Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/119

 No. 59.]

are very naturally jealous of the attempts that are making to disunite, as it is called, Church and State; which in fact means neither more nor less, in the mouths of those who clamour for it, than a general confiscation of Church property, and a repeal of the few remaining laws which make the true Church the Church of England.

This is what Dissenters mean by disuniting Church and State; and we are all naturally anxious to avert a step at once so unjust towards men and sacrilegious towards.

Let us not imagine, however, that every one who apparently joins with us in this anxiety must necessarily have the welfare of the Church at heart. Many people seem to join us at this crisis, and protest loudly in favour of the Union of Church and State, who nevertheless mean by this, something very different from what Dissenters mean, and from what we mean when we are opposing Dissenters. The "Union of Church and State," which many persons so call, and are so anxious to preserve, is in some points almost as great an evil, as it is confessedly, in other points, a good: and there are almost as many persons who support it for its bad points, as there are who hate it for its good.

To make this plain I shall endeavour to explain what it is that the Union of Church and State consists in, as now enforced by the law of the land.

It consists in two things, and ; the former of which Dissenters wish to overthrow; and the latter of which governments, of whatever kind, are very anxious to retain: while Churchmen have hitherto been contented to accept both conjointly, without perhaps very