by that means serve effectually for the preservation of the freedom of the English constitution. Should they, in consequence of an act of comprehension, enter the church, all these advantages will be lost. Those who remain dissenters will be few in number and inconsiderable, their influence will be small, and there is danger that the toleration granted, will not meet with due respect nor remain in force. Whereas if the number of those who continue out of the church be considerable, they will have an influence which will be beneficial to the cause of freedom, and the act, which tolerates them, will remain inviolate."

From such views they voted against the bill, and it was thrown out. Dr. Calamy speaks of the failure of the comprehension bill with bitter and deep regret. But at this distance of time, we are able to take a more enlarged view of the subject, than his circumstances could possibly present. The alterations proposed and made in the standard and services of the church, by such men as Tillotson, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Sharp, Kidder, Beveridge, Tennison, Scott, Fowler, Williams, &c. justify the faults found with them by dissenters, and stand to this day as heralds, incessantly proclaiming that there are many things (six hundred alterations were made) in the church of England which stand in need of alteration and amendment. Of the attachment of these divines to the church of England, not a doubt can be entertained their writings render that unquestionable, As to their abilities, natural and acquired, no age of the English church, either before or since, can produce at once such a number of superior men as were in that commission: and in many respects they en

joyed advantages far beyond those persons who, in the dawn of the reformation, compiled the liturgy.

By the rejection of the bill, the church sustained a double loss. Instead of being enabled to take the benefit of the improvement of these excellent men, which would have rendered the service the first of liturgical compositions, to be compelled, for more than a hundred years longer, to use the obsolete, the harsh and uncouth phraseology of the sixteenth century, when our language was in a rude unpolished state, is an injury of no ordinary size. To deprive herself likewise of the services of so many hundreds of learned, pious, excellent, and zealous ministers, who would have returned to her communion, was a loss which words cannot express.

But whether the exclusion of the dissenting ministers from the establishment, by the failure of the bill, has been beneficial or detrimental to the highest interests of our country, and of mankind, is a question of a very different nature. As to the beneficial influence of the dissenters, on the preservation and establishment of political liberty in England, the resolution of that point may be safely left to the decision of the best patriots and the most enlightened friends of freedom, who have no connexion with their religious sentiments, and with their dissent. The other part of the question may be conceived to be of more difficult resolution. Some indeed may think it clear as light, that not allowing the dissenters to return to the bosom of the church, was to the detriment of religion, as they would in that case have had an opportunity of preaching to far more numerous congregations.

But it is not upon mere numbers that the question

rests: something else must be taken into the account. Some religious societies are voluntary, and their union is the result of choice. Others are formed by a geographical line; and vicinity of habitation is the reason of their assembling for worship in the same place. Between a voluntary society of worshippers, and a mass of people living within certain boundaries, and called a parish, the difference is immense. Among four hundred of the former class the probability of doing good, is equal at least to two thousand of the latter. Taking the whole of England on an average, this is the case, unless the proportion be rated too favourably for a parish congregation. In support of this assertion many things might be adduced, for it is not hazarded at random, but made on an extensive view of the subject. Let what is said be duly weighed, that in a voluntary congregation of four hundred persons, where the Gospel is purely and faithfully preached, there are ordinarily as many true disciples of Christ, and as many instances of conversion, as in a parish of two thousand souls, where the clergyman preaches the same doctrine with equal fidelity and zeal. As for the parish minister, who labours in a city, or populous town (which is the only instance that could be alledged as an objection), his audience is not the parish population it is a voluntary society, and bears a considerable resemblance to a dissenting congregation. Yet even here it will be found, on an average, that the advantage is in favour of the dissenters. There is an evidence of the comparatively small effect of evangelical preaching in a parish church, which occurs from year to year, when, on the demise of a good clergyman, one of a very different description fre

quently succeeds; and it is most commonly seen, that the people of the parish attend on him just as they did on his predecessor; and though a few complain, the mass is satisfied. In how many instances is this the case, for one where the people, unable to sit under the new parson, form a society of their own, and choose a preacher to their mind. A few very laudable examples of this kind have occurred; but how few are they in comparison of the others yet, of the success of a minister, and of the influence of his doctrine, there can scarcely be a more true barometer. The observation will now apply to Scotland too, where the people, in general, have been considered as better instructed in the principles of religion.

But a still more striking illustration of the subject appears in the case of the very men concerning whom the question is discussed. The non-conformists, before the restoration, were parish ministers: and for laborious diligence and zeal, as well as abilities and learning, they had but few superiors. Yet the fruits of these mens ministry appear to have been, in general, comparatively small. When they were silenced, and men of a very different character were, in most places, appointed to succeed, on an average, the number of those who adhered to their old ministers, and formed a separate society, was, generally, far from large. The size of most of the old dissenting meeting-houses, both in London and in the country, furnishes an incontestible proof of this. From these facts, and others of a similar nature, which might be adduced, it will be evident that too great a stress has been laid on the circumstance of mere number, without taking into consi

deration the materials of which that number is composed.

The beneficial effects of the regulations of the New Testament for the government of a Christian society; the closeness and endearments of the relation between the members of it, and the pastor of their choice; the importance of maintaining purity of communion, and excluding the ignorant and the wicked from the table of the Lord; and the various modes of advancing religion which arise out of these, are all to be taken into account by every one who would investigate the subject with impartiality in all its bearings and in all its extent. And when every part of it is duly weighed, the pious pastor of a voluntary society of two hundred persons may receive encouragement from the thought, that in his congregation there is a larger portion of divine knowledge, of unfeigned piety, of godly zeal, than in ordinary parishes of ten times the population. When there is a congregation of four, five, or six hundred people voluntarily associating themselves for worship, the minister may consider himself on the level with the good parson of a parish containing two or three thousand souls in a country situation, or in a small town. In addition to this, it is to be remembered, that a parishpriest cannot move beyond the circle of his parish, without exposing himself to punishment for the sup

9 This remark applies, in a great measure, to every institution of the kind. People of no religion in a place are of the established religion, whatever its form may be. If we take out of a parish the absentees from public worship, the now-and-then attendants, the grossly ignorant who do not seek instruction, those who go to church from mere custom, without thought or reflection on spiritual things, and those who rest on the mere opus operatum as the