PROTESTANT DISSENTERS.

Dissenters from the church of England made their first appearance in Queen Elizabeth's time, when, on account of the extraordinary purity which they proposed in religious worship and conduct, they were reproached with the name of Puritans. They were greatly increased by the act of uniformity, which took place on Bartholomew-day, 1662, in the reign of Charles the Second. By this act, 2,000 ministers were obliged to quit the established church, refusing to conform to certain conditions, whence they were called Nonconformists. Beside the penal laws made against them in Elizabeth's times which were confirmed in the subsequent reigns, one of which was no less than banishment, and another inflicting a mulct, or fine upon every one not coming to church; the following acts were passed; 1. The corporation act, in 1661, incapacitated the Dissenters from serving their country in the lowest offices of trust. 2. The act of uniformity, in the year 1662, which silenced all the nonconformist ministers throughout England and deprived them of their maintenance. 3. The conventicle act, in 1663 and 1670, forbade all persons going to any separate places of religious worship when more than five were present beside the family, under severe fines to be levied by seizure of goods, or so many months imprison

ment, to be determined not by a jury, but by a justice of the peace. 4. The Oxford act, 1665, banished nonconformist ministers five miles from every corporation that sends members to parliament. And, 5. The test act this year made them incapable of all places of profit or trust under government. In Palmer's Dissenters' Catechism the above acts, together with particulars illustrative of their unrighteous nature and cruel tendency will be found circumstantially detailed. The Puritans objected to the order of bishops, the liturgy, the clerical dress, the sign of the cross at baptism, &c. These things being arbitrarily imposed upon them they as firmly resisted them. It is not. a little remarkable that Dr. Edwards, a clergyman of the established church, should have confessed, in his celebrated work styled the Preacher, "If we would but open our eyes we should see that we are beholden to the Dissenters for the continuance of a great part of our theological principles; for if the high churchmen had no checks they would have brought in popery before this time by their overruling pomp and ceremony in divine worship; so that, if there had been no Dissenters, the church of England had been long since ruined!" And it is no less singular that David Hume, the apologist for the tyranny of the Suarts, should, speaking of the Puritans, acknow dge, that it was by their firm and persevering aduct," the precious spark of liberty was kindled

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and preserved." An account of their lives, literature, and piety is to be found in Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial. Their descendants are known by the name of Protestant Dissenters, and rank under the three denominations of Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists.

Of the origin and progress of the DISSENTERS, a full account is contained in Neal's History of the Puritans, an improved edition of which work, in five volumes, has been published by Dr. Toulmin of Birmingham, who has accompanied it with notes, in which are obviated the objections which have been made to it by Grey, Maddox, Warburton, and others. Here the historian traces, step by step, the differences which occasioned the separation, and an affecting narrative is given of the sufferings which the Puritans underwent in the cause of religious liberty.

Dr. Toulmin has announced his intention of speedily publishing An Historical View of the State of the Protestant Dissenters in England and of the progress of Free Enquiry and Religious Liberty, from the Revolution to the Accession of Queen Anne. Dr. T. justly remarks, "The revolution under William III. introduced a new order of things in the ecclesiastical state of this country, and a new æra in the history of the Dissenters from our establishment. The affairs of this large body of Protestants have since that time worn a new aspect. New questions

in theology have been brought into discussion. New sects have sprung up. And under the different succeeding reigns new attempts have been made to extend the blessings of religious liberty and establish it on a firmer basis. These events are interesting to Dissenters, and are also connected with the history of the human mind, of the change of opinions, of the progress of religious truth and national felicity." A brief history of the Puritans also was published in 1772, of which the author, the Rev. J. Cornish, of Culliton, has given an enlarged edition. The principles on which the Dissenters separate from the church of England are much the same with those on which she separates herself from the church of Rome. They may be comprehended in these three : 1. The right of private judgment. 2. Liberty of Conscience. And 3. The perfection of scripture as a Christian's only rule of faith and practice. These principles ought never to be violated,*

* And yet in a recent History of Dissenters, censurable for its bad style and worse spirit, the death of Dr. James Foster, is thus recorded-" He was removed by a PALSY to give an account to the Author of Revelation for his reception of its doctrines, Nov. 5, 1753!" But this is not the first time that the best of men have been similarly reviled. For Goldsmith, in his History of England, says" WICKLIFF died of a PALSY in 1385, while the Popish clergy took care to represent his death as a judgment from heaven, for his multiplied heresies and impieties!" And Dr. Macree tells us that KNOX the Scotch Reformer was treated in the same manner by the

The late Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, thus expressed himself concerning the principles and worship of the Dissenters :-"The principles and worship of DISSENTERS are not formed upon such $light foundation as the unlearned and thoughtless may imagine. They were thoroughly considered and judiciously reduced to the standard of scripture and the writings of antiquity, by a great number of men of learning and integrity-I mean the Barthōlomew divines, or the ministers ejected in the year 1662, men prepared to lose all, and to suffer martyrdom itself, and who actually resigned their livings (which with most of them were, under God, all that they and their families had to, subsist upon), rather than sin against God and desert the cause of civil and religious liberty, which, together with serious re

Popish priests, for, being smitten with a paralytic stroke, they declared, "that the opening of his mouth was drawn out to such a length of deformity that his face resembled that of a dog, as his voice also did the barking of that animal. The voice failed from that tongue which had been the cause of so much mischief, and his death, most grateful to his country, soon followed!!" This note is inserted to expose the hideousness as well as wickedness of bigotry, which is odious in Popish priests, more odious in the reformed established clergy, and most of all odious in the Protestant Dissenter, who is the avowed advocate of religious liberty. In the above "History of Dissenters" it is remarked, that "Had CHRISTIANITY not been a religion from God, THE FOLLY of its professors would long ago have plunged it in utter ruin!"