"
Dr. Russell in the following quotation not only accounts for this
production from the pen, of Mr. Gladstone, but gives also an outline of
the argument:
"Naturally and profoundly religious ... Mr. Gladstone conceived that
those who professed the warmest regard for the Church of England and
posed as her most strenuous defenders, were inclined to base their
championship on mistaken grounds and to direct their efforts towards
even mischievous ends. To supply a more reasonable basis for action and
to lead this energy into more profitable channels were the objects which
he proposed to himself in his treatise of 1838. The distinctive
principle of the book was that the State had a conscience. This being
admitted, the issue was this: whether the State in its best condition,
has such a conscience as can take cognizance of religious truth and
error, and in particular whether the State of the United Kingdom at that
time was, or was not, so far in that condition as to be under an
obligation to give an active and an exclusive support to the established
religion of the country.
"The work attempted to survey the actual state of the relations between
the State and the Church; to show from history the ground which had been
defined for the National Church at the Reformation; and to inquire and
determine whether the existing state of things was worth preserving and
defending against encroachment from whatever quarter.
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