emper; nor does
it, so far as we have observed, contain one expression unworthy of a
gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put
forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be
false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if
followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would
inevitably produce the dissolution of society; and for this opinion we
shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance
of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by
example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are
sure, without malevolence.

Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard
ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons
who have read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have
merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member
for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the
supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine that we are writing in
defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of the
Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to
accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone's
doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy,
because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to
accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical
property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was
derived from the Levitical law. It is to be observed, that Mr. Gladstone
rests his case on entirely new grounds, and does not differ more widely
from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as the
most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with the
Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that
celebrated work "does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary
authority." He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church
and State. "The propositions of that work generally," he says, "are to
be received with qualification"; and he agrees with Bolingbroke in
thinking that Warburton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still
less satisfied with Paley's defence of the Church, which he pronounces
to be "tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles," and
"full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that