by a voluntary and credibly sincere profession. It admits, ungrudgingly and on principle, to a partici pation in the most spiritual privileges of the church all who pos sess this character, without imposing any yoke upon the conscience. It claims for its own adherents, and as due to those who are attached to other systems, the right and duty of believing and living in harmony with the law and word of Christ. It knows no distinction, and makes no difference between Jew and Gentile, Romanist or Anglican, bond or free. It counts none whom God has cleansed common or unclean. We think it impossible to produce any form of religious communion more truly Catholic

than this.

'But,' says Bunsen, while it protests against the state, the nation escapes from it.' This we admit. And the causes which check Independency are not few. It has never had fair play. Its adherents have been burdened with the support of other systems. For nearly two centuries they were debarred from approaching the national seats of learning. The wealth, and influence, and literature of the establishment, as well as the world, have been directed against them. Other bodies, commanding more or less of moral strength, ability, and learning, have also been in the field of competition. On these accounts, then, it is not very wonderful if Independency has not achieved a paramount influence over the nation. But we may fairly ask, has the State Church itself, with its diocesan episcopacy, secured the nation to itself? No. Nor would have done, had it been even purer than it is. The gospel itself is rejected by the world. How, then, is it likely that any ecclesiastical platform should, as such, obtain its favour? The presumption would be fully as much against as for any system which the world ran after.

By these remarks, we by no means intend to justify the Independent or congregational body in this country, as though they did all they might do, and all their own principles, the exigences of the times, or the law of Christ, require of them. We deplore the contrary. We own that, practically, there is not the union of counsel and effort which there ought to be. But our independency is not to blame for this. It is our individual selfishness and indolence which are to blame.

Dr. Bunsen in one place refers to Rothe, the author of a work which made some stir in Germany a few years back,

intituled 'Die Anfänge der Christlichen Kirche.' In this work, Rothe, relying on the authority of Ignatius, argued earnestly in favour of episcopacy. He was ably answered by Baur of Tübingen, in a dissertation which first appeared in the 'Tübingen Zeitschrift für Theologische Wissenschaft,' but was afterwards published separately. Rothe's theory was that episcopacy was introduced by the apostles themselves, to counteract the progress of schism. We have also seen Bunsen's assertion, that the episcopacy of the first ages saved the church from schism.' But both were long since answered by anticipation, in John Milton's Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty.' He there says, chap. vi., Tradition, they say, hath taught them, that for the prevention of growing schism, the bishop was heaved ' above the presbyter. And must tradition, then, ever thus, to the 'world's end, be the perpetual cankerworm to eat out God's com'mandments? Are his decrees so inconsiderate and so fickle, that ' when the statutes of Solon and Lycurgus shall prove durably ' good to many ages, his in forty years shall be found defective, ill-contrived, and for needful causes to be altered? Our Saviour and his apostles did not only foresee, but foretel and forewarn us to look for schism. Is it a thing to be imagined of God's wisdom, or at least of apostolic prudence, to set up a government in the ' tenderness of the church, as should incline, or not be more able 'than many others to oppose itself to schism? It was well known 'what a bold lurker schism was even in the household of Christ, 'between his own disciples and those of John the Baptist, about 'fasting; and early in the Acts of the Apostles, the noise of ' schism had almost drowned the proclaiming of the gospel; yet we read not in Scripture, that any thought was had of making 'prelates, no, not in those places where dissension was most rife. If prelaty had been thus esteemed a remedy against schism, 'where was it more needful than in that great variance among 'the Corinthians, which St. Paul so laboured to reconcile? And 'whose eye could have found the fittest remedy sooner than he? ' And what could have made the remedy more available than to 'have used it speedily? And lastly, what could have been more necessary than to have written it for our instruction?'

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We must here take leave of Bunsen and episcopacy for the present. There are yet a dozen distinct points which we had marked for special notice, but it is difficult to enter on them without referring to the collateral topics which, as we before observed, our author's philosophizing style suggests. We can hardly quote a passage to point out one error, without bringing to notice others we could not possibly find room to discuss. Enough has been said, however, we trust, to convey an idea both of the object and method of the

work. Full of learning, and replete with passages of moral beauty, there is much in the volume to attract. Yet are we bound to say, that in our humble judgment, this learning is not seldom misapplied, and that the whole subject is viewed from a false position. The Church of the Future' is, doubtless, a beautiful vision to the author's fancy, but is, after all, a mere expedient for the reconciliation of ecclesiastical and civil interests, on the principle of nationality in both.

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ART. XI.-A Letter on the Present Position of the Education Ques tion. By EDWARD EDWARDS, Esq. 8vo. Pp. 34. London: 1847.

Or the vexed question we again approach in this paper, the public tell us, in more than one significant mode, that they have heard enough-more than enough. Not a few turn away in disgust from any invitation to bestow the slightest further thought on the subject. Nevertheless, the topic is one which will force itself on the attention of such parties, once and again, during some space to come; while as regards English Dissenters, should the ground which many of them have taken be retained, there is room to fear that what they have seen in connexion with this discussion will prove to be only the beginning of the end. Before we proceed to point out what this controversy has already done in reference to Dissenters, there are a few words of a personal nature, which we wish to submit, in the way of explanation and defence, to the candid attention of our readers.

I. Grave impeachment has been brought against the editor of this journal, on the ground of his having joined in opposing the recent Minutes of the Privy Council of Education, and in praying that the government would leave the education of the people in future wholly to themselves; and of his having since expressed his willingness to accept of some new arrangement in favour of Nonconformist schools, securing them exemption, wherever such exemption is desired, from all state interference with regard to the religious instruction which may be given in such schools, That the party accused has so done is not denied; but to a sound and honest judgment in respect to his so doing, there is a short series of facts that must be distinctly borne in mind.

Dr. Vaughan's objection to the Minutes of Council had respect, from first to last, almost exclusively to the one point above mentioned to the place assigned in those Minutes to the civil power as a religious teacher, and that even in respect to the instruction given in Nonconformist schools. That there was really

danger of our seeing this great nation become the slave of cabinets through the agency of schoolmasters, while each of the said schoolmasters would be made to depend for two-thirds of his bread on the voluntary contributions raised for his support by the school-managers of his district-the power of appointing or dismissing the master being all the while solely with those functionaries this notion, and some others kindred to it, never presented themselves to Dr. Vaughan as they seemed to present themselves to some of his brethren. Indeed, he wondered often, as he read what was written, and listened to what was said, on such topics. Not that he did not see many things in this government scheme needing correction and improvement; but its faults in other respects never appeared to him such as to be necessarily fatal to it, had not its politico-ecclesiastical character been of a complexion to constitute in itself an insuperable objection.

It will be remembered, that before the Minutes in question were brought out, some of the public prints which affected to be better informed than their neighbours, stated that the provisions of the forthcoming education scheme had been submitted to the heads of the Church of England, and had been approved. When the Minutes were laid on the table of the Upper House by Lord Lansdowne, the prompt and thorough approval of them expressed by the Bishop of London and others, was such as to warrant the conclusion that the newspaper reports which preceded this remarkable exhibition of agreement were by no means mere rumour. Appearances certainly seemed to justify the impression, that while no sort of conference on this subject had taken place with parties who are not of the Church of England, the scruples and wishes of churchmen had been studiously consulted. In addition to this, the terms employed by Lord Lansdowne on the subject generally, and particularly in reference to the great inexpediency of any attempt on the part of the government in favour of a scheme of purely secular education, all seemed to place it beyond doubt, that these Minutes expressed the fixed purpose of the government on the question, and that to dissenters the overture virtually made was-this or nothing.

We may be understood as speaking advisedly when we say, that the first feeling of Dr. Vaughan, at this juncture, was to abstain from taking further part in a discussion which seemed fated to come to no desirable issue. But he saw the condition in which his brethren were placed. He saw that if this project were acted upon, very few dissenters could be parties to it, and that its operation accordingly would be, that of an enormous grievance to the dissenter, and of a most exclusive and unjust bounty to the established church. He felt, however, that there was not a little to

overcome, as he entertained the thought of uniting with some of these aggrieved parties in an effort to free themselves from this difficulty. He could not conceal from himself that it was a difficulty very much of the sort that the course from which he had endeavoured in vain to dissuade these persons could hardly fail to lead-terms of a bad description being the natural result of a determination not to seek terms of any description. He thought, also, that he had some right to complain of a want of generosity, and even of justice, on the part of that portion of the dissenting press with which he regretted to find himself at issue. These opponents, in his view, never seemed to treat the subject as being at all a question—a matter having really two sides-but might rather be viewed, judging from their manner, as having ruled among themselves that infallibility should be presumed for the one side, and blunders for the other, and that this distribution of wisdom and folly should not be supposed liable to disturbance in any instance-no, not even by chance. Instances, indeed, were not wanting, apart from such organs of criticism, in which Dr. Vaughan, as one of the parties to whom the side of the foolish was thus awarded, was assailed with low invective and the basest imputations. Then, certain of the said organs, whose pretensions in matters of taste and morality should have prompted them to meet the scurrilous calumniator with the stern rebuke which, upon occasions, they so well know how to assume, in place of so doing, patted the gentleman on the back, and issued a virtual proclamation offering bounty for further assistance even in that shape! All this, too, came upon a man whose life during the last thirty years has been an unceasing labour to advance the interests of evangelical religion in the most openly-avowed connexion with the principles of congregational nonconformity, and came from the hands of parties once numbered among his sonal friends. Nor was the feeling excited by this sort of proceeding the only feeling requiring to be subdued. The construction to which this contemplated change of ground would be liable, on the part of those to whom it would be exceedingly displeasing, remained to be considered; the probable charges of unsteadiness, or of something more; and the no less probable loss of friendships, to which it would have been unnatural not to attach considerable value.

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But all the repugnant feeling experienced, as these circumstances were reviewed or anticipated, was controlled and placed in abeyance at that time by Dr. Vaughan, and everything per sonal forgotten, from a feeling of sympathy with his brethren, and from an enlightened regard, as he thought, to public principle, when he joined in the proposed opposition to the Minutes. In