have prevented the subscribers to the first from becoming Arminian, and the southern partisans of the second from becoming Arian, both which perversions became almost universal in spite of unexceptionable dogmatic forms.

The general decline was quite obvious to the good men who had been trained up in the preceding age. It is dif ficult to assign a reason for the mournful acquiescence with which many of them regarded it. Some were still found faithful, but no hero arose. We may read in the life of Samuel Harvey, a devoted young London minister in 1722, that, "he took great pains to press upon his hearers the vast importance of the mediation of Christ, and the standing influences of the Holy Spirit, as the great peculiarities of the Christian dispensation, and feared that the want of due regard to them was one great reason of the languishing state of religion, and of the frequent revolts from the Christian interest." *

To the same effect writes Mr. Hayward in 1751, in his correspondence with Dr. Conder :- "I am sorry to find you complain of the state of religion amongst you. Infidelity abounds, and churches grow cold and lukewarm ; ministers labour, and in a great measure in vain. It requires courage and resolution now to confess Christ before men things cannot continue long in the present posture; either there must be a reformation, or some sore judgment." +

Dr. Watts, in the preface to his "Humble Attempt to Revive Religion," published in 1731, laments "the decay * Wilson's "History of Dissenting Churches,” vol. i. p. 87. + Ibid, vol. iii. p. 109.

of vital religion in the hearts and lives of men, and the little success which the ministrations of the Gospel have had of late for the conversion of sinners." He calls upon “every one to use all just and proper efforts for the recovery of dying religion in the world." Archbishop Secker, in 1738, says, "In this we cannot be mistaken, that an open and professed disregard to religion is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the distinguishing character of the present age, that the evil is grown to a great height in the metropolis of the nation, and is daily spreading through every part of it.”

All contemporary literature bears testimony to the same dismal conclusion. Doubtless the lines of Wesley express the suitable conviction and prayer,—

"I pass the churches through,
The scattered bones I see,

And Christendom appears in view,
A hideous Calvary.

"Can these dry bones perceive

The quickening power of grace,
Or Christian infidels retrieve
The life of righteousness?

“All-good, Almighty Lord,

Thou knowest thine own design,

The virtue of thine own great word,

The energy divine.

"Now for thy mercy's sake,

Let this great work proceed,

Dispensed by whom thou wilt, to wake

The spiritually dead."

There can be no doubt about this decline of piety in the

dissenting churches in the middle of the eighteenth century, for we have the statement from the ministers themselves. Mr. Barker, morning preacher at Salters' Hall, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, says :-" Alas! the distinguished doctrines of the Gospel-Christ crucified, the only ground of hope for fallen man,-salvation through his atoning blood-the sanctification by his eternal Spirit, are old-fashioned things, now seldom heard in our churches. A cold, comfortless kind of preaching prevails almost everywhere; and reason, the great law of reason, and the eternal law of reason, is idolized and deified." The Countess replies that were the Gospel of our adorable Saviour preached in purity and with zeal, the place would be filled with hearers, and God would bless his own word to the conversion of souls. Witness the effects produced by those whom He hath sent forth of late to proclaim His salvation. What numbers have been converted to God, and what multitudes attend to hear the word wherever it is proclaimed in the light and love of it."* Dr. Doddridge testifies to the same effect concerning both the disease and the remedy.

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Defoe, in 1712, published his tract entitled, "Present State of Parties in Great Britain, Particularly an Enquiry into the State of the Dissenters," in which he contrasts the degenerate piety and puny religious attainments of the age then coming, with those of the former days. His essay affords a fine description of English Puritanism. He says:

"Their ministers were men known over the whole

* "Life of Countess of Huntingdon," vol. i. p. 144.

world; their general character was owned even by their enemies; generally speaking, they were men of liberal education, had a vast stock of learning, were exemplary in piety, studious, laborious, and unexceptionably capable of carrying on the work they had embarked in.

"As were the ministers, so, in proportion, were the people; they were conscientious, diligent hearers of the word preached, studied the best gifts, encouraged, but not worshipped their ministers; they followed the substance, not the sound of preaching; they understood what they heard, and knew how to choose their ministers; what they heard preached, they improved in practice; their families were little churches, where the worship of God was constantly kept up; their children and families were duly instructed, and themselves, when they came to trial, cheerfully suffered persecution for the integrity of their hearts, abhorring to contradict, by their practice, what they professed in principle, or, by any hypocritical compliance, to give the world reason to believe they had not dissented but upon a sincerely-examined and mere conscientious scruple.

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Among these, both ministers and people, there was a joint concurrence in carrying on the work of religion: the first preached sound doctrine, without jingle or trifling; they studied what they delivered; they preached their sermons, rather than read them in the pulpit; they spoke from the heart to the heart, nothing like our cold declaiming way, entertained now as a mode, and read with a flourish, under the ridiculous notion of being methodical; but what they conceived by the assistance of the great

Inspirer of his servants, the Holy Spirit, they delivered with a becoming gravity, a decent fervor, an affectionate zeal, and a ministerial authority, suited to the dignity of the office, and the majesty of the work; and as a testimony of this, their practical works left behind them are a living specimen of what they performed among us: such are the large volumes of divinity remaining of Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Manton, Dr. Owen, Dr. Bates, Mr. Charnock, Mr. Pool, Mr. Clarkson, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Flavell, Mr. Howe, and others, too many to mention.

"It will be a sad testimony of the declining state of the Dissenters in England, to examine the race of ministers that filled up the places of those gone before, but more especially the stock springing up to succeed those now employed, and to compare them with those gone off the stage."

The prevalent irreligion attracted the attention of all classes. The House of Commons presented an address to the King on April 6th, 1711, declaring their opinion that the want of churches had contributed to this sad result, and asked for fifty new churches in the metropolis. Public morality was at its lowest ebb. The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and the famous Robert Walpole were censured and deprived of place for separate systematic plundering and misappropriation of public money. A proclamation was issued, offering a reward of £100 to any one who should discover a "Mohock"-the name given to a set of fashionable brawlers who infested the streets at night, and diverted themselves with maiming and wounding whomsoever they met and could overcome.