These rights may be protected, and in some points are so by legal constraints on the lower principles of our nature; and to assert the right of throwing off all this constraint, is to proclaim a jubilee for the obtrusive and arrogant competitors of conscience in the degenerate mind; encouraging the depraved passions, and instigating insurrection against the only supreme authority of acknowledged legitimacy in the soul. Can a man who declares his purpose of keeping a good. conscience challenge civil protection in despising her dictates? Will he claim impunity in sinning against his acknowledged sovereign? Will he demand protection against his own conscience, and insist on the indulgence and countenance of all his kind, while he abuses and perverts their common nature? Will he demand that human nature in all his fellows shall consent to its own degradation in him; and that a civil bill of rights shall expressly declare full license for his individual propensity to trample on the conscience of the moral world?

The general principles of morality, everywhere and always admitted by civilized man, are proper subjects of that civil legislation, which most jealously watches over the rights of conscience; and such legislation will be useful in all communities where the relation between civil law and morals is rightly understood. Civil laws may be an index of the conscience of the people; and such they must be, to answer a valuable moral purpose. Laws may express either what the people are willing to do, or what they believe to be right. As mere exponents of the public inclination, they yield no aid to virtue; for the spirit which made the laws, would as promptly have done the things enjoined, as made the laws enjoining. No law was needed to secure such ends. The laws and the prevailing morality are on the same level; and neither can elevate the other. The disciple is not above his master. On the principle that civil law, in relation to morals, may indicate only the popular propensity, no good statutes can come, till the majority of the people are inclined and resolved to do what the laws are to enjoin; and then what is their use? Why make laws to enforce what the people do by nature without them? But if the laws may express the dictates of the people's conscience, and enforce by penalty what the people believe to be right, then until conscience receives a perfect obedience, the laws will continue in advance of the public morality, guiding the people by their teachings, and urging them by their authority and sanctions, in the course of moral improvement.

That, in the progress of society, the social principle will yet more effectually aid the due ascendency of conscience as the guide of human action, admits of no reasonable doubt. We look in the future for a better understanding, and a better use of the connexion between conscience and the civil law. The day indeed will never come in the life time of true freedom, when the state will undertake to rule the individual sense of moral duty. But we expect the existence of such knowledge, and of such sincerity, that men, conscious as well of moral as of physical infirmity, will deem it a legitimate end of society, to secure moral as well as physical strength; and that civil law, the vital organ of social strength, will join its influence with that of other institutions of society, in vindicating and confirming the practical supremacy of conscience in the human soul. This will be a welcome harbinger of the moral renovation of the world. With the light which now shines on the path of moral duty, conscience points man towards the true perfection. It is the candle of God in the soul, lighted at the blaze of the Sun of Righteousness; and from the pure radiance of that heavenly orb, its bright flame is perpetually fed. Unlike the tapers of the evening fireside, and the twinklings of the evening sky, which grow dim as the king of day approaches; it brightens as the sun ascends, and is preparing its fulness of light to be dispensed in the noontide of the millennial day.

ART. II. A History of the Rise, Progress, Genius, and Character of American Presbyterianism. Together with a Review of the "Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, By Charles Hodge, Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J." By William Hill, D. D., of Winchester, Virginia. Washington City. 1839. pp. 224.

DR. HILL informs his readers that about eight years ago he was appointed by the presbytery of Winchester to write the history of that judicatory. He was thus led to make investigations into the early history of Presbyterianism in Virginia; which were so successful as to induce him to determine to write the history of our church in that state. The

synod encouraged this enterprise, and appointed a member of each presbytery to afford him every assistance he might require. In order to do justice to his subject, he found it would be necessary to investigate the introduction of Presbyterianism into America, and for this purpose, on two several occasions, obtained from Dr. Green access to the early records of our church. In 1837, Dr. Hill had already prepared for the press an ordinary sized octavo volume, containing the fruits of his labours. Before publishing it, however, he determined to print a few sketches, in order to elicit what might be said in opposition to his views. This measure, he says, had the desired effect; and he pays Prof. Hodge's volume the compliment of saying: "It no doubt contains the substance of all that can be said in opposition to the positions I have taken;" nay more, that it is "to be looked upon as the joint production of the strength of a party, aided by men venerable for age, experience and talents, and having access to the best sources of information and means of defence.” This only shows how low "the party" has fallen in Dr. Hill's esteem; for he every where speaks of the book in question as unworthy of the least confidence; and seems to regard its ostensible author as ready at any time to sacrifice truth "to serve a purpose," and as destitute of candour or even common honesty as a historian.

The publication of Professor Hodge's work has had one effect, which the readers of Dr. Hill have reason to regret. The first draught of his work was not controversial. "I did not then," he tells us, "expect serious opposition from any quarter. That which had cost me so much labour is now laid aside as not suited to the occasion. I had to begin my work anew, and prepare to defend every inch of ground I ventured upon. This must be my apology for the very imperfect dress in which this introductory number must appear to every intelligent reader. It is a hurried and hasty production; a want of method is very apparent throughout; the importunity of friends would not allow me to transcribe it; and I could procure assistance from no one; while the calls of duty and various avocations were constantly causing interruptions and making breaks in the work." We hope Dr. Hill will prosecute his orignal design, and after easing his mind of all controversial matters, publish a history of our church, especially as it has appeared in Virginia, which is not controversial.

Whenever there is a controversy, it is desirable to know VOL. XII. No. 3.

42

*

the state of the question; to have the point at issue distinctly presented. Professor Hodge took the ground that our church, from its first organization in this country, adopted that form of government which had been previously adopted in Scotland, Ireland, Holland, and by the Protestants of France. He described the system intended as requiring the government of particular congregations to be vested in the pastor and eldership, and not in the brotherhood, and the association of several churches under one presbytery, composed of ministers and elders; and as providing for provincial and national synods, in which were vested the authority of review and control, and the right to set down rules for the government of the church. There are here three points presented, with tolerable distinctness. First, the leading principles of Presbyterianism; second, the prevalence of this system of government in the places mentioned; and, third, its adoption by our own church. There is no question here about the rigour with which the system was enforced, about the authority attributed to it, whether it was of divine right, or apostolic example, or of mere expediency; whether it was essential to the being of a church, or merely the best form of its government. Not one of these questions was raised. It was merely stated what Presbyterianism is, and asserted that certain specified churches were Presbyterian. One would think that the only course for an opponent to take, was to attack one or the other of these positions; to show that Presbyterianism does not include the above mentioned principles; or that it was not, in that form, adopted by the churches in question. This, we admit, would have been a rather adventurous enterprise; still, it was the only thing to be done.

Dr. Hill has seen fit to take a very different course. He first asserts, that Professor Hodge contends that our church adopted the strict Scotch system, and then gives the following description of that system: "It is now contended that it is essential to that system that the church should be governed by church sessions, consisting of the pastor and ruling elders; that these elders must now be elected for life, and ordained in a certain form, or else the want of it will vitiate all that comes in contact with it. Though the Scotch church sometimes chose elders from year to year, that is not the system now pleaded for. Again, there must be a presbytery composed of pastors and delegates from the elderships of

* Constitutional History, Part I. p. 12.

many distinct congregations; there must be synods, composed of three or more presbyteries; and, to finish the system, there must be a General Assembly, composed of the delegates of the different presbyteries, and a certain portion from the different towns and boroughs; also from universities; the whole presided over by the king's commissioner. This General Assembly, to possess full powers to do whatever they may think conducive to the welfare of the church, and to deal out such powers as the Assembly may please to the inferior courts, retaining the same to themselves at the same time, when they think proper to exercise them. That this General Assembly has not only the power to suppress popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, profaneness, &c., but are bound to do so; and, if the civil power will not aid them in the work, they have jure divino authority to do it notwithstanding. That no liberty or indulgence is to be given to those who may differ from it in opinion concerning doctrine, government, or practice. No intercourse or communion is to be held with other sectaries; nor will they, to this day, admit even one of their old school advocates, from this or any other country, into their pulpits, or to sit in their judicatories. The system will not, and never did, admit compromise with any other. It will have the whole or nothing. They are consistent, if their divine-right claim can be made out. It is not to be wondered at, then, that even the aliens and retainers of this system should exhibit something of the same uncompromising and domineering spirit; for it is an essential element or principle of the system itself. Witness the solemn league and covenant, and its history and effects in Europe and elsewhere. The Scottish system is essentially and necessarily illiberal and intolerant; it cannot be otherwise to be consistent, and it is made still worse by its connexion with the state, as established by law. History does not afford an instance of a compromise, or an act of tolerance, further than they were compelled by a power superior to their ecclesiastical courts. Such is the PATERNITY* which Professor Hodge is anxious to establish for himself and party.” p. 6-7.

It is the Scotch system, thus described, which as Dr. Hill frequently asserts, Professor Hodge contends was adopted by the Presbyterian church in this country. It is very obvious that all discussion with such an opponent must be useless.

* In this, as in the subsequent extracts, we give Dr. Hill the advantage of his capitals and italics.