CHAPTER VI.

INWARD STATE OF RELIGION AMONG DISSENTERS.

T was not without reason that the exhortation to self knowledge was thought by philosophers to have descended from heaven. That it would contribute to conduct us thither, Christians may infer from the earnestness with which the sacred writings inculcate the necessity of knowing ourselves. To assist our readers in the attainment of this important science, is the object of the present section. For if, under the first and second periods, the view of the inward state of religion presented only an instructive historical picture, the following pages are designed to hold up to dissenters a mirror in which they may see themselves, while they are incited to the contemplation of the object by the consideration that here the world will see them too. Those who are happily accustomed to self-examination, while they will be best able to appreciate the advantages of such a view of the present character of dissenters, will be most alive to the difficulty of forming an estimate sufficiently comprehensive, accurate, and faithful, and least sanguine in their expectations of procuring for it a candid reception.

Only the more aged readers, however, will survey their own picture in the former half of the section, for George the third has seen the active generation, over which he first stretched the sceptre, retire, the greater part to the shades of death, the rest to those Bb

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of privacy; while a new race has risen up to occupy the stage of human affairs. It will be necessary; therefore, to take a distinct view of the state of religion in the former and the latter half of the present reign. The estimate of religion during the whole period may have been already anticipated from what has been said of the external condition of dissenters; for though a church, which is in alliance with the state, may, by means of its sword, extend her territories and her influence while her piety declines; those who, like the dissenters and the primitive Christians, depend on principles alone, will not triumph abroad, but as religion prospers at home.

When George the third ascended the throne, the effects of the arian controversy, which spread from the west through the kingdom, were secretly, but powerfully felt among the presbyterian churches. Many, who were not aware of the tendency of error, swallowed the fatal poison because it was gilded with the specious professions of free inquiry, candour, and liberality. Arian preachers were tolerated in congregations which were not yet positively heretical, and the urbanity of their private manners often charmed the families which rejected their creed. Christians were thus kept from hearing in the church, that which should nourish their faith, and from conversing in the parlour on those themes which should inflame their devotion. The heterodox themselves, having been educated in calvinism, retained the ancient air of seriousness, forms of devotion, and modes of expression which concealed the naked deformity of their system, and prevented it from exciting the horror and alarm which are now produced by its superior honesty and decision. That

heresy thus stole upon the church by means of the serious garb derived from truth, may be learned from the testimony of Dr. Priestley, whose memoirs deserve the more attention as they were written by himself; and while his admirers applaud his honesty, his candour, his extensive information, and philosophical mind, those who wish to oppose his system, may find its antidote in his auto-biography.

It was manifest, however, that if the external form of piety was generally preserved, from many the animating spirit had fled. The influence of habit, the sense of duty, or the hope of merit, for some time seemed to supply that incentive to the exercises of the closet, which was formerly furnished by the Spirit of Christ, inspiring a pure delight in secret communion with God. In the family also, morning and evening prayer were often practised; because they had been so identified with the forms of a dissenter's house, that breakfast or supper could scarcely be eaten without the accustomed sacrifice; while the general use of a form, and the coldness with which it was read, led the sagacious observer to remark, that the fire was going out, and the altar itself would soon be overturned. Where visits or amusements were not tolerated on the Lord's day, it was often, not because, like their forefathers, they were too full of more sacred and delightful employment to need or to relish them; but because they had not yet cast off the ancient reverence for the day, which could embitter the pleasures of the world, though it could not impart sweetness to the exercises of religion. The public assemblies of the presbyterians often presented a melancholy contrast to the awful seriousness, the ardent devotion, the preference for the most impor

tant truths, which distinguished the first dissenting churches. That indifference to orthodox sentiments and experimental religion in the admission of members, which destroyed the distinction between the church and the world, prevailed in the general baptist as well as the presbyterian congregations, where the ministers, who were often the first to abandon the truth, kept the keys, and employed them to fill the churches with those who were like themselves.

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The state of the academies painfully manifested the irreligion of the rising generation. A great proportion of the students, who filled the presbyterian seminaries during the former part of this period, were most lamentably destitute of the apostolic spirit of the puritans and nonconformists. Instead of aspiring to resemblance to the father of believers, who was strong in faith giving glory to God," they seemed ambitious only of proving how cordially they adopted Voltaire's maxim, that "incredulity is the foundation of all wisdom;" so that these destined preachers of the Christian faith, far from entering the seminaries because they wished to acquire the utmost skill in diffusing sentiments to which they were ardently attached, went only to determine whether they should believe any thing or nothing. Hence, instead of the fellowship of Christians in edifying conversation and mutual prayer for the cultivation of their own religion, that they might be fit examples to their flocks; they employed themselves only in what they called free inquiry, converting the academy into a gymnasium to try the strength of their speculative powers in disputatious contests. The complaints which were made of the disorderly state of the academies,

by the more serious dissenters, too often were levelled against the conduct, as well as the principles of the young men, which loudly proclaimed that those who were preparing to teach religion to others, had yet to learn it themselves.

This false candour was the crying sin of presbyterian dissenters in the early part of George the third's reign, and it polluted their churches by sending forth arians and socinians to preach in the pulpits of the nonconformists, at a time when racovian theology had no academy of its own. The indifference to sentiment and to vital experimental religion which this manifests, was dishonourable to many who still professed orthodox principles; for who that considers how many preachers they educated to oppose their own creed, can acquit them of culpable neglect? The open apostacy, which was thus introduced, has justly punished the indifference that opened the door for its admission; for the strenuous advocates for what they term unitarianism, now pronounce evangelical doctrines no innocent errors, but pour their anathemas on them as forming a pernicious compound of idolatry and blasphemy.

The decided heterodoxy of some, the latitudinarianism of many, and the formal coldness of more, began to render the presbyterians, who had been "the salt of the earth," despicable as " salt which had lost its savour." But the strenuous independents, who have ever been the glory of the dissenters, were now their life. The pure decided sentiments expressed in such works as Dr. Guyse's commentary, were maintained in the pulpits of the independent churches, which were composed of members admitted by the vote of the