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APPENDIX TO THE GUIDE."

most holy faith; or had you, like another Wilberforce, nobly endeavoured to raise the members of our National Church, from that wretched state of dull and torpid indifference to all religion, into which so many have fallen, I should have had much greater satisfaction in coming forward as your admirer and friend, than I can possibly have in this character of a defensive and unwilling opponent."

In answer to Sir Richard Hill's Apology for Brotherly Love, Mr. Daubeny compiled two octavo volumes, which he called an "Appendix to the Guide to the Church." They contained nine letters addressed to Sir Richard Hill, in which he maintained the positions and opinions opposed in the "Apology." He repeated also his disapprobation of the doctrines of Mr. Wilberforce and Mrs. Hannah More, although he allowed that they were deserving of much personal respect, which nevertheless made their unsoundness the more lamentable.

This called forth a reply from the pen of Sir Richard Hill, entitled" Reformation Truth Restored;" and the quotation from Bishop Hall selected for the motto of this book, will shew his view of the spirit in which that of his opponent was written-"You speak with much spite and no truth; what hath our Church to do with errors of universal grace and free-will? Errors which her articles do flatly oppose. What shamelessness is this?" As is the case, however, with all similar controversy, he said, they were only writing for their own amusement, or to torment reviewers, and without the smallest hope of converting one another. Yet he observed, in his own humorous way, on Mr. Daubeny's couple of octavos, which occupied the author full fifteen

1 Bishop Hall to the Brownists.

"REFORMATION TRUTH RESTORED."

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months, that after the mountain had been in labour all that time, it would be unkind and disrespectful not to notice at all the two poor Church mice that had crept out. Upon one point he made very serious remonstrance in these words;-"I complain of your representing me as inimical to our most excellent ecclesiastical establishment, notwithstanding all I have said in my Apology of my steady attachment to it, as well in constitution as in doctrine; and notwithstanding both in town and country, throughout the whole year, I attend the regular ministry of the clergy of the Church of England, and receive the communion from their hands, and from no others, and have part of the Church service, with a portion of Scripture, daily read by a clergyman in my family." Sir Richard Hill did not consider an interchange of kindness with pious dissenters, any proof of hostility to the Church: nor will any man of liberal mind take it in this light; and it is only to be most devoutly wished, that the happy days of unity and love may return in all their brightness and beauteous calm, when the agitation of the elements shall cease in the Christian world.

In the course of his strictures on Mr. Daubeny's appendix to his "Guide," Sir Richard Hill related the following anecdote:-He happened once to be in the company of three extraordinary persons in very different ways-the Earl of Chesterfield, the Countess of Huntingdon, and Mrs. Macaulay. Lady Huntingdon, with her usual zeal, endeavoured to introduce the subject of serious religion, which Mrs. Macaulay continually avoided by bringing in her own favourite views of republicanism. She launched out into rapturous commendations of the Romans, the Lacedæmonians, the laws of Lycurgus, and the praise bestowed on them by

Xenophon. Lord Chesterfield, equally uneasy at the mention of either of these topics, still maintained his politeness, though longing all the while for an opportunity to slip away without any breach of good manners. He praised beyond measure the historical knowledge and ingenuity of Mrs. Macaulay; and passed the most flattering encomiums on the zeal, piety, and character of Lady Huntingdon. "Ah," said the latter, "it is for want of your Lordship's knowing me more perfectly, that you speak of me in such flattering terms; for I am conscious that I am nothing better than a poor, vile, miserable, sinful creature, such as can only hope to be saved by free sovereign grace, and without any merit of my own to recommend me to the divine favour." This sincere rejection of the flattery of the Earl, gave him the desired opportunity of escaping from the seat of thorns, on which his courtesy had so long kept him. He rose, made a most profound bow, and retired with these characteristic words-"I never yet was in any room or company where I could stay and hear the excellent Lady Huntingdon abused. I am therefore under the immediate necessity of bidding your Ladyship good morrow. Mrs. Macaulay, your most obedient."

With this anecdote and a quotation I shall close my notice of this controversy, as my object is, I trust, attained, which was not to augment the number of my pages by a reiteration of arguments often stated and often replied to, but to shew that Sir Richard Hill was cordially attached to the National Church established amongst us. This invaluable establishment

has seldom had three more consistent members than himself, Mr. Wilberforce, and Mrs. Hannah More; and Mr. Daubeny, in attacking the class of persons to which they belonged, was certainly inflicting a serious

blow upon the defenders of institutions he professed to uphold. How he could ever have suffered his pen to trace a passage like this addressed to Sir Richard Hill, is perfectly unaccountable-" You and your friend Mr. Wilberforce-for now I understand you both speak the same language—seem perfectly agreed in decrying good works." The author of the Practical Christianity decrying good works! But after reading such a sentence as this, no one can be surprised that the same man should have construed kindness to pious dissenters into enmity to the Church. The true interests of the establishment are little indeed understood, by men who would impede the genial flow of Christian charity, by freezing up its waters into the ice of frigid high churchmanship, and thus check the current of that stream which pours over the whole Christian community, the blessings of beauty and fruitfulness. Kindred to them in spirit, are the theologians, if they deserve the name, who would fain give the efficacy to the form which belongs to the spirit, and bring into the sanctuary the idolatry of a creature element, instead of impressing upon every mind the emptiness of any outward sign, unless it is accompanied by the renovating grace of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The following passage in the last letter of Sir Richard Hill to Mr. Daubeny, will shew how much he considered the spirit of our Church opposed to anything like bigotry or coldness, towards other religious communities who maintain their principles with meekness and love.

"When your rigid ideas of denying the name of churches, to all Protestants who are not under episcopalian jurisdiction, and to account as schismatics many

1 Letter VI. of his Appendix, p. 333.

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SIR R. HILL'S VIEW OF TOLERATION.

who are, would urge you not to look upon them as members of that mystical body, whereof Christ himself is the head, and even to exclude them out of the vineyard, you would do well to consider the honour which God is pleased to put upon many of them, and in what indelible words the characters of true Christians are written upon them; this would cause you to love them as brethren, and to give them the right hand of fellowship, as those who are united to you in spirit, though differing from you in some external forms of worship and church government; lamenting, if you please, their scruples and prejudices against full conformity with that excellent establishment, in which you have the honour of being a minister, and I a member.

"It is true the canons of our Church do denominate all dissenters with the harsh appellation of schismatics; but then we are to reflect that those canons, besides having never been sanctioned by authority, were compiled at a time when the polity of the national church was in its infancy, and when disputes were beginning to run very high between episcopalians and puritans; but since the Toleration Act, dissenters are as much protected by the laws of the land as churchmen themselves; and the very design of many of the canons and laws to enforce conformity, no longer existing, we and they are more one than at any period previous to the Revolution.

"Think not, Sir, that I wish to object against the proper exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; there must be laws and subordination in the Church, as well as the State, to which all true Christians are bound to submit; it is the divine command, "Let all things be done decently and in order;" the reins of discipline may be held with too lax a hand, as well as by one that is too tight;