general meeting of the Institution was held in the beginning of 1757. JOHN TAYLOR was appointed Divinity Tutor with a staff of professors in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and "Belles Lettres." To aid the congregations who found it difficult to conduct public worship, Seddon provided "Rational" a service book for their use. Taylor, who, Liturgy. notwithstanding his wide divergence from the faith of the Puritans, retained something of their fervour, strenuously opposed the innovation.

"Perhaps," he said, "by proper management, it may be insinuated by degrees into Dissenting congregations. This, doubtless, will be attempted by all the arts of address and persuasion; and of this, my countrymen, you ought to be well aware. For consider what will be the consequence. The same spirit which has taken it unto one assembly, will be for thrusting it into others.

"Religious knowledge is in a progressive state, and has been so at least ever since the Reformation. It is not therefore possible that the wisest men in our day should form a Liturgy absolutely and immutably perfect, which shall never want any amendments or alterations; because, as in process of time new evidence arises, religious sentiments ought to vary.

"What is to be done in this case? I had it from a principal hand in the affair, that it was proposed to have a meeting of ministers every seventh year, to review and adjust the orthodoxy of the new Liturgy,' and to reform any faults therein, that might from time to time appear. This would do, once for all, in the hands of persons inspired and infallible, but as things now are, it will be directly to set up an ecclesiastical jurisdiction among you over understanding and conscience lodged in the hands of feeble men.

"The principles and worship of Dissenters are not formed upon such slight foundation as the unlearned and thoughtless may imagine. They were thoroughly considered and judiciously reduced to the standard of Scripture and the writings of antiquity, by a great number of men of learning and integrity; I

mean the Bartholomew Divines, or the ministers ejected in the year 1662.

"They had the best education England could afford; most of them were excellent scholars, judicious divines, pious, faithful, and laborious ministers; of great zeal for God and religion; undaunted and courageous in their Master's work; keeping close to their people in the worst of times; diligent in their studies, solid, affectionate, powerful, lively, awakening preachers, aiming at the advancement of real vital religion in the hearts and lives of men, which it cannot be denied flourished greatly wherever they could influence. Particularly, they were men of great devotion and eminent abilities in prayer, uttered as God enabled them from the abundance of their hearts and affections; men of divine eloquence in pleading at the throne of grace, raising and melting the affections of their hearers, and being happily instrumental in transfusing into their souls the same spirit and heavenly gift. And this was the ground of all their other qualifications; they were excellent men, because excellent, instant, and fervent in prayer.

"Such were the Fathers, the first formers of the Dissenting interest. And you, here, in Lancashire, had a large share of these burning and shining lights. Those who knew them not might despise them; but your forefathers, wiser and less prejudiced, esteemed them highly in love for their works' sake. You were once happy in your Newcomes, your Jollies, your Heywoods, your Finches, your Angiers, your Harrisons, Pendleburys, Cromptons, Mathers and many others, who left all to follow Christ; but Providence cared for them, and they had great comfort in their ministerial services. The presence and blessing of God appeared in their assemblies, and attended their labours. How many were converted and built up in godliness and sobriety by their prayers, pains, doctrine, and conversation? How many days on particular occasions, were set apart and spent in warm addresses to the throne of grace, and how much to the comfort of those who joined in them.

"But now, alas, we are pursuing measures which have a manifest tendency to extinguish the light which they kindled, to damp the spirit which they enlivened, and to dissipate and to dissolve the societies which they raised and formed." *

* Taylor's Scripture Account of Prayer.

Suit of the

Dissenting

the case of the Sheriffs

Deputies in

of London.

These societies were already in a state of rapid disintegration. Though the higher interests of the Churches were strangely neglected, the cause of religious freedom was zealously maintained and considerably advanced at this time by the success of a suit at law of the Dissenting Deputies with the Corporation of the City of London. It had long been the practice with the City to elect wealthy Nonconformist citizens to the office of Sheriff who were sure to decline the sacramental test, and then to inflict "a fine of four hundred pounds and twenty marks upon every person who, being nominated by the Lord Mayor, should decline standing the election at the Common Hall; and six hundred pounds upon every one who, being elected by the Common Hall, should refuse to serve the office." By the operation of this ingenious bye-law of their own making, the Corporation gained above fifteen thousand pounds. In 1754 three Dissenters, Messrs. Sheafe, Streatfield, and Evans were elected to this office, and failing to serve, they were sued, in separate actions, for the amount of the fines. Mr. Streatfield was found to be out of the jurisdiction; but the litigation was carried on against Messrs. Sheafe and Evans for eight years, and only terminated when the last-mentioned defendant was at the point of death. The decision of Lord Mansfield for the first time gave a legal status to Dissent.

In the course of an elaborate judgment, his Lordship said :

"The Toleration Act renders that which was illegal before now legal; the Dissenters' way of worship is permitted and

allowed by the Act; it is not only rendered innocent, but lawful; it is established; it is put under the protection, and is not merely under the connivance of the law. In case those who are appointed by law to register Dissenting places of worship refuse on any pretence to do it, we must upon application send down a mandamus to compel them to the discharge of their duty.

Now, my Lords, there cannot be a plainer position than that the law protects nothing in that very respect in which it is in the eye of the law at the same time a crime. Dissenters, my Lords, within the description of the Toleration Act, are restored to a legal consideration and capacity, and a hundred consequences will follow which are not mentioned in the Act. For instance, previous to the Toleration Act it was unlawful to devise any legacy for the support of Dissenting congregations, or for the benefit of Dissenting ministers, for the law knew no such assemblies and no such persons, and such a devise was absolutely void, being left to what the law called superstitious purposes. But will it be said in any court in England that such a devise is not a good and valid one now? And yet there is nothing said of this in the Toleration Act. By that Act, my Lords, the Dissenters are freed not only from the pains and penalties of the laws therein particularly specified, but from all ecclesiastical censures, and from all penalties and punishments whatsoever upon account of their Nonconformity, which is allowed and protected by this Act, and is therefore, in the eye of the law, no longer a crime. And, my Lords, this bye-law by which the Dissenters are to be reduced to this wretched dilemma is a byelaw of the City-a local Corporation contrary to an Act of Parliament which is the law of the land-a modern bye-law, of very modern date, made long since the Corporation Act, long since the Toleration Act, in the face of them, and in direct opposition to them, for they knew these laws were in being. It was made in some year of the reign of the late King, I forget which; but, my Lords, it was made about the time of the building of the Mansion House. Now, my Lords, if it could be supposed the City have a power of making such a bye-law, they have it in their power to make every Dissenter pay a fine of six hundred pounds, or any sum they please, for it amounts to that.

"The professed design of making this bye-law was to get fit and able persons to serve the office; and the plaintiff sets forth

in his declaration that if the Dissenters are excluded, they shall want fit and able persons to serve the office. But, my Lords, if I were to deliver my own suspicion, it would be that they do not so much wish for their services as their fines.

"My Lords, Dissenters have been appointed to this office, one who was blind, another who was bedridden, not, I suppose, on account of their being fit and able to serve the office. No, they were disabled both by nature and by law. My Lords, we had a case lately in the courts below of a person chosen Mayor of a Corporation while he was beyond the seas with his Majesty's troops in America, and they knew him to be so. Did they want him to serve the office? No, it was impossible; but they had a mind to continue the former mayor a year longer, and to have a pretence for setting aside him who was now chosen on all future occasions, as having been elected before. And, my Lords, in the case before your Lordships, the defendant was by law incapable at the time of his pretended election; and it is my firm opinion that he was chosen because he was incapable. If he had been capable, he had not been chosen, for they did not want him to serve the office; they chose him that he might fall under the penalty of their bye-law, made to serve a particular purpose, in opposition to which, and to avoid the fine thereby imposed, he hath pleaded a legal disability grounded on two Acts of Parliament; and as I am of opinion that his plea is good, I conclude with moving your Lordships that the judgment be affirmed."

The judgment was immediately affirmed nemine contradicente; and entered on the journals in the following words :

"Mercurii, 4th of February, 1767.-It is ordered and adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, that the judgment given by the Commissioners' Delegates appointed to hear the errors in a judgment given in the Sheriffs' Court, London, and affirmed by the Court of Hustings, reversing the judgment of the said Sheriffs' Court and Court of Hustings, be and the same is hereby affirmed, and that the record be remitted." *

* Dr. Furneaux, for taking down the judgment of Lord Mansfield in full, was presented by the Deputies with a pipe of wine.