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or thrice every year; but their offices are less lucrative than they are honourable. Subordinate to them are the rural deans, formerly styled arch-presbyters, who signify the bishop's pleasure to the clergy: the lower class consists of priests and deacons.

The ecclesiastical government of England is, properly speaking, lodged in the convocation, which is a national representative or synod, and answers pretty nearly to the ideas we have of a parliament. They are convoked at the same time with every parliament, and their business is to consider of the state of the church, and to call those to an account who have advanced new opinions, inconsistent with the doctrines of the church of England. Some high-flying clergymen, during the reign of queen Anne, and in the beginning of that of George I., raised the power of the convocation, to a height that was inconsistent with the principles of religious toleration, and indeed of civil liberty; so that the crown was obliged to exert its prerogative of calling the members together, and of dissolving them; and ever since, they have not been permitted to sit for any time in which they could do business.

The court of arches is the most ancient consistory of the province of Canterbury, and all appeals in church matters, from the judgment of the inferior courts, are directed to this. The processes run in the name of the judge, who is called dean of the arches; and the advocates that plead in this court, must be doctors of the civil law. The court of audience has the same authority with this, to which the archbishop's chancery was formerly joined. The prerogative court is that wherein wills are proved, and administrations taken out. The courts of peculiars, relating to certain parishes, have a jurisdiction among themselves, for the probate of wills, and are therefore exempt from the bishops courts. The see of Canterbury has no less than fifteen of these peculiars, The court of delegates receives its name from its consisting of commissioners delegated or appointed by royal commission; but it is no standing court. Every bishop has also a court of his own, called a consistory court. Every archdeacon has likewise his court, as well as the dean and chapter of every cathedral. The church of England is now beyond any other national church tolerant in its principles. Moderation is its governing character, and in England no religious sect is prevented from worshiping God in that manner which their consciences approve. Some severe laws were, indeed, lately in force against those protestant dissenters who did not assent to the doctrinal articles of the church of England; but those laws were not executed, and in 1779, religious liberty received a considerable augmentation, by an act which was then passed for granting a legal

toleration to dissenting ministers and schoolmasters, without their subscribing any of the articles of the church of England. Not to enter upon the motives of the reformation under Henry VIII., it is, that episcopal government, excepting the few years from the civil wars under Charles I., to the restoration of his son, has ever since prevailed in England. The wisdom of acknowledging the king the head of the church is conspicuous, in discouraging all religious persecutions and intolerancy; and if religious sectaries have increased in England, it is from the same principle that civil licentiousness has prevailed; I mean a tenderness in matters that can affect either conscience or liberty. The bias which the clergy had towards popery in the reign of Henry VIII., and his son, and even so late as that of Elizabeth, occasioned an interposition of the civil power for a farther reformation. Thence arose the Puritans, so called from their maintaining a singular purity of life and manners. Many of them were worthy pious men, and some of them good patriots. Their descendants are the modern presbyterians, who retain the same character, and have true principles of civil and religious liberty; but their theological sentiments have undergone a considerable change. Their doctrine, like the church of Scotland, was originally derived from the Geneva plan, instituted by Calvin, and tended to the abolition of episcopacy, and to vesting the government of the church in a parity of presbyters. But the modern English presbyterians, in their ideas of church government, differ little from the independents or congregationalists, who are so called from holding the independency of congregational churches, without respect to doctrine; and in this sense almost all the dissenters in England are now become independents. As to points of doctrine, the presbyterians are generally Arminians. Many of their ministers have greatly distinguished themselves by their learning and abilities, and some of their writings are held in high estimation by the clergy, and other members of the established church. The same may be said of the independents and baptists ministers. The independents are generally Calvinists. The baptists do not believe that infants are proper subjects of baptism, and in the baptism of adults, they practice immersion into water. They are divided into two classes, which are styled general baptists and particular baptists. The general baptists are Arminians, and the particular are Calvinists. The moderate clergy of the church of England treat the protestant dissenters with affection and friendship: and though the hierarchy of their church and the character of bishops are capital points in their religion, they consider their differences with the presbyterians, and even with the baptists, as not being very material to salvation;

nor indeed do many of the established church think that they are strictly and conscientiously bound to believe the doctrinal points of the thirty-nine articles, to which they are obliged to subscribe before they can enter into holy orders. Several of them have contended in their writings, that all subscriptions to religious systems are repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, and to refor mation. Some doctrines which were formerly generally considered as too sacred to be opposed, or even examined, are now publicly controverted, particularly the doctrine of the Trinity. Places of worship have been established in which that doctrine has been openly renounced; and several clergymen have thrown up valuable livings in the church, and assigned their disbelief in the doctrine as the motive of their conduct.

The Methodists are a sect of a late institution, and their founder is generally looked upon to be Mr. George Whitfield, a divine of the church of England; but it is difficult to describe the tenets of this numerous sect. They pretend to great fervor and devotion, and their founder thought that the form of ecclesiastical worship and prayers, whether taken from a common prayer book, or poured forth extempore, was a matter of indifference: he accordingly made use of both these methods. His followers are rigid observers of the doctrinal articles of the church of England, and profess themselves to be Calvinists. But even the sect of Methodists is split among themselves: some of them acknowledged Mr. Whitfield, and others Mr. Wesley, for their leader; not to mention a variety of subordinate sects, (some of whom are from Scotland, particularly the Sandemanians) who have their separate followers, but very few in London and other places in England. Mr. Whitfield died a few years since; but the places of worship erected near London, are still frequented by persons of the same principles, who profess great respect for his memory. Some of the Calvinistic doctrines were opposed by Mr. Wesley and his followers, particularly predestination; but they still appear to retain some of them. He erected a very large place of public worship near Moorfields, and had under him a considerable number of subordinate preachers, who submitted to their leader very implicitly, propagate his opinions, and make proselytes throughout the kingdom with great industry. After a very long life, spent in the most strenuous endeavors to do good, and having been blest in reforming the morals of thousands of the lower ranks of society, he died in 1791.

The Quakers are a religious sect, which took its rise about the middle of the last century: a summary account of their tenets having been published by themselves, the following is abstracted from it,

"They believe in one eternal God, the creator and preserver of the universe, and in Jesus Christ his Son, the Messiah and Mediator of the new covenant.

"When they speak of the miraculous conception, birth, life, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Saviour, they are scriptural terms, and acknowledge his divinity.

"They believe (and it is their distinguishing tenet) that every man coming into the world is endued with a measure of the light, grace, or good spirit of Christ, by which, as it is attended to, he is enabled to distinguish good from evil, and to correct the corrupt principles of his nature, which mere reason is altogether insufficient to overcome.

"To Christ alone they give the title of the word of God, and not to the scriptures, although they highly esteem these sacred writings in subordination to the spirit from which they were given forth.

"They think the influence of the spirit essentially necessary to the performance of worship, and consider as obstructions to pure worship all forms which divert the attention of the mind from the secret influences of this unction from the Holy one. They think it incumbent on Christians to meet often together and to wait in silence to have a true light of their condition bestowed upon them, believing even a single sigh arising from such a sense to be more acceptable to God than any performance, however specious, which originate in the will of man.

"As they do not encourage any ministry but that which is believed to spring from the Holy Spirit, so neither do they restrain this influence to persons in any condition in life, or to the male sex alone, but as male and female are one in Christ, they allow such of the female sex as are endued with a right qualification for the ministry, to exercise their gifts for the general edification of the church.

-"Respecting baptism, and what is termed the Lord's supper, they believe that the baptism with water administered by John belonged to an inferior and decreasing dispensation.

"With respect to the other rite, they believe that communion between Christ and his church, is not maintained by any external performance but only by a real participation of his divine nature through faith.

"They declare against oaths and war, abiding literally by Christ's positive injunction, "Swear not at all." From the precepts of the gospel, from the example of our Lord, and his spirit in their hearts, they maintain that wars and fightings are repugnant to the gospel.

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"They disuse the names of the months and days which were

given in honor of the heroes or false gods of the heathens, and the custom of speaking to a single person in the plural number, as having arisen also from motives of adulation. Compliments, superfluity of apparel and furniture, outward shows of rejoicing, and mourning, and observations of days and times they esteem to be incompatible with the sincerity and simplicity of a Christian life; and public diversions, gaming, and other vain amusements of the world, they condemn as a waste of time, and diverting the aettntion of the mind from the sober duties of life.

"This society hath a discipline established among them, the purposes of which are, the relief of the poor, the maintenance of good order, the support of the testimonies which they believe it is their duty to bear to the world, and the help and recovery of such as are overtaken in faults.

"It is their decided judgment, that it is contrary to the gospel to sue each other at law. They enjoin all to end their differences by speedy and impartial arbitration according to rules laid down. If any refuse to adopt this mode, or having adopted it, to submit to the award, it is the rule of the society that such be disowned.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

IRELAND.

THE established religion and ecclesiastical discipline of Ireland is the same with that of England. Among the bulk of the people in the most uncultivated parts, popery, and that too of the most absurd and illiberal kind, is prevalent. The Irish papists still retain their nominal bishops and dignitaries, who subsist on the voluntary contributions of their votaries. But even the blind submission of the latter to their clergy does not prevent protestantism from making a very rapid progress in the towns and communities. How far it may be the interest of England, that some kind of balance between the two religions should be kept up, I shall not here enquire.

Ireland contains at least as many sectaries as England, particularly presbyterians, baptists, quakers, and methodists, who are all of them connived at or tolerated. Great efforts have been made, ever since the days of James I., in erecting free schools for eivilizing and converting the Irish papists to protestantism. The institution of the incorporated society for promoting English protestant working schools, though of no older date than 1717, has been amazing successful, as have many institutions of the same

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