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ligion, and not already mentioned, were one for protecting the Protestant children of Jews; several relating to wills, briefs, stamps, and mortuaries; one for allowing qualified Dissenting preachers to officiate in any part of the country; another for permitting hackney coachmen to ply on the Lord's day; and another for enabling Papists to nominate to benefices.

XV. This reign produced writers on general subjects in theology, highly creditable to the Church of England. WAKE's State of the Church settled the question respecting the power of the prince over ecclesiastical synods within his realm. Bishop Patrick's Commentary on the Old Testament as far as the Prophets, holds a place in every private clergyman's library, as forming a series with the other valuable expositions of Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman. Beveridge's Private Thoughts, Bull's Harmonia Apostolica, and Cave's Lives of the Apostles, are all of them classical works. If Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation and of his own Times partake of the political prejudices of the writer, no exception can be made against those two invaluable works on the Thirty-nine Articles and the Pastoral Care, which belong more particularly to his clerical functions. Among the religious writers whose names adorned the reign of Queen Anne, we may justly class Addison, whose Evidences

of Christianity are rested on the argument of traditional succession; and STEELE, who now perhaps reflects on his Christian Hero with greater satisfaction than on other less edifying performances.

A tolerable estimate of the national morals in any period, may be formed from examining its theatrical productions. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the elevated sentiments of Shakspeare were discarded for the intriguing plots of Dryden, and the obscene wit of Farquhar, Congreve, and Vanbrugh; and it is to the credit of the Establishment that JEREMY COLLIER, the historian, opposed this profaneness in his "View of the Stage;" a reproof to the justness of which Dryden had the candour to subscribe. Steele and Addison, while as essayists they inspired the national taste with a relish for moral productions, corrected, as theatrical writers, the impurity of the drama.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE REIGN OF GEORGE I.

Contents.

1. Rebellion in favour of the Pretender.-II. Clarke's Book on the Trinity.—III. Bangorian Controversy : Nonjurors.-IV. Bill for Relief of Dissenters.— V. Plot against the Government: Atterbury.-VI. Profaneness: Hell-fire Club.-VII. Collins: answered by Bentley: Chubb.-VIII. Attempt to reconcile the English and Gallican Churches.-IX. Quakers released from Oath: Dissenters.-X. Learned Divines.-XI. Acts of Parliament.-XII. Whiston on Arianism : History of the Arians.-XIII. Statement and Refutation of their Principles.

I. As Anne had, during her last years, taken the Tories into favour, an attempt, in the event of her death, to restore the ancient family, was expected by the Jacobites, and dreaded by the Whigs. These hopes and fears were alike destitute of countenance from the real character of the English Tory; but an end was put to both by the sudden death of the Queen, who left the throne (1714) to the quiet accession of George I. Elector of Hanover, a prince maternally descended from Elizabeth, the daughter of the

first James. In politics, George attached himself to the Whig party, as to the chief supporters of that Act of Settlement, which had placed him in his high situation. The Earl of Mar having, in the year following (1715), proclaimed the Chevalier beyond the Tweed, the rebels, favoured by the Earl of Derwentwater, descended into the north of England; but the battle of Preston checked their career. The next year (1716), the Pretender was crowned at Scone; but his cause being ill arranged, and his friends entirely destitute of adequate means of support, it was not long before he relinquished his rash adventure, and retired in despair to the Continent.

II. 1717. No sooner did the English people enjoy repose from this insurrection, than those political and religious contests, which it had hushed for a brief season, broke out with their wonted violence. The High Church party complained of negligence in the Whig prelates, who slumbered amidst the prevalence of heresy and impiety. This censure chiefly referred to a book written by Dr. Clarke, in the end of the preceding reign, entitled, The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, which in the Lower House of Convocation had been pronounced to contain assertions inimical to the Catholic faith. The author vindicated the extracts to which they had particularly objected; but presenting, at

the same time, an apology to the Upper Chamber. Fearful, however, lest this concession should be misconstrued, or separately published, he offered to explain himself more fully to the Bishop of London. His defence and submission satisfied the Episcopal Bench; but the Lower House were of opinion that the heresy was not retracted. These disputes increasing in violence, directions were issued to all the prelates for preserving the state in peace, and the Church in unity. Preachers were prohibited from haranguing, and authors from writing, on the Trinity, otherwise than according to the true doctrine of the Scriptures, the three Creeds, and the Thirty-nine Articles; from touching on politics, save only during national fasts; and from introducing new modes of explication.

III. The parties of High and Low Church still continuing in opposition, the flame was fanned by the celebrated Bangorian controversy. This dispute received its name from Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, who published "A Preservative against the Principles and Practice of the Nonjurors;" and soon after, a Sermon, which the King had ordered to be printed, entitled, "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ." To the writer of these pages, this Discourse appears to have been in truth a very confused production; nor is it easy to discover, amidst the author's “periods of a mile," what was his precise aim.

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