Not that there was any avowed heterodoxy among the London ministers for half a generation after Salters' Hall proceedings; they were just yielding to the sweet intoxication of new-found and much-needed civil and religious liberty. Their best feature was their vehemently professed attachment to sacred Scripture, and their conviction of its supremacy and all-sufficiency as a guide and standard.

Chillingworth's famous dictum: "The Bible, the Bible only, the religion of Protestants," to which they as Non-subscribers adhered, and which they admired and praised beyond description, has in it, however, when taken baldly and barely by itself, the very seeds of rationalism. In Chillingworth's own hands it had become the grand bulwark of latitudinarianism; and subsequently it got to be freely used in defence of all sorts of laxity by many among this non-subscribing class of Presbyterian ministers. They fell, unwittingly perhaps, but none the less effectually, into the medieval mode of looking at and dealing with Scripture.

Faith, evangelical and saving faith, was with them an assent to truths (frigida opinio) in doctrine and morals; ceasing to be a warm, living, direct, trust in a personal Saviour. They fell thus from one of the essential principles of the Reformation; for theology got to be studied as a philosophy, and the Bible was handled as a laboratory to gratify and reward human research and curiosity.

The Bible brought to the standard of reason and common sense, will yield very different results from the true Protestant principle-the Bible interpreted to the individual experience by the humbly-sought teaching and illumination of the HOLY SPIRIT.

afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, among them); and he comments with surprise and severity on eighteen of the number being partisans of the Non-subscribers at Salters' Hall, who resented subscription to one Article, but did not scruple at length to subscribe that and many more.-Calamy's Own Life, vol. ii. pp. 503-506.

Note here the influence of Locke-both his mode of philosophy and of theologizing. Locke left behind him a posthumous Defence of Nonconformity. See Calamy's Autobiography, vol. ii. pp. 30 and 371.

III.

INSIDIOUS TENDENCY TO ARIANISM, AND ITS CAUSES.

THE Westminster Shorter Catechism, which Dr. Johnson has characterized as "one of the most sublime works of the human understanding," continued to be taught in all Presbyterian Congregations until about 1735. It was then revised and expurgated by the Rev. James Strong, of Ilminster, in an Arminian and High Arian sense, with the professed view of making it more adapted to the faculties of children and ignorant persons. But it was the Rev. Samuel Bourn, of Birmingham (usually called the elder Bourn), who first of all, in 1736, emitted the most pronounced Arian note in An Address to Protestant Dissenters; or, an Enquiry into the Grounds of their Attachment to the Assembly's Catechism; whether they Act upon Bigotry or from Reason: being a Calm Examination of the SIXTH Answer in the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. By a Protestant Dissenter. Two years later, in 1738, he re-issued Strong's revision of THE ASSEMBLY'S CATECHISM, with three other Catechisms, or, as he calls them, Lectures in a Catechetical Method, by himself, and with recommendations of the volume by Mr. Mottershead of Manchester, Rogerson of Derby, Grove and Amory of Taunton, with Dr. Samuel Chandler and Dr. George Benson, the real heads of the now rising Arian school among the Presbyterians. And this may be regarded as the first manifesto of the party.1

Many causes were now at work to make the Presbyterian congregations especially liable to fall victims to any fungus that might alight. We may note a few.

1 Dr. Toulmin, the Socinian historian of the Dissenters, who issued an annotated edition of Neal's Puritans, says, long afterwards, that "Mr. Bourn, though he did not think it proper to lay aside the Assembly's Catechism, which initiatory piece of religious instruction carried with it at that day a very undue authority, yet in his catechetical lectures in his chapel freely censured the doctrines which he believed to be erroneous."

I. The want of order and discipline, so far as the ministers were concerned. Purely Independent Churches could and did operate directly and decidedly on their ministers from within: purely and fully equipped Presbyterian Churches can do so yet more effectively, by the control of Church courts, from without. But here were comparatively nondescript bodies, where the ministers were without legitimate restraint-especially where they had chapel endowments, as the Arianizing ministers were careful for the most part to have. But even the orthodox Presbyterian ministers showed more anxiety to uphold their own dignity and liberty than to protect the Christian people from ministerial supineness or laxity. They largely seem to have forgotten that the Church was not made for the ministry, but the ministry for the Church, and that the members and adherents of a Church require guarantees, not at ordination only, but that shall be continuously operative.

II. The mistaken notions they entertained about Church confessions and subscriptions. They had seen the evils of an imposed set of Articles, enforced by the State and statute law; and as conscious freedmen they learned to resent it, when practised upon themselves. Their prejudice against tests and impositions, so natural and easy to be understood, led them to confound this with the very different thing of what is apostolically required "a pattern, or form of sound words," as an exposition of a teacher's faith, for mutual confidence and co-operation. Doubtless they had seen men keep the faith, without such bonds, through times of trial and persecution; for no better guarantee can be afforded for fidelity and zeal, than to endure suffering and hardship for conscience sake. But this guarantee is not available in quiet and peaceful times.

Besides, while they persuaded themselves that they were wiser and more liberal than their fathers and founders in showing antipathy to all tests or standards of orthodoxy, they confounded terms of Church communion,—which is a question concerning Church membership, and which may and ought to be open and liberal enough,-with terms of ministerial office and honour, which has to do with the different question altogether of public and authorized Church teaching. Those who

aspire to that function are not to be always mere inquirers, never coming to a profession and an open acknowledgment of the truth; as if Gospel doctrine were to be a frigida opinio, and not a frank and rousing challenge, "We believe, we have convictions, and therefore we speak." They were right in conceiving that in their system of undeveloped and partially formed polity, the idea of subscription was somewhat out of place. For subscription, to be FREE and UNOPPRESSIVE yet secure, must be preceded by thoroughly good and efficient training in the theology to be taught, and followed up by a process of constantly operative discipline by mutual consent. They forgot, too, that the easy-going state of goodwill toward all speculative tendencies was only a latitudinarian or INTELLECTUAL CHARITY -the charity of an easy-going and secularly-minded indifferentism, and very far removed indeed from the Christian charity which, in a very different sense, believeth all things. They forgot that the charity of speculative intellectualism is painfully deficient in enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and life.

III. The Churches had no real control over the Academies, or their tutors and pupils, save to help to sustain them and keep them going. Some of these, like Taunton and Hoxton, got neutral-tinted in doctrine; and generally, for reasons too difficult now to deal with, they became seed-plots of heterodoxy, long before the notorious WARRINGTON one was started.1

1 THE ACADEMIES. Till after the Revolution, the risk of educating young men for the ministry was undertaken by prominent divines among the ejected, such as by the noble-spirited Rev. RICHARD FRANKLAND, M.A., in the North, chiefly at Rathmel (1674-1698), who trained a very large number, like the two sons of Oliver Heywood, William Tong, and Dr. John Evans, of Hand Alley; or by the Rev. THOMAS DooLITTLE, M.A., of London, already referred to; or by the Rev. JAMES OWEN, of Oswestry and Shewsbury, 1679-1706 (see interesting account in Life of James Owen, pp. 87-92); and many more. The same course was followed by others in the 18th century, as by Rev. Samuel Jones, of Gloucester and Tewkesbury, 1712-1720, where Chandler was trained, with his friends, the future Bishop Butler and Archbishop Secker, the last of whom gives a full account of the course of studies pursued (Letter of 18 Nov. 1711, in Gibbons's Life of Watts).

Doctrinal degeneracy seems not, however, to have crept in till after the establishment of Academies with a STAFF OF TUTORS, conducting classical, philosophical, and other secular studies, as well as theology. One of the first affected was the Academy at Taunton, which was begun single-handed by the good and noble REV. MATT. WARREN before 1687, but which became under his successors a kind of jointstock institution, turning out a set of speculative and Arianly-tainted preachers, between 1725 and 1738. Similar was the fate of the more particularly Independent

Then, again, in the Presbyterian Churches there had crept in the evils of both family patronage and of trusteeism. In the large and wealthy congregations it was an early custom to have an assistant minister; and certainly many of these assistants were the introducers of heretical tendencies.

The trustees and minister had the largest "voice" in these appointments, the congregation being understood to acquiesce, especially if the wealthier folks were to find the money-a nominee of their own being thus provided for respectably.

IV. The practical disuse of and departure from the more fully developed Presbyterial government and discipline, as an operative and influential reality, was an aggravation of the other symptoms. This was needed to protect congregations against Trusteeism, and hereditary family influence and control. The inspiriting and invigorating influence that comes from mutual counsel and co-operation was virtually lost. Organization, indeed, is not life; but as the highest life seeks the best organization, the want of it is apt to be death, and the disuse of it deprives Churches of that staying and self-recuperative power which is most needed at critical junctures; and so they are left a prey to the downward and deadening tendencies that may

or Congregational Academy that began so promisingly under the Rev. JOHN JENNINGS, at Kibworth, 1715-1722 (v. Doddridge's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 462, for admirable letter descriptive of the course of study), and that was continued with such éclat at Northampton by Dr. Doddridge, with the help of the William Coward Trustees, 1738-1751, but which got on to the down-grade when removed to Daventry, 1751 to 1798, under Dr. CALEB ASHWORTH (who, with several others of Doddridge's pupils, became Arian). PRIESTLEY, who was Ashworth's very first student, and from 1761 to 1767 his classical assistant, says, "The Academy was in a state peculiarly favourable to the serious pursuit of truth, as the students were about equally divided upon every question of much importance, such as liberty and necessity, the sleep of the soul, and all the articles of theological orthodoxy and heresy: in consequence of which, all these topics were the subject of continual discussion. Our tutors also were of different opinions; Dr. Ashworth taking the orthodox side of every question, and Mr. Clark, the sub-tutor, that of heresy, though always with the greatest modesty." Matters came to a crisis in 1789, when the chief tutor, Rev. Thomas Belsham, resigned on avowing himself a Socinian, and the Calvinistic CoWARD Trustees transferred their patronage elsewhere, and founded a new orthodox Institution. The Presbyterian Academy at Kendal, under Dr. Caleb Rotheram from 1733 to 1752, never proceeded so far; but the mixed one in Hoxton Square, which came to an end in 1785, under Drs. Morton Savage, Andrew Kippis, and Abraham Rees lapsed into heresy; but especially so the WARRINGTON Institution to be afterwards mentioned. Full accounts of the Dissenting Academies may be found in Dr. Toulmin's Edition of Neal's Puritans. See also Bogue and Bennet's Dissenters, and Rev. W. Turner's Account, in his Unitarian Lives (1840).