CHAPTER X.

THE NEGLECT OF HISTORICAL RECORDS-AND THE CONTEMPT CREATED FOR OLD CUSTOMS, RITES, NATIONAL FEELINGS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF HISTORY BY DISSENT.

It will be found, I believe, that generally, Dissenters are very ignorant of the history of their own country, or of human nature in its various branches of ancient and modern history. Those who are familiar with the grand leading outlines of such studies, will moreover be discovered to be as far as dissent allows them, moderate men in their politics. It is only the radically unprincipled man, who employs his historical knowledge of human nature to the perversion of his fellow-men from paths of rectitude, and leads them into situations, where he knows from experience, the end must be-Revolution.

Looking at them as a body however, their religious system consistently educates them in a systematic neglect of, and contempt for history. Their leaders feel the weakness of their dissent on this point, and know the strong persuasive to any truth

which the mind finds, in ascertaining that the whole voice of ancient times is supporting it. The testimony of a host of witnesses, from one century to another, in a steady and uniform declaration of a series of facts, brings the powerful advocacy of a long tried experience with great force, in support of, or against any such system as dissent. We are not therefore, to feel surprised at the sneers, neglect, and ridicule, which ancient customs, rites, or old parochial feelings experience from them. Their leaders know that the history of the church for 1,500 years from the nativity of our Lord, is against their system of religious innovation and discipline. It is not that history is merely silent on the subject, or partial in its repugnance to their cause; but that for fifteen centuries no such thing as modern dissent existed; nor was there, except amongst some of the ancient heresies, any such system as that which now rules and prescribes the devotions in their chapels. Open any history, and can you find such a thing? It cannot be argued that the immediate successors of the Apostles and their Disciples, who had been taught the Gospel by the lips of St. Paul or St. John, should not have known what kind of Church Government was most agreeable to the inspired wisdom which they possessed, and best adapted to fulfil the intentions of the great Shepherd Himself. And, yet, we find all these men Bishops or Superintendents (the name is immaterial) in their respective cities or provinces-having Pres

byters as their counsellors and chief ministers-and Deacons as a lower order of clergymen. Did these companions of the Apostles, the witnesses of their miracles, and first witnesses to the truth of Holy Scripture in the New Testament, act in conformity with the will of God as known to them through the Apostles, by establishing Bishops or presidentsPresbyters or priests-and Deacons as the clergy— or did they not? If they did know it, then see the results-in every one of the cities, provinces, and nations in Europe, Africa, or Asia, where Christianity was planted, there they established these three orders of clergy. And for fifteen hundred years no such piebald government was known or admitted in any church, primitive or not, as the modern Dissenters, (Methodists excepted) defend. Deacons with them are laymen-with the Apostles and Primitive Church, they were clergymen. Ministers are elected and called by the Congregation with Dissenters; they were ordained Presbyters by the Bishops, and Presbyters, in the early church. No bishops are in existence amongst Dissentersno large church was without its Bishop, presiding over several or many congregations, in the first Christian Church.

This argument appears to me so irresistible, that its force can only be avoided by shunning it altogether. But the whole voice of antiquity is against them. The days of Cromwell are marked in characters of blood and fire against them. The

sufferings of the episcopal clergy, ejected from their livings by the Independants, form so strong and moving a picture of what a modern sect becomes when possessed of power, that they do wisely to draw a careful veil over it. The miserable source from which the Independants arose in the republican Brownists is seen in history. The apparent contradiction between their present and past proceedings is observed. And whereas, the old Independants under Cromwell never proclaimed open war against an Established Church, and so when in power, consistently ejected the lawful ministers from the parish churches; their modern successors make use of the cry, No establishment,' as a lever to obtain political power, that in the confusion they may repeat the same seizure of endowments, with this little difference of acting inconsistently. They could gain no step now, by admitting the principle of an establishment, unless on the ground of partition; but they think to secure much, by adopting the high sounding model of voluntary churches.

They do refer to the history of Popery, but it is rarely done without a secret blow at our Protestant Church. They will speak of the old nonconformity of the martyrs, and class that with their own! They will lay claim to such men as Taylor of Hadleigh, and the great host of laymen and Presbyters; but they studiously avoid the names of the bishops who died in the flames. Here,' say they 'is a noble host of Dissenters from the Established

Church.' Men who are but little versed in their own history may even smile at this--its absurdity provokes a laugh; but consider how it tells upon a mind totally ignorant of history. Such men are not able to reply that the great historian of the Martyrs, John Foxe, and his noble host of warriors, would have repudiated as unscriptural and unholy things, modern dissent and all its chapels. Thus, the bloody persecutions of Mary and her State-supported Church, are coupled in the mind of the ignorant Dissenter with our own Protestant, but impure, because State-supported Church! Gross ignorance and gross prejudice are thus well matched, and produce sectarian bigotry, and a hatred of the establishment. Ancient rites, as tending to preserve stability of mind, are derided. The marriage tie was surely a religious rite in paradise, when God himself presided at the holy union.- Poh! poh!' says a modern Dissenter, if parliament enacted that both parties were to jump over a broomstick, as the prescribed form, in any convenient place, before witnesses, it would be quite sufficient and all that is necessary;' but to the inquiry,- Why should we depart from the religious character of the institution as seen in the book of Genesis?'-he makes no reply. The churches then, which for a thousand years have been religiously and tenderly venerated by millions of our ancestors, as the places where the deepest affections of the

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