The
effort excited only the contempt of Leslie Stephen--"the peculiar
Warburton mixture," he says "of sham logic and bluster." Yet that is
hardly fair to the total result of Warburton's remarks. He tried to
steer a middle path between the logical result of such Erastianism as
that of the _Independent Whig_, on the one hand, and the excessive claim
of High Churchmanship on the other. Naturally enough, or the writer
would not be Warburton, the book is full of tawdry rhetoric and stupid
quibbles. But the _Alliance between Church and State_ (1736) set the
temper of speculation until the advent of Newman, and is therefore
material for something more than contempt. It acutely points out that
societies generate a personality distinct from that of their members in
words reminiscent of an historic legal pronouncement.[12] "When any
number of men," he says, "form themselves into a society, whether civil
or religious, this society becomes a body different from that aggregate
which the number of individuals composed before the society was
formed.... But a body must have its proper personality and will, which
without these is no more than a shadow or a name."

[Footnote 12: Dicey, _Law and Opinion in England_ (2nd edition),
p. 165.]

And that is the root of Warburton's pronouncement. The Church is a
society distinct from the State, but lending to that body its assistance
because without the sanction of religion the full achievement of the
social purpose is impossible. There is thus an alliance between them,
each lending its support to the other for their common benefit. The two
remain distinct; the union between them is of a federal kind. But they
interchange their powers, and this it is which explains at once the
royal supremacy and the right of Churchmen to a share in the
legislature. This also it is which explains the existence of a Test
Act, whereby those who might injure that which the State has undertaken
to protect are deprived of their power to evil. And, in return, the
Church engages to "apply its utmost endeavors in the service of the
State." It becomes attached to its benefactor from the privilege it
receives; and the dangers which might arise from its natural
independence are thus obviated. For a federal union precludes the grave
problem of an _imperium in imperio_, and the "mischiefs which so
terrified Hobbes" are met by the terms upon which it is founded.

It is easy enough to discover the loopholes in the theory. T