Now the points of church discipline at issue between Presbyterianism
and Episcopalianism are, as has been said, not essential. They might
probably once have been settled in a sense altogether favourable to
Episcopalianism. Hooker may have been right in thinking that there
were in his time circumstances which made it essential that they
should be settled in this sense, though the points in themselves were
not essential. But by the very fact of the settlement not having
then been effected, of the [xlii] breach having gone on and widened,
of the Nonconformists not having been amicably incorporated with the
Establishment but violently cast out from it, the circumstances are
now altogether altered. Isaac Walton, a fervent Churchman, complains
that "the principles of the Nonconformists grew at last to such a
height and were vented so daringly, that, beside the loss of life and
limbs, the Church and State were both forced to use such other
severities as will not admit of an excuse, if it had not been to
prevent confusion and the perilous consequences of it." But those
very severities have of themselves made union on an Episcopalian
footing impossible. Besides, Presbyterianism, the popular authority
of elders, the power of the congregation in the management of their
own affairs, has that warrant given to it by Scripture and by the
proceedings of the early Christian Churches, it is so consonant with
the spirit of Protestantism which made the Reformation and which has
such strength in this country, it is so predominant in the practice
of other reformed churches, it was so strong in the original reformed
Church of England, that one cannot help doubting whether any
settlement which suppressed it could have been really permanent,
[xliii] and whether it would not have kept appearing again and again,
and causing dissension.

Well, then, if culture is the disinterested endeavour after man's