ed to subserve the cause of real Christianity, may be seen from the actual state of religion in the English and Irish establishments, now, after all the advantages derived to them from the frequent revivals of evangelical piety, which have taken place in those two countries, during the last eighty years; which revivals, it cannot be too often repeated, the Anglican and Hibernian state churches have unceasingly laboured, and do now endeavour, to depress, and to destroy.

What the condition of religion, in the English church establishment, was, prior to the year 1740, may be gathered from the Decades of Mr. Middleton, who says: that spirit is justly chargeable with bitterness, which can roundly condemn the innovating zeal of the earlier methodists; when reference is made to the formal, inefficient, infidel profession of the day, and an involuntary admiration is excited at the expeditions of such men as the two Wesleys, Delamotte, Ingham, and Whitfield; prompted by regard to the souls of their fellow-men.

Nor was the miserable wit of the "Spiritual Quixote," and the " Minor," competent to invalidate the decree passed upon their hallowed undertaking in the cooler moments of reflection. Their zeal in the first instance, was excellent. And credit, in particular, is due to the repeated declarations of attachment to the national church, made by the two rival Reformers; the sin of whose evangelism, however, was never forgiven by the dignitaries of the establishment; and, at length, forced them to a reluctant separation.

The stir they created, was good; they quickened an inert mass of established religion; they carried light, and heat, and life, into regions of darkness, and cold, and death. By compelling their formal opponents to examine the long neglected doctrines of the Anglican Church, they raised the tone of theological instruction. Some of the state clergy themselves were awakened to a sense of the importance

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of their ministerial office, by the exhortation and examples of those very men, whom they were taught by their ecclesiastical superiors to execrate as dangerous fanatics, and seditious schismatics, and horrible heretics. While others were led, from the mere proximity of a popular minister, to emulate his doctrine, to imitate his diligence, and to preach Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Thus, gradually, did the flame of evangelism spread its holy illumination over the dark recesses of a formal church establishment.

And very gradually, and slowly, did this flame spread; for about thirty years after the first rise of Wesley and Whitfield, and their fellow-labourers in the Gospel vineyard, namely, on the 11th day of March, 1768, a solemn convocation was held in Oxford, by the vice-chancellor and some heads of houses; when, after a hearing of several hours, sentence of expulsion was formally pronounced against six of the junior members of St. Edmund Hall, "for holding methodistical tenets, and taking upon them to pray, read, and expound the Scriptures, and singing hymns in a private house."

It appeared, on the investigation, that the young gentlemen so severely punished, were highly distinguished for their religious and moral conduct; so that the whole amount of the crime charged, was a constructive breach of some academic, or ecclesiastical canons. Dr. Dixon, late of Queen's, and principal of Edmund Hall, pleaded in their defence; showed how pious and exemplary was their conduct; and that their tenets were in strict conformity with the thirty-nine articles. Another respectable head of a college observed, that their fault arose from excess of devotion: and if these six gentlemen are to be expelled for having too much religion, it will be proper to inquire into the conduct of some, who have too little.

This was a just reflection on the scandalously relaxed discipline, in the university of Oxford, in re

gard to the personal morality of its students. About. the same time that these six young men were visited with the wrath of this great nursing mother of the English church establishment, for the sin of praying, and reading, and expounding the Bible, and singing hymns, a Mr. Welling had been charged on oath, with reviling the Scriptures, and ridiculing the miracles, on the eve of his ordination as an Anglican deacon, and was excused by these sanctimonious dignitaries of the established church, on the plea of intoxication; thereby showing, that blasphemy and drunkenness are better qualifications for admission into a state church, than sound piety, and pure morals.

All defence of these young evangelicals was overruled, and the vice-chancellor told their chief accuser, that the university was much obliged to him for his good work. The sentence was pronounced in the chapel, on James Matthews, Thomas Jones, Joseph Shipman, Benjamin Kay, Erasmus Middleton, and Thomas Grove; for the crimes above mentioned, we David Durell, D. D. vice-chancellor of the university, and visitor of the hall; Thomas Randolph, D. D. president of C. C. C.; Thomas Fothergill, D. D. provost of Queen's college; Thomas Nowell, D. D. principal of St. Mary's hall; and the Rev. Thomas Atterbury, A. M. of Christ church, senior proctor, deem each of them worthy of being expelled the hall; I therefore, by my visitatorial power, do hereby pronounce them expelled."

Of course, the friends of religion were shocked at such conduct in the chief nursery of the national church establishment. Mr. Hill, Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Townsend, and some other gentlemen, addressed letters on the subject to Drs. Durell and Nowell. The apology offered by the friends of expulsion was, that the young men had broken the statutes of the university, But this plea came with rather a bad grace from those reverend divines, who most scrupulously abstained from expelling any of their students,

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for swearing, or gambling, or drunkenness, or fornication; which should seem not to be less irregular, though so much more common, than extemporary praying, singing hymns, and expounding the Scriptures, among the Oxford gownsmen.

This flagitious act exposed the university to the grave rebuke of bishop Horne, and to the airy ridicule of the Rev. John Macgowan's "Shaver." It was evident, from Dr. Nowell's learned and elaborate answer to sir Richard Hill, that it is less criminal, less impious, and much safer, for an Oxford student to revile the character, and ridicule the miracles of Christ and Moses, than to pray in private houses, without a printed book. The eloquent and erudite orator of the university, gives a full account of the case of Mr. Welling, his own particular friend, who was charged, upon oath, with reviling and ridiculing the Scriptures.

The proof was so direct against the Rev. Mr. Welling, that he did not attempt to deny the charge. Was he expelled? No. Why not? Because he pleaded that he was drunk, when he uttered the blasphemy and the ribaldry, charged against him. The candidate for holy orders in the established church of England was drunk, when he ridiculed revealed religion, and blasphemed the name of its Almighty founder; and yet he was admitted into orders, and continued a member of the Oxford university, while six students were expelled for praying and singing hymns, and expounding the Bible; by the same reverend dignitaries of the Anglican Church, who tried Welling for blasphemy and bawdry, and acquitted him because he was drunk; pardoned him one crime, for committing another.

Is it thus, that a national church establishment promotes piety, and prevents heathenism, in a country?

It appears, also, from Dr. Durell's defence of Mr. Welling, that private religious meetings are in much worse odour at Oxford, than taphouses and taverns ;

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for the six young gentlemen were expelled for praying in a private house; while Mr. Welling's getting drunk in a taphouse was deemed a valid excuse for his having blasphemed and ridiculed the Christian religion, a sufficient reason why he should be admitted to holy orders, and continue a member of the university. I do not know if the British government afterwards made Mr. Welling into a bishop.

Mr. Middleton, although he objects to the style of sir Richard Hill, and to the light manner in which Macgowan treats so serious a subject, yet acknowledges that the sentence of expulsion, passed against the six students of Edmund hall, was neither proportionate, nor humane, nor wise. Not proportionate, because it applied the extreme of punishment, to an offence confessedly of no flagrant order, involving no moral turpitude, but consisting of practices, which, if violating any academic rules, would, most probably, have been discontinued, through kind remontrance, or positive injunction.

Not humane, because it summarily deprived them of the support and respectability anticipated from their ministerial office. Not wise, because it was directly calculated to oppose an effectual barrier to episcopal ordination; and thus reduce the sufferers to the alternative of renouncing a profession, on which they had fixed their fondest hope, or seeking to exercise it among the dissenters.

The resistless inference from these facts is, that the expulsion of these six students was intended as a check to those serious and evangelical views of religion, which were gradually gaining ground in England, and beginning to disturb even the death-sleep of formalism, in which the established church had so long reposed; that evangelism, which was more offensive to those reverend judges and dignitaries of the Anglican establishment, than blasphemy, and ribaldry, and drunkenness, combined. Their hatred and horror of pure, Scriptural religion, induced them to stain the archives of a protestant university,