I ask, that Ezekiel here uses language properly implying endowments, and which can be applied only in a national sense? but altogether avoids that which will admit of individual voluntary offerings of a different description? Surely there must be some assignable reason for this, otherwise the prophet never could have adopted language, by no analogy,-of which I have ever yet heard-supplying the interpretation necessary to the doctrines of Dissent. I do not wish to be understood here, however, as arguing for a rigidly literal interpretation of these passages. I only hold that, as something is intended to be taught, this must be, that, as under the law, provision was publicly and nationally made for the maintenance of true religion, so under the gospel Christian governors and Christian nations should make a similar provision for its support. If I am wrong here, you can of course shew this, which will greatly oblige me; because it is the truth, and the truth only, that I have in view.

There appears to me to be one defect more in your statement, which I deem it important to our question to notice. You tell me (loco citato), that the Israelites "formed one congregation or assembly (Ex. xii. 3, &c.):"

"were to assemble in the one and only divinely authorised place of complete public worship;"-(intimating probably the unity which should prevail in the Christian church)-that " prayer and praise were undoubtedly presented to God by pious persons, in private, secretly and socially." I think you ought to have added, and also publicly and socially. My reasons are these. Provision was made for the residence of Levites in all the tribes, as we have just seen. They were to teach Jacob God's judgments, and Israel his law.22 The people

22 Deut. xxxiii, 10.

were generally commanded by the law to carry all questions of difficulty to the priests for solution.23 At the priest's mouth they were universally to learn knowledge.24 In Ps. lxxxiii. 12, we read of the "houses of God," and ib. lxxiv. 8, of "all the synagogues of God in the land." 2 "25 We also read occasionally in the New Testament of synagogues, and of places of prayer (poGεvxa) out of Canaan, to which the Jews resorted. Does it not appear probable, then, that such places were appointed for public and social worship under the

23 Deut. xvii. 8, &c.

24 Mal. ii. 6, 7. "Quod verò sacerdotibus sic adscribitur in Mosaïcis legibus, nos non absque ratione referimus ad Levitas, quippe quos ex aliis scripturæ locis liquet OFFICIUM DOCENDI cum sacerdotibus commune habuisse. See too Lev. x. 10, 11. Ezek. xliv. 23, 24. Deut. xxiv. 8. Whence it appears that they were not only to be teachers of holy things, and to take care that the Sabbaths were hallowed; but were also to be judges in all legal questions; religion and law being in those days, as they still are in the East, inseparably connected, and administered by the same persons. Comp. 2 Chron. xix. 8-11.

25 Vitringa takes great pains (De Synagoga Vetere, lib. i. pars. ii. cap. x.), to shew that synagogues are not meant in this latter place; while he allows (ib. p. 405), that those schools of the prophets in which the people were used to congregate, might be. I only remark. that if it was indeed usual for the people to frequent these places for the purpose of receiving religious instruction from the Levites, whose business it certainly was to afford it; and, if in these places religion was regularly taught and prayer could not well have been omitted;—then it is but of little consequence by what name these places were called; they were houses of God at least: and, if not synagogues in the acceptation of that term in later times, the probability certainly is strong that they led the way to them. I cannot help thinking that when Rebecca went to inquire of the Lord (Gen. xxv. 22), she went to a similar place that Jacob when he vowed he would build Bethel and endow it with tithes, he spoke of a similar institution (ib. xxviii. 19, &c.): as did also Job when he desired, more than once, that his cause might be brought before God. Whether these places were termed oratories, houses of God, or synagogues, can signify nothing to this question. In any case God never left himself without witness, nor his people without the means of grace under either of the dispensations.

law? The practice in these places seems to have been, to read a portion of the scriptures, to give an exposition or sermon, on this; and also to offer up prayer and thanksgiving, either in the words of some psalm (Ps. lxxxi. 2), or of some form of prayer composed for the occasion. For this purpose it seems to have been that the Levites were so dispersed throughout the whole land;-for I know of no other that will account for the circumstance -and, to provide for them, and that no taxation, nor yet voluntary exactions, should be made to burden the inhabitants, the endowments already noticed mere made. So that, although complete worship could be had no where but in Jerusalem in the one great congregation, public and social worship was provided for and maintained in every district throughout the land; just as it is the case in this happy country, and just as it is not in America, which, according to Dissenters, exhibits the paragon of scriptural, moral, and religious excellence! I have thought it worth while to notice this; because, I think, much mistake prevails on the subject generally, and because it is closely connected with our main question.

SECTION VI.

On National Religious Establishments in general.

I have now to shew more particularly what I mean, when I say it is the duty of Christian kings and rulers to provide for the diffusion, inculcation, and maintenance of true religion; because, until this be done, I shall be liable to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Our principal question will, I trust, then be set at rest. When I say, therefore, that it is the duty of Christian

states to provide for the advancement and support of true religion, all I mean is, that this is to be done in the manner, and to the extent, which revealed religion itself points out either directly or indirectly; that is to say, when we are told that the nation and kingdom that will not serve the Lord shall perish; yea, all those nations shall be utterly destroyed; we are to understand,-what is indeed elsewhere positively inculcated-that kings and queens should, as such, not in their individual characters merely and exclusively, be the nursing fathers and nursing mothers of the church; and that kings and nations should, as such, bring their glory, honour, and wealth into it, as shewn in my last (pp. 23, 59), at once to provide for its wants, and to beautify and honour it as the sanctuary of the Most High. This I have a just right to hold is the scriptural view of this question, both because it has been proved to be so, and because the proof given has not been, and cannot be, invalidated. If then this be the case, the provision to be made is clearly to be made out of the wealth of the state; because it is in this way alone that God can be publicly recognised, obeyed, and honoured; publicly and nationally served; our scriptures admitting of no other interpretation.

How then is this to be done? I answer, either by general taxation, as it is evident was partly had recourse to in the erection of the temple;26 or, by laying aside a certain portion of the lands of the state, as in the case of the Levites noticed above; or, by giving a certain proportion of the produce, as was the case in the tithes, also given to the Levites; or, by all these combined.

26 As shewn in my First Letter, page 22, &c. and which my very worthy friend ought to have refuted, when he took upon himself to shew, after Mr. Spence, that the Jewish system was perfectly voluntary.

M

For, whether lands were given, or only a part of the produce, as in these cases, the result would be virtually the same, in times either partly or entirely feodal, when rents were paid rather in produce than in money.

Now either of these latter methods would be easy to the subject, and preferable to direct taxation; because here, the occupier would have to render to the minister of religion what he must otherwise render to his landlord, whether such landlord were the king of the country, or any of his nobles.27 And surely, where there was the least spark of gratitude in the heart, it would be a delight to the subject to have it in his power thus to

27 I admonished my friend, in my last, of the glaring mistake made by him, in stating that religion was compulsory in Ireland under the Established Church, and burdensome in England. I then told him (p. 87, &c.), that tithes in Ireland and elsewhere stood on precisely the same grounds as the rents of houses, lands, or any endowments made to Dissenters did; and that resistance to their payment was made in no case, except by political agitators and their abettors, of which I was sorry to find Dissenters formed a considerable part. In the "Rejoinder," the justice of the claim to tithes is allowed, and it is added, that if a commutation of them be made, it ought to extend to their full value. My friend felt, no doubt, that their payment was oppressive to none, as, indeed, the nature of the case is sufficient to prove. But, at pages 43, 44, of the same "Rejoinder," and in answer to the admonition just mentioned, Dr. Pye Smith says, he will say nothing more of his own opinions, but he begs to introduce to my consideration some statements found in a Parisian journal of religious character. This statement gives a most exaggerated account of the incomes of the Established Church in Ireland, and this as if the whole was made up by an oppressive tax levied on the people; which, if true, must render the recommendation fairly to commute the tithes, just adverted to, any thing but tolerable. My only remark on this shall be; If my friend supposed this to have come from any such French writer as he mentions, he must have most marvellously imposed upon himself: it being obvious to demonstration, from the whole tenor of its particulars, that it is the genuine offspring, and nothing more, of some zealous English Dissenter, written, perhaps, for a purpose similar to that for which it has been cited by Dr. Smith!