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THE

CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

MARCH, 1841.

DANIEL DE FOE ON THE MINISTRY AND MANAGEMENT OF THE DISSENTERS.

DANIEL DE FOE, one of the ablest and most captivating writers of which our country can boast, was a Dissenter; and, though greatly to his disadvantage in a financial point of view, "he gloried in the profession of Nonconformity," and was one of the most powerful advocates of which the Dissenters could boast. His uncompromising temper led him publicly to reprove the practice of occasional conformity, which extensively prevailed amongst the wealthy Presbyterian Dissenters, who not only qualified for municipal honours according to the requirements of the test and corporation acts, but who were frequent attendants at the worship of the Church of England. Supposing a case, that a Dissenter felt inclined to accept magisterial duties, or to undertake them on public principles, De Foe proposed the question, "What shall he do?" and answers his own inquiry in the following decided tone"Let him boldly run the risk, or openly and honestly conform to the Church, and neither be ashamed of his honour, nor of his profession; such a man all men will value, and God will own. He needs not fear carrying the sword to a conventicle, or bringing the conventicle to his own house. But to make the matter a game, to dodge religions, and to go in the morning to church, and in the afternoon to the meetingto communicate in private with the Church of England to save a penalty, and then to go back to the Dissenters, and to communicate there this is such a retrograde devotion, that I can see no colour or pretence for, in all the sacred book." ""*

This practice was equally offensive to the party jealousy and the exclusive pretensions of high-church zealots, and therefore a bill was first

ment.

An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters in Cases of Prefer

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introduced into parliament at the close of 1702, effectually to prevent occasional conformity. It was rejected at that time, and, by the zeal of the Whig peers, on two other occasions. But a high-church parliament having been elected, under the popular fury that Dr. Sacheverell had excited, and the Whig lords, having abandoned the cause of their ancient allies, the Dissenters, to gratify their Tory adherent, Lord Nottingham, a bill to the same effect was a fourth time brought in, and, strange to say, passed through both houses in less than a week, with scarcely any opposition. By this act, as Dr. Calamy said, "the Dissenters were marked out for a despicable sort of people; and such as would be capable of any places of profit or trust must quit their religious assemblies after March 25, 1712. Such treatment was the more cutting to the Dissenters, because of the concurrence of those (the Whig members) who had all along professed a great regard for them, and to serve whom they had often exposed themselves.

"When the bill passed, at which some greatly rejoiced, and others heartily mourned, it became a question with some worthy persons, such as Sir Thomas Abney, and Sir John Fryer, aldermen of London, the mayors of several corporations, and some justices of the peace in several counties in England, whether they would quit their places, and throw up their commissions, in order to holding public communion with the Protestant Dissenters in their worshipping assemblies, as they had done hitherto, or continue in their offices, confining themselves to that private family worship which the law still allowed. Upon mature consideration, backed with the pressing importunity of several persons of distinction in our own nation, joined with the solicitation of the resident of Brunswick, who took pains to represent to them, in the strongest manner, how far the interests of his master and of the Hanover family depended upon their continuance at the posts they were in, (not without strong assurances at the same time of earnest endeavours for relief as to this and other hardships, whenever the Protestant succession should come to take place,) they were prevailed with to keep in their places, and to content themselves for a time with that restrained way of worship which the law allowed."*

Alarmed at the threatening aspect of Nonconformist affairs, De Foe published in 1712 a considerable work, which he had prepared eight years before, when the occasional conformity bill was first brought before parliament, entitled, "The Present State of the Parties in Great Britain: particularly an Enquiry into the State of the Dissenters of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland," &c.

In the preface the author says, "Now is the time for the Dissenters to enter upon new measures: now is the time for them to set to work to rectify their former mistakes: their enemies are powerful: their pre

*Calamy's Historical Account of his own Life, vol. ii. pp. 244-246.

tended friends have proved false, and have betrayed them to the overthrow of their civil interest. But if they can be persuaded to erect upon solid foundations a firm and lasting scheme of a religious economy, the building that shall grow up shall be such as shall make them invincible on the one side, and formidable on the other. Now is the time for them to stand upon their own legs, and to be truly independent; in which, by a steady and faithful adhering to God and his cause, and espousing heartily all that do so, they will soon find their circumstances recover, and the figure they make differ from any thing they ever made before; their religious liberties will stand upon a better basis than ever, and they will be in a better condition to support their civil liberties also."

Mr. Walter Wilson, in his elaborate "Life and Times of Daniel de Foe," says, that this volume "is now but little known," though it "abounds in good sense and manly feeling, and contains much useful information upon ecclesiastical subjects connected with the times.”*

The Editor proposes, therefore, to print the seventh chapter entire, which is devoted to the ministry and management of the Dissenters of England, as he conceives that it contains statements and counsels that will be both interesting and admonitory to Dissenters of the present day. He has appended a few notes, to elucidate or correct the statements of the writer, as the text seems to require.

CHAPTER VII.

A REVIEW OF THE DISSENTERS' CASE IN ENGLAND, ETC.

The case of the Dissenters in England has so much connexion with, and concern in the condition of the Church of Scotland, that however, through the error of the times, we have not that concert and understanding with our brethren in Scotland, that it were to be wished, for mutual safety, had been maintained; yet it is impossible to separate them in history, or to make just remarks on the state of the one without taking notice of the other. The same party opposed both; the same rancour, rage, and persecuting malice, possessed their enemies in both parts, and with the same view. We come now to direct this tract to the Dissenters. It is a hard task to know how to give reproof, but it is a harder, and one of the hardest tasks in nature, to know how to receive it. The first requires prudence and disinterested faithfulness : the other, modesty in a vast quantity, wisdom, obedience to conviction, and a very great stock of temper, humility, and self-denial: "Reprove one that has understanding, and he will understand." Prov. xix. 25. None but a man of understanding is fit to receive reproof.

Fools hate instruction; children could kill their schoolmasters; and both abhor their best friends: and we know that reproof to a genera

* Vol. iii. pp. 263-265.

tion that think themselves so wise as this, is a most desperate and hopeless attempt. But the people concerned must remember, the very history of their conduct is a kind of reproof, and he that will faithfully relate the one, must be, of course, concerned in the other; for, as the prophet said of old, "Thine own iniquities reprove thee, and thy backslidings condemn thee."

It is not, therefore, the author of this that takes upon him to remark or animadvert upon the Dissenters; their own history reprehends their follies we speak of; and a bare relation of fact is a full reproof to the parties concerned. Perhaps there may lie some objections against the manner, and some may complain of the openness, the unkindness, the plainness of the reproof: but this shall be answered thus, there shall lie no objection against the injustice or unreasonableness of it,-of the truth of fact, the justice of the consequences, and the probabilities of the mischiefs here laid down, every reader is judge; and the making it public is an appeal to the world for these, and a challenge to gainsayers. But as to the seasonableness, openness, kindness, plainness, &c., the author thinks it in his own breast to judge of them, and may descend to defend them, when the debates about the truth and justice of them are over.

I presume, no Dissenter that has any just concern upon his thoughts for the interest and cause of the whole body of Dissenters, in England, will dispute the foundation, viz. that they are to be esteemed, at this time, in a declining and decaying posture. And though it be a little begging the question, yet we choose to appeal to themselves, rather than enter into the public inquiry of the particulars, which they ought to take for the first evidence, that the author of this is a friend to, and really knows their interest.

But that it may be understood more perfectly what is meant here by the words decaying and declining of the Dissenters in England, the reader is desired to accept of the following explication:

1. It is not meant, that they are decayed in their numbers, or declined in their extent.

2. Nor is it meant, that they are decayed in their quality, wealth, or worldly circumstances.

3. But that the decay and declining of the Dissenters lies in the decay of their interest, their friends, their ministry, their general practice, whether religious or politic, their union and unanimity among themselves, their knowledge and pursuit of their own cause, their charity, largeness of spirit, taste of religious matters, and management of civil; and, it is doubted, it may be said, a decay of their sanctity of life, and even of their morals.

This will but too plainly appear in the following discourse; and if laying down the matter-of-fact, making it self-evident in the particulars, and convincing in the general, will not open the eyes of those for

whose conviction this is written, their blindness will not lie at the door of anybody but themselves.

I hope, and believe, that the principle of dissenting from the Church of England is the same as ever, though it is manifest this age is not able to give so good an account of it as the last, the reason of which is manifest, and may be summed up thus:

The last age of Dissenters was composed of those who, upon the restoration of the church discipline, and the act of uniformity, anno 1661, found themselves straitened in their consciences as to conformity with the ceremonies in worship, and hierarchy or government of the Church of England, for it is evident in doctrine they do not dissent. Upon this, after the endeavours used on both sides, at the Savoy conference, (if both sides did endeavour,) for a reconciliation, had proved fruitless, all those ministers who could not comply with the Church were turned out of their livings; and finding many of the people resolved also not to conform, the one part believing in their consciences they ought not to omit the preaching the Gospel, as they were ministers, the other believing they ought to worship God in that way only which they thought to be most agreeable to his revealed will, and most edifying to themselves, and both conscientiously and merely scrupling the church government, discipline, and worship,-they joined together, formed separate congregations, and thus began to be called Dissenters.

How far this original is justifiable, whether they are thereby become schismatics-how they have been treated by, or have behaved themselves to the church, is no part of the business of this discourse.

Their ministers were men known over the whole 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 exemplar in piety, studious, laborious, and unexceptionably capable of carrying on the work they were embarked in. We are talking to the reader as a Dissenter in this, and therefore need not enter into the particular characters of the race of men, now gone off the stage, whose works, though they are "rested from their labours," still follow them, and who, their enemies being judges, were men worthy of a better lot than they met with in this place. How near the present stock, which we are now furnished with, come up to those that went before them, and how qualified to support and carry on the cause, and the work they left upon their hands, shall be examined in its course.

As were the ministers, so, in a 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

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