necessary; and now that I am acquainted with the characters of the subscribers, I would suggest an alteration in the title which escaped me before, and without which it could not be received; viz. to omit "on behalf of themselves and others who agree with them," because the House will not receive a petition on behalf of others who do not sign. It would then stand as the petition of the undersigned Protestant Dissenters, who consider absolute liberty of conscience respecting religion to be the unalienable right of all men. As I think the term Christians too large an expression, I would alter it for Protestant Dissenters, and then it would stand as I have marked it above. It would not be correct in me to make that alteration, but you and the subscribers might authorize any person so to alter it in London, which would save the trouble of sending back the petition. With every good wish for the free and universal influence of the gospel, I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant, That you should be made acquainted with the character, stations and religious denominations of the subscribers to such a petition as was sent to your Lordship from Bridport to present to the House of Lords, is evidently and highly proper. I am very sorry, therefore, that by my omission to give you at first a particular description of the petitioners, you should have the additional trouble of writing to make the inquiry. Immediately on receiving your letter I called on some of the most respectable of the subscribers to the petition, who unite with myself in presenting to your Lordship our sincere thanks for acceding in so obliging a manner to our proposal. With respect to the mistake in the title which you have pointed out as necessary to be corrected, I have by this day's post written to Mr. Gurney, to request that he would have the goodness to call on your Lordship and make the requisite alteration. As he was for some years the Recorder of Bridport, he is personally acquainted with a considerable number of those persons whose signatures are affixed to the petition, and will no doubt very readily do the needful for them. I have the honour to be, my Lord, in the name of the petitioners, your Lordship's most respectful and obedient servant, SIR, THOMAS HOWE. 2, Upper Grosvenor Street, Feb. 29, 1812. On reading your letter over again, I observe that members of the Established Church (which I rejoice to see) have signed the petition; it cannot, therefore, be stated as the petition of Protestant Dissenters. It may then very well stand as it is, and the rather as I find from my friend, Lord Grey, that he has a similar petition of Christians. Perhaps as the Catholic petitions are shortly coming_before the House of Lords, the effect of yours and that of others would be more powerful and useful if then presented, and if you will give me leave, I will confer with Lord Grey on the subject. Whilst writing the above the post brought me your letter of the 28th. I will speak to Mr. Gurney whom I know intimately, and who is in all respects a most excellent and sensible man. You may depend upon my doing every thing in my power to give effect to the petition, and I have the honour to be, Sir, your faithful, humble servant, ERSKINE. REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE. ART. I.-Lectures on Nonconformity, delivered during the Winter of 1822-3, at Plymouth and PlymouthDock: comprising, a Historical View of the Christian Church, from the Earliest Period down to the Present Time, both in Respect to its Doctrine and Government :— Designed to shew the strong and sufficient Grounds of Dissent from the National Church of England. With Notes and Illustrations. By Israel Worsley, Dissenting Minister. 8vo. pp. 250. Plymouthprinted and sold by R. Bond; sold also by Hunter and Eaton, London. WING to various causes the Dis severe, but it is evidently dictated by strong Christian feelings. He makes free use of the best writers on the subject. His own remarks shew, however, that he is familiar with the argument. The Lectures are, in fact, a correct exposition of the question: the Dissenter may read them with satisfaction, and be strengthened by them in his attachment to his profession; and the Churchman may read them to profit, as a history of opinions and a statement of the reasons that actuate so many of his neighbours in separating and remaining aloof from his communion. Lecture I. is "On Religion, a Personal Duty, incapable of either Com in or is accustomed to dwell on the grounds of their separation from the Church of England. The Unitarians are perhaps the most forward in their vindication of Nonconformity; but they are wont to confine themselves chiefly to the reason for dissent arising from the erroneous doctrine and unscriptural worship of the Establishment. Some few of them are favourable to the patronage of Christianity by the magistrate; many are indisposed to a discussion likely to excite the ill-will of their neighbours; and the majority regard every other principle of Nonconformity to be unimportant compared with that of a sound doctrine with respect to the Divine nature and character, and a correspondent pure and spiritual worship. Amongst them may be found some of the most zealous Dissenters on the general ground of Dissent; though it is natural that they should lay particular stress upon their peculiar convictions as Antitrinitarians. Mr. Worsley has judged that it is necessary for the information of the young and of strangers, and for the promotion of Christian truth, to explain and defend the reasons alleged by the Dissenters generally, and by the Unitarians in particular, for their secession from the National Creed and Ritual. This he has done ably and boldly. His language is sometimes On the History of the early Christian Churches: the Schisms which divided them: and their utter Dissimilarity from the Churches of Rome and of England." The Lecturer represents the primitive Christians as the Dissenters of their day, and speaks favourably of Heathen toleration. "I remark farther upon this period of the history, that Christians were then Dissenters from the National Church, and under some of the emperors enjoyed that toleration, which our high Churchmen boast of so much as a credit to the present day: with this difference only; that, if they were not Pagans, they were not compelled to support the altars of idols: since the tything system was then the voluntary offerings. So that one of unknown, and the priests depended upon the sub-governors, in writing to the Emperor, complains, that the altars were every where forsaken, and the ancient worship likely to be altogether abandoned, and the priests without bread.' toleration does not extend quite so far as that which Pagans granted to Christianity: for whether we go to the temple of the National God or not, we are compelled to support the Establishment; even while we hold it to be erroneous in Our the highest degree, and while to us it is nothing short of idolatry."-P. 36. He then puts in strong contrast the Church of Christ and the Church of England. "And before I conclude, is it neces sary that I point out to you, my hearers, Lect. III. is "On the Union of the Church with the Civil Power, and the Effects thereof. The Councils and the dark Ages which followed." Lect. IV. is "On the Growth of the Reformation, and the Fluctuation of the State Religion in England, in Henry's and the succeeding Reigns." In the conclusion of this Mr. Worsley asserts the resemblance of the Churches of England and Rome, and expresses a regret, in which we are not prepared to join with him, that the Reformation in this country was not somewhat delayed. "In this, as well as in many other points, there is so strong a resemblance between the avowed principles of the Church of England and those of the Church of Rome, that it is no wonder, that both were so very agreeable to Pope Leo, as to induce him to make the proposal by his legate Parpalio, to confirm the English Church by Papal authority, exactly as it then was, and to make it, as it is now constituted, an integral part of the Romish Church; if only Elizabeth would acknowledge the Primacy of that See. Its features were in the main so extremely flattering to this great spiritual chief, that he would fain have acknowledged it for his own child, if it were but willing to receive him as a father. "I am called upon, therefore, after the consideration of these strong facts, to conclude, by expressing my sincere regret, in common with a very large proportion of the Protestant inhabitants of these islands, that the Reformation took place at all under a furious and licentious tyrant, who cared for no religion but as it served to indulge his lusts, and wanted no reform but what would increase his arbitrary power. We have reason to regret, that the Pope could not make up his mind to gratify the king's inclinations; whether he was restrained by motives of policy, which was probably the case, or by those of religion. England would in that case have remained Catholic a little longer, and but a little longer: for that more complete Reformation, which soon afterwards burst out in Scotland, would have thrown its light into the Southern division of the island; and we should have had a Protestant Church formed amongst us, unencumbered by those enormous expenses, and not disfigured by the prelatical honours and priestly vanities, which render our Church a far more faithful copy of the Pagan Churches of Greece and of Rome, The Lecturer agrees with the two waggish Nonconformists at Ongar, of whom a traditional tale is told that on a market-day one proclaimed in the streets the bans of marriage between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, and the other stepped forward and forbade the baus, because the two churches were related within the prohibited degrees. than of that Church which rose with a beautiful simplicity in the regions of Judea and of Galilee."-Pp. 81, 82. Lect. V. is "On the Principle on which Establishments are necessarily formed: a View of that of England." Here the Lecturer states "the principal objections to an established form of worship, and to established creeds and catechisms," as follows: "That such an establishment implies a right in some one to interfere with the religious opinions of the people, and to dictate to them the doctrines of belief and forms of worship which they shall follow-a privilege which the Scriptures give to every one for himself, and to no one for another. "That it makes a provision for its own clergy out of the revenues of the whole community, whether they benefit by the institution or not-and thus lays a tax upon the people which no principle of civil law can justify. "That it demands assent and consent to all and every thing it teaches-which is an arrogant claim impossible to be complied with. "That it imposes ministers upon the congregations, not only without the approbation and choice of those who are to hear and to pay them, but even in direct opposition to their will. That those ministers so appointed are not permitted to study the Scriptures for themselves, and to teach what the Scriptures command; but are compelled, at the risk of losing their very means of subsistence, to confine themselves to the doctrines of the Church established, and of course often to declare what in their consciences they believe to be false. And "That the boasted argument in defence of establishments, the necessity of preserving Uniformity of faith and preventing difference of opinion, which has in former ages been the only support of the Papal Chair, is altogether futile; no such effect ever having been produced, and no such effect possible to be produced."-Pp. 107, 108. Of the "tax upon the people" for religious purposes, Mr. Worsley says, "We are required to pay a tax upon every article of foreign commerce, if we choose to have the pleasure or the advantage of the use of it. We are required even to pay for the light from heaven, if it pass through well-accommodated windows for our use. But, if we think proper to live without the light of heaven in our houses, and without the articles of foreign commerce on our tables, we are not compelled to pay for them; and that would be called a most unjust government, which constrained its subjects to pay for these articles when they have no occasion to use them. Yet thus do all those governments act, who lay a tax upon the community for the support of their own Ministers of Religion;-a tax of the most inconsistent and offensive kind because they call themselves the distributors of the Light of Revelation, which was given not to them but to us all alike; and they compel us to pay liberally for a share of it to light us to heaven, when it is our firm belief and our honest persuasion, that it is a false light which they offer for sale, a light that came not from heaven, and is not able to shew us the way to it."-Pp. 90, 91. He relates, but without giving his authority, an anecdote of Dr. Busby, to shew the little inclination of the heads of the Church," that the young men who receive the honours of the University should be instructed in the Christian Religion." "Dr. Busby, a celebrated master of one of the public schools in London, who well knew with what tincture of religion offered to found two Lectures, with an young men went from him to College, endowment of a hundred a-year each, for instructing the under-graduates in the rudiments of the Christian Religion; requiring that they should be compelled to attend the Lectures, and be examined in their knowledge of its doctrines and precepts, and approved of, before they could take the degree of Bachelor of Arts. But this condition being rejected by both Universities, the offer was rejected likewise, and the grant withheld."-P. 93. Note. Lect. VI. is "On the History and Examination of Creeds and Catechisms." In a note, p. 121, the author gives us an amusing table of Doxologies, in two columns, one containing Scripture Doxologies and the other Church Doxologies; at the end of which he naturally exclaims-“ For what possible reason can men thus invariably forsake the words of Scripture, to adopt those of no one knows whom!" There is reference in another note, p. 125, to "A Letter to the Lord Bishop of St. David's, containing Remarks on his Introduction to the Doctrine of the Trinity and to the Athanasian Creed, by a Clergyman of the Church of England," which is reviewed, Mon. Repos. X. 590. This Letter, which is justly styled "excellent," is attributed by Mr. W. to "the Rev. Thomas Wigan, Vicar of Bewdley, Worcestershire, where he lived in obscurity upon a very small income, refusing to accept of any higher Church preferment: he died in 1818." Lect. VII. is on the fruitful subject of "Modes of Worship and Ceremonies." On this topic the Lecturer has the following interesting passage: "Next in order of exterior dignity stands the cathedral worship of the English Church. My hearers may most of them know what this is, and may have felt that inspiring awe which involuntarily seizes upon almost every mind on entering the wide portals of a Minster, on passing under its lofty and magnificent arches, on beholding the rich colourings and splendid accompaniments of its altar, on viewing the various and costly robes of its priests and singing-men, and the inspiring chords of a select and well-appointed band of vocal performers, which adorn and dignify that venerable pile of building. Were it not that all this is done in the name of the humble prophet of Nazareth, could delight in its magnificence, I could feast my senses with the rich repast which it affords, and contemplate with some satisfaction the piety which led our ancestors to those arduous labours by which the noble edifice was raised: I could indulge in the devotional feelings which those lofty objects inspire, and lift my eyes in devout reverence to that august Being, to whose honour the feeble hand of man has made that costly sacrifice. Nor can I altogether escape the enthusiasm which kindles in the breast, by the combination of so many means to gratify the senses, and excite the social sympathies of man, when I walk through the aisles of a cathedral during the service. But I cannot forget, by what arbitrary and what treacherous means, by what union of pious fraud and of severe mental degradation, such a building first was raised, and such a service obtained credit with the disciples of the cross. The history of priests in the Christian community, like that of priests amongst the ancient religions of Egypt, of Persia, and of Gaul, is the history of scenes in which all the vices of the human heart have been brought into full play, and in which a road has been paved for riding triumphantly over the necks of the people, and bearing down all the opposition which truth and justice could raise, by the terrors of persecution and by the arts of falschood and of imposition. "In all such grand and expensive preparations for paying homage to the Al mighty, my mind speedily reverts to the religion of the Gospel, and comes without a moment's delay to the conclusion, that none of these things pertain unto life and godliness. They indulge the senses, they feed the vanity, they impose upon the judgment, they steal away all that pure and simple devotion which springs from the heart, and they fix the very roos of religion, where idolatry had planted it before, in the indulgence of the senses, and in all that which formed the very essence of devotion in the temples of Greece and of Rome."-Pp. 137-139. The same subject is continued through Lect. VIII., in which we have a description of the process of making a bishop: "When one of the twelve apostles was gone to his own place, the whole church met to elect a successor. They chose two out of their own number, whom they thought the most proper persons to fill that sacred post; but, fearing to trast themselves entirely with the choice, they prayed for the Divine help, and then cast lots, by which one of them was to be chosen. In a similar way, when a bishop is dead, the reverend bench assemble to elect another; they receive from the King a permission, congé d'élire, to elect a new bishop; they pray to God, after the example of the early church, in the most solemn manner, that he would direct them in their choice, and they then proceed without any hesitation or doubt to choose the man whom the king has recommended; not daring, at the peril of losing their preferment, to choose any other. This mode of choosing the high dignitaries matches very well with their maxim, that the King is the head of the Church: they ask the assistance of the Almighty, but, without waiting for its arrival, they obey the commands of their earthly monarch. After this they return thanks to God, for having directed them in the choice of so worthy As the a person,' while they know they were wholly directed by the court. King chooses and not the Bishops, the proper order of the ceremony should be, that he offer up the prayer and afterwards return the thanks, and not they."-P. 159. The Lecturer makes some pointed remarks upon the inconsistency of the Church of England in her services and particularly of that party in the Church which is denominated Evangelical: "But the most strange of all things is, the more than a miracle which the Church performs, in damning and saving the very |