altar," in their chapels in England, soon after the legal solemnization of the marriage in the Established Church; and it consists chiefly in an address to the new married couple, on "the origin, nature, and effect of conjugal love," as held by the members of the New Church. In their Burial Service, they read, for the lesson, the 11th chapter of St. John's Gospel; and in the address to those present at the grave, the minister says, Our departed brother (or sister) is not dead, but alive in that state and world to which we are all hastening; and having laid aside this mortal body, never more to re-assume it, he or she there lives for ever in human form and substance, a man complete as in the natural world, except this gross body of flesh and blood, which we now consign to the silent tomb," &c.

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They stand, not only in singing, but also while the General Thanksgiving is read. They use organs; but they do not sing the Psalms of David. Several collections of hymns have been used hitherto; but the last Conference, judging uniformity in the use of a hymn-book desirable, have proposed to make a new selection, that shall not exceed 600!

CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE.

It does not appear that on this subject any thing was recommended by Baron Swedenborg; and it is believed by a large majority of those receivers, "and particularly by a numerous body of the clergy of the Church of England, who are disposed to think favourably of our author's testimony," that it was never his intention that any particular sect should be formed upon his doctrines, but that all who receive them, whether in the Establishment, or in any other communion of Christians, should be at perfect liberty, either to continue in their former communion, or to quit it, as their conscience dictates. Accordingly "the above-mentioned numerous body of the clergy, together with many individuals of their respective congregations, who are receivers of the above doctrines, think it proper still to continue in the use of the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, and under the episcopal government established in that church *."

*The Rev. I. Clowes, Rector of St. John's Church, Manchester, than whom none of the clergy has been a more avowed or a more zealous admirer of the Baron's writings, published an "Affectionate Address," warmly recommending the serious perusal of them to his brethren; and in reply to my late inquiries respecting this " numerous body" of them, who it would appear have listened to his recommendation, I am told that "a statement was made about five years ago, by one of our friends in the Establishment,

In regard to those members of this sect who have formed themselves into distinct societies, their church government is not yet fully settled; but the minutes of the two last Conferences exhibit its progress. "Our congregations have the privilege of electing their pastors; but their choosing a person not previously ordained, to officiate for them in this capacity, does not render it compulsory on the ministers, in whom the power of conferring ordination is vested, to admit him to that ordinance, unless they are satisfied of his fitness for the office."

According to their present discipline, no minister has the right of ordination who has not himself been ordained at least five years; and no candidate can be admitted to holy orders, until after he has been baptized into the faith of the New Church. They admit lay readers, who may also preach; but they cannot administer the sacraments: and owing to the smallness of their salaries, the ordained ministers are not probibited from engaging in worldly business, should their circumstances require it.

All their ministers are, ex officio, members of the General Conference, which is now held annually; and each congregation has the privilege of sending one, two, or three, lay delegates, according to its numbers. The Fifteenth Conference, held at Manchester, in August 1822, was composed of eight ministers and 37 delegates, representing twenty-four congregations.

NUMBERS, AND COUNTRIES WHERE found.

On these subjects I have just been favoured (January 23, 1823,) with the following communication from a respectable minister of the New Church, who says, "From the best information I have been able to obtain, as Secretary to our General Conference, I estimate the number of our members in Britain at from 2500 to 3000*. I here only include those who fully avow their adherence to our doctrines, and who are recognised as members of our societies. The number of attendants in our

that he was in correspondence with not fewer than fifty clergymen who were satisfied of the truth of Swedenborg's writings."

Here I must take leave to remark, that those fifty clergymen, so long as they halt between two opinions, or, while they neither renounce their faith in the Baron's writings nor their connection with the church, they can be no honour either to the Old Church or to the New.

"We have heard," they say, "of some Dissenting ministers who favour our sentiments, but have no direct knowledge of them. Some of our own ministers were previously ministers among the Methodists or Baptists."

They have only three or four small congregations in Scotland; in Ireland merely one, and in Wales none.

places of worship, and of general favourers, is far greater. In Lancashire alone, where they are most numerous, they have been estimated at 10,000. In the United States of America, the number is considerable, and has of late greatly increased; but there are no means of ascertaining its exact amount. A letter lately received from Philadelphia affirms, that in the new state of Tenessee, the doctrine of the New Church has obtained a predominance above every other. At the General Convention held in Philadelphia in May last, a whole congregation of Baptists with their minister at their head, applied to be received into communion with the New Church *.

"On the continent of Europe, the receivers of our doctrines are most numerous in Sweden, where they include among them some persons of rank and title t. There is a small society (of about ten individuals) at Paris, who meet to read and converse on the writings of Swedenborg. We have heard of a society rather more numerous at Coutanches in Normandy; and there are a few individuals scattered through other parts of France. We know of no societies in Germany; but an advertisement, inserted about seven years ago in some of the continential papers, by a member of the New Church at Rotterdam, inviting communications from the friends of our cause, produced letters from a considerable number of individuals in different parts of that country, together with a letter from Switzerland, signed by more than seventy persons, inhabitants of the cantons of St. Gall and Appenzell. We have correspondents also with a clergyman in the Prussian dominions, with another in Mecklenburg, and with another in Holland, who have firmly embraced our doctrines. We have reason to believe that we have many friends in Denmark, and we have formerly received communications from one or two persons of consequence in Russia. Respecting the other countries of Europe we have no information. We have several friends in the West Indies. Further particulars

In the forty-fifth Number of the "Intellectual Repository," lately published (a quarterly publication conducted by members of the New Church), will be found some interesting information respecting the present state of this sect in America.

+ There are indeed a few in Sweden who admit the testimony of Baron Swedenborg; but though they are there a native sect, they are not allowed the public exercise of their religion; and the Rev. Mr. Tybeck, a Swedish clergyman far advanced in years, was lately deprived of his living for advocating the new doctrines. The same fate, it appears, and for the same reason, has happened to a D. D. and Professor of Philosophy in the university of Tubingen, and to a Mr. Holland, minister of a society of Scottish Congregationalists in America.

The members of this sect have all along, and, I believe, in all countries,

respecting the societies in the United Kingdom may be seen in the minutes of our last General Conference, held at Manchester in August last."

WRITERS PRO ET CON.

Amongst the more bold and distinguished assertors of the testimony of Baron Swedenborg, and the leading champions of his theological tenets may be ranked Messrs. Hartley, Clowes, Proud, and Hindmarsh. The works written in defence of those tenets, or grounded on them, by the second and the last of these gentlemen in particular, are too numerous to be here specified.

On the other hand, the principal writers who have opposed the above scheme of theology, or have animadverted on some parts of it, are Mr. J.Wesley, Dr. Priestley, the Abbè Barruel, the Editors of the Christian Observer and of the Evangelical Magazine, Mr. Pike, a Baptist minister at Derby, &c.

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS.

My prescribed limits will not permit me to add to the remarks I have already ventured to make, on the subject of this article, all those which naturally arise in the mind from considering it. I cannot, however, dismiss it, without recalling the reader's attention to the Swedenborgian doctrine of correspondencies, by which the members of the New Church seem to turn Scripture into a mystery, of which they themselves are the only infallible key-keepers and interpreters. Let this once be admitted as the genuine way in which the Old and New Testaments are to be understood, and then every thing certain and solid in religion must vanish and disappear; for to allegorizing and spiritualizing, neither rules nor limits can be prescribed. "Fancy and imagination may sport endlessly in the wildest theories; one man having an equal right to interpret a text according to what he conceives to be its spiritual meaning, as any other and though contradictory in their expositions, they both have equal pretensions to credibility, because there are no data by which their interpretations can be examined, as each is left to the boundless range of his own fancy. Again; if it be once granted that the Scriptures are to be interpreted in this way, there can be no certainty that we understand the meaning of a single text,

shewn themselves to be good subjects of the state. Their principles, they tell us, lead them to this; and they refer us on the subject to the chapter "On Ecclesiastical and Civil Government," at the end of Swedenborg's work “On the New Jerusalem, and its Heavenly Doctrine,”

unless God should give a special revelation to fix and determine the sense of that which he had already given. But we have no clue of this kind. Therefore on the allegorizing system Valentin, with his sublime nonsense about cons and pleroma; Origen, with his ingenious allegories; Ketch, with his dull and stupid metaphors; Behmen, with his unintelligible theosophy; and Baron Swedenborg, with his internal and celestial senses, and dangerous and indecent reveries, may all put in their claims as infallible interpreters of the word of God;-while the simple of heart, amidst confusion, confounded by confusion, feels his faith afloat upon a mighty ocean, without a star to guide, a compass to direct, or a helm to regulate his course. God certainly never gave a revelation liable to be for ever misunderstood by such extravagant theories and fanciful interpretations.'

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QUAKERS.

NAMES.

THE name of Quakers was imposed on the members of this Society, and not assumed: it is expressive of facts rather than of tenets, and, though at first an epithet of reproach, seems to be stamped upon them indelibly, and is now become respectable. They denominate themselves Friends, or the Society of Friends; an appellation which they borrow from primitive and scriptural example: "Our friends salute thee: Greet the friends." (3 John 14.) But when they address the king's majesty, and even in their common transactions in the world, they very modestly denominate themselves the people called Quakers, by which name thay are more generally known.

RISE, PROGRESS, AND HISTORY.

The Society of Friends took their rise in England, about the year 1640, and rapidly found their way into other countries in Europe, and into the English settlements in North America.

They themselves tell us, that, in the 17th century, a number of men, dissatisfied with all the modes of religious worship then known in the world, withdrew from the communion of