CHAPTER XXI.

EVANGELICAL CLERGY.

Contents.

I. Remarks on Middleton's Ecclesiastical Memoir of the first four Decades of the Reign of George III.— II. Secular Clergy.-III. Latitudinarian Clergy.IV. Orthodox Clergy.-V. Evangelical Clergy.-VI. Rise of the Evangelical Clergy.-VII. Terms : Orthodox and Evangelical-VIII. Evangelical Divines, Calvinists, and Arminians.-IX. Romaine, Jones, Foster.-X. Madan, Spencer.-XI. Sir James Stonehouse.-XII. Toplady.-XIII. Walker, of Truro. -XIV. Griffith Jones, Welsh Charity Schools.— XV. Fletcher, of Madely, De Courcy.-XVI. Talbot, Berridge, Newton of Olney.-XVII. Adam of Wintringham, Venn, and others.-XVIII. Lady Huntingdon patronizes the Whitfield Department of Methodism, and spreads it within the Church.-XIX. Howel Harris, Talgarth, and Trevecca.-XX. Lady Ann Erskine.-XXI. Cornelius Winter.-XXII. Strictures on Wesleyan Methodism.-XXIII. Cadogan, Decoetlogon.-XXIV. Erasmus Middleton.-XXV. Eyre, Evangelical Magazine, Pentycross, Rouquet, David Sympson, Richardson.-XXVI. Milner, Harvey.-XXVII. Cecil, William Good.-XXVIII. T. Scott, of the Lock.-XXIX. Story, of Colchester. -XXX. Robinson, of Leicester.-XXXI. Cornelius

Bayley, Tyler.-XXXII. Isaac Milner, Jowett, Coalthurst.-XXXIII. Sir Adam Gordon, Alphonsus Gunn, Patrick.-XXXIV. Remarks on the foregoing Catalogue.

I. It is impossible in this place to omit noticing "An Ecclesiastical Memoir of the first four Decades of the Reign of George the Third," pretending to give an account of religion during that period. Had it been the fair and honest intention of the writer to announce the true character of his work, he ought to have entitled it, A Panegyric on Evangelism and Calvinism. A man, if he is a Calvinist, has a right to praise Calvinism; but he has no right to fight under false colours; he has no right to mislead expectation, by giving a name to a book, to which the book does not answer; and least of all is he entitled to set forward his partialities, by blackening other objects with deeper hues, than they would receive from the pencil of truth and candour.

II. To divide the national clergy, into the secular, the latitudinarian, the orthodox, and the evangelical, might be all very well; but it is rather too much for a minister and friend of that church, to state, "that the secular were a NUMEROUS class-better versed in Pagan ethics than in Christian morality; degenerate sons of Levi; bartering the lasting esteem of the wise and good, for the precarious friendship of the

idle and the dissolute; making the theatre, the tavern, the bowling green, the ball room, the concert room, and the horse race, their accustomed haunts; and consuming their hours at the card table; that they were supple flatterers and smart wits, having not even a garb to distinguish the ambassador of the Lord of Hosts; in the country, given to hunting and convivial feasts, where they witnessed INTOXICATED spirits; and after eating, drinking, and playing with the lord of the manor, administering the sacrament to their dying bottle-companion as a passport to the joys of eternity."

For a minister of the church to go a hunting with its adversaries, to lead them on to the game, and to swell their view-holla, as though they were not sharp-scented or inveterate enough of themselves, would be rather too bad, were the charge fully true; but that this exhibition of clerical manners, as applicable to a NUMEROUS class, is not exaggerated by hyperbole, or tinged with sarcasm, is an assertion which brings an historical writer under a heavier condemnation than either shooting, feasting, or card-playing. Shooting it is, verily; but with much too long a bow.

To strengthen his case, the author next animadverts on the political character of the clergy, -confirmed, as he states, by the disuse of convocations, which were commuted for the privilege of voting for members of parliament. Thus mi

nisters are averred to have exerted themselves for patrons, and to have been rewarded by preferments: in proof of which, Churchill, who attached himself to Wilkes,-Horne Tooke, rector (he never was rector) of Brentford, who resigned his canonicals,—and Wilson, of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, who placed a statue of Mrs. Macauley in his church, are the cited examples. Strange instances of patronage-hunting! The clergy are members of a free community; they have rights to preserve, and cannot avoid holding political opinions. It would, indeed, be unseemly in them to embroil themselves in party contentions; but let it be remembered, that they are the only order of men in the whole commonwealth who cannot be represented or protected in parliament, by members of their own body; for the bishops sit among the peers, as barons, and no ecclesiastic can hold a place in the lower house. It is, therefore, not fair to arraign them for taking the interest of freemen in the political concerns of the kingdom, and to insinuate that they cannot do this, without bartering their principles for promotion. Ministers of this character are surely not a NUMEROUS class.

III. Having disposed of the secular clergy, the author next attacks the LATITUDINARIANS, who subscribe the Articles with reservations, and pocket the emoluments of the church, while they disbelieve and suppress her doctrines. And this

mercenary and prevaricating tribe, who merged the character of divines in that of philosophers, and were attached to the ecclesiastical ark by the feeble thread of expedience; who, under pretence of liberality, made a distinction between primary and non-essential points, introduced Arian and Socinian interpretations; denied original sin, allegorized the Mosaic cosmogony, and diluted the doctrine of eternal punishment; are noticed with a vituperation that is, so far, honest and just.

We are as ready as this writer to condemn the Arianism of Dr. Samuel Clarke, and of Hopkins, the author of a corrected Liturgy, published in 1763; we can denounce the prevaricating spirit of Paley, and the pseudo-conciliations of Hey. To the name of Lindsey, which we have already honoured,, we can add those of Jebb, Robertson of Wolverhampton, Chambers of Northamptonshire, Tyrwhit of Cambridge, Evanson of Tewkesbury, Harris of Harwood, Disney of Panton, and Maty, chaplain to Lord Stormont; whose scruples led them to make sacrifices of worldly interest, and who saw, with the writer signing himself Lælius, the inconsistence of retention of benefice with nonconformity in principle.

Yet why should praise be compelled to seem a niggard, and assent to stop short and turn away on observing it remarked, that "had the latitudinarian divines merely objected to that portion of the Articles which, for distinction's sake, is called