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The Egyptian Bondage; or, a Second Call to Union, on the Principles of the Holy Catholic Church, and the everlasting Gospel of Christ. By the Rev. F. D. WACKERBARTH, A.B., of Queen's Coll. Camb. &c. &c. London: Dolman; Bohn. 1841.

In placing this pamphlet at the head of our article, we have no intention whatever of reviewing it; but we feel constrained to say a few words on a part of the great question of Church and State, from a sense of its being at the bottom of most of our present religious embarrassments.

The subject is so large and difficult a one, and has been so carefully entertained by so many of the greatest men of whom modern England can boast, that we feel some apology to be due to our readers for thus cursorily entering on it. But it seems to us far from exhausted. It is the second greatest question for every serious mind in the present age. To nearly every one, therefore, whatever be his post in the world of thought, is assigned the task of considering it. We are not aware that precisely what we are about to say on it has ever been said hitherto; and we feel bold, moreover, to place it before others in the light in which it is mainly seen by ourselves for this reason amongst many, that, whilst if that light be a just it is an important one, it need not exclude other ones which may be both just and important also.

The relation between Church and State, whatever it be, is an existing fact which we are to discover, not a plan which we are to form and carry into execution. However we like to regard it, and whatever terms we may prefer by which to denote it, it seems to have been something naturally resulting from the position in which both Church and State found themselves in the beginning of modern Europe. This is a solemn consideration. It does not seem as if we had the arrangement yet to choose; he who objects to it, seems almost to quarrel with the providence of God. Let him find any nation where the Church and State have come together as they did in ours without nearly the same result, and we will admit that it is a question for us to entertain and decide upon. But if that cannot be, we think it one to be approached with reverence and restraint, as larger and deeper than ourselves,-larger and deeper than any individual mind, -larger and deeper than any set of minds at any one period.

It is not, however, with the voluntary (to use the barbarous slang of the day) that we have to do at present. The parties of whom we are now thinking, have no objection to Church and State coming to some terms, but they are dissatisfied with the English adjustment of the question, as having in their judgment been effected by too large a surrender of her prerogatives on the part of the Church, and as tending to her enslavement.

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On the other hand, there are many who see that there are prerogatives in the State which she has no right to surrender, and who strongly object to the Romish and presbyterian views, as necessarily tending to her enslavement.

This, then, is the problem to be solved, how to place the union. between Church and State on such terms as that neither shall destroy the other. If, with the Erastian, we make the State the fountain of all authority within its limits, then there is, say what we like, no such thing as the Church, and the words spiritual power are but a deception. If, on the other hand, we exalt Church authority, what place is left for the magistrate? For it is easy to speak of each keeping to its own province; of the ecclesiastical authority being left unfettered in matters ecclesiastical, and the civil having undisturbed jurisdiction over civil affairs. Why, in three-fourths of the questions that arise, the grand point to be determined is, whether the case be ecclesiastical or civil. It is often a preliminary discussion in our Church courts, whether they are competent to entertain the case in hand at all; and however satisfactorily they may determine it, according to their own apprehensions of things, they cannot enjoy a moment's security against the common lawyers taking a different view of the matter, and coming down on them with that well-known extinguisher hight prohibition. Are things better in Scotland? There the sovereign is not considered, as here in the south, an ecclesiastic. There the temporal and ecclesiastical authorities are coordinate; there the rule is recognised by both, that neither is to meddle with what comes properly under the jurisdiction of the other. But do they work harmoniously? Is not this the very question which they cannot settle,-what matters are solely ecclesiastical, and what civil? and the unsettlement of which is bringing the affairs of the Scottish establishment to a dead lock?

In truth, two co-ordinate jurisdictions, talk as men like, are an impossibility. Unless religion can be separated altogether from the affairs of this life, we cannot settle the question thus. The Clergy, and we believe we may add the christian laity, must absolutely resolve to have no civil rights, properties, or immunities whatsoever, or they must come in contact with the secular power. And as we have already said, co-ordinate jurisdiction is impossible. Whilst the two authorities are liable to be occupied with the same matter, they must also be liable to clash. One must in the long run overpower the other. Neither can we get out of the difficulty by making one superior to the other; for, as we have already said, this must be for one to annihilate the other. Qui facit per alium, facit per se; and the jurisdiction of a subordinate is but one development of the jurisdiction of the governing authority. If the temporal authority governs the spiritual, then the State is really every thing. If the spiritual courts can overrule the temporal, then the Church is the only governing power; the monarch and the magistrates are but her officials, acting for themselves only by her permission.

Now, of course, if, looking the matter in the face, any man is prepared for either of these alternatives, and means to abide by it as desirable and right, there is no further difficulty awaiting him, except in the choice of a residence such as shall satisfy his views.

That residence cannot be England, for neither Dr. Arnold nor Thomas à Becket can now find the state of affairs which either might be supposed to desire. And though at present it may be easy to find in several countries much realization of the Erastian alternative, it is questionable whether there be any in which a legitimate branch of the Church is recognised and established, in which it does not every now and then manifest something of its independent character; in which it does not every now and then throw out a hint what powers it might put forth in time of need. On the other hand, nowhere, unless in the papal state, does the Church appear as the dominant power.

Is there, then, no settlement of this question ?-It has been the great European one since European states were: above all, it has been the great English one since England was. Has all been in vain? Have no results been arrived at? We think there have; we think that as it was the peculiar calling of England, to entertain, so it has been the peculiar honour of England to answer this question; not prematurely, not under any partial influence, not at any one excited moment; but calmly, in the fulness of time, by the mysterious leadings of God's Providence through "ways that we had not known," by the combined operation of the passions of bad and the aspirations of good men, by the mixture of earthly influences and heavenly strivings, by the contact of a political position and the necessity of the Church-by all this complication of human elements under Divine guidance.

Let us look at this a little more closely. In the very idea of a State, truly such, is involved that of integral independence. One of its prime necessities, therefore, must be to secure and maintain free integral action. Our State, like other European states, became early alive to this necessity, and sensible of this craving,—perhaps earlier alive, and more keenly sensible, because of the peculiar character of its population, and because of its island position; but, during the day of its weakness and infancy, there was a powerful enemy to this free integral action in the Church, as having all over Western Europe become prostrate before the chair of Peter, and being as a body but slightly tinged with the quality, or inspired by the sentiment, of nationality anywhere. Hence a struggle, continually reviving, and never more than lulled, between the civil and the spiritual power. Hence a feeling in each that it had something to contend for, something which it could not and should not surrender. Hence the strong sense of right which perhaps animated the partisans of Henry and Becket alike. This was a question which required to be settled at some time or other; it would have proved internecine, if not. It never was properly settled in Austria, in Spain. or in France; but in

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