a doubt, that a certificate from the Presbytery within which a Scotsman has resided for a certain time, that he is, bona fide, a member of the Established Church of Scotland, would supersede the operation of the Test and Corporation Acts, on his receiving a military commission in England.”*

The Society in Scotland for propagating Christian Knowledge, which is connected with the Establishment, has been highly useful in promoting religion, morality, literature, and industry, among the lower order of the natives in the Highlands and Islands, many of whom reside at a very great distance from any kirk or parish school.

That Society derived its origin from the bene volence and public spirit of a few private gentlemen, who, early in the last century, formed themselves into a society for the reformation of manners. The General Assembly encouraged their plan, by setting subscriptions on foot, and recommending collections in the kirks and elsewhere, for its support; and in 1709 Queen Anne granted a charter for erecting the subscribers into a corporate body, by the above name. In that charter, the objects of the Society are stated to be" For raising a voluntary contribution towards the farther promoting of Christian knowledge, and the increase of piety and virtue within Scotland, especially in the Highlands, Islands, and remote corners thereof," &c. And for these purposes, the patent empowers them to receive subscriptions, donations, money, lands, &c.

* British Critic for August 1807, p. 202.

In 1738, their stock amounted to 29,000l., and they then augmented their schools to 112. The same year they also began to establish schools of industry, which were soon increased to 100.

In 1801, they employed 300 teachers-13 missionaries in remote districts, and 6 students of divinity, who speak the Gaelic language, (which is still spoken in most parts of the Highlands and Islands) and furnish the schools with Bibles, New Testaments, Catechisms, and other elementary books of religion and morals, in that language.

The number of disciples of both sexes, in 1801, was 15,557, who were trained up in the knowledge of religion and good morals, writing, arithmetic, and various useful arts, and in habits of industry. The schoolmasters teach the old, as well as the young, from house to house, on week days, when not employed in the schools; and on Sundays they read the Scriptures, and other pious books, to the inhabitants of the district assembled, sometimes in the open air;-catechise the children in the presence of their parents and friends, and preside among them in the duties of prayer and praise.*

Of the various sects and parties that have separated from the Church of England, the most noted

are:

* See Dr. Kemp's Account of this Society, in his Anniversary Sermon, preached in London, 17th May, 1801; or Dr. Ryan's History of the Effects of Religion on Mankind, edit. 1806, p. 279, &c.

The Protestant Dissenters, so called, comprehending the three following denominations, viz.

The English Presbyterians,

Independents,
Baptists, and

The Methodists.*

Of those that have separated from the Established Kirk of Scotland, the chief are:

The Cameronians, or Old Dissenters,

The Seceders,

The Members of the Relief Kirk,

The Scottish Baptists,

The Glassites, or Sandemanians,

The Bereans, and

The Scottish, or New Independents.

Of all these, in their order.

* The Quakers form another numerous and distinguished body of Dissenters, who may be said to have broken off from the Church of England; and, viewed in that light, they doubtless have a claim to be ranked here, and before the Methodists. But they are a society so very distinct from all others, who dissent with them from the Established Church, and they have a system of policy so peculiar to themselves, that, when we speak of Dissenters in general, we seldom mean to comprehend the Quakers, but usually name them by themselves.

In compliance with this custom, the account of them will be reserved to that part of this work which treats of Miscellaneous Sects and Denominations.

THE

PROTESTANT DISSENTERS

IN

ENGLAND.

NAMES.-The word Dissenter is a very comprehensive negative term; and Dissenters in England are those religionists, of whatever denomination, with all their subdivisions, who dissent or separate from the worship and communion of the Established Church. They first broke off from the Church about the year 1565, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when, from their refusal to subscribe to the Articles, &c., and their professing and proposing extraordinary purity in religious worship and conduct, they were reproached with the name of Puritans. There were, indeed, men of this sort in England in the days of Edward VI., but that name was not given them before the sixth of Elizabeth.*

* Fuller's Church History, cent. 16, p. 76. Cambden, in his Life of Elizabeth, says, they shewed themselves openly in the 10th year of her reign. P. 107. 3d edit. fol.

By the Act of Uniformity which took place on Bartholomew's Day, 1662, in the reign of Charles II., the Dissenters were greatly increased; for 2000 ministers thought themselves in conscience obliged to quit the Established Church, refusing to conform to certain conditions, whence they were called Non-Conformists. During the last century, their decendants have usually been called Protestant Dissenters, a moderate appellation, sanctioned by act of Parliament, and originally given at the Revolution, when they first received a legal security, by having the Act of Toleration extended to them. This act includes all, of every denomination, excepting those who deny the divinity of Christ; but the name of Protestant Dissenters is now generally confined, or rather perhaps was at first given, to the three denominations of, Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists.

RISE, PROGRESS, &c.-It would exceed our limits to detail here at full length the origin and progress of the Dissenters. A full account of every thing relating to them, is given in Dr. Toulmin's (a Dissenter of Birmingham) edition of Neale's History of the Puritans, in which the editor, in his notes, attempts to obviate the objections which have been made to it by Grey, Maddox, Warburton, and others.

* See above, Vol. II. p. 297. An Account of the Lives and Literature of the Bartholomew Divines is given in Palmer's Non-Conformists' Memorial; and, for Dr. Taylor of Norwich's account of them, see Mr. Evans's Sketch, under the article Dissenters.