upon condition of their taking the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, making the Declaration against Popery, and declaring their belief of the holy Scriptures as containing a Divine revelation, and as the rule of their doctrine and practice. The law requires that the place in which they meet for public worship should be certified to the court of quarter sessions, or to the bishop's court, when the registration or licensing of the place follows as a matter of course; and the minister thus qualified may perform any clerical function*, except that of marriage, which, by an Act of Parliament, is limited to parish churches and the Established Clergy only. Their baptisms are registered in a book in the Public Library of the Dissenters in Redcross Street, London; and these registers are held valid in law. They are not entitled to a steeple and bells for their places of worship; and not only. the members of the Established Church, but all denominations of Dissenters, including Quakers, and even Jews, must pay their church-rates and tithes, and serve parish offices, or forfeit the penalty. Blasphemy, and reviling the Christian faith, are crimes that are still punished by the magistrate, as hurtful to the essential interests of society; and he is ready to chastise any such attack upon the established religion as tends to disturb the public peace but the religious opinions of those who live inoffensively, are not inquired into. The law, both in England and Scotland, takes under its protection all places where Dissenters of any description assemble for worship; and a penalty of 401. is now incurred by the man who will presume to disturb them in the exercise of their public worship. Several obsolete penalties and disabilities still remain, by laws which, according to some, it is better to neglect than to repeal; but death, fines, and confiscations, on the score of conscience, when the religionists behave as peaceful subjects, that graceless offspring of tyranny and misrule, are sinking fast into merited oblivion. Tyranny begot it, ignorance fostered it, and barbarous divines clothed it with the stolen garments of religion. A small fine, imposing attendance on some kind or mode of public worship, might probably be justified, as by statute of 1st Elizabeth, but with reserve of freedom of By the new Toleration Act of 1812, every teacher or preacher, who shall employ himself solely as such, and not engage in any trade or business, except that of schoolmaster, shall be exempt from certain civil offices, and from serving in the militia or local militia, &c. conscience, and without enjoining absolute conformity to any particular service and rites*. Thus do matters stand at present in respect to the privileges, &c. of the Dissenters; and while the policy of the legislature has been thus highly liberal towards them, it is pleasing to remark the growth of a corresponding liberality in the ministrations of all classes of religionists, and in all the walks of private life. Grateful for their many privileges, the Dissenters in general are a loyal people; and, including all classes, they are now become a very numerous body of the community; being said to amount, in England and Wales, to about twofifths of the inhabitants. Nor are they more respectable in point of numbers, than of virtue and talents; for it must be acknowledged, even by their enemies, that not a few have appeared among them who have been eminently conspicuous both for piety and learning; and those of the present day do by no means discredit their predecessors +. And, in regard to their professional labours, what the able and eloquent Dr. Chalmers has said of the Scottish Dissenters will equally apply to the Dissenters in England: "The country, in fact, lies under the deepest obligation to the dissenting clergy; and let no petty jealousies interfere with the acknowledgments that are due to men who have done so much to retard the process of moral deterioration, and whose ability and zeal have carried onward to the limit of its utmost possible operation the high function that they fulfil in the commonwealth +. Most denominations have a small fund in London for the See the arguments on Lord Stanhope's Bill, proposed in 1789. See also the Articles of Union, 5th Anne, ch. 8; and Warner's" Ecclesiastical History," fol. vol. ii. p. 465-471. The + Bishop Watson, speaking of the Dissenting ministers, in his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1783,) says, “I cannot look upon them as inferior to the clergy of the Establishment, either in learning or morals." And among their ornaments may be ranked the names of Baxter, Calamy, Bates, Howe, Owen, Williams, Neal, Henry, Stennet, Evans, Gale, Foster, Leland, Grosvenor, Watts, Lardner, Abernethy, Doddridge, Grove, Chan dler, Gill, Orton, Furneaux, Farmer, Towgood, Robinson, Price, Kippis, Priestley, and Fuller. See a work in 2 vols. 8vo. 1758, entitled, Protestant System;" containing Discourses on the Principal Doctrines of Natural and Revealed Religion, compiled from the works of the most eminent Protestant Dissenters; wherein are united great piety, talents, and erudition. The divines, from whose works this compilation is made, are, Abernethy, Amory, Barker, Benson, Bulkeley, Chandler, Doddridge, Duchal, Emlyn, Fordyce, Foster, Grove, Holland, Leechman, Mason, Morris, Newman, &c. &c. "The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns," vol. i. p. 111. Here I beg leave to observe, that the law in England recognises the Dissenting ministers as Reverend, but not as Clerks, or Clergy; the latter epi. thet being appropriated to the established priesthood. aid of poor congregations in the country; but their ministers in general are wholly supported by the voluntary contributions of their congregations; and many of them have, it is feared, but a scanty income. Besides the three classes to whom the Toleration Act more particularly referred, and who have long been known by the name of the Protestant Dissenters, the great body of the Nonconformists comprises at this day a variety of sects and parties, to each of which, separately, after considering those three classes, the reader's attention will be directed, and under each head will be given a brief statement of their origin, doctrines, worship, &c. and reference made to their historians and other writers. Suffice it to refer here, in addition to their general historians already mentioned, to the later works of Messrs. Bogue and Bennet, and of Mr. Brooks. But the reader, who desires to form a correct and impartial judgment respecting the grounds and progress of dissent, will do well to consult, on the other hand, the works of Fuller, Strype, Collier, Burnet, and Warner. THE PRESBYTERIANS IN ENGLAND. NAME. THOUGH the name of Presbyterians is still retained in England, the thing has almost disappeared, and the old distinction, which formerly divided the Presbyterians and Independents, is now become nearly obsolete; or may be said to be reversed; for they formerly agreed in doctrine, and differed only in church government and discipline, whereas they now nearly agree on these heads, and differ widely in respect to doctrine. The Presbyterians, so called, have shifted their original platform, both of doctrine and discipline; while the Independents continue the same as formerly in both, and consistent with themselves. The English Presbyterians have no courts of review; or, though here and there the name of presbyteries may be retained, their authority is totally gone, or is not regarded; and, while they profess to be Presbyterians, from their total inattention to the peculiarities of the Presbyterian system, and the near approaches they have made to the Congregational plan, they more properly deserve the name of Independents, and should be called by that name. RISE, PROGRESS, &c. The first presbytery in England was erected in 1572, at Wandsworth, in Surrey; and hence called the Order of Wandsworth, by Field, their minister*. Many of the English, who had fled to Geneva, Frankfort, &c. during the persecution under Queen Mary, returned to England, in the reign of Elizabeth, with strong prepossessions in favour of Calvinistic doctrines and forms; and being dissatisfied with the Established Church, because, in their opinion, it was not formed after a pure model, produced a sect of Nonconformists, then denominated Puritans. They were restless; the age was intolerant; the queen hostile, and despotic in the use of prerogative: hence they were treated, perhaps, with harshness and injustice. From James, though a warm friend to episcopacy, they experienced greater humanity and mildness. In the reign of Charles I., who was equally with his father a friend to episcopacy, if not more so, they met with opposition and vexation from Archbishop Laud, who regarded them with no favourable eye. Their party, notwithstanding, gradually derived strength, from the public measures of the day and other concurring circumstances, and had a leading share in precipitating the kingdom into civil war. Puritans, or Presbyterians, and Independents, harassed, in every possible way, the National Church; and ultimately succeeded in abolishing episcopacy, and ejecting the episcopal clergy. Both Hypocrisy, inconsistency, and intolerance, were the characters of the Presbyterians during the Interregnum, when they became the establishment. Their zeal for uniformity then swallowed up every other consideration; they branded toleration as the most detestable heresy, and maintained that scruple of conscience is no cause of separation. The profession of episcopacy was not tolerated even to the king, and much less to the people. But in the course of the conflict they were depressed and supplanted by the more recent sect of the Independents, who prayed and struggled for the removal of the Presbyterians, as these had done for the downfal of the Church +. Turbulence and intolerance, how See above, vol. i. p. 143. Eleven elders were chosen, and their offices inscribed in a register, entitled, "The Order of Wandsworth;" and Fuller says, that "secundum usum Wandsworth" was as much honoured by the Presbyterians, as “secundum usum Sarum” had been by the Romanists. + A very humorous and satirical character of the Presbyterians of those ever, were still triumphant, and continued so till the restoration of Charles II. an event which the Presbyterians profess to have themselves chiefly brought about-when the Church of England resumed its ancient form and privileges; and by the Act of Uniformity, which then passed, nearly 2000 of the clergy, who were attached to presbyterian discipline, relinquished their cures in one day. But even then the rights of toleration were but little regarded: for if in the reign of Charles I., and during the usurpation of Cromwell, the Dissenters acted cruelly; under Charles II. the members of the Establishment are accused of having, in some measure, retaliated; and the Presbyterians have not made any figure in the history of the church or of the country from that period to the present day*. For about a century back their 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 do not exceed a twentieth part of the three denominations." The number of congregations in 1812 was, in England 252, and in Wales 18-or 270 in all. Of these, upwards of twenty were Scotch Seceders; and most of those in the North, together with six in London, were of the order of the Church of Scotland. Almost all these were then said to be mere skeletons, not above a dozen containing 500 people † ; and their number is now calculated at 60,000. DOCTRINE. The members of this denomination, whose predecessors were Trinitarians, and rigid Calvinists, are now, in point of doctrine, chiefly Arians, Unitarians, and General Baptists, insomuch that those in the four northern counties, and the Scots Presbyterians in other parts of England, are said to times is given by the famous Butler, in his description of Hudibras's religion, canto i. It is, however, but justice to the modern Presbyterians, so called, in England, to admit, that, different from their forefathers, whose turbulence and intolerance they profess to condemn, they are perhaps as loyal subjects, and every way as upright and inoffensive in their conduct, as any of their neighbours. * Bishop Burnet speaks of the Presbyterians, about the Revolution, as "loving episcopal ordination and a liturgy.”—History, vol. ii. p. 702. This change of mind is different from what we should have expected, and does not much harmonize with their entering into an association with the Independents in 1691, which is a well-known fact. Yet the learned bishop's account is in some measure confirmed by that of Messrs. Bogue and Bennet,who say, that “about thirty of their ministers went into the Church in a few years, from 1720 to 1730," &c.-History of the Dissenters, vol. iii. 324, 331. + Bogue and Bennet's "History of the Dissenters," vol. iv. p. 328-9, &c. |