William had disdained to show. 193 The natural consequence immediately followed. New measures of persecution were devised and fresh laws were passed against those Protestants who did not conform to the doctrines and discipline of the English church.194 But after the death of Anne the dissenters quickly rallied; their hopes revived,195 their numbers continued to increase, and in spite of the opposition of the clergy, the laws against them were repealed 196 As by these means they were placed more on a level with their opponents, and as their temper was soured by the injuries they had recently received, it was clear that a great struggle between the two parties was inevitable.197 For by this time the protracted tyranny of the English clergy had totally destroyed those feelings of respect which, even in the midst of hostility, often linger in the mind; and by the influence of which, if they had still existed, the contest might perhaps have been averted. But such motives of restraint were now despised; and the dissenters, exasperated by incessant persecution,198 deter

193 See a notable passage in Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 558, which should be com. pared with Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. iii. p. 372.

194

Bogue and Bennett's History of the Dissenters, vol. i. pp. 228-230, 237, 260-277; and Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 396, 397. Mr. Hallam says, "It is impossible to doubt for an instant, that if the queen's life had preserved the Tory government for a few years, every vestige of the toleration would have been effaced." It appears from the Vernon Correspond. vol. iii. p. 228, Lond. 1841, that soon after the accession of Anne there was a proposal to "debar dissenters of their votes in elec tions;" and we know from Burnet (Own Time, vol. v. pp. 108, 136, 137, 218) that the clergy would have been glad if Anne had displayed even more zeal against them than she really did.

19 Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of the Dissenters, vol. iii. p. 118. In Ivimey's His tory of the Baptists, it is said that the death of Anne was an "answer to the dissenters' prayers." Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, p. 135; see also p. 147, on the joy of the dissenters at the death of this troublesome woman.

196 Two of the worst of them, "the act against occasional conformity, and that restraining education, were repealed in the session of 1719." Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 398. The repeal of the act against occasional conformity was strenuously opposed by the archbishops of York and of Canterbury (Bogue and Ben nett's Hist. of the Dissenters, vol. iii. p. 132); but their opposition was futile; and when the Bishop of London, in 1726, wished to strain the Act of Toleration, he was prevented by Yorke, the attorney-general. See the pithy reply of Yorke, in Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. i. pp. 193, 194.

107 At the end of the seventeenth century, great attention was excited by the way in which the dissenters were beginning to organize themselves into societies and synods. See, in the Vernon Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 128-130, 133, 156, some curious evidence of this, in letters written by Vernon, who was then secretary of state; and on the apprehensions caused by the increase of their schools, and by their systematic interference in elections, see Life of Archbishop Sharp, edited by Newcome, vol. 1. pp. 125, 358. The church was eager to put down all dissenters' schools; and in 1705, the Archbishop of York told the House of Lords that he "apprehended danger from the increase of dissenters, and particularly from the many academies set up by them." Parl. Hist. vol. vi. pp. 492, 493. See also, on the increase of their schools, pp. 1351, 1352.

18 In Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 684, it is stated, that in the reign of Charles II. "this hard usage had begotten in the dissenters the utmost animosity against the persecuting churchmen.' Their increasing discontent, in the reign of Anne, wat observed by Calamy. See Calamy's Own Life, vol. ii. pp. 244, 255, 274, 284, 285.

nined to avail themselves of the declining power of the church. They had resisted her when she was strong; it was hardly to be expected that they would spare her when she was feeble. Under two of the most remarkable men of the eighteenth century, Whitefield, the first of theological orators, 199 and Wesley, the first of theological statesmen,200 there was organized a great system of religion, which bore the same relation to the Church of England that the Church of England bore to the Church of Rome. Thus, after an interval of two hundred years, a second spiritual Reformation was effected in our country. In the eighteenth century the Wesleyans were to the Bishops what, in the sixteenth century, the Reformers were to the Popes.201 It is indeed true, that the dissenters from the Church of England, unlike the dissenters from the Church of Rome, soon lost that intellectual vigour for which at first they were remarkable. Since the death of their great leaders, they have not produced one man of original genius; and since the time of Adam Clarke, they they have not had among them even a single scholar who has enjoyed an European reputation. This mental penury is perhaps owing, not to any circumstances peculiar to their sect, but merely to that general decline of the theological spirit, by which their adversaries have been weakened as well as themselves.202 Be this as it may, it is at all events certain, that the injury they

199 If the power of moving the passions be the proper test by which to judge an orator, we may certainly pronounce Whitefield to be the greatest since the apostles, His first sermon was delivered in 1736 (Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ii. pp. 102, 122); his field-preaching began in 1739 (Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 196, 197); and the eighteen thousand sermons which he is said to have poured forth during his career of thirty-four years (Southey's Wesley, vol. ii. p. 531) produced the most astonishing effects on all classes, educated and uneducated. For evidence of the excitement caused by this marvellous man, and of the eagerness with which his discourses were read as well as heard, see Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ii. pp. 546, 547, and his Illustrations, vol. iv. pp. 302-304; Mem. of Franklin, by Himself, vol. i. pp. 161-167; Doddridge's Correspond. vol. iv. p. 55; Stewart's Philos. of the Mind, vol. iii. pp. 291, 292; Lady Mary Montagu's Letters, in her Works, 1803, vol. iv. p. 162; Correspond. between Ladies Pomfret and Hartford, 2d edit. 1806, vol. i. pp. 138, 160162; Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. p. 377.

200 Of whom Mr. Macaulay has said (Essays, vol. i. p. 221, 3d edit.), that his "genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu ;" and strongly as this is expressed, it will hardly appear an exaggeration to those who have compared the success of Wesley with his difficulties.

201 It was in 1739 that Wesley first openly rebelled against the church, and refused to obey the Bishop of Bristol, who ordered him to quit his diocese. Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 226, 243. In the same year he began to preach in the fields. See the remarkable entry in his Journals, p. 78, 29th March, 1739.

202 They frankly confess that "indifference has been another enemy to the increase of the dissenting cause." Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of the Dissenters, vol. iv. p. 320. In Newman's Development of Christian Doctrine, pp. 39-43, there are some remarks on the diminished energy of Wesleyanism, which Mr. Newman seems to ascribe to the fact that the Wesleyans have reached that point in which "order takes the place of enthusiasm," p. 43. This is probably true; but I still think that the larger cause has been the more active one.

have inflicted on the English church is far greater than is generally supposed, and, I am inclined to think, is hardly inferior to that which in the sixteenth century Protestantism inflicted upon Popery. Setting aside the actual loss in the number of its members,2 203 there can be no doubt that the mere formation of a Protestant faction, unopposed by the government, was a dangerous precedent; and we know from contemporary history that it was so considered by those who were most interested in the result.204 Besides this, the Wesleyans deplayed an organization so superior to that of their predecessors the Puritans, that they soon became a centre round which the enemies of the church could conveniently rally. And, what is perhaps still more important, the order, regularity, and publicity, by which their proceedings have usually been marked, distinguished them from other sects; and by raising them as it were to the dignity of a rival establishment, have encouraged the diminution of that exclusive and su

203 Walpole in his sneering way, mentions the spread of Methodism in the middle of the eighteenth century (Walpole's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 266, 272); and Lord Carlisle, in 1775, told the House of Lords (Parl. Hist. vol. xviii. p. 634) "that Methodism was daily gaining ground, particularly in the manufacturing towns;" while, to come down still later, it appears from a letter by the Duke of Wellington to Lord Eldon (Twiss's Life of Eldon, vol. ii. p. 35) that about 1808 it was making proselytes in the army.

These statements, though accurate, are somewhat vague; but we have other and more precise evidence respecting the rapid growth of religious dissent. According to a paper found in one of the chests of William III., and printed by Dalrymple (Memoirs, vol. ii. part ii., appendix to chapter i. p. 40), the proportion in England of conformists to nonconformists was as 22 22.8 to 1. Eighty-four years after the death of William, the dissenters, instead of comprising only a twenty-third, were estimat ed at "a fourth part of the whole community." Letter from Watson to the Duke of Rutland, written in 1786, in Life of Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, vol. i. p. 246. Since then, the movement has been uninterrupted; and the returns recently pub lished by government disclose the startling fact, that on Sunday, 31st March, 1851, the members of the Church of England who attended morning service, only exceeded by one-half the Independents, Baptists, and Methodists who attended at their own places of worship. See the Census Table, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. xviii. p. 151. If this rate of decline continues, it will be impossible for the Church of England to survive another century the attacks of her enemies.

204 The treatment which the Wesleyans received from the clergy, many of whom were magistrates, shows what would have taken place if such violence had not been discouraged by the government. See Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 395-406. Wesley has himself given many details, which Southey did not think proper to relate, of the calumnies and insults to which he and his followers were subjected by the clergy. See Wesley's Journals, pp. 114, 145, 178, 181, 198, 235, 256, 275, 375, 562, 619, 637, 646. Compare Watson's Observations on Southey's Wesley, pp. 173, 174; and for other evidence of the treatment of those who differed from the church, see Correspondence and Diary of Doddridge, vol. ii. p. 17, vol. iii. pp. 108, 131, 132, 144, 145, 156. Grosley, who visited England in 1765, says of Whitefield, "The ministers of the established religion did their utmost to baffle the new preacher; they preached against him, representing him to the people as a fanatic, a visionary, &c., &c.; in fine, they opposed him with so much success, that they caused him to be pelted with stones in every place where he opened his mouth to the public." Gros ley's Tour to London, Lond. 1772, vol. i. p. 356.

perstitious respect which was once paid to the Anglican hierarchy.205

But these things, interesting as they are, only formed a single step of that vast process by which the ecclesiastical power was weakened, and our countrymen thus enabled to secure a religious liberty, imperfect indeed, but far superior to that possessed by any other people. Among the innumerable symptoms of this great movement, there were two of peculiar importance. These were, the separation of theology, first from morals, and then from politics. The separation from morals was effected late in the seventeenth century; the separation from politics before the middle of the eighteenth century. And it is a striking instance of the decline of the old ecclesiastical spirit, that both these great changes were begun by the clergy themselves. Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough, was the first who endeavoured to construct a system of morals without the aid of theology.206 Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, was the first who laid down that the state must consider religion in reference, not to revelation, but to expediency; and that it should favour any particular creed, not in proportion to its truth, but solely with a view to its general utility.207 Nor were these mere barren principles,

200 That Wesleyanism encouraged dissent by imparting to it an orderly character, which in some degree approximated to church-discipline, is judiciously observed in Bogue and Bennett's History of the Dissenters, vol. iii. pp. 165, 166. But these writers deal rather too harshly with Wesley; though there is no doubt that he was a very ambitious man, and over-fond of power. At an early period of his career he began to aim at objects higher than those attempted by the Puritans, whose efforts, particularly in the sixteenth century, he looked at somewhat contemptuously. Thus, for instance, in 1747, only eight years after he had revolted against the church, he expresses in his Journal his wonder “at the weakness of those holy confessors" (the Elizabethan Puritans), "many of whom spent so much of their time and strength in disputing about surplice and hoods, or kneeling at the Lord's Supper!" Journals, p. 249, March 13th, 1747. Such warfare as this would have ill satisfied the soaring mind of Wesley; and from the spirit which pervades his voluminous Journals, as well as from the careful and far-seeing provisions which he made for managing his sect, it is evident that this great schismatic had larger views than any of his prede cessors, and that he wished to organize a system capable of rivalling the established church.

200 Mr. Hallam (Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 390) says, that Cumberland "seems to have been the first Christian writer who sought to establish systematically the principles of moral right independently of revelation." See also, on this important change, Whewell's Hist. of Moral Philosophy in England, pp. 12, 54. The dangers always incurred by making theology the basis of morals are now pretty well understood; but by no writer have they been pointed out more clearly than by M. Charles Comte see the able exposition in his Traité de Législation, vol. i. pp. 223-247. There is a short and unsatisfactory account of Cumberland's book in Mackintosh's Ethical Philosophy, pp. 134-137. He was a man of considerable learning, and is noticed by M. Quatremère as one of the earliest students of Coptic. Quatremère sur la Langue et la Littérature de l'Egypte, p. 89. He was made a bishop in 1691, having published the De Legibus in 1672. Chalmers's Biog. Dict. vol. xi. pp. 133, 135. 207 This was in his work entitled The Alliance between Church and State, which first appeared, according to Hurd (Life of Warburton, 1794, 4to, p. 13) in 1736, and, as may be supposed, caused great scandal. The history of its influence I shall trace VOL. I.-20

which subsequent inquirers were unable to apply. The opinions of Cumberland, pushed to their furthest extent by Hume,206 were shortly afterwards applied to practical conduct by Paley,209 and to speculative jurisprudence by Bentham and Mill;210 while the opinions of Warburton, spreading with still greater rapidity, have influenced our legislative policy, and are now professed, not only by advanced thinkers, but even by those ordinary men, who, if they had lived fifty years earlier, would have shrunk from them with undissembled fear.211

Thus it was that, in England, theology was finally severed from the two great departments of ethics and of government. As, however, this important change was at first not of a practical, but solely of an intellectual character, its operation was, for many years, confined to a small class, and has not yet produced

on another occasion; in the mean time, the reader should compare, respecting its tendency, Palmer on the Church, vol. ii. pp. 313, 322, 323; Parr's Works, vol. i. pp. 657, 665, vol. vii. p. 128; Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith, p. 190; and Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iii. p. 18. In January, 1739-40, Warburton writes to Stukeley (Nichols's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 53): "But you know how dangerous new roads in theology are, by the clamour of the bigots against me." See also some letters which passed between him and the elder Pitt, in 1762, on the subject of expediency, printed in Chatham Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 184 seq. Warburton writes, p. 190, "My opinion is, and ever was, that the state has nothing at all to do with errors in relig ion, nor the least right so much as to attempt to repress them." To make such a man a bishop was a great feat for the eighteenth century, and would have been an impossible one for the seventeenth.

205 The relation between Cumberland and Hume consists in the entirely secular plan according to which both investigated ethics; in other respects, there is great difference between their conclusions: but if the anti-theological method is admitted to be sound, it is certain that the treatment of the subject by Hume is more consequential from the premises, than is that by his predecessor. It is this which makes Hume a continuator of Cumberland; though with the advantage, not only of com ing half a century after him, but of possessing a more comprehensive mind. The ethical speculations of Hume are in the third book of his Treatise of Human Nature (Hume's Philosophical Works, Edinb. 1826, vol. ii. pp. 219 seq.), and in his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, ibid. vol. iv. pp. 237-365.

209 The moral system of Paley, being essentially utilitarian, completed the revolution in that field of inquiry; and as his work was drawn up with great ability, it exercised immense influence in an age already prepared for its reception. His Moral and Political Philosophy was published in 1785; in 1786 it became a standard book at Cambridge; and by 1805 it had "passed through fifteen editions." Meadley's Me moirs of Paley, pp. 127, 145. Compare Whewell's Hist. of Moral Philosophy, p. 176.

210 That the writings of these two eminent men form part of the same scheme, is well known to those who have studied the history of the school to which they be long; and on the intellectual relation they bore to each other, I cannot do better than refer to a very striking letter by James Mill himself, in Bentham's Works, edit. Bowring, vol. x. pp. 481, 482.

211 The repeal of the Test Act, the admission of Catholics into parliament, and the steadily increasing feeling in favour of the admission of the Jews, are the leading symptoms of this great movement. On the gradual diffusion among us of the doctrine of expediency, which, on all subjects not yet raised to sciences, ought to be the sole regulator of human actions, see a remarkable, but a mournful letter, written in 1812, in the Life of Wilberforce, vol. iv. p. 28. See also the speech of Lord Eldon, in 1828, in Twiss's Life of Eldon, vol. ii. p. 203.