justice has demanded this corrective to the partial statements and bombastic phraseology, which distinguish the Ecclesiastical Memoir. It was expedient to take down the lofty, overweening pretensions of these ministers to being the only depositaries of the Gospel,-the main pillars of the temple,—and, in a word, exclusively, the Church. It was right to state admitted facts, stripped of excuses, glosses, and embellishments; and when viewing them in this naked form, it was hardly possible to avoid a smile at the turgid language with which mean parentage and imperfect education were concealed,-at the strange incongruity between early libertinism and late severity,-at the inconsistent fluttering from church to tabernacle, at the misapplication of Scripture, to dilute or whiten the improper, and of high-sounding terms to dignify the mean. All this was fitting, in order to draw forth, in fair colour, and in just characters, the venerable class of orthodox clergy; of whom the memorialist takes but a slight, and that a most contemptuous notice; treating them as though they were heretics and aliens, rather than integral parts of the church. It was a slur upon that body, regularly educated, consistent in character and sentiment, holding and teaching all the grand and essential doctrines of Christianity; and though not, perhaps, free from early folly, or from imperfections at any period of their course, yet preserving the humble and uniform

tenor of their way, throughout an upright and useful life; to publish a memoir pour servir à l'histoire, in which they were studiously kept in the back ground, or introduced with a note of disapprobation. Their due preponderance could not be restored without taking the false weights from the opposite scale. And these biographical notices collected in a single view, will further throw light on the general strictures which are to follow.

CHAPTER XXII.

From A.D. 1800 to 1810.

EVANGELICAL CLERGY CONTINUED.

Contents.

I. The Plan of the Evangelical Body for purchasing small Livings.—II. Societies for educating Evangelical Ministers.-III. Mr. Wilberforce's Practical View.IV. Archdeacon Daubeny, Sir Richard Hill, Belsham. -V. Remarks on the Practical View.-VI. London Missionary Society, and other Associations.--VII. Evangelical Distinction.-VIII. Further Progress of Evangelical Principles.-IX. Overton's True Churchman, answered by Dean Kipling and Daubeny.-X. Moderate Calvinism; Self-righteousness, Spiritual Agency.-XI. Regeneration and Renewal.-XII. Administering the Eucharist to a whole Table at once.XIII. Episcopal Discipline.-XIV. Confederation with Dissenters in Societies.-XV. Charity Sermons.-XVI. Prayers before the Sermon, and Hymns.-XVII. Other Features of Evangelism.—XVIII. Sentiments of the Orthodox Body.-XIX. Licentious Church Party, fostered by the extreme of Evangelism.-XX. Variances in Families, and chilling of the domestic Sensibilities.

1. THE preceding biographical sketches have exhibited a connected view of the origin and progress of the Evangelical party within the Church,

from the rise of Methodism till the conclusion of the eighteenth century. These ministers had hitherto been scattered individuals, actuated by the same principles, and thus far supporting the same cause: but not a compact phalanx, acting in concert, and knit together by a common bond of union. The first step towards giving them this additional strength, was the plan, originating with several opulent individuals, for purchasing a number of small livings, to be presented to young ministers of the Evangelical caste. From the gentlemen who are understood to have contributed the most largely towards carrying this plan into effect, the preferments thus procured received the name of the Thornton livings.

As an extension of this scheme, chapels were built at the chief watering-places; such as Cheltenham, Tunbridge, and Brighton; all fashionable resorts, rapidly increasing in population, without proportionate room in their churches. A zeal, apparently sincere and single, which supplied the desired accommodation, was at first hailed by the incumbents of these several parishes. The drift of the donors, however, was soon discovered: being a design to establish every where an imperium in imperio, a parish within a parish, and to deprive the parochial incumbents of all voice in those congregations-these new subdivisions of their flocks-for the doctrines taught in which they were responsible; nay, to open a

secret leak in the vessel; to divide the house against itself. But the Act, 43 Geo. III. cap. 108, requiring the consent of the ordinary, patron, and incumbent to the building of any chapel; and the license of the incumbent, being, by another act, necessary to the appointment of the lecturer, some check was imposed, though a feeble one, to this system of internal disunion. This matter recently came to issue at Brighton; where the Bishop of Chichester and the Vicar long held out against the appointment of an Evangelical minister to a new proprietary chapel; till, at length, a middle way was struck out, in consequence of which a moderate minister, an intermediate link, as it were, between the two parties, has advanced, in a few years, to a high ecclesiastical dignity. Attempts have been talked of to obtain, in Parliament, a sanction to the building of chapels, and the appointment of ministers without consent of the incumbent; but fortunately, hitherto, without

success.

The orthodox and regularly-bred clergy of the Universities, justly complained of a system which introduced a body of competitors, to take from them preferments to which they were entitled. It was deemed hard, that after a country clergyman, or a gentleman of moderate fortune, had abridged his comforts, and narrowed his expenses in a thousand ways, to defray the charges of his son's systematic progress through a public school,