A Tract for the Times: The Church and the Census

Transcribed from the 1860 Joseph Masters edition by David Price. Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.
A TRACT FOR THE TIMES.
BY THE REV. JAMES SKINNER, M.A.
LONDON: JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, AND NEW BOND STREET.
MDCCCLX.
LONDON: PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS AND CO., ALDERSGATE STREET.
I desire to say what follows, in all earnestness, to my fellow-countrymen who have been, through God’s goodness, baptized into the Church of England. I shall be thankful, also, if others will patiently consider what is here set down.
There can be no question that, in old times, God was pleased to set up a visible token, whereby the world might be convinced of His power and love. And this token was also a witness to God’s Truth. No one doubts that the Jewish Church and nation were the witnesses of God; and that they were His witnesses by His own express appointment. It is equally allowed, on all hands, that the Jewish Church and nation failed in their witness. They failed—not because the need of witnessing had been taken away; or their authority to witness had been loosened. But they failed, because, having the power of choice free—to stand by God or to desert Him, they chose to desert Him. They failed, because they chose to blind themselves to the need of witnessing. They failed, because they chose to set at nought that authority to witness with which they had been clothed. God’s law of always having His witness did not fail. The very failure of the Jewish Church and nation, in the place of witness, was a witness. The Jewish Church and nation could desert its place of witness. It could prefer its own will to God’s will. It could prefer the will of the people to the will of God. It could prefer the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of Heaven. And it did prefer its own will, and the will of the people, and the kingdom of this world.
Look at the prophecy of Hosea, and what is there said of all Israel in the name of Ephraim. Read the seventh chapter. The Prophet is reproving the sins of the princes, and the great men of Israel. “All their kings are fallen.” The flame of civil discord has spread, and dried up the sources of legitimate authority among them. An anarchy of eleven years, after the death of Jeroboam II., has terminated in the assassination of Zachariah and his successors Shallum and Pekahiah. “And yet there is none among them that calleth unto Me,” saith the Lord.