The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1832-12-11 00:00:00

CHURCH AND STATE.

We recommend to the attention of our readers, and
particularly to such of them as entertain scruples upon
the propriety of there existing any connexion between.
the Church and the State, the following admirable ob-
servations of the Hon. J. Stuart Wortley, upon this
subect, which we find in his address to the electors of
Halifax. We have seldom seen it treated with so much
plain good sense and sound reasoning :
"On a former occasion I told you that I was a mem-
ber of the Church, and most sincerely attached to it, but
not blind to its defects; and that as its abuses rose to
my mind, I should be willing to correct them. In the
course of . my canvas, I have had free communication
with all classes of the electors; and from the courtesy
and candour with which I have been. every where re-
ceived, I have had opportunities of obtaining informa-
tion beyond even what some of my friends may have
obtained on this subject. I have found many who ob-
ject to the connexion between Church and State; and
with these I have at once expressed my difference.
The phrase is somewhat indefinite; and is, perhaps, not
easily explained ; but I shall endeavour to .state what
I understand by it. it is' the duty of a Government to
provide security for the person, for life and property ; to
ensure to all a inst participation of civil rights, and salu-
tary rules of political relation. The mind then recurs to
this—is it right that with these it should provide nothing
for the religious welfare of its subjects? Surely not-
-that is a legitimate connexion, as I think, between Church
and State, by which the one borrows ;from the other her
secular authority to provide for all who are willing to re-
ceive it, full religious instruction, and establishes for their
benefit, a pure standard of religious truth. lam aware
that many think there would be no harm were Govern-
ment to leave this undone. In this opinion I cannot
agree. There must be some virtue in an establishment
which has preserved purity of doctrine for so many cen-
turies,—in a system which has produced so much learning,
piety, and true religion. This connexion has saved the
country from the re-introduction of the Romish religion;
it has afforded the means of resisting the efforts of wily
Icings and wicked Ministers, in their attempts to bring
back upon us a religion whicli, the country had condemned
—it has been our refuge after periods of troubled be-
wilderment; and has handed down to us a church, which,
with all its faults, is purer in its doctrines than any other
which the world has yet exhibited. (Cheers.) By this
establishment it is provided, that all its members must
teach the same doctrines, and almost all will agree that
these doctrines are pious and pure ; and it has been found,
as in the time of the Commonwealth, when fanaticism had
spread over the land, when fifth and seventh monarchy-
men were seen contending with Presbyterians, Round-
heads with Cavaliers, and all in the heat of religious dif-
ference, that the Church has enabled us again to revert to
a pure standard of religion. But for the Church, the
purest dissent would have been less pure. It is like a
perennial fountain, to which, when the stream is polluted,
we may again recur to draw the revivifying water of pure
religious faith. I may add, that the connexion between
Church and State is sanctioned by the general tenour of
the Jewish dispensation, and by many passages in the
New Testament ; while nothing, as far as I am aware,
(though I do not profess to be an erudite theologian)
there appears to militate against such a connexion. If,
then, there is no difficulty on this ground, then the
Church establishment has the advantage of procuring
tranquillity for all the other sects. Some most con-
scientious Dissenters do not desire that the Church should
be destroyed; and it may be questioned, whether, if any
' of them had the superiority, they would use it with the
same moderation, and allow equally free scope to all re-
ligious opinions. From restraints in religious opinion I
have always wished for an entire release. The Church
protects the Dissents in the enjoyment of this freedom;
where there is no establishment, there is continual strife
among the different sects.