The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1840.

forced by such enormities, and, we may add, en-
dured with so much apathy. These claims are
as inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, as

they are hostile to the advancement of truth and

knowledge, yet, in spite of their injustice and ab-
surdity, they ate shamelessly maintained in opposi-
tion to all the boasted light and liberty of
the nineteenth century. To the Episcopalian
Church we are friendly, but to the State machine

created by Act of Parliament we are determined
enemies. We are anxious, for the interests of both
the State and the Church, that the connection
which unites them should be severed, and as we

have now a little space 'at command, we shall de-

vote two or three articles to the subject—a subject

which we may remark is beginning to interest

deeply large bodies of the people. -
In contemplating the innumerable evils which
have been produced by Ecclesiastical domination, it
is natural to inquire how such a system—a

system so unjust in its nature, so dreadful
in its: operation, so utterly repugnant to the

genius of Christianity, and to the views of
its Author, was introduced, established, and

continued in the Christian world. We know that

in the pure and primitive days of the Church the
religion of JESUS CHRIST, in its native simpli-
city of doctrine and worship, was utterly disjoined
from civil establishments ; that it supported itself

by its own truth and excellence, not only without
the aid, but in opposition to the enmity, and in

defiance of the persecution of the civil power. We
know that its ministers were—what its Founder in-

tended they should be—men of lowly minds and
unblemished characters, who devoted themselves to

the service of the Gospel, not for the sake of wealth
and preferment, but. with the pious and honourable
view of promoting the great interests of truth, vir-
tue, and happiness.
This state of things, however, was not of long
duration. Religion which is a personal and inde-
pendent thing, the concerns of which lie only be-

tween GOD and the human heart, and whose
business it is to raise our views above the world,
has in every age been perverted from its proper end
to the base purposes of worldly ambition and State
intrigue. Christianity itself, though it utterly dis-
claims the connection, was soon pressed into the
service of the magistrate, and soon became, under
his management, the direct reverse of what it was
before. Human nature is the same in all profes-
sions. No class of men are superior to the allure-
ments of interest and ambition. As soon as this
ill-sorted union took place between the Church and
State—between the kingdom of CHRIST and the
the kingdoms of the world, prospects of wealth and
aggrandizement were immediately opened to the
ministers of religion, so flattering to human pride
that they could not fail to have a very general and
a very pernicious influence. Their influence, in-
deed, was powerful and rapid. Instead of the
lowly temper, the unaffected piety, the disinterested
zeal which had distinguished and ennobled the first
ministers of Christianity, we soon behold the gradual
introduction and rapid spread of a very different
spirit—a spirit of contention for power and rre-
eminence, of base rapacity, of intolerance, hypo-
crisy, and superstition, than which nothing can be
more unlike the genuine spirit of Christianity.
It is astonishing to think to what a pitch this
spirit of worldly ambition and insolent domination
was carried by those who styled themselves the
ministers Of CHRIST, and it is still more astonishing
that mankind should have submitted so tamely for
many centuries to the most palpable and the most
impudent of all usurpations. The extent of power
to which the Church attained, and the insolence
with which her authority was exercised during the
dark ages, if the fact were not, ascertained by un-
doubted evidence, exceed all bounds of belief. - Her
ministers, instead. ,of .being. the servants :of., the
people, became of all tyrants the most dangerous
and the most formidable. Having fully confirmed
the empire of a splendid superstition, and being
enabled by the operation of that powerful engine to
manage and to awe the people, they held all Europe
in disgraceful bondage, trampled upon the necks of
kings, and made nations tremble at the thunder of
their anathemas. The civil magistrate, by whose
favour and assistance the Church was ad-
vanced to this pitch of worldly grandeur, who
wished to use her as an instrument, and often found
her a very convenient and effectual one, for confirm-
ing his own despotism, and keeping mankind in ser-
vile subjection, not unfrequentiv became, in his
turn, a slave to spiritual authority, and a martyr to
ecclesiastical intrigue. This tyranny at last grew
insupportable. The claims of Rome began to be
scrutinized—their utter inconsistency with the New
Testament was pointed out, and this country, with
others, was finally emancipated, though not without
much struggle and much bloodshed, from the yoke
of Rome.

A Gentleman, whose zeal for the honour of his
country is more praiseworthy than his acquaintance
with the black letter historians of England, has
written to us in a great passion to say that it was
never the popular superstition of Englishmen that
the Jews mingled Christian blood with any of 'their
religious sacrifices. We are not surprised that an
honest Christian should feel indignant at such an
imputation being laid to the charge of his country-
men ; but, unfortunately for our too zealous Corre-
spondent, we are in a condition to prove al!
that we have averred upon the subject, five
times over. MATTHEW of PARIS, that
earliest of British historians, under date 1255,
relates in substance the following narrati ie,
which we copy from the " Kalendre of the
New Legende of Englande, dated the xx daye of
February, in yere of our Lorde God MCCCCC and
xvi," and dedicated to King HENRY VIII. We
pass over the allusion to it in CHAUCER'S tale of
the Prioress, and in the ballads preserved in the
beautiful " Percy Relics," of which a new edition
has lately been given to the world by Mr. TENI-
PLETON. The following monkish legend is cer-
tainly the origin of the miserable farce got up in
Syria, which has so displeased our Correspendent
" In the yere of our Lorde a m. cc. and Lv. aboute ye
feestys of seynt Peter and Paule, ye Jewys of Lyncolne
stale a cristen Chylde, that was aboute the age of viii.
yerys, called Hugh, and they put hym in a secrete house
and fede hym x dayes with mylke, yt he myght abyde yo
gretter turmentys. And thereupon they sent to all ye
townys in Englonde, wberin were any Jewys, to haue
some of them to be at ye sacryfyce of this Childe, which
they entendyd to crucyfye in despyte of our Lord Jhesu
Cryste. And when they were gaderyd they appoyntyd a
Juge as for Pylat, and so they Jugyd hym to deth. And
then they bet bym soo that the blode folowyd, they crownyd
bym with thorne, they spyt vppon hym, and mockyd hym,
and euery man pryckyd hym with his knyfe, they gaue hym
to drynke gall. And with great opprobrycs and blasphc-
mouse wordys, with gnasshynge of theyr teth, they callyd
hym Jhesus the Cursyd prophet, and after they Crucyfyed
bym, and with a spore thruste hym to the Norte. And
when he was deed they toko his Body from the Crosse,
and vnbowelde bym for theyr enchauntementys. After
when they 'cycle his Bodye into the grounde, the grounde
wolde not kepe it but caste it vppc agayne, wherfore they
were merueylously aferde, and threwe bym into a pytte.
After ye =der of the Chylde, which made greatc sorowe,
saenecludialsytge cant t
al y
jeenwqyuse
hr yd u
sfeo rp he yy min
g,
eli awr di
ten s
jay hew,
yts a he
ct
hy id
ri.o s
ev
n.
And so she went sodeynly into the house, and there she
tfohlaitndoewyt hd e
the Cod
ues.
wasAn d vt
akpyoun,
at adt
hseu scpoenefee ys
ioynd,
tthhee
mmuarn.
der, whereupon xviii of the Rychest of the Jewys of Lyn-
colne yt assented to the martyrdoms of ye sayd hless3d
chylde, were drawyn and hangyd, and the cbanons of
Lyneolne alkyd the Body of ye sayde Cbylde, and buryed
bym like a gloryouse martyr."

To the effect of the important documents rela-
tive to the claims of Sir AUGUSTUS D' EsTE,
which appear in another part of The Sun, it may
almost seem superfluous in us to attempt to add
weight by
any observations of our own. Those