there to read, should prepare himself to be edified, and made the better thereby; that he bring with him discretion, honest intent, charity, reverence, and quiet behaviour; that there should no such number meet together there as to make a multitude; that no such exposition be made thereupon but what is declared in the book itself; that it be not read with noise in time of divine service, or that any disputation or contention be used about it; that in case they continued their former misbehaviour, and refused to comply with these directions, the king would be forced against his will to remove the occasion, and take the Bible out of the church."-See Johnson's Historical account of the several English Translations of the Bible, and the opposition they met with from the church of Rome.

The Church of England is governed by the KING, who is the supreme head; by two archbishops, and by twenty-four bishops. The benefices of the bishops were converted by William the Conqueror. into temporal baronies; so that every prelate has a seat and vote in the House of Peers. Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, however, in a sermon preached from this text, My kingdom is not of this world, insisted that the clergy had no pretensions to temporal jurisdictions; which gave rise to various publications, termed by way of eminence the Bangorian Controversy, for Hoad

ley was then bishop of Bangor*. There is a bishop of Sodor and Man, who has no seat in the House of Peers; and a late prelate of this sce was the amiable and learned Dr. Wilson. Since the death of the intolerant Archbishop Laud, men of moderate principles have been raised to the see of Canterbury, and this hath tended not a little to the tranquillity of church and state. The established church of Ireland is the same as the church of England, and is governed by four archbishops and eighteen bishops. Since the union of Ireland with Great Britain, four only of these spiritual lords sit in the House of Lords, assembled at Westminster.

In the course of the last century disputes arose among the English clergy respecting the propriety of subscribing to any human formulary of religious sentiments. An application for its removal was made to Parliament in 1772, by the petitioning clergy, and received, as it deserved, the most public discussion in the House of Commons. The third edition of Archdeacon Blackburn's excellent Confessional, was published 1770, two years previous to the presentation of this clerical petition, when the long controversy, in consequence of the

* The memory of this eminent prelate has been insulted by Mr. Milner in his History of Winchester, but Mr. Hoadley Ashe and Dr. Sturges have amply vindicated it.

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work, was closed, and indeed introductory to the application to Parliament pending, by which the controversy was renewed. Mr. Dyer's Treatise against Subscription appeared many years afterwards. Some respectable clergymen were so impressed with the impropriety of subscription, that they resigned their livings, and published reasons for their conduct. Among these, the names of Robertson, Jebb, Matty, Lindsey, and Disney, will be long remembered. Several others, indeed, resigned preferments held by the same tenure for similar reasons, without giving such reasons to the public, as Mr. Tyrwhitt, Mr. Wakefield, &c. and it has been said that many more reluctantly continue in their conformity, under the contest between their convictions and their inability from various causes to extricate themselves, but who will never repeat their subscriptions. The Rev. T. Lindsey, however, withdrew from the church, because he objected to the Trinity; professing to worship the Father only as one true God, to the exclusion of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, as objects of worship. See "The Book of Common Prayer Reformed," used at Essex Street chapel; a new edition of which has been lately published.

Attempts have been made to amend the articles, the liturgy, and some things which related to the internal government of the church of England. Dr. Watson, the present bishop of Landaff, wrote

a Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 1781, in which he argues for the propriety of a more equal distribution of salary among the different orders of the clergy. But this plan, projected by the worthy prelate, together with the preceding proposals for reform by the authors of the Free and Candid Disquisitions, and of the Appeal to Reason and Candour, have been suffered to sink into oblivion. The church of England has produced a succession of eminent men. Among its ornaments are to be reckoned Usher, Hall, Taylor, Stilling fleet, Cudworth, Wilkins, Tillotson, Cumberland, Barrow, Burnet, Pearson, Hammond, Whitby, Clarke, Hoadley, Jortin, Secker, Horne, Lowth, and Warburton. In the Appendix to Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, will be found a circumstantial account of the correspondence carried on in the year 1718, between Dr. William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, and certain doctors of the Sorbonne of Paris, relative to a project of union between the English and Gallican churches. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Pearson on the Creed, Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles, and Bishop Prettyman's Elements of Theology*, are deemed the best defences of Episcopacy.

* Mr. William Frend, the celebrated mathematician, late of Cambridge, published a series of Letters to this prelate, by way of reply to certain passages in his Elements of Theology.

In Scotland, and other parts, since the revolution, there existed a species of Episcopalians called Non-jurors, because being inflexiby attached to the Stuarts, who were then driven from the throne, they refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Brunswick family. On the decease, however, of the Pretender, whom the Nonjurors styled Prince Charles, and who died at Rome, 1788, they complied with the requisition of government, and now the distinction is abolished. An account of them will be found in Bishop Skinner's Ecclesiastical History.

The Reformation in England, began under the auspices of Henry the Eighth, was greatly checked by Mary, who proceeded like a fury to re-establish Popery. In her sanguinary reign were burnt one archbishop, four bishops, twentyone divines, eight gentlemen, one hundred and eighty-four artificers, and one hundred husbandmen, servants, and labourers; twenty-six wives, twenty widows, and nine virgins, two boys, and two infants!!! On the death of Mary, 1558, Elizabeth ascended the throne, repealed the laws which had been established in favour of Popery, and restored her supremacy. In these matters she wonderfully succeeded, since of 9,400 beneficed clergymen, about 120 only refused to comply with the Reformation. The establishment of Protestantism in England underwent various fluc