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 Dr. Chalmers has taken a partial view of the subject, and “put forth much questionable matter.”  In truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to Mr. Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as a defender of existing establishments.

Mr. Gladstone’s whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of government, as government.  If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once.

We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, seems to be overlooked by many excellent people.  In their opinion, to say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual is tantamount to saying that the temporal welfare of man is of more importance than his spiritual welfare.  But this is an entire mistake.  The question is not whether spiritual interests be or be not superior in importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery which happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such