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vinistic churches, why frame it, why enforce it by the hand of the civil power? Why tear asunder the bands of peace and harmony in which Protestant Christians were living? Why impoverish, by quartering troops on them, the recusant villagers of Silesia who in their gross and honest ignorance clung to the religious forms and observances of their forefathers? Why drive them to the wilds of America, pilgrims of the nineteenth century seeking a refuge from religious persecution in her forests? And from whence? from the most educated land in Europe, from Prussia! Why put down and prohibit the exercise of religious worship except within churches, by enactment of 9th March, 1834 the most anti-christian and tyrannical law ever passed in modern times in any country laying claim to civilisation, religion, and the blessings of education.

But if the difference between the new and the old churches be essential, why do Bishops Eylert and Neander assume that they are the Luther and Calvin of the age, and are even invested with greater power than the original reformers; as without communications or conferences, which the first reformers had, with other Protestant ecclesiastics, or councils of both churches in other lands, they assume the power of cramming their own nostrums down the throat of the whole Protestant church? Do the reverend bishops declare that it is only for Prussia they promulgate their liturgy? Their opponents ask if the Protestant church was established for Prussia only? If Luther and Calvin preached their doctrines only for Prussia? If Prussia be not a branch, and a principal one, of the general European Protestant church, which these two courtly divines have severed by the hand of the civil power, and on political, not doctrinal grounds, from the parent stem of which it formed a part? Do these bishops maintain that the Prussian government is entitled to prescribe what religious observances and doctrines it pleases to its own subjects? Then, say their opponents, freedom of religious belief, which the Protestant church is founded, is gone.

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Christianity is safer, and freedom of opinion better protected from the arbitrary hand of the civil power, by having its basis, its point d'appui, out of the reach and beyond the territory of an irresponsible government supreme both in civil and religious affairs-safer, in a word, at Rome than at Potsdam. In an answer and declaration of the magistrates of the city of Berlin, dated 13th July, 1824, to an official letter of the minister for home affairs, requiring them, as patrons of the city churches, to introduce the new liturgy a very remarkable document for its independent and wellexpressed arguments against the power assumed by the state to impose a liturgy on the subjects it is observed, "If, notwithstanding the silence of positive law or usage, this liturgical right of the sovereign is to be held one of the inherent rights of sovereignty, the sovereign must be entitled to the same right of imposing a liturgy or other church observances on all his subjects equally on the Catholics as well as on the Protestants. But this is decidedly not the case with the Catholic population, and the Protestants will be induced rather to go over to the Catholic faith, than to be exposed to a constant inquietude of religious conscience by the everchanging forms of religious worship, imposed according to the pleasure and personal views of each succeeding sovereign. The same liturgical right must be inherent also in Catholic as well as in Protestant sovereigns. How is the Protestant religion to subsist at all in Catholic countries in which there are very many Protestant congregations, if the Catholic sovereign has this inherent right over their religious observances?"

The principle that the civil government, or state, or church and state united, of a country is entitled to regulate its religious belief, has more of intellectual thraldom in it than the power of the popish church ever exercised in the darkest ages; for it had no civil power joined to its religious power. It only worked through the agency of the civil power of each country. The church of Rome was an independent, distinct, and

often an opposing power in every country to the civil power, a circumstance in the social economy of the middle ages, to which, perhaps, Europe is indebted for her civilisation and freedom-for not being in the state of barbarism and slavery of the East, and of every country, ancient and modern, in which the religious and civil power have been united in one government. Civil liberty is closely connected with religious liberty with the church being independent of the state, although not exactly in the way of the Scotch clergy claim for the church, a church power independent of the civil power. The question being agitated on the Continent as well as at home, deserves consideration.

In Germany the seven Catholic sovereigns have 12,074,700 Catholic subjects, and 2,541,000 Protestant subjects. The twenty-nine protestant sovereigns, including the four free cities, have 12,113,000 Protestant subjects, and 4,966,000 Catholic. Of these populations in Germany those which have their point of spiritual government without their states and independent of them,

-as the Catholics have at Rome,-- enjoy certainly more spiritual independence, are less exposed to the intermeddling of the hand of civil power with their religious concerns, than the Protestant populations, which, since the Reformation, have had church and state united in one government, and in which each autocratic sovereign is de facto a home-pope. The church affairs of Prussia in this half century, those of Saxony, Bavaria, and of the smaller principalities such as Anhalt Cothen, in all of which the state has assumed and exercised power inconsistently with the principles, doctrines, observances, or privileges of the Protestant religion, clearly show that the Protestant church on the Continent, as a power, has become merely an administrative body of clerical functionaries acting under the orders of the civil power or state. The many able and pious men of the laity as well as clergy in Scotland, who contend that this subserviency of the church to the state is not a sound and safe position for the Christian Protestant

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Christianity is safer, and freedom of opinion better protected from the arbitrary hand of the civil power, by having its basis, its point d'appui, out of the reach and beyond the territory of an irresponsible government supreme both in civil and religious affairs-safer, in a word, at Rome than at Potsdam. In an answer and declaration of the magistrates of the city of Berlin, dated 13th July, 1824, to an official letter of the minister for home affairs, requiring them, as patrons of the city churches, to introduce the new liturgy a very remarkable document for its independent and wellexpressed arguments against the power assumed by the state to impose a liturgy on the subjects it is observed, "If, notwithstanding the silence of positive law or usage, this liturgical right of the sovereign is to be held one of the inherent rights of sovereignty, the sovereign must be entitled to the same right of imposing a liturgy or other church observances on all his subjects equally on the Catholics as well as on the Protestants. But this is decidedly not the case with the Catholic population, and the Protestants will be induced rather to go over to the Catholic faith, than to be exposed to a constant inquietude of religious conscience by the everchanging forms of religious worship, imposed according to the pleasure and personal views of each succeeding sovereign. The same liturgical right must be inherent also in Catholic as well as in Protestant sovereigns. How is the Protestant religion to subsist at all in Catholic countries in which there are very many Protestant congregations, if the Catholic sovereign has this inherent right over their religious observances?"

The principle that the civil government, or state, or church and state united, of a country is entitled to regulate its religious belief, has more of intellectual thraldom in it than the power of the popish church ever exercised in the darkest ages; for it had no civil power joined to its religious power. It only worked through the agency of the civil power of each country. The church of Rome was an independent, distinct, and

often an opposing power in every country to the civil power, a circumstance in the social economy of the middle ages, to which, perhaps, Europe is indebted for her civilisation and freedom -for not being in the state of barbarism and slavery of the East, and of every country, ancient and modern, in which the religious and civil power have been united in one government. Civil liberty is closely connected with religious libertywith the church being independent of the state, although not exactly in the way of the Scotch clergy claim for the church, a church power independent of the civil The question being agitated on the Continent as well as at home, deserves consideration.

power.

In Germany the seven Catholic sovereigns have 12,074,700 Catholic subjects, and 2,541,000 Protestant subjects. The twenty-nine protestant sovereigns, including the four free cities, have 12,113,000 Protestant subjects, and 4,966,000 Catholic. Of these populations in Germany those which have their point of spiritual government without their states and independent of them, -as the Catholics have at Rome,-- enjoy certainly more spiritual independence, are less exposed to the intermeddling of the hand of civil power with their religious concerns, than the Protestant populations, which, since the Reformation, have had church and state united in one government, and in which each autocratic sovereign is de facto a home-pope. The church affairs of Prussia in this half century, those of Saxony, Bavaria, and of the smaller principalities such as Anhalt Cothen, in all of which the state has assumed and exercised power inconsistently with the principles, doctrines, observances, or privileges of the Protestant religion, clearly show that the Protestant church on the Continent, as a power, has become merely an administrative body of clerical functionaries acting under the orders of the civil power or state. The many able and pious men of the laity as well as clergy in Scotland, who contend that this subserviency of the church to the state is not a sound and safe position for the Christian Protestant

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