body, will have charms to not a few above a more splendid ecclesiastical constitution, where men are only cyphers. These will always be, in the eyes of multitudes, benefits and privileges to which the established church can throw nothing into the balance of equal weight.

Having enumerated the causes of increase and decay among the dissenters during this period, it is left to the Christian reader to decide whether the reasons which made and kept some men dissenters, or those which influenced others to depart from their communion and return to the establishment, have the greater weight. What the operation of these two classes of causes has been, will be perceived from the following list of the dissenting congregations in England and Wales at the present time. From the changes which are continually taking place, and from the diversity of judgment whether some smaller societies should be considered as congregations, or only as branches of congregations, no two persons would perhaps agree in the precise number. The account subjoined, which has been furnished by the kindness of friends in different parts of the kingdom, will be found to possess sufficient accuracy to enable the reader to form a view of the number of the dissenting congregations on which he may depend.

Total 270

1024

$708

2002

}

In the islands of Guernsey and 7
Jersey, 6 French, 1 English

Most of the presbyterians in the northern counties, and some in London, consider themselves as of the order of the church of Scotland, and there are upwards of twenty of their congregations Scotch seceders. Six of the London presbyterian congregations are Scotch.

Nearly a hundred of the congregations of this denomination are general baptists, and twenty Sandemanians.

There are at least a hundred congregations of a non-descript character, which as they do not come under any one of the three denomi nations, have not been inserted in the list.

From this list it will be seen that during the reign of George the Third, the dissenters have not been idle; but that as it has been a busy and active season in the political, it has been no less so in the religious world. The increase is the more pleasing, as the great object has been to make the people Christians : their being made dissenters was a consequence of this, and generally arose from the spiritual benefit which they received from the labours of the dissenting ministers. This was the first bond of attachment, and afterwards the many religious advantages resulting from the institution of a voluntary society, were the chains which fastened and detained in their dissent multitudes of converts from the church and from the world. By impartial men of every denomination, it will certainly be thought not to their dishonour, that practical benefit formed the first tie of attachment, and with many almost the only one. An examination of the reasons of dissent, which afterwards took place in the minds of the more inquisitive, confirmed them in a conviction of the propriety of their conduct, by pointing out to them the strength of the fortress into which they had entered.

During the whole of this period, the presbyterian congregations have been falling into decay, and many of them into ruin. At the end of queen Anne's reign,' they formed at least two-thirds of the whole dissenting body; at present, they perhaps do not exceed a twentieth part of the three denominations. Though their congregations, as stated in the list, bear a much larger proportion, they are in general so small, that with a few exceptions, it would require five or six of them to compose one of a moderate size. But for the

66

endowments of pious calvinists of old, some scores more of them must have been shut up, and the arian and socinian preacher fairly starved out'. If some pious London presbyterian, who died in the year 1714, were now to rise from the dead, and be carried round to their meeting-houses in the time of service, he would be filled with amazement and horror. "Where," he would say, are the numerous bodies of people which used to worship here?" On finding so few congregations, he would naturally inquire," what is become of the rest." He would be told that they were first shut up, and then applied to other purposes, or occupied by other denominations. If the cause was unknown to him, he might be told that arianism and socinianism had driven them away.

During the whole of this period, the independents have continued steadily to increase, and at the present time they have a greater number of congregations than either of the two other denominations, and more of them are large. Their original principles both in doctrine and discipline they still retain; and it may be confidently asserted, that no one class of ministers in any ecclesiastical body of protestants in the world, are more united in their religious sentiments. They now form the largest body among English dissenters, and what redounds to their honour in the highest degree, no one denomination of Christians on the face of the earth can boast of so great a number of ministers who preach the Gospel in purity as the English independents; and as a body none in a more judicious

The presbyterian congregations in the four northern counties are not comprehended in this description: they are in general connected with the Scotch, and have, with some exceptions, been preserved from those errors into which their southern brethren fell.