estates are of their owners. If a man purchases an estate or a house, he purchases it minus the tithes, and gives so much the less for it; if he takes a farm or a house, he gives so much the less rent in consequence of the demands of the clergy. Even in building houses or reclaiming lands, the additional rent, as we may term it, that will thence arise is taken into consideration. But self-interest enters too much into the calculation to allow men to reason calmly on the subject: the owners or the tenants of lands or houses know that if they could succeed in abolishing tithe, etc., their own incomes would be increased, and they therefore close their ears against all the arguments of policy and justice. Hence, we fear, arises much of the so-called conscientious resistance to church-rates. It must not for a moment be supposed that we even dream of imputing such low motives to Milton; we only mean that he took an erroneous view of the subject. At the same time we confess that we dislike the system of tithe or tithe-rentcharge, to be collected by the minister himself, as prejudicial to the cause of religion, and think that a better system might easily be devised. As for Milton's plan of a self-supporting ministry, a very slight knowledge of human nature will suffice to show that it is perfectly Utopian.*

Each particular church consists of the ministers and the people. As to the last, "only such are to be accounted of that number as are well taught in Scripture doctrine, and capable of trying by the rule of Scripture and the Spirit any teacher whatever, or even the whole collective body of teachers, although arrogating to themselves the exclusive name of the Church."

* He discusses the matters here noticed at length in his treatise of The Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church.'

Every church consisting of the above parts, however small its numbers, is to be considered as in itself an integral and perfect church, so far as regards its religious rights; nor has it any superior on earth, whether individual, or assembly, or convention, to whom it can be lawfully required to render submission; inasmuch as no believer out of its pale, nor any order or council of men whatever, has a greater right than itself to expect a participation in the written word and the promises, in the presence of Christ, in the presiding influences of the Spirit, and in those gracious gifts which are the reward of united prayer.

Of Councils in the modern sense, i. e. synods of bishops or elders, who have no gift of inspiration beyond other men, as he finds no traces in Scripture, he rejects them unconditionally. The custom however of holding assemblies, i. e. meeting together for worship and instruction, which the Apostles derived from the synagogue, is, he thinks, to be maintained; but "according to the apostolical institution, which did not ordain that an individual, and he a stipendiary, should have the sole right of speaking from a higher place, but that each believer in turn should be authorized to speak, or prophesy, or teach, or exhort, according to his gifts; insomuch that even the weakest among the brethren had the privilege of asking questions, and consulting the elders and more experienced members of the congregation." Women however were enjoined to keep silence in the church.

Each particular church has the power of the keys, i. e. the right of administering discipline, which extends even to the ejecting of members, "not however for their destruction, but rather for their preservation, if so they may be induced to repent.

The civil power differs from the ecclesiastical in thisthat every man is subject to it, that it only has power over the body and external faculties of man, and that it

punishes even those who confess their faults. The ecclesiastical, on the contrary, has power only over the members of the church, addresses itself solely to the mind, and pardons the penitent. "It is therefore highly derogatory to the power of the Church, as well as an utter want of faith, to suppose that her government cannot be properly administered without the intervention of the civil magistrate."

Having thus conducted man all through his course on earth, he concludes by treating of his final glorification. He enumerates the signs of the coming of Christ to judgement, as they are given in the Gospels, and by St. Paul; and he is inclined to agree with those who include among them "the calling of the entire nation of the Jews, as well as of the ten dispersed tribes."

The second advent of Christ will be followed by the resurrection of the dead and the last judgement.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, he maintains, was believed even before the time of the Gospel, and it was confirmed by the testimony of Christ. In proof of it, he adds to the passages of Scripture in its favour, the following three arguments, he says, from reason, but in reality from Scripture also. 1. The covenant with God is not dissolved by death (Mat. xxii. 32); 2. If there be no resurrection of the dead, Christ is not risen (1 Cor. xv. 13 seq.); 3. "Were there no resurrection, the righteous would be of all men the most miserable; and the wicked, who have a better portion in this life, most happy, which would be altogether inconsistent with the providence and justice of God."

We must here pause to observe that this last argument is feeble, and to a certain extent untrue. It arose from what we must regard as an unfortunate habit of Milton's

*

mind-the refusing to assent to the very rational doctrine of the writers of the Church of Rome, that many passages of Scripture only related to particular persons and circumstances, and are not of universal application. In the passage of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians on which he founds this assertion, the apostle was evidently speaking of his own peculiar case. But experience confirms the truth of other passages of Scripture, namely, that "godliness is great gain," and that it has "promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." We have only to look around us and see that though the balance of worldly prosperity may not be so, that of real and substantial happiness almost always is on the side of the pious and virtuous portion of mankind.

vour.

As to the doctrine, not of the resurrection, but of a future state of existence, there is an argument simpler and stronger than any usually brought forward in its faIt is this: it is utterly impossible for the human mind to conceive its own non-existence, or even a pause in its existence; it would in fact be to conceive itself to be and not to be at the same point of time; for thinking is our being. We can easily conceive the non-existence of others, but not of ourselves, of the I, the sentient thinking being; and with others in view we can say with Seneca, Mors est aut finis aut transitus; but with regard

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* We may here observe that St. Paul was in the constant habit of using the first person plural instead of the singular; such is particularly the case all through the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Thus when (1 Cor. iv. 9) he says us the apostles," he means 'me the apostle," just as Cicero, speaking of himself alone, says nos consules. This rhetoric plural, as it is called, occurs frequently in Euripides. Another practice of St. Paul's, namely, that of joining others with him in the address and then proceeding to write in his own person (singular or plural), will also be found in Cicero: see his Letters to Tiro.

to ourselves only, Mors est transitus.* Even when men speak of their own annihilation, if their ideas are examined closely, it will be found that they still mean and only can mean existence, but existence in a state of darkness, silence, and solitude. Hence it is that no tribe, however so rude, has ever yet been found on the face of the earth without a belief in a future existence; where travellers have fancied they have discovered such, more accurate inquiry has always proved that their opinion was erroneous. What then, it may be asked, was the great discovery of Christianity? It was at the least

that this state is a state of retribution.

"It appears," says Milton, "indicated in Scripture that every man will rise numerically one and the same person. Otherwise we should not be conformed to Christ, who entered into glory with that identical body of flesh and blood wherewith he had died and risen again." this he is, we think, clearly at variance not only with reason and experience, but with St. Paul himself, who only says that the glorified body will originate in some unknown manner from the natural one.

In

At his coming Christ will judge the world, and "the rule of judgement will be the conscience of each individual, according to the measure of light which he has enjoyed."

Coincident, as it appears, with the time of this last judgementI use the indefinite term time, as the word day is often used to

* Hence the apparent discrepancy between Phil. i. 23, and those places in St. Paul's Epistles in which he speaks of death as a sleep, may be easily explained: he is speaking there of himself, elsewhere of others.

During the French Revolution, when it was sought to drive the fears of the other world out of the hearts of men, the following inscription was put on the Pantheon: La mort est un sommeil éternel. But sleep necessarily includes the idea of waking from it.