The Decline of the Presbyterians in England (Continued). TRANSITIONAL AND SPASMODIC PERIOD, 1710-1740. I. TRYING AND CHANGING INFLUENCES AT WORK FROM 1710. II.-THE SUBSCRIPTION CONTROVERSY.-EXETER ASSEMBLY AND SALTERS' HALL SYNOD. 1719. III.—INSIDIOUS TENDENCY TO ARIANISM, AND ITS CAUSES. 1720–1740. The Decline of the Presbyterians in England (Continued). TRANSITIONAL AND SPASMODIC PERIOD, 1710-1740. I. TRYING AND CHANGING INFLUENCES AT WORK. THE era into which we are now passing presents a painful but suggestive contrast to the heroic or even the chapel-building one, in which the survivors of the persecuting time still continued for a season to flourish. The age of the suffering Puritan Presbyterians stands out pre-eminent, not only for deeds of high honour, self-denial, and fidelity, but for minds of surpassing compass and energy-minds with a strong spiritual grasp of eternal things, and with the utmost elevation, intensity, and fervour of thought and feeling, exhibiting "the faith and patience of the saints," as England has seldom seen before or since, and stamping the age in which they lived as one of abiding power and ennobling impulses. We now pass into an altogether less exalted and less significant epoch. We are sinking from the notables to the mere respectables of the Kingdom of Christ. The process is a very gradual one; but, with only an exception here and there, the decline is increasingly perceptible. During King William's reign, the Presbyterians no doubt continued outwardly in a fairly flourishing condition; and through the greater part of Queen Anne's time they still remained the largest, and, in point of social position, the most influential branch of English Nonconformity. There was a much larger proportion of landed proprietors in those days than now; and of these yeomen and gentry, and even county and noble families, the Presbyterians continued to retain a fair share; like the Hoghtons, of Hoghton Tower, in Lancashire, Sir John and Lady Hewley, of York, as well as the able and theologically disposed Barrington Shute, who became Lord Barrington. Even Robert Harley, Speaker of the House of Commons, afterwards Earl of Oxford and Lord Treasurer (whatever his temptations and his political tergiversations), never formally abandoned the religious views and attachments of his Presbyterian family, whose name will ever be honourably associated with the Harleian Library, Manuscripts, and Miscellany, and whose memory is still further preserved in the pages of his personal friends and associates, Pope and Swift. But the active-spirited lay-representatives of the Presbyterian party were chiefly found, as ever, among the corporations of the cities and towns. By the CORPORATION ACT, every one holding a municipal office was required, as a qualification, to receive the Lord's Supper in a parish church according to the rites of the Church of England, and officially attend the parish church. SIR JOHN SHORTER, a Presbyterian, had (during an indulgence time in James the Second's reign) been chosen and acted as Lord Mayor of London; and a few years subsequent to the Revolution, SIR HUMPHREY EDWIN, another Presbyterian, had even dared during his mayoralty, in 1697, to attend a Presbyterian meeting at Pinners' Hall in his official robes. This created an immense sensation for a while; so much so, that Dean Swift, in 1704, in his Tale of a Tub,-that profane but witty satire on the religious controversies of the time,—endeavours to ridicule the attempt by referring to Jack's tatters coming into fashion, and his getting on a great horse, and eating custard.1 The Presbyterian, SIR THOMAS ABNEY, was Lord Mayor in 1701. He officially attended Church as an occasional Conformist, but continued a staunch member of the Presbyterian Church in Silver Street, where JOHN HOWE was minister. DE FOE, who had in 1697, on the occasion of Sir Humphrey Edwin's mayoralty, issued anonymously his Enquiry into Occasional Conformity of Dissenters, now re-issued it with a 1 The law had enacted that any Mayor who should attempt what Sir Humphrey Edwin had done, should be liable to a fine of £100; and might be declared ever afterwards incapable of municipal honours. So jealous was the law on behalf of the Church Establishment and its prestige. preface to John Howe; and hence the Occasional Conformity Discussion among the Nonconformists, headed by these two veterans of the Presbyterian name, who took opposite sides, and whence so much damage accrued to Dissenters in general and to the Presbyterians in particular. 1 Throughout these twenty years after the Revolution, so far as outward moderate prosperity went, the position and prospects of the Presbyterian ministers were fairly promising. The congregations, in London especially, were large and flourishing, and, as Macaulay says, though somewhat exaggeratingly, about some of "the great Presbyterian Rabbis of the metropolis, "The situation of these men was such as the great majority of the Divines of the Established Church might well envy. . . . The contributions of his wealthy hearers, Aldermen and Deputies, West India merchants and Turkey merchants, etc., enabled him to become a landowner or a mortgagee. The best broadcloth from Blackwell Hall and the best poultry from Leadenhall Market were frequently left at his door. . One of the great Presbyterian Rabbis therefore might well doubt whether, in a worldly view, he should be a gainer by a comprehension." . So long as these older suffering ministers lived, the tie between them and their flocks was a very close and tender one from the common bonds arising out of the memory of common suffering in days past. But a change began to creep over the face of things when the suffering veterans were passing away; and the Hanoverian succession in 1714, with its larger liberty and growing religious indifferentism, gave a fresh impulse to certain ominous tendencies that were already at work. The "New" Dissent was getting decidedly different from the "Old" in its MOTIF and temper. Not many of the "ejected" of 1662 lived on into the eighteenth century. But some distinguished names remained. 1 History of England, vol. ii. p. 474. "The eighteenth century ushered in a religious declension, which pervaded all the Churches, not in England alone, but in Scotland, in Ireland, and on the Continent. A spiritual blight, affecting alike the interests of the truth and of religious life, for which many causes may be assigned, but which it is difficult to explain in any other way than by supposing the withdrawal of God's Spirit from the Churches |