benefits of the Toleration Act were granted to Protestant Dissenting Ministers and schoolmasters, 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."

Thus do matters stand at present in respect to the Protestant Dissenters; but though that name was, I believe, originally confined to the three denominations already specified, they are by no means the only sects that have broken off from the Church, nor are they the only Protestant Dissenters now in England. During the Interregnum alone, there sprang up a multitude (according to some nearly 60) of different religious sect and parties, contradicting, reviling, and persecuting each other: but fortunately most of these have now sunk into oblivion.

The increase or decrease of Dissenters in any country depends, in a great measure, on the industry or indolence of the Established Clergy. In proof of this, it has been observed, that the first settlers in Virginia were chiefly Episcopalians; but, through the carelessness of the clergy, twothirds of the people had become Dissenters at the commencement of the late American war.

During the two last reigns, the style of preaching in many pulpits seems to have been alike dry and unedifying; and both the subjects discussed, and the manner of discussing them, to have been such,

that the Christian divine could scarcely be distinguished from the Heathen moralist. Hence the dissenting interest then flourished, because the greater part of its teachers adhered to the doctrinal principles of the Reformation; and every man who has juster sentiments of the importance of religious worship than of the nature and constitution of the Christian Church, will be apt to go where he can best be edified. But, though a great proportion of the Established Clergy are at this day zealous and faithful to their duty, it is a lamentable and undoubted fact, that the number of Dissenters is still increasing, and is certainly much higher than when Mr. Robinson of Cambridge reckoned them to be about one-fifth of the inhabitants in England and Wales. Nor are the Dissenters, as a body, more

*To know the number of the licenses that have been taken out for dissenting places of worship within the last twenty years, particularly in the out parishes of London, and in other large towns, would astonish any person not accustomed to observe the progress of nonconformity. And one great cause of this is doubtless the great increase of population, without a proportionate increase of churches or parochial chapels, for the accommodation of the members of the Established Church.

To erect a dissenting meeting-house, nothing is wanted but enough of money, together with a shilling over, to purchase a license from a magistrate; whereas, to build a parochial chapel, or chapel of ease, the incumbent's leave is first of all to be obtained; then the concurrence of the bishop of the diocese must be procured; and, in many cases, an act of parliament also must previously be obtained (which will cost at least 2001.) to secure to those who are to be at the charge of the structure, some rights to which they may think themselves entitled. Hence, some VOL. III.

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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 seem to discredit their predecessors.*

Their ministers, except those of the Particular Baptists, who have a small fund to increase their salaries, are, in general, wholly supported by the voluntary contributions of their congregations. They may perform any clerical function, except that of marriage, which, by an act of parliament,

well wishers of the Establishment, to check this growth of sectarism, &c., would propose a general act of parliament for facilitating the erection of churches and chapels.

* Bishop Watson, speaking of the Dissenting Clergy, 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 Mr. Evans ranks among their ornaments, "Baxter, Bates, Howe, Owen, Williams, Neal, Henry, Stennet, Evans, Gale, Foster, Leland, Grosvenor, Watts, Lardner, Abernethy, Doddridge, Grove, Chandler, Gill, Orton, Furneaux, Farmer, Towgood, Robinson, Price, Kippis, and Priestley."-Sketch, p. 131-2, edit. 1807.

See a work, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1758, entitled, The 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.

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 Red Cross street, London; and, by act of parliament, 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 Jews, Quakers, and all denominations of dissenters, must pay their church rates and tithes, and serve parish offices, or forfeit the penalty.

To the books already referred to, on the subject of the rise, progress, &c. of Dissenters, may be added, Mr. Jones's Essay on the Church, ch. 5. together with the Postscript, and Dr. Eveleigh's Sermons at the Bampton Lecture, Oxford.

Having premised so much respecting the Protestant Dissenters, and Non-conformists in general, I now proceed to give some account of the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists; under which three denominations, as already observed, the Protestant Dissenters in England have been ranked.

THE

PRESBYTERIANS IN ENGLAND.

NAME." Those," says Dr. Doddridge, "who hold every pastor to be so a bishop or overseer of his own congregation, as that no other person or body of men have, by divine institution, a power to exercise any superior or pastoral office in it, may, properly speaking, be called (so far at least,) Congregational; and it is by a vulgar mistake that any such are called Presbyterians; for the Presbyterian discipline is exercised by synods and assemblies, subordinate to each other, and all of them subject to the authority of what is commonly called a General Assembly."*

This last mode of church government is to be found in Scotland, and has already been detailed. "But the appellation Presbyterian, is, in England, appropriated to a large denomination of Dissenters, who have no attachment to the Scotch

* Lectures, vol. ii. p. 342, 4th edit.