Chap. 6.

New York, &c.

583

a professed catholic, under his favour papists began to settle in the colony, to the great annoyance of the protestants. This governor was appointed by the protestant Charles II. After the establishment of a better executive, it is to be feared, that the protestants retorted too severely upon the catholics: but after the mild government of king William was felt, the several parties learned to live in peace; and presbyterians, Dutch reformed, baptists, episcopalians, Lutherans, Moravians, methodists, papists, Jews and shakers agreed to build the commonwealth.

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PENNSYLVANIA, was settled by William Penn and his quaker friends. Liberty, civil and religious was laid at the base of Penn's government, so that all denominations of Christians found a safe and happy retreat in this colony. Germans, both Lutheran and presbyterian, as well as Moravian, furnished this district of country with numerous churches. The latter settled at Bethlehem in 1741, and continue still to preserve their chief establishment there.

VIRGINIA, though the parent colony, reserved but little of its first importance upon its division into other, and separate plantations. It was first settled by high churchmen, and they carried it with a high hand, but at length other denominations mingled with them, and softened their spirit, so that presbyterians, baptists, methodists and quakers could rest peaceably among them, and enjoy Christian privileges. DELAWARE. A congregation of Swedes very early settled in this colony at Wilmington, and were joined by episcopalians and others. NEW JERSEY was settled by various seets from the European continent as well as from the mother country. The college of NASSAU HALL was founded 1746 at Elizabeth-town, in 1747 removed to

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Episcopacy.

Cent. 18.

New York and in 1757 settled at Princeton. In this seminary presided the great Jonathan Edwards who was succeeded in the presidency by the eloquent Davies. MARYLAND was settled by Roman catholies, and to their praise be it recorded, they never persecuted the protestants who joined them in cultivating the wilderness. These catholies continued to occupy the foreground in the colony, though many of the other denominations intermingled with them. GEORGIA was settled under the auspices of George II. In this colony Whitfield erected his ORPHAN-HOUSE ACADEMY 1740. It was intended to have been established as a college, but the design failed.

English episcopacy in this country before the revoJution was but a mere missionary establishment. In the eities and large towns we find churches, and missionary chaplains, or rectors, as they have been improperty called; these chaplains, in some instances were partly supported by British episcopal societies, and partly by the home government. In America there was no episcopate, no authorized prelacy to ordain: but some churches were built, and the rites of the episcopacy practised, much to the edification of many who had been brought up in the faith and discipline of that establishment. This article will fall in due course after the independence of the colonies.

The general state of religion in these colonies, during this period, may be gathered from the successful labours of many pious and able ministers, by whose means large and flourishing churches were gathered and established. Indeed the whole of North America was, at this period, the nursery of LIBERTY civil and religious. Here God was nourishing and bringing up a people who should, at the appointed time, exhibit decided proofs that the

Chap. 7.

Presbyterians.

585

true character of a church, and its establishment on earth, depend not on the support of princes, not on a splendid hierarchy, not on mitred prelacy, not on clerical aggrandizement, not on glebes and tythes and church lands, BUT ON THE POWER OF GOD.

CHAPTER VII.

STATE OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES IN ENGLAND.

By dissenting churches is meant all those societies which are under the toleration act, whether presbyterian, independent, methodist, or baptist. The term is not thus largely applied with any design of stamping a name upon any body of Christians, to which they may object. In England, there can be but two grand divisions, conformists and non-conformists. It does not

follow from hence that all non-conformists dissent from the establishment upon equal principles; this certainly is not the case, for some of these dissent almost as much from each other, as any of them do from the national canon. Indeed that class of seceders from the church, now called Calvinistic Methodist, do most assuredly, in their usages, come much nearer the character of the first non-conformists than any other class of dissenting Christians in the present times.

The old PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES are in such a state of decay, that their original form of government is completely at an end, having for the greater part sunk down into Arianism, and their preachers become literary corpses; the whole system is very unpopular. Some congregations in the larger towns continue to

586

Independents.

Cent. 18.

maintain a name, and some few others, by endowments, are just kept in existence, and have only breath enough to say, 'Here religion was once, and here preached a Bates, a Baxter, a Flavel, a Fleming, a How, and a Burgess.' Upon the ruins of these churches the independents have erected many a fair and noble structure, The Scottish presbyterians in England are classed with dissenters: some very excellent ministers, both of the kirk and of the seceders, stand at the head of numerous and flourishing congregations, and are an ornament and an auxiliary to the English churches.

THE INDEPENDENTS are uniformly Calvinists, and their sentiments have been zealously preserved, with some few shades of difference, without subscription and without formulary. Calvinism is supported by them, not so much as a system drawn from the writings of the Genevan reformer, as by an appeal to the general strain of holy seripture. At ordinations among this denomination, the candidate is expected to deliver his confession of faith, which is seldom copied from any other composition, but is generally an original performance. The rite is commonly administered by laying on of the hands of a presbytery or association of pastors, convened for that purpose. The mode of conducting public worship is simple, and upon one general plan, though without prescribed form; the Lord's Table is guarded by a strict discipline, and baptism is administered to the children of all such as profess to be Christians, though not in full communion. They are almost unanimously of opinion that all religious denominations should be equally protected by the state, but no one established.

Within the last forty years, the increase of independent churches has been very great, and those before

Chap. 7.

Baptists.

587

established, much enlarged. The cause of this has been hinted at. The decline of presbyterian orthodoxy and zeal has been the building up of the more spiritual and devoted independents. To the same end also has methodism contributed, though from a very different cause. An unsettled itinerant ministry, as adopted by Mr. Whitfield and his followers, has been considered not so ealculated to build up a church, as to bring the materials together; hence multitudes, called into the ways of godliness by the popular measures of the methodists, have, after a little time, deserted the congregations in which they first drew their spiritual breath, and settled in the more regular dissenting societies. And many of the methodist congregations, from the great inconvenience attending the successive mode of supplying their pulpits, have chosen pastors, and since ranked with the independent churches. Among this class of dissenters, there are found ministers of the first character and talent, by whom the popular methodist pulpits are chiefly supplied; this is a proof of the harmony and good-will that subsist between these denominations: but the independents, as a body, are ultimately the gainers by this seeming indifferent circumstance; the talents and real worth of these ministerial labourers are hereby appreciated, and their influence of course is employed to promote the interest of their own denomination.

THE BAPTIST CHURCHES have been gradually upon the increase ever since the act of toleration, but more particularly so since the revival of evangelical religion, about the middle of the century. For the most part, these are Calvinists, and differ not from the independents, but on the point of baptism. Refusing to admit any to that ordinance but adults, and that only by immersion, they separate from all other Christians, and