of notice. Two very remarkable at tempts were made to restrain the progress of Arian sentiments among the Dissenters. One of their ministers at Nottingham refused to receive one of the members of his congregation to communion, because he would not declare his belief in the personal deity of Christ. At Kidderminster, a member of the congregation presented to Mr. Statham, who had been invited to be their minister, three articles, on the doctrines of the Trinity, Original Sin, and the Atonement, expressed in the strongest terms of Calvinism, and required Mr. Statham to sign them, as the condition of his being chosen the minister of that chapel. Mr. Bourne, the minister at Birmingham, wrote two letters concerning this transaction to another member of the congregation at Kidderminster. In the first, written before he had seen the articles, he strongly, but very justly, reprobates the imposing of any articles upon ministers of the gospel. "What," says the indignant writer, "must a man be made a slave to artieles and creeds, and perhaps a hypocrite, by subscribing to articles, which he does not believe, before he is fit to preach the gospel? Must one man thus make another his father and master in religion in opposition to the express command of Jesus? The only proper sphere for the activity of these imposers of articles is the spiritual courts, especially that of the inquisition, whose conduct can be justified on any principles, on which these imposers can justify theirs. The ignorance of the man's conduct vies with his insolence. By it, he gives up the main principle of Dissent, of Protest antism and of Christianity, the right of private judgment and the sufficiency of the Scriptures in matters of faith." In the second letter, Mr. Bourne, who had then seen the articles, not only repeats his severe rebukes against all attempts to impose human, unscriptural articles upon the consciences of men, but brings forward many plain arguments to shew from the Scriptures the falsity of these particular articles, and especially of the doctrine of the Trinity. "If," says he, " Jesus be in any intelligible sense, and in his whole person the Son of God, he cannot be the same God with the Father; if the Father be greater than the Son, not

than a part of the Son only, he cannot be co-equal with the Father; if there were some things, as Jesus himself says there were, of which the Son was ignorant, he cannot be God." With the result of this attempt to restrain freedom of opinion among the Dissenters, I am not acquainted. About the end of the reign of George II., Mr. Seddon, of Manchester, led the way, in avowing the belief in the simple humanity of Jesus, from the pulpit. This gave great offence to many members of the congregation, and they desired Mr. Mottershead, his co-pastor and father-in-law, to speak to him on the subject. After a day's private conference, Mr. Mottershead declared, that, so far from having been able to convince Mr. Seddon that he was wrong, he had himself been very nearly convinced that Mr. Seddon was right. The beginning of the present reign was distinguished by very auspicious omens of the ground which the principles of liberality were gain. ing, and which has gradually produced such great and important extensions of religious liberty.

In the year 1766, an attempt was made by the Corporation of London, to increase very much the degree of persecution which the Dissenters suffered from the Test and Corporation Acts. By those acts all conscientious Dissenters are excluded from all offices of trust and profit in the country. The city of London passed a bye-law, that any person refusing to accept the office of sheriff' in that borough should be fined 500l., and they then proceeded to elect various Dissenters and Catholics, who could not serve in that office without incurring the penalties of outlawry by the Test Act. Mr. Allen Evans, a Dissenter, having been appointed sheriff, resisted the claim of the city to the fine of 500l. for his refusing to accept the office. The cause was carried successively through all the Courts, all of which, except those immediately under the influence of the Corporation of London, decided in favour of the Dissenters. The trial was finally terminated in the House of Lords, which unanimously confirmed the decision of the inferior Courts, that the Dissenters could not be made liable to any fine or punishment whatever, for declining to serve in those offices, from which the Test and Corporation Acts

excluded them. The unanimity of this decision was very much owing to the able speech of the Lord Chief Justice Mansfield in favour of the Dissenters. The following year the Lord Chief Justice had another opportunity of distinguishing himself in the cause of liberality, on occasion of the last prosecution, which has been instituted against a Catholic priest, for perform ing the duties of that office in this country. The law, on which the in former grounded his prosecution, enacted, that every popish priest, who should celebrate mass in this country should be punished with perpetual imprisonment. The informer, though he swore that the man whom he prosecuted had celebrated mass, could not himself tell in what mass consisted, and he could give no proof that the person whom he prosecuted was in priests' orders. On these grounds, Lord Mansfield directed the jury to find a verdict of not guilty.

In the year 1771, au association was formed among many of the clergy of the Established Church, to solicit relief in the matter of subscription. It was set on foot in consequence of the publication of the Confessional, by Dr. Blackburne, Archdeacon of Cleveland, the object of which book was to shew, that a subscription to the Scriptures was all that ought to be required of any Christian minister. On this ground a petition was presented to Parliament, from 250, mostly respectable clergymen, and the rest members of the universities, desiring, that both at the ordination of clergymen, and at admission into the universities, a declaration of belief in the Scriptures might be substituted for subscription to the articles and the book of Common Prayer, and that the Athanasian Creed and other objectionable parts of the liturgy, might be omitted or altered.

In 1772, this petition was presented to the House of Commons, but after a warm debate it was rejected. Thus failed the last attempt at reforming the Church of England. This event, how ever, was productive of very great advantages. The first consequence of it was, the secession of Mr. Lindsey, Vicar of Catterick, from the church. He had for some time had great scruples about continuing in the church, having been gradually forming Unitarian opinions. For some time he had

entertained thoughts of quitting the church, but had been persuaded first to wait the result of this petition to Parliament. "But," says he, "I could not satisfy myself with any softenings and qualifications of the Trinitarian forms in the liturgy. I wondered how I had been able to bring myself to imagine, that I was worshiping the Father in spirit and in truth, while I was addressing two other persous, God the Sou and God the Holy Ghost, and imploring favours severally of them, in terms that implied their personality and distinct agency and separate deity, as much as that of the Father. If invocations so particular, language so express and personal, as that used in the liturgy, might be explained away into prayer to one God only, I might by the like supposals and interpretations, bring myself to deify and pray to the Virgin Mary, and maintain that I was still only praying to the one God." If Jesus Christ be a creature, to call him God and to worship him can be nothing less than idolatry. This Trinitarians themselves admit. "If," says Mr. Whitaker, "the doctrine of the Trinity be false, then are all who worship Christ guilty of idolatry, of worshiping a creature along with the Creator, of giving God a partner in his empire and so deposing him from half his sovereignty.' These are the words of a zealous Trinitarian. Surely then it becomes every one who offers divine worship to Jesus, well to consider the grounds upon which he stands. Much more does it become the decided believer in the proper unity of the great object of worship, to flee from that which, in his own estimation, and even in that of those who are themselves worshipers of Christ, must in him be gross idolatry and disobedience to the express command of God, as given both by Moses and by Jesus" thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' Upon these considerations, which ought to be carefully weighed by all who, I fear, form no small number, who continue to con form to the Established Church, though they believe that the father of Jesus is the only true God, Mr. Lindsey resigned his living of 400l. a year, not knowing where he was to live, or how he could gain his subsistence, since even among the Dissenters at that

time, very few would have received him. He went, however, to London, and after undergoing great difficulties, was at length successful in establishing a congregation upon pure Unitarian principles, using the Liturgy with such alterations as accommodated it to Unitarian opinions. A few other clergymen had the firmness to follow Mr. Lindsey's example, and after some time to quit the church. The priucipal of these were Dr. Jebb, Dr. Disney, and Mr. Gilbert Wakefield. But most of the clergy, who had joined in the petition to Parliament, cou. tented themselves with refusing to accept any farther preferment, or to repeat their subscription to the articles, but did not perceive that consistency required them to quit the church. Upon this conduct Mr. Lindsey remarks, in justification of his leaving the church; "My great difficulty was the point of worship. In comparison with this, subscription to the articles, however momentous in itself, gave me but little concern; for, as the devotions of the church are framed in strict agreement to the articles, and correspond with them more especially in what relates to religious worship, I look upon conforming to the church, as a constant virtual subscription to the articles." This consideration deserves especial weight with all those who conform to the church, though they do not believe the whole of her Common Prayer Book and Articles; for conforming to the church certainly implies a declaration, that all her liturgy, creeds and articles are agreeable to Scripture, and it is the duty of every one, who does not believe this, to quit the church. From the time of Mr. Lindsey's quitting the church, the open profession of belief in the simple humanity of Christ, and the worship of the One God the Father only, became much more commou, and by degrees most of the congregations, which continue Trinitarians, have joined the Independents, and most of those who now go under the name of Presbyterian in this country, are Unitarians of one class or other, that is either Arians, or believers in the simple humanity of Christ. But the open declaration of Unitarian opinions was not the only good effect, which the petition of the associated clergy produced.

During the debate upon that peti

tion, it had been said by those who opposed it, that, had the Dissenting ministers, who were then required to subscribe thirty-four of the articles of the church, and who derived no emoluments from the church, petitioned to be relieved from their subscription, no reasonable objection could be made to granting their petition. Upon this hint, a motion to free the Dissenting ministers from subscription to the articles, and to substitute for it a declaration of their belief in Scripture, was made by Sir George Saville, and seconded by Sir Henry Houghton, and the bill passed the Commons by a vast majority; but in the House of Peers, almost all the bishops voted against it, and it was rejected. It is remarkable, that the Methodists opposed this bill, and actually petitioned Parliament, that subscription to the thirty-four articles might still be required of all Dissenting ministers.

This effort was repeated in 1774, and the bill again met the same fate, though the two greatest ornaments of the House of Lords, Lord Chatham and Lord Mansfield, were united in its favour. On this occasion Dr.Drummond, Archbishop of York, having in a very virulent speech, stigmatized the Dissenting ministers as men of close ambition; Lord Chatham replied, "they are so, my Lords, and their ambition is to keep close to the college of fishermen, not of cardinals, to the doctrine of inspired apostles, not to the decrees of interested and aspiring bishops. They contend for a spiritual creed, and scriptural worship. The church has a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and au Arminian clergy. The Reformation has laid the Scriptures open to all; let not the bishops shut them again. It is said, that religious sects have done great mischief, when they were not kept under restraint, but history affords no proof that sects have ever been mischievous, except they were oppressed and persecuted by the ruling church."

In the year 1778, most of the persecuting laws against the Catholics were repealed, and their toleration was rendered legal Till this period, all Catholic priests and schoolmasters had been liable to perpetual imprisonment, and the third celebration of mass had been punishable with death. These odious laws were now however wisely