anxiety for the common good of the nation, and were eminently successful in their deliberations and labours for this end. How easy is it for God to extricate from the most formidable dangers, and at the least expected hour!

THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OF REBELLION-THE OBJECTIONS OF DR PUSEY CONSIDERED.

The Presbyterian Churches of France and Scotland have often been charged with rebellion. I have repeatedly, though incidentally, referred to this accusation. But it may be proper to be a little more full and distinct in the answer, the more especially, as Dr Pusey, one of the leaders in the new school of revived Popery in England, has, in a very strong manner, attacked the Protestant Churches of France and of Britain on this score ; and it is to be feared his sentiments and feelings are participated in by no small or uninfluential party, who generally range themselves under his standard. There can be no doubt, that, prompted by self-defence, the Presbyterians of France and of Scotland have occasionally felt themselves constrained to resist the persecuting tyranny to which for many long years they were subjected. Was this unlawful? Dr Pusey and many others, some of them far sounder men, have contended that it was so,-that, in all circumstances, passive obedience and non-resistance are a Christian duty,-and that, in departing from this principle, they violated the law of Christ, and were chargeable with rebellion. holds, that patience and unresisting suffering are the strength of the Church. Others have quoted our Lord's saying to Peter," Put up thy sword into its place, for all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword," attempting to show historically, that where

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Christians have had recourse to self-defence in behalf of their religion, they have always been cut off by the sword. But Dr Pusey, in a recent sermon before the University of Oxford, has gone greater lengths than any writer whom we remember on the same subject. He holds, that the French Protestants were allowed to fall a prey to the horrible Popish plot of St Bartholomew, in which 60,000 to 70,000 were massacred in the basest treachery, "because they were an active, busy, scheming body, with worldly wisdom;" and that the Church and people of England were preserved from the Popish Gunpowder Plot, because "they were passive." He is pleased also, in his presumptuous interpretation of Providence, to attribute the decline of religion in Great Britain, in the last century, to the Revolution of 1688, and to regard it as an expression of the judgments of God on the nation for dethroning the Popish James! He speaks of men daring" to call the Revolution of 1688 "a glorious Revolution,"-declares that we must "disavow" the sins of the men who carried it through; and that, had the people "remained passive under the shadow of God's wings, the tyranny had passed over; but man interposed schemes of his own-they did that which their Lord upon the cross was taunted to do, but did not, they saved themselves,' and so they were permitted to mar the good purpose of God." He speaks also of the age of Charles II. being the golden age of the divines of the English Church, when their passive virtues were called forth and exercised by suffering; whereas, the last century was the deadest and shallowest period of English theology and of the English Church; and that the Revolution of 1688 ejected a valuable portion of her members-the nonjurors-divided and so weakened her," &c.

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It would greatly and unnecessarily swell this little work to enter upon a discussion of these and similar points. There is not one of them which would not admit, as an objection, of a satisfactory answer. Let me rather shortly advert to the general principle which is involved in cases of resistance. No Christian doubts

that in all cases it is the great and imperative rule to submit to authority, however despotic, and that it is unlawful and sinful to resist it; but most Christians have usually allowed that there are exceptions to this rule,— that if a Government commands what is contrary to, or forbids what is enjoined by, the law of God, it is the duty of subjects in these cases to obey God rather than man-just as parents and masters are to be resisted when they require what is contrary to the Divine will. These, however, are rare and terrible steps, which are to be resorted to only in the clearest cases, and after all other means have failed. Such, we contend, was substantially the case on those occasions where the Protestant Presbyterians of France and Scotland betook themselves to arms against their oppressors. These oppressors forbade what God had enjoined; for instance, they denied them the free exercise of public worship. Would it have been right here to have obeyed man, and to have abandoned the worship of God? The Christians of France and of this country did not hastily rise in rebellion. They bore long, and with pre-eminent meekness, all the hardships and persecutions to which they were exposed. They showed vastly more forbearance and good temper under provocation than the Puseyites in controversy, who are so forward to condemn them. It was only when all other resources failed, that they betook themselves to the last extremity; and not a few of their reluctant risings in self-defence were the act of the moment, prompted not by deliberate design, but the urgency and suffering of the occasion. These considerations surely go far, not only to vindicate their proceedings, but to proclaim them worthy of approbation. It is no answer to say, that Scripture and the primitive Church give no authority to, or example of, resistance to civil government. The cases to which we refer are confessedly extreme. Scripture deals rather in general principles, leaving the application to enlightened conscience, than in minute details of cases, and of all possible exceptions to general rules. It does not tell us to resist parents when they

command what is wrong; yet this must be taken for granted. As Christianity does not deprive men of their natural rights-of what they possessed as men antecedent to, and independent of, revelation, so the burden of proving the obligation of non-resistance in every possible case, even the clearest and most atrocious, obviously rests with Dr Pusey and his friends, and those who hold his sentiments; and that can be done only by their adducing from Scripture a direct prohibition against Christians resisting civil authority in any case whatever. This would establish the point, for Scripture is supreme, and entitled to limit natural rights; but nothing else will avail. I need scarcely say, however, that this is what Dr Pusey does not attempt to do. Besides, in a country where Christianity is civily recognised, as it was both in France and Britain, men stand upon a different footing from those who live in a heathen country, like the primitive Christians, where Christianity is not tolerated. In the one case there might be such an outrageous violation of public and acknowledged rights, as would warrant men in having recourse to resistance as the last and only remedy, while the same resistance would be quite unlawful and wrong in a Pagan country, where the Christians (Christianity not being tolerated) could have no rights, existed only by sufferance, and so were not entitled to run counter to the known and proclaimed constitution of the country, and endeavour by forcible means to subvert it.

With regard to the primitive Church, of which Dr Pusey is so much enamoured, no one who has studied its character and history, especially with the lights which the eminent author of "Ancient Christianity" has recently struck out, will be disposed to place much reliance on either its testimony or example. It is well known that a fanatical love of suffering and martyrdom early appeared in the Church, which would render such proceedings as are condemned in the Protestants of France and Scotland in a great measure inapplicable.

The earlier primitive Church stood in very peculiar

circumstances. Oppressed and persecuted, and anxious chiefly for the faithful maintenance of its testimony against Pagan idolatry, it is unfair to make it the pattern for a Christian community, whose condition is altogether different,—of men possessed of certain civil powers and privileges. Who knows but that, had the early Christians been otherwise situated, they would not have felt and acted differently? It is highly probable that they would. But whatever may be thought of the unresisting, meek submission of the earlier Church, all who are acquainted with ecclesiastical history are well aware that very different was the spirit of its successor. Pusey and his friends are as great admirers of the Christian Church of the fourth as of the third century. They pay as much, perhaps more, regard to Basil and his contemporaries, than to Cyprian and his associates. And what was the spirit of the leading men of the fourth century? How did they take the contempt and rough treatment of the apostate Julian, and afterwards of the Arian emperors? Was their temper that of passive

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obedience and non-resistance? Were Basil and the Gregories, in addressing Julian and speaking of him, noted for the mildness of the dove or the lamb? Were they not eminent for their bold arrogance and lawless contumacy, so that one wonders the Cæsars bore the provocation so meekly? Assuredly the writings of Basil and of Gregory indicate a spirit of resistance, to which we shall find no parallel among the persecuted Presbyterians of France and of Britain. And yet these are the great authorities of the new Anglican school of passive obedience and non-resistance, and leading guides of what is called the primitive Church! If Dr Pusey and his party will be ruled by the primitive Church, let them be fair and consistent, and go the full length of their professed principle. Let them take the primitive Church "for better or for worse," and not for the former only.

With regard to the supposed good which has resulted from passive suffering, and the still greater amount of