months of their term of study, of a residence in this city, and of availing themselves of the advantages of a theological establishment.

In pursuance of these views, a plan for an Episcopal Theological Education Society was laid before the Convention, which, after some discussion, was adopted with great nnanimity, there being but eight dissenting voices among one hundred and fourteen members. The constitution thus approved seems to unite very happily that general power of supervision in the great body of all who are directly interested in the welfare of the institution, which can best insure a confidence that its funds and reputation will never be directed to ends hostile to the intentions of its benefactors, with the more efficient controul of a smaller body of managers for the ordinary details of business, and combining the whole with a due subordination to the ecclesiastical authorities of the diocess and the church.

The following are the leading and most important articles of the

constitution :

Its object shall be the promotion of theological education, by the establishment of professorships, and by furnishing aid to candidates for holy orders.

The Society shall be composed of the Bishop and such of the clergy of the diocess as shall not decline to be members, and of such other persons as shall contribute annually a sum not less than two dollars, or at one time a sum not less than twenty-five dollars.

The officers of the Society are a President, (who shall be the Bishop of the diocess,) and a Board of Trustees, which shall consist of such of the Clergy of the diocess as are members of the society, or at least thirty Vice-Presidents from different parts of the diocess, and not less than one hundred and fifty laymembers of the Society from different parts of the diocess, a Secretary and a Treasurer.

The Board of Trustees shall appoint annually from their own body a Board of Managers, consisting of not less than twenty-one in number. -Shall have power to make byelaws, rules, and regulations, as well respecting the establishment and government of schools, or seminaries for theological instruction, as touching the disposition of its funds, and the general management of its concerns. Provided, that such bye-laws, rules, and regulations, shall not be repugnant to the constitution of the Church, or to the canons of the general or State conventions.

The Board of Managers to consist of sixty members; to have power, with the concurrence of the Presi dent, to appoint professors, teachers, librarians, and other officers, provided they shall have been nominated at a previous meeting of the Board, and to remove professors and other officers, under certain specified regulations.

Any congregation or society, or any individual, or association of individuals, contributing twenty-thousand dollars towards the founding of a professorship in the city of New York, or ten thousand dollars towards founding a professorship in the interior of the diocess, shall be considered as the founder or founders of such professorship, and shall have the right of nomination thereto, subject to the approbation of the President and Board of Managers. Professorships so founded, shall bear the name of the founders, or such name as they may designate.

The same parties contributing two thousand dollars for the founding of a scholarship, shall have the right to nominate, from time to time, the individual who is to have the benefit thereof; and such individual producing the like evidence of his qualifications as is required by the canons of the Church in the case of candidates for holy orders, shall be entitled to gratuitous instruction in any seminary which the Society may establisk; and also to receive

Religious Liberty.

Mr. Editor,

THE letter of a correspondent in your valuable Miscellany for December last, which so clearly states the whole case of the parish officers of Stretton upon Dunsmore, and of the prosecution to which they were subjected by the excitement and support of the PROTESTANT SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY has a very strong claim to public attention. In this particular instance the Society have met with a set of men who were not to be intimidated into either submission or compromise, and thus their proceedings have been exposed in open court, and are made matter of public record. They have met also with those who are a consolatory exception to the too prevalent indifference towards the strides now making by religious faction to establish itself in power; and thus has vigilance and research been employed in collecting all documents explanatory of the transaction, and we are put in possession of a well authenticated narrative, confronting the truth with sectarian misrepresentations, and disclosing all the Society's manœuvres from the commencement of the attempt to disturb the parochial unity to its defeat.

I have been led by your correspondent's long-called for exposure, to bestow some pains on an enquiry into the origin, designs, and proceedings of this speciously designated Society. Your correspondent's references to the PHILANTHROPIC GAZETTE, directed me to one source of information; and where that failed me, the wellknown materials of the EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE pointed out that journal as a promising substitute, and though not so copious in its details, it has been, except in one or two instances, my only auxiliary;

Society's anniversaries, that whatever should be the issue of the investigation, it might, at all events, carry upon the very face of it unquestionable evidence of its authenticity, being the Society's own representation of itself.

The Dissenting Congregations in and about London, have for a long series of years, been in the habit of appointing annually, "Deputies to protect their Civil Rights," whose proceedings, in discharge of the trust confided to them, were so far from awakening jealousy that they scarcely excited public attention; it being indisputably the wish of the great body of Churchmen, that the civil rights of Dissenters should be respected equally with their own; and that they should have the fullest scope allowed them, for providing, in the way most satisfactory to themselves, for the security of those rights, and for facilitating the means of redress whenever real grievances oc

curred.

To a period as recent as the year 1811, this Corps of Observation acting in behalf of the three denominations of Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, was the only attempt at making a common cause of Sectarism, and maintaining its interest in the gross, by an association of persons at variance amongst themselves in their respective systems of religious opinion.

In that year, a Bill was introduced by Lord Sidmouth into the House of Lords, with the concurrence of the most respectable Dissenters, for the purpose of laying under restraint some encroachments of recent introduction, which were debasing conscientious dissent into religious licen tiousness, and in many other respects abusing the Toleration.

For the more effectually opposing this legislative measure a special committee of dissenting deputies was appointed, and their success being complete, one of the banners set up

in token of their ascendant influence was the PROTESTANT SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Evang. Mag. July, 1811, p. 279.

The circular on this occasion flows, as might be expected, in a high strain of exultation. It represents "the Dissenters as vast in numbers," but " more important to the State for their morals and usefulness," still easily to be broken" because "scattered as single twigs," and yet as "the only public body who neglect by union to increase their strength." It congratulates the whole fraternity on the auspicious circumstances, that "the propelling force of apprehended danger" from Lord Sidmouth's Bill, had "beaten down the barriers of prejudice by which Dissenters were separated," whilst the "attractive force of sacred principles had amalgamated them into a mass, which they trust will never be broken. This temporary union having" (as they proceed to state,) "produced a desire, unanimously expressed, that such advantages should permanently continue," and that "their perpetuity" should be promoted "by the immediate institution of the new Society." The structure of the Society is then briefly set forth, that it "is not to be a party or local combination, but A NATIONAL UNION of all Congregations of every denomination assembling under the Acts of Toleration," the effect of which is to be, that these Congregations, each of which is represented as "an atom" in its separate state, are by this "general harmonious, systematic combination" to be rendered, "through the Divine blessing, a rock which tempests of persecution will ineffectually assail;" and as a grand finale of the scheme, "an injurious at tempt," (Lord Sidmouth's Bill,) is thus to be made productive of "permanent benefit," and to become" an additional demonstration that the Great Ruler of events

can out of evil extract unexpected good, and can cause even the wrath of man to turn to his praise."Evangelical Magazine, July, 1811, p. 281-3.

It is a coincidence not to be suffered to escape observation, that whilst "tempests of persecution" are anticipated in the above address, as louring over Dissenters, and are at once employed as a pretext for the projected confederacy, and as a provocative to horrify the country congregations into it; another address simultaneously issued from the former protectors of their rights, congratulates them on "those unequivocal declarations against every species and degree of persecution, against every intolerant principle, which in the course of the discussion in question (viz. on Lord Sidmouth's Bill,) had been drawn from persons of the highest rank, the brightest talents, and the most efficient public stations in the country;" and, from symptoms so favourable, it goes on to augur not merelythe same liberal administration of the present laws relating to them, which it testifies that they had so generally and so long experienced; but "the speedy approach of that fortunate period when the Legislature shall expunge from the statute book," which it declares them to "disgrace," all penalties, restrictions, and disabilities on account of religion." Evangelical Magazine, July, 1811, p. 278.

Ushered in by these opposite, but equally serviceable views of the state of public feeling with reference to dissent, the Society was established. Six hundred congregations, of all denominations, immediately united themselves with it; and within three months congregational collections, amounting to near 4000l., were remitted, as the basis of a fund, for its support, besides individual contributions, of which (as it is stated) there is, from want of room, no specification.→→ Evangelical Magazine, Sept. 1811, p. 864.

To render its organization complete, the double responsibility of two Secretaries, Messrs. Pellat and Wilks, both of them Solicitors, was engaged; and that the nation at large might know as little, and the members of the confederacy as much as possible of its proceedings, the unwritten law of " custom" provided that it should "not print and publish a report, nor advertize its meetings," (Philanth. Gazette, May 26, 1819,) “whilst its more palpable statutes gave security, that reports should be transmitted to every congregation con

tributing to the Society," so accurate in the intelligence communicated, as completely to dispel the ignorance which Dissenters have so frequently deplored. Evangelical Magazine, July, 1811, p. 281, 282.

Such, Mr. Editor, is the sketch of the origin and constitution of the SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, which the documents referred to, have enabled me to prepare for the information of your readers; its proceedings shall be the next subject of investigation. Your obedient servant, SCRUTATOR.

THE general scope of these Discourses is so plainly expressed in the title prefixed to them, that the outline which we deem it our office to give of the important argument which they contain, can hardly require to be prefaced or explained. We will only premise therefore, that enemies of the Church, who do not regard her doctrines as unscriptural, will, if we mistake not, find in this volume of Bampton Lectures, the reasons of its discipline so justly explained, and the importance of preserving that discipline so ably asserted, that if they be but men of tolerable fairness, they will hardly be able to avoid a feeling of regret that they are at enmity with a Church

which can sustain its cause by a line of argument so powerful and so direct. Still more certainly may all its irresolute members find in these pages ample reason given to them for becoming its resolved and ardent friends, and if its friends, the friends of order and soberness, and of the authority which prescribes and regulates its movements.

According to the plan which the able author has laid down, the first Sermon is a sort of introduction to the rest. Not entering into any regular argument on the nature of schism, or the character of that Church from which all deflection must of course be schismatical; this first sermon is chiefly occupied in preparing the reader to form a just estimate, in the present momentous times, of the great importance of the question at issue, and in incultating the manifest duty of paying the same, and an equally willing obedience to all the positive institutions of God, which we pay to his injunctions iu the moral law. It is not, of course, the meaning of the author that justice, mercy, and faith, are not always to be accounted "weightier matters" than any thing which is mere ceremony or discipline, but that a discipline pre