DR. VAUGHAN'S CONGREGATIONALISM.

Tins volume is divided into two books ; of which the substance of the first was an address delivered before the Congregational Union of England and Wales ; the second has been added by Dr. VAUGHAN to complete his view of the .general nature and existing state and prospects of Independency, or, as it seems the Independents prefer to call it, " Congregationlism,"—perhaps because they would not exclude from their Union any Protestant congregation which might desire to join it. The Congregational view of a church and its discipline are thus defined at starting by Dr. VAUGHAN- " Taking that authority [the Scripture] as our guide, we learn that the only proper members of a Christian church are true believers—devout per sons ; that every society of such persons, formed, as a general rule, under the sanction of the Christian ministry, and designed to uphold the Divine worship and ordinances, is truly a church of God, and part of the universal church, consisting of all such persons throughout the world ; that such societies were at the first, and should have continued to be, purely voluntary ; and that every church so constituted was strictly independent of all uninspired: authority in the conduct of its worship, the admission of its members, the exercise of its discipline, the choice of its officers, and the entire management of its affairs."

The real though probably unconscious object of Dr. VAnousar in Congregationalism, is to pronounce what the ancient orators called "a panegyric" upon his own section of the church : which he accomplishes, and very ably, by considering Independency in its relation to the Government at all times, and to modern society in the present and the future. From this survey he deduces the conclusion that the Voluntary principle is most consonant to the ever-adaptive character of Christianity, and most conducive to the progressive advance of the human race. When religion, argues Dr. Vanoukri, becomes associated with the state, it is immediately infected with the state's secular passions and prejudices. The church for the most part becomes a' bond-slave in its doctrine, its discipline, and its practice ; but even when it attains a momentary superiority, the effects of its power are generally as injurious to the character of religion and its ministers as its subserviency. This inconvenience, moreover, always follows from the union of the mortal to the immortal—that religion, which will endure for ever, and should ever be advancing, is united to a fluctuating and perishable body, partaking of all its temporal mutabilities, and bound perhaps at last to a decaying carcass, with-which its form may be doomed to perish, as a necessary result of the unnatural alliance. It may be conceded at once to-Dr. VAUGHAN, that his definition of the church approaches more nearly to the practice of the Apostolic and primitive ages, and carries with it a simple and unostentatious air, more nearly resembling the character of Chris- tianity in the days of its Founder and his immediate successors, than the pomps of Romanism or the forms and gradations of the Anglican Church : it may also be allowed that, in the days of its strength and progress, the church is always essentially voluntary: but whether human nature can produce an annual crop of saints and martyrs, and whether any thing short of the rarest virtue could have contended so well with the rude society of the dark and middle ages, as an ecclesiastical body powerful from its union, discipline, corporate wealth, and connexion with the state, is a moot point in historical philosophy, which Dr. VAUGHAN did not feel himself called upon to investigate.

Havieg examined the general question of an endowed or a vo- luntary church, Dr. Vsuciesx proceeds to consider Independency in its relation to society, especially to present society ; and draws a flattering picture of its power in adapting itself to human advance- ment in the most beneficial forms,—as the spread of popular intel- ligence, progress in the higher departments of learning and science, extension and support of the arts of peace, the principles of a re- presentative government, and the free intercourse of nations. In these and some other questions of importance, to whose advance the Voluntary principle is actively contributing, acquiescence is all that can be expected in theory from a stationary or stagnant esta- blishment, whilst in practice its prejudices will generally be found opposed to the advance of science of learning, and of mankind, and . only submitting to unite with them when resistance is no longer possible. The other parts of Dr. VAUGHAN'S work, and not always the least attractive, refer to the present condition of Independency in its relation to the Episcopalians; together with some observations on

the actual conduct of one party towards the other, and of what it ought to be. These sections also contain a keen and clever picture of some of his " brethren " both lay and Clerical, in the form of advice as to the conduct that ought to be pursued to attract the higher and more educated classes of society into the Independent communion, or at all events not to repel them.

• In breadth and comprehension of view, a composition varying with its theme from simple plainness to a high eloquence, and fre- quently in that practical sagacity which rises above the prejudices of sect and party and looks at the world as it really is, Congrega- tionalism will support Dr. VAUGHAN'S reputation. We do not, however, think it, as a whole, the most successful of his works. The subject, and the occasion on which the first part of it was de- livered, rather militate against impartiality of judgment, and have a tendency to substitute advocacy for examination : the author some- times resembles a dealer recommending his wares, rather than a natural philosopher investigating the principle of their manufacture. There is also in the chapters upon the Press and the conduct of the Established Church in relation to Dissent, something too much of a complaining spirit ; not perhaps querulous, but certainly not dignified; and we are by no means sure that it is perfectly well founded. In a contemptuous superciliousness, the station and early associations of the ministers of the Established Church may give them the advantage ; but in all other points, it appears to us that the Dissenters are quite capable of giving blow for blow. Dr. VAUGHAN does not always, either, base his statements on strictly accurate grounds. We doubt whether Dissent is so much attacked for its politics, as because Dissenters are prone to mix up their politics with their religion; and not only this, but to repre- sent all who disagree with them as enemies of God. For example, in the exercise of a free judgment, lately, we saw reason to doubt whether the Anti-Corn-law Conference of Ministers of Religion was a thing proper in itself, or likely to benefit the cause ; and for this difference of opinion, one of the persecuted saints immediately likened the Spectator to JUDAS ISCARIOT OP PONTIUS PILATE. These, however, are minor blemishes of Dr. VAUGHAN'S volume : the greater part of it is of juster and more elevated views, in which those who may differ with him will find nothing to be offended at in manner, and frequently much to be pleased with in his estimate of the causes which influence opposite religionists. Here is an instance ; though in the text a reply immediately follows to exhibit the fallacy of this

HOLD OP THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

In the case of multitudes, the zeal now evinced in the cause of the Esta- blished Church has its origin, no doubt, in much laudable purpose and feeling, such as the men who think it mistaken should be prepared to respect In the view of no small numbers of her children, the Church of England is possessed of such attractions as belong not to any other institute on earth. Among all the ordinances of God or of man, she is esteemed the most lovely, the most be- nignant. Her antiquity carries the mind back to the infancy of our condition as a people. Her visible structures, in every form and shade of beauty, are the still and sensible links which connect her history with all the changes of the past. In their completeness, or as they take the shape of the ivy-mantled ruin, they serve to call up the bygone in lengthened succession, until the ima. gination rests upon the rudest appevanees, amidst the deepening shadows of the most distant time. Before her altars all our fathers stood on their bridal-day, and to her sacred enclosures they surrendered their ashes when their race was run. Her solemn forms of worship became more and more impressive to the living, as being through so many ages mementos of the dead. Beneath her roofs—beneath the humblest in common with the proudest—the men of all de- grees have worshiped for more than a thousand years. The very paths lead- ing to the spaces on which her spires and turretslift themselves towards heaven, have been in a measure sacred in the usages of our people ; and the sabbath- morning groups in our parishes are among the social pictures we have always been fond of Cherishing.

But the institution thus interwoven with our homestead remembrances and sympathies has still higher_ claims on our veneration. As we look back on the history of this Church, we see monarchs, a line of dynasties, do homage to her sanctity. Queens, also, from the mother of Alfred downwards, bow at her shrine, and give up their children to her blessing. Her rulers, her scholars, and her devout men, are often seen as the only august spirits of their times. Not a few of them appear like personifications of the repose of another world, coming forth amidst the darkness and turbulence of the present. Such men, resting on their own profound thoughts, and strong in their own strength, are often seen rising high above all the men of their time. When the season came, some of these could take the place of the confessor and the martyr, giving to the dignity of their episcopate the high adornment of a spirit ready to be offered as an oblation on the altar of truth and sanctity. Such were Latimer and Hooper, and such were Ridley and Bradford. All these images of the weal and wo, of the lowliness and greatness, of the intellectual, the moral, and the holy, through the past, arrest the eye of the Churchman's imagination, and serve to bind his heart to the systemwith which they are so naturally associated.

The following is of a still more catholic kind ; and it may be carefully pondered by ministers of every denomination.

THE POPULAR KIND OF ENGLAND.

The popular mind to which Methodism addressed itself a century ago is no longer the popular mind of England. The preaching which produced such effects then was adapted to those times, hut would be greatly wanting in adap- tation to our own. It commended itself to a people who believed that they were sent into the world to be obedient, —obedient to their betters, obedient to the laws, and to Christianity in some sort, as being a part of those laws. But the modern preacher has another kind of world about him. He has to begin, unhappily, so far as it respects great numbers, at the beginning, by making plain the credibility of the Gospel ; and if successful on that point, he has to work his way toward his ultimate object, amidst the questionings of minds which know little of submission to authority in any form, and which are rather - tutored to pride themselves in a spirit of opposition to almost every thing which happens to be received and established. Speaking generally, these men have little of the submission and as little of the dulness which belonged to the same class a century since. It should never be forgotten that the Christian preacher is not now the only preacher. The press has become the rival of the pulpit Every class has its lite- rature; every factory-loft has become a species of reading-room ; and the lower we descend in our analysis of the literary products of the age, the more stimu- lating and deleterious do we find them. The man of the pulpit, who is not deeply alive to the force of this antagonism of the press, is not fit for his voca- tion. Can a preacher hope to minister effectually to minds thus diseased with.. out some closeness of study, in order to understand a malady in its nature so peculiar, so complex, so deeply seated, and fed so constantly from so many sources? The impassioned appeals of early Methodism, and the formal essay of the parish-minister, would be alike without effect on such minds. Nor is the preaching of Evangelical divines, Whether in the Established Church or among ourselves, so wisely adjusted to this end as it might be. The great re- quisite is, under God, that we should know our subject well—the evidence and reason of it ; that, as the effect of our familiarity with it, we should be capable of making it plain and of giving it force ; and of doing this in such language as men of education may approve, and which no man may fail to understand.

In the remarks on Independent Dissent which he makes in the course of his Second Book, as well as in the advice which he tenders, Dr. VAUGHAN speaks like one having authority, and as it were in the character of one of those distinguished ministers in primitive times who though not Bishops in our sense were looked up to as heads of the Church. These parts, however, are among the most interesting of the volume, from the general truths they contain, or the racy though indirect pictures of Dissent which they present.

THE PHILOSOPHY OP HAMMER.

But we have men among us, I fear, who never thought of making the slightest effort toward qualifying themselves for usefulness in such con- nexions the more educated classes]; men who even make a boast of the re- pugnance of their manners to all such association. Such persons have their reward. The sin, in their case, is with deliberation, and the penalty is cer- tain. We see in the history of this form of selfishness, that in the progress of life every man makes his own society and finds his own place. The laws of society are reciprocal; and if we know not how to consult the tastes of other men, we must not expect that attention will be paid to our own. Natural ability may do much, but it is the will of Providence that we should find as much to be depending on manner as on mind, the former being much more within every man's power than the latter. An agreeable presence and address are a more certain passport to general society than profound learning or unu- sual talent.

Nor is proficiency in this respect so superficial a thing as some men suppose. Nature may do a good deal toward it; but in the case of those who excel, art and study have done more. It is true that it has respect almost exclusively to little things, but these little things are in constant occurrence and demand a constant attention. In time, indeed, art in this respect will become as nature; but only as the effect of study, effort, and habit. Young men cannot be too seriously admonished, that in human life the small things are always as wheels to the great. It is not many of our ministers, I trust, who need this kind of caution. It would have been well for the social position of Congregationalism if it bad never been needed.

Every thing now said with respect to the importance of personal demeanour in the Intercourse of society, must apply eminently to the pulpit. It has been permitted to me, during some years past, to commend Evangelical truth t to many persons whose station in society, or whose position in connexion with science and literature would have been regarded by religious people as likely to have given them a strong repugnance to such truth. But the result of my experience is, a conviction that the exception which would be taken to our ministry by sucliclasses, if they could be brought generally into connexion with it, would not be to the matter of our preaching so much as to the manner of it.

In this connexion, however, I use the term " manner " in its largest sense— as embracing the whole method of presenting instruction, and not merely the

exterior mode of address, or the style of expression. • • "' To dogmatize in the endless iteration of certain texts and certain commonplaces is much more easy. For such a manner of teaching, the most untaught are often found to be fully competent. But it is not possible that these signs of the absence of culture should fail of being at once perceived by a cultivated mind. • * • Men of disciplined habits of thought may descend in their manner of inculcating truth to the capacity of the humblest; but men i devoid of those habits can never place themselves n a position to secure the confidence of those who possess them. Knowledge may adapt itself to the state of ignorance, but the uncultivated can never become as guides to men of under- standing. It is true there are many things of which a preacher may be igno- rant without loss ; but he must be capable of handling his own subject, with the precision, compass, and freedom of a workman not needing to be ashamed, if he does not mean to be put to shame.

BE NATURAL.

The best mode of exhibiting a topic, considered purely in its substance, be- longs exclusively to the intellect. Languags and utterance belong more to the province of taste ; in which the simple and rigid conclusions of the under- standing are often variously modified by more flexible influences. But in re- gard both to language and to mode of address, the demand made upon us by the educated is a reasonable one. It is simply that we should be natural. It is that we should be careful to speak to them in terms which they can understand, in place of suffering our meaning to lie concealed beneath a multitude of unintelligible phrases ; and that our utterance should be that of men who speak, and not that of men who sing. Nearly all our popular preachers are in a good degree exempt from fault in these re- spects. But this is more than can be said in respect to many of our brethren; and in almost every instance the degree in which they have failed, as preachers is the degree in which they have been wanting in the command of a natural language and of a natural manner.

CLAIMS 'UPON A DISSENTING MINISTER.

In general we restrict the oversight of our churches to one man ; and what- ever variety of gifts may belong to our pastors, we have one fixed system of duties to which they must be alike conformed. Is not this against nature ? Can it be reasonably expected that it should work well ? Picture to your mind a respectable Dissenting church capable of securing the services of one of our most able ministers. It has such a minister. He is expected to preach three times every week, from year to year and from one seven years to another, on the same general subject, before the same people, and always more or less with a new force and freshness of matter and illustration. Ile is not only the one preacher • he is the one pastor, and is expected to know his people, to visit them—ail of them, however numerous his charge, rich and poor, in sick- ness and in health. In proportion as such a man is capable of preaching effectually at home, are the calls made upon him to preach from home ; in pro- portion as he is capable of giving a wise impulse to the efforts of his own people in the cause of religion, education, and charity, is the claim made upon him to give portions of his time and thought in aid of the same objects as prosecuted in other forms or upon a larger scale elsewhere. The more his charge is found to exceed his utmost power of oversight, the more loud are the calls of the public, if he will listen to them, that would divert his attention from it. Of such a man it is further expected that he should be a scholar ; that his habits should be such as to enable him to retain his acquisitions, and to keep his mind generally up to the level of the intelligence around him. If need be, he will be

expected to show that be can make use of his acquisitions in the way of authorship, and in a manner not to be discreditable to the educated who recog- nize him as their teacher. In the train of all this comes the domestic cha- racter of this minister. He is a husband and a father ; he has duties of a social, moral, and religious character, to discharge towards his own household. He must owe no man any thing. His house must be the home of the orderly, the creditable, the Christian-like. The contrary of this would be felt as a dis- grace and a calamity.

Now I am not aware that there is any thing exaggerated in this representa- tion. No man, perhaps, on having all these points distinctly put to him, would be prepared deliberately to say that it is reasonable to expect all this from any pastor. But the working of our system is such as to cause many a pastor to feel that service to something like this amount is in effect regarded as incumbent upon him. If wanting in respect to any of these things, he has those about him who will be observant, and complain. He finds that his efficiency as a preacher is not allowed to make amends for his defects as a pastor ; and he well knows that his assiduity as a pastor would not be found to compensate for his ineffectiveness as a public teacher. He is left at liberty to serve the public ; but he knows that his so doing must not he pleaded in excuse of any neglect in regard to supposed duty towards his church, his congregation, or his house- hold. Be may cultivate the habits of a student, and may show skill in using the press in the cause of religion and humanity ; but these things, peculiar as they may be in a great measure to himself, must not be thought of as a reason for his not doing every other thing just in the manner in which every one else does it.

In this manner do we insist that our pastors shall be good at every thing, as though for the purpose of preventing their being excellent in any thing.