Defence of the Church of Rome; that the

pro

posal of union did not originate with him; that' he never made one concession in doctrine or discipline; and that his parley was occasioned by the hope he entertained of reforming the Church of France. This correspondence is worthy of attentive perusal; as it will show that all the concessions were tendered by the French divines; and may temper violence against the Catholic religion, by exhibiting it as making approaches to the English worship, when held by moderate men.

IX. The Quakers were in this reign indulged in the substitution of an affirmative for an oath in a court of justice, and subsequently with the omission of the words, "In the presence of Almighty God," which had been inserted in the form of asseveration. Against this bill, the London clergy petitioned; while Atterbury uncharitably pronounced the Quakers to be "hardly Christians." The principle has been examined in another place.

Wake had denounced the Schism Act as a hardship upon the Dissenters; and by now opposing its repeal, he incurred the charge of inconsistency. But this imputation seems equally groundless with the calumny which represented him as favourable to Catholicism. The fact is, that the spirit of the times was now materially

1

altered. Under the administration of Bolingbroke, the Dissenters, as an oppressed hody, demanded commiseration and relief. But the Whigs had exceeded as much in enlargement, as their predecessors had erred on the side of intolerance: an indulgence which had rendered the objects of it so bold, as to excite the reasonable apprehensions of well-wishers to the Established Church.

X. In opposition to the growth of vice, infidelity, and schism, many learned and pious individuals, laymen as well as ecclesiastics, adorned by their writings and their lives the cause of orthodox Christianity. Sherlock, Atterbury, and Derham, were ably supported by Sir Isaac Newton, whose astronomical discoveries, independently of some religious labours, elucidated the unity, power, providence, and immensity of God; by WEST, who so forcibly reasoned on the resurrection; and by his noble friend and convert Lord Lyttelton, to whose Observations on St. Paul it has been truly observed, that " Infidelity has never even attempted to give a specious answer."

In this reign, Locke published his celebrated Essay; Shaftesbury his Characteristics; and Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, his Ideal System. Bishops Cumberland, Fleetwood, Smallridge, Conybeare, Gibson, Gastrell, Butler, Potter,

King, are names standing conspicuous among the biographical annals of this period *.

XI. In addition to the statutes already incidentally mentioned, Acts of Parliament were passed in the period of which we are treating, for the protection of dissenting meetinghouses; for extending the power of recovering tithes, to all customary dues paid to clergymen, and for rendering Quakers liable to such payments; for compelling ecclesiastics to take the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration; for enabling donatives to receive Queen Anne's bounty, and for converting them so augmented into perpetual cures; and for inflicting penalties on Papists refusing the oaths above mentioned.

XII. As Whiston, during the reign of George I. revived the Arian heresy, we shall lay hold on this opportunity, in pursuance of

* Cumberland is known by his Treatise on Scriptural Weights and Measures; Fleetwood, by tracts on lay Baptism; Smallridge and Conybeare are writers of Sermons remarkable for dry logic; Gibson is the more amiable author of three valuable Pastoral Charges; and Gastrell, of the Christian Institutes. It were idle to descant on the Analogy of Butler, or on King's Origin of Evil. Potter is more celebrated as the author of the Archæologia, than as the divine who wrote an excellent Treatise on Church Government.

our plan, to narrate its history, and to examine its principles *.

This heresy disturbed the Church at so early a period, that St. John wrote his Gospel and Epistles against Ebion and Cerinthus, whose opinions respecting Christ were heterodox. But as Columbus had not the honour of perpetuating the memory of his achievement in the appellation of the country he had discovered: so these early dissentients escaped the disgrace of being transmitted to posterity as imparting their names to the rising sect. This was the lot of Arius, a Presbyter of Alexandria, about the year 315. Arius began by disputing in private with the Alexandrian Bishop, whose opinions he suspected to be Sabellian. He soon found a patron in Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia; who espousing his principles, introduced him to Constantia, sister of the Emperor Constantine. Under these high auspices the sect grew and prospered until the Council of Alexandria condemned its doctrines (320), and the first General Council, assembled at Nice in Bithynia, A. D. 325, repeated that condemnation, banished Arius, and composed, with only two dissentient voices

* See Whitaker's History of Arianism; Percy's Key to the New Testament; Rees's Cyclopedia, art. Arians; a History of Arianism, in Jortin's Works; Letters between Price and Priestley; Account of Books and Pamphlets on the Trinity, from 1712 to 1719; Mordecai's Letters; Carpenter's Lectures; Emlyn's Vindication of the Worship of Christ.

among 323 Bishops, the well-known Nicene Creed as an antidote to his heterodox opinions. A few years afterwards he was recalled to Constantinople; and reading before the Emperor, already inclined to the heresy, an artful statement of his principles, persuaded him to rescind the decree by which they were condemned. In defiance of this repeal, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, objected to receiving him back into communion; an opposition which brought that prelate into much trouble, without restoring Arius to the bosom of the Egyptian Church; and the heresiarch soon after died suddenly, A. D. 336. Different successors of Constantine were Arian or orthodox, as suited their principle, policy, or caprice. The court religion became fashionable in its various changes. Each party, when in power, proceeded unjustifiably against the other, and Christian first persecuted Christian on the score of Arianism.

The principles of Arius were diffused throughout the East, where they flourished to the time of Theodosius the Great, who endeavoured by all means to effect their suppression. The Vandals in Africa, in Asia the Goths, and in Europe, Italy, Gaul, and Spain, were all at an early period infected with this heterodox doctrine. It languished, however, from the eighth to the sixteenth century; when Servetus, for professing it, was burnt at Geneva, 1553. His