Chap. 3. Preaching Talents. 623 a taste for composition, and obtain the art of public speaking, but as the preacher grows older, and his duties increase, this method is gradually laid aside and the former one settled upon. Some of the best sermons in the present age were composed and delivered in this way, the sentiment studied and the expression extemporaneous. This will apply to evangelical preachers of all the denominations both in and out of the establishment. Specimens we have in the printed sermons of Bogue, Jay, Hall, Lowell, Collyer, Hyatt, Styles, Fuller, Newton, Scott with some others most of whom could not deliver their sermons with so much grace, style, correctness and effect with notes as without them. Independents have ministerial and congregational ASSOCIATIONS. These are generally in country districts and the meeting held semi-annually. An union has late. ly been attempted by which to associate all the churches in the nation: the plan is similar to the Consociations of New England, some years are necessary to give the design character and effect. Ordination in this body is conducted much after the congregational plan of this country, only the right hand of fellowship is not practised, but a confession of faith is expected from the candidates. What has been stated on the order of independents as it respects preaching, ordination and associations will apply pretty much to the Baptists, whose standing in the dissenting phalanx is next to the independents. Their peculiar sentiments as baptists are too well known every where to need any detail in this place. This denomination is divided into two classes, general and particular. The General Baptists are Arminian and Unitarian, and sharing the same fate as their elder allies the Socinian presbyterians. "Four of their congregations in London some years ago were united in one." The 621 Calvinistic Methodists. Cent. 19. icy hand of Socinianism chills and blasts every thing it touches. Some few of this sect have aimed at a more orthodox creed and contended for experimental religion, those are called the New Connexion; their congregations are about sixty in number and prevail mostly in the midland counties. The Particular Baptists are professedly Calvinists, but somewhat higher spiced than their brethren, the independents. Dr. Gill is with many the standard of faith. A doctrinal antinomianism prevails so much as to be deeply lamented by the more pious and judicious, who ascribe this corruption to the prejudices which so prevail against an educated ministry. The high honours deservedly conferred on the learned baptist missionaries in India, will it is hoped plead for a better qualified teacher in the churches at home. Some ministers however, of attainments inferior to none in any denomination, adorn and edify the baptist churches. CALVINISTIC METHODISTS, including the followers of George Whitfield and the connexion established by the Countess of Huntingdon, have in the whole kingdom about 60 places of worship, in London these chapels are very large and much crowded, all of the London chapels taken together contain not less than 30,000 people. Hyper-calvinism has prevailed much in this denomination, but the more immediate disciples of Whitfield are less tinctured with it than the others. There is so much harmony and union of interest and of exertion between this body of Christians and the independents, that their history is mutually and happily blended. This class of seceders, more than any other contributes to the increase of the independents: their chapels, in many of which the episcopal ceremonies are adopted, become the first step of departure from the mother church, here they ob tain a taste for gospel preaching, and lose their high no Chap. 3. Wesleyan Methodists-Divers Sects. 625 tion of ecclesiastical regularity; and as the spirit of Christianity advances, they lend an ear to the ministry of other denominations. From this quarter and through these means, the independents and baptists gain numerous followers. In Wales the Calvinistic Methodists have flourished greatly; their chapels amount to three hundred and their societies are computed at 30,000 members their preachers are chiefly itinerant. : WESLEYAN METHODISTS, since the commencement of the century, have made astonishing progress. The congregations they have collected, and the numerous and elegant chapels they have erected in all the great towns in the nation, give the highest proof of their zeal, and of the wisdom of their plans. A detail of these things may be seen in their Magazine, a publication which contains a general record of their transactions. They have four or five very large chapels in the metropolis in which they collect a body of people consisting of 8 or 10,000 souls. The want of a better informed ministry is much lamented by some, but this denomination is ornamented with that great scholar Dr. Adam Clarke whose Commentary on the Bible is considered by many as a standard of the Wesleyan doctrine. DIVERS SECTS. "The Moravians cau scarcely be considered as an increasing body: nor can it be said that of late they have eagerly sought to augment their numbers. On this account they merit reprehension." Sandemanians and Swedenborgians are too inconsiderable to deserve notice among other sects which so preponderate. The Quakers cannot be said to be an increasing sect their number is rated at about 20,000. Their character has much risen of late in the interest they have taken in the Bible Society and in the establishment of schools for the instruction of the poor. CHAPTER IV. PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS IN BRITAIN. Universities-Dissenting Seminaries-Baptist, Methodist and London Missionary Societies-British and Foreign Bible Society Tract and Sunday School Societies-Jews Society-Retrospect. THE UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE, those immense literary foundations, receive only members of the church of England. Here the first non-conformists were educated, but they then belonged to the established church, or it was at the time when Cromwell neutralized those illiberal statutes by which those unjust distinctions had, and since have been made. "Were enlightened and candid reason to speak, it would declare that the universities were national property, consecrated to the preservation of sound learning in the kingdom, and that to this purpose they ought to be devoted, without any sectarian distinctions. As long as the majority of the English are attached to the established church, she will have a majority of her sons enjoying the benefits of these institutions, and reaping alone the harvest of tithes in the gift of the colleges. But the dissenters of every name are in all reason, entitled to such a share of the literary advantages of the universities as is equivalent to their portion of the population and wealth of the country, and the share they contribute to the exigences of the state. As, however, || a thorn hedge of oaths and subscriptions and regulations is raised for their exclusion, it becomes them to provide Chap. 3. Scotch Colleges. 627 for themselves an institution which shall possess all the real advantages of the universities. The dissenting academies allow only a certain number of years for education, in most of them but three or four, and when a student has arrived at the close of his term, he must retire to make room for others, though he may have only just learned to aspire after higher acquisitions. It is true the universities of Scotland are accessible, and a few English dissenters are usually found attending the lectures of the northern professors, but the distance is great, and to those who have no connexions beyond the Tweed, appears formidable ; while other considerations. also operate to prevent many from resorting to those -seats of learning." It may be asked, why the dissenters do not unite their strength and influence and erect a college upon a grand scale? But my American reader will remember that the church of England has aggrandized all the grand revenues; that church looks with a jealous eye upon ev. ery rising monument of the soetaries; if a college were planned and endowed it must be chartered, but upon application to the legislature for that deed, ten thousand beneficed ecclesiastics, and a host of dignitaries would lift up their voice against the grant. Dissenters must be content with humbler institutions, and be thankful for them but it is humiliating to submit to these proscriptions and interdictions as the writer can testify. What are a few months, say two or three years, applied to the radicals and roots of the classics, to the study of theology, and a side-glance at the sciences, and the latter part of this time much occupied in the composition and delivery of sermons? It is true some individuals have risen superior to all these obstacles and become great in spite of great hinderances. One who now occupies the divinity |