two instances. In the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, the Jacobite party had influence to get an act of parliament passed, called "The Occasional Conformity Bill," which forbade any person in any office under government to enter a meeting-house. Another bill also, denominated the Schism Bill, had obtained the royal assent, which suffered no Dissenters to educate their own children, but required them to be put into the hands of Conformists, and forbade all tutors and schoolmasters being present at any dissenting place of worship. But providentially the Queen died August 1, 1714, the very day this iniquitious act was to have taken place; and George the First being then elevated to the throne, a firm friend to civil and religious liberty, he, in the fifth year of his reign, got the Schism Bill repealed. In his illustrious race, the BRUNSWICK FAMILY, the sceptre has since continued under whom our legal rights have been preserved and augmented. May it continue to latest posterity! The Test Act excludes Dissenters from filling public offices, unless they take the sacrament at the Established Church, which some think cannot be honestly done by any conscientious Dissenter. Hence loud complaints have been raised respecting this exclusion, since, as members of the civil community, they are entitled to all the common privileges of that community. The Test Act was originally levelled against the Roman Catholics. The Dissenters have made several unsuccessful applications for its repeal. The question was warmly agitated in the House of Commons, 1787, and on each side numerous publications issued from the press. The chief argument urged for the continuance of the Test Act is, the safety of the Established Church. The principal arguments alleged for its repeal are, that it is a prostitution of the Lord's Supper, and that to withhold civil rights on account of religious opinions, is a species of persecution. To the former circumstance Cowper the poet, a devout member of the church of England, alludes when he exclaims Hast thou by statute shov'd from its design The Saviour's feast, his own blest bread and wine,, And made the symbols of atoning grace And though a Bishop toil'd to cleanse the stain, An application to the Legislature for the repeal of the Test Act is still in agitation, and it will have the good wishes of every friend of religious liberty. Equal rights belong to the members of a well-constituted community. Though the Dissenters made an unsuccessful application for relief in the year 1773, yet in 1779 an act of parliament was passed without any further application on their part, "whereby the 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." Before this period all Dissenters who kept public schools or taught youth in any private house, were liable, beside the forfeiture of their schools, to a fine of 407. and to suffer three months' imprisonment. Nor could any person be legally qualifi ed to keep a school or instruct youth without a license from the bishop, and a declaration of absolute conformity to the church of England. The Dissenters, as a body, have not been unfruitful of great and learned men. Among their ornaments are to be ranked 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, Priestley, and Rees, &c. * Though among Dissenters sufficient encouragement is not * A neat edition of the works of Robert Robinson was published by Mr. Benjamin Flower, for which he deserves the thanks of the religious world. Robinson was the apostle of Christian liberty. His prefixed Memoirs by Mr. Flower, are an instructive piece of biography. Some of Mr. Robinson's MSS. have been just found, and will it is hoped, be given to the world. He died at Birmingham 1791, aged 54,—where a neat monument is erected to his memory. given in certain cases to men of talents and integrity, yet among their more liberal denominations, it must be confessed, that a Dissenting minister may, unawed by a conclave of cardinals-a bench of bishops-or a board of ministers-exercise, in its fullest extent, the right of private judgment, which is the pride and pleasure of the human mind. In Pierce's "Vindication of the Dissenters," Towgood's "Letters to White," and Palmer's "Protestant Dissenters' Catechism," (of which a much improved edition has been published by Dr. William Newman, of Bow,)-are stated the grounds on which their dissent from the Established Church is founded. This Catechism declares that there are seven principal things in the church of England on which the dissent from it is founded:-1. Its general frame and constitution as national and established. 2. The character and authority of certain officers appointed in it. 3. The imposition of a stated form of prayer called the Liturgy, and many exceptionable things contained therein. 4. The pretended right of enjoining unscriptural ceremonies. 5 The terms on which ministers are admitted into their office. 6. The want of liberty in the people to choose their own ministers; and, 7. The corrupt state of its discipline. The author of the Catechism (since deceased) says, in the preface of the last edition, that Bishop Horseley declared, that it inculcates" no one principle of the Christian Religion, or of any Religion under the sun;" but the author replies, that "it strongly inculcates, among other principles of Christianity, peaceableness, loyalty to the king, subjection to government, obedience to the laws, and charity." It is with things, and not with persons, that Christians have to do in religious matters, and dissent may be consistent with an enlightened and diffusive liberality. See Worsley's "Lectures on Nonconformity," of which an improved edition has been recently published; also "Brookes's History of Religious Liberty," and Dr. Robert Winter's "Letters to a Young Person on Nonconformity," breathing the spirit of Christianity. Nor should we omit to state, that the Unitarian Dis senters have been relieved from certain penalties attaching to those denying the doctrine of the Trinity. Some individuals have suffered grievously on account of their Unitarian sentiments. These statutes are abolished, and it is hoped, for the honour of religion, of human nature, and of the country, that all penal statutes in matters of religion, will soon be annihilated. See the statute of repeal at the close of "A Sketch of the History and Proceedings of the Deputies appointed to protect the Civil Rights of the Protestant Dissenters; to which is annexed a Summary of the Laws affecting Protestant Dissenters." The abolition of the above statute appears to have met the approbation, not only of the bench of bishops, but also of every churchman of good sense and piety. Protestant Dissenters, even of the most rigid description, rejoice in this instance of a progressive advance towards entire Religious Liberty. KIRK OF SCOTLAND The word Kirk, signifying church is of Saxon original, though some consider it as a contraction of two Greek words, Kugiov oxos, the House of God, and is still used in Scotland. The members of the Kirk of Scotland were, strictly speaking, originally the only Presbyterians in Great Britian. Their mode of ecclesiastical government was brought thither from Geneva by John Knox, the celebrated Scotch Reformer, who has been styled the Apostle of Scotland, for the same reason that Luther was called the Apostle of Germany. The Presbyterians maintain that the church should be governed by Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies. The title Presbyterian comes from the Greek word ПIgeσßuregos, which signifies senior or elder. In the Kirk of Scotland there are fifteen synods and sixty-nine presbyteries. Their articles are Calvinistic, and their General Assembly is held annually in the Scotch metropolis. In 1581 the Presbytery of Edinburgh was erected—the first in Scotland; but those courts called Presbyteries were not generally agreed to by the king till 1586, nor ratified by act of parliament until 1592, when Presbyterianism became the establishment of Scotland. At the Revolution, 1688, the Westminster Confession of Faith was received as the standard of the national faith, ordaining that "no person be admitted or continue hereafter to be a minister or preacher within this church, unless that he subscribe to this confession of faith, declaring the same to be the confession of his faith." And by the act of Union, 1707, the same is required of all "professors, principals, regents, masters, and others bearing office" in any of the four universities of Scotland. In the church of Scotland there are two parties, the one for confirming and extending the rights of patronage, the other for extending the influence and securing the consent of the people in the settlement of ministers. The former party had, for a long period, Dr. William Robertson, the celebrated |