WORSHIP, CHURCH GOVERNMENT, AND DISCIPLINE, For information on these heads, with respect to each of which they differ as widely as on points of doctrine, recourse must be had to the same heads in the account here given of the different and various denominations, great and small, into which the Protestant world is now divided. It may, how ever, be briefly observed here, that all Protestants profess to abbor idolatry as the greatest of heresies; that the greater part of them worship the Trinity in Unity, and use a liturgy, or form of public prayer, while others use no form; that both Arians and Socinians confine their worship to God the Father; and that one sect of Protestants-viz. the Swedenborgians-address all their prayers to Jesus Christ.

With regard to Church Government, it may also be here remarked in general, that, however widely Protestants may differ in other respects, they all agree in rejecting an universal visible supreme head of the church, together with the infallibility of any church governors or councils whatsoever, from the days of the Apostles; and that all their clergy are seculars.

They all, I believe, likewise agree in adopting the principle of the independency of every church, in its national character; as subject to no spiritual head but Christ; as conceding no superiority and claiming no pre-eminence of jurisdiction; and as authorized to frame its own laws, and to regulate its own government: while, at the same time, a very great proportion of them equally concur in admitting the union of church and state, or the lawfulness of National Establishments of religion.

NUMBERS, COUNTRIES WHERE FOUND, &c.

The Protestants, though, as we believe, the purest of the three grand subdivisions of Christians, are the fewest in num. ber, but are widely scattered.

On the continent of Europe, they are divided into two grand denominations, the Lutherans, who profess to adhere to Luther's tenets; and the Reformed, who follow the doctrine and discipline of Geneva. Together with these, this vast class comprehends the Huguenots in France; the Refugees and Mennonites in Holland; the Waldenses in Piedmont, &c.; the members of the two Establishments, and the Protestant Dissenters of all descriptions, in Great Britain and Ireland; together with numerous bodies of Christians in North America, the West and East Indies, Ceylon, Java, the Moluccas, Cape of Good Hope, &c. &c.

Before the late Revolution in France, the Protestants were supposed to amount, in that country, to nearly 2,000,000, though they then had no legal toleration, and almost their only seminary was a private, and merely tolerated, one in Switzerland. Their present number appears to be comparatively small, not exceeding perhaps 1,000,000. They are now, however, placed in circumstances more favourable than at any time since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; for they enjoy full liberty of conscience and worship, and of propagating their system to the utmost of their power; and they have a provision from the state, at least equal to that of the parochial clergy, &c.-i. e. an allowance in the country places of about 1007. a year, and in cities and large towns of about double that sum.

A seminary has also been established for them at Montauban; and it is meant that the expenditure attending it shall be defrayed by means of voluntary contributions and annual charity sermons throughout the Protestant community in France.

The Protestants in the south of the Low Countries are said to be far more numerous than the Roman Catholics; but in the northern departments they are only found scattered up and down. There, we are told, the people have the most contemptible notions of Protestantism, and converts are seldom made from the Church of Rome, but the number of Protestants remains nearly the same, without any apparent accession or diminution *.

Indeed, notwithstanding the toleration of Protestantism in the French dominions, and some other favourable signs of the times; considering the late great prevalence of infidelity, and the consequent diminution of true and vital religion on the continent of Europe, it may be questioned whether the Protestant churches there be in a flourishing state, or in circumstances of discouragement and distress. Some persons of knowledge and discernment are much inclined to the latter opinion; and remark, that infidelity can still boast of many converts in Germany; and that such a system of theology and exegesis has long prevailed there, and is even now maintained by able and learned divines, as is fundamentally subversive of Christianity, and therefore stands much in need of reformation. On the other hand, while all this is admitted to be the

* See Worseley's "Account of France."- For the intolerance of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Belgium towards the Protestants, see their Letter to their new Sovereign, dated July 28th, 1815, in the 1st vol. of the History of the Jesuits," p. 18, &c.

66

case, there are those who report more favourably of the present state of religion in that quarter, and assure us, that the friends of the true Protestant doctrines-men who believe the grand truths of Christianity in their hearts, and adorn them by their lives-though comparatively few in number, are an increasing party, and likely to increase more and more. In proof of this their opinion, they remark, among other promising symptoms, that the members of a society of pious and faithful clergymen, of both the Lutheran and Reformed churches, who began to meet annually at Hernhutt thirty or forty years ago, when they consisted of only a few individuals, now amount to nearly a hundred zealous men, who there strengthen each other's hands in the cause of God and religion, and are annually adding to their number.

Let us hope that those German philosophers who have so long indulged in a fashionable but vain and worthless philosophy, and those German divines and critics who are daily publishing systems of theology and comments, at the glaring impiety of which every serious mind must revolt, will yet lay aside those weapons of their warfare, and those worse than idle pursuits, and, joining this and other such like bands of true Protestants in maintaining and adorning the faith of Christ, will boldly attack the camp of avowed infidels, and follow up the attack till they have vanquished them with the true Protestant weapon," the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

To the authors already referred to on the subject of this article, Sleidan, Beausobre, Basnage, Claude, and Milner, may be added; and those who wish to know what has been said on the other side, and in what light the Reformation and Protestantism are viewed by the members of the Church of Rome, may consult father Maimbourg the Jesuit (refuted Seckendorf), and the works of the learned Bossuet Bishop of Meaux, particularly his "Hist. des Variations des Eglises Protestantes."

"It is very remarkable, that a Romanist may turn Protestant without adding any one article to his faith, but a Protestant cannot turn to Rome unless he embrace many new articles : for our doctrines are generally confessed by both sides to be true, but those of the Roman Church are rejected by our Reformers as novel additions, and such as have no good foundation in Scripture nor genuine antiquity: and, therefore, the Protestant doctrines are the surer and safer, as in which both sides agree. For example, we and they both hold there are two states after this life, heaven and hell; but they add a

:

third, which is purgatory; and this we deny: We and they both say, that sins are to be remitted by the merits of Christ's death; but they add the merits of the saints, and their own satisfactions, with the merit of their own good works, which we deny to be expiatory, or such as can merit remission for us: We hold there be two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist these they confess are the chief, but add five more, to which we affirm the name of sacraments doth not properly belong: We say that God alone is to be worshipped: they confess he is chiefly to be worshipped; but, then, they say the blessed Virgin Mary, angels, and saints, are to be worshipped also; which additions we deny: We say, Christ is our only Mediator and Advocate: they confess he is principally so, but add, that saints and angels are so in an inferior manner; which we utterly deny: We say, Christ is really present in the sacrament of the altar: this they confess, but add, he is corporally there, by the transubstantiation of the bread, &c.; and this we deny: We say, the Scriptures are the rule of faith; and they will not absolutely deny it, but add their own traditions, which we reject: We say there are twentytwo books of the Old Testament canonical; and they confess these all to be so, but they add divers, and call them canonical, which we affirm to be apocryphal.

"I could give more instances; but these may suffice to shew that the Protestant doctrines look most like the ancientest, as being received by both parties; but the Roman opinions are novel enlargements added to the old Catholic truths*"

* Dr. Comber's "Friendly and Seasonable Advice to the Roman Catholics of England," an excellent little tract, pp. 133-135. 12mo. 1685.

LUTHERANISM, AND GERMAN LUTHERANS.

NAMES.

A NATURAL sentiment of gratitude to Luther, the extraordinary man whom Providence employed as the honoured instrument of the foundation and establishment of the church now to be considered, which is the first in point of time of all Protestant churches, excited his followers to assume his name, and to call their community The Lutheran Church, an honour which he repeatedly rejected. All the Reformed, indeed, were called Lutherans for some time; but now, those who should have the best claim to it seem to disclaim it, and prefer calling theirs the Evangelical Church.

RISE, PROGRESS, AND HISTORY.

The beginning of the sixteenth century witnessed an event the most glorious that had occurred since the days of the Apostles, the reformation of corrupted Christianity, by the blessing of God on the exertions of Luther and his associates. It is true, most of the corruptions in the Church of Rome which he condemned, had been attacked long before his appearance; and almost the same opinions which he propagated had been published in different places, and were supported by the same arguments. Claudius, Bishop of Turin, in the 9th century, Waldus in the 12th, Wickliffe in the 14th, and Huss in the 15th, had inveighed against the errors of Popery with great boldness, and confuted them with more ingenuity and learning than could have been expected in those illiterate ages in which they flourished. But all these premature attempts towards a reformation proved abortive. Such feeble lights, incapable of dispelling the darkness which then covered the church, were soon extinguished; and though the doctrines of these pious men produced some effects and left some traces in the countries where they taught, they were neither extensive nor considerable. Many powerful causes contributed to facilitate Luther's progress, which either did not exist, or did not operate with full force, in their days; and at the critical and mature juncture when he appeared, various circum