CHAPTER VII.

SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.

THOSE bodies of professing Christians in the United States who, although differing from each other in name and in certain minor peculiarities, are nevertheless almost entirely agreed in the great points of doctrine, discipline, and worship, and may be comprehended under the general term, Presbyterians, are by far the most numerous and beyond all comparison the most influential of all the religious denominations in North America. The Methodists and Baptists are certainly more numerous than the Presbyterians proper, I mean, those who belong to the two General Assemblies of the American Presbyterian Church; but they are far outnumbered by the united bodies who, although ranked under separate and independent organizations, still hold with the Presbyterians in all the great points of doctrine, discipline, and worship, and yearly acknowledge this common ground of brotherhood by sending delegates or corresponding members to their synods or assemblies.

"Every religion," says M. de Tocqueville, "is to be found in juxta-position to a political opinion which is connected with it by affinity. The greatest part of British America was peopled by men who, after having shaken off the authority of the pope, acknowledged no

other religious supremacy: they brought with them into the new world a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This sect contributed powerfully to the establishment of a democracy and a republic; and from the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."*

Agreeably to this philosophical and just idea, I observe that of the three forms of church government under which all the Protestant denominations of Christendom may respectively be ranked, the political opinion, to which the system of Episcopacy stands in juxta-position, and with which it is connected by affinity, is monarchy; the system of Diocesan Episcopacy having a strong elective attraction for unlimited monarchy, or "the right divine of kings to govern wrong." Presbyterianism, on the other hand, unquestionably stands in juxta-position to Republicanism,†

* Democracy in America, 2nd Amer. Edit. New York, 1838, page 282.

It is amusing to hear the Americans talking on these subjects: "The constitution of the Presbyterian Church," observes the late Dr. Rice, of Virginia, "is fundamentally and decidedly republican, and it is in a very happy measure adapted to that particular modification of republican institutions which prevails in the United States. This is too plain to require demonstration; the slightest attention being sufficient to convince any one that our ecclesiastical constitution establishes in the church a representative government. Hence the more decidedly a man is a Presbyterian, the more decidedly is he a Republican. So much is this the case, that some Christians of this society, fully believing that Presbytery is de jure divino, consider this as decisive evidence that Republicanism is of divine institution; and are persuaded that they should grievously sin against God by acknowledging any other form of civil government. This is mentioned for the sake of showing what influence the sentiments which men hold in relation to the church have on their political opinions. By the way, a most interesting volume might be written by a man of talents and learning on the political influence which various religious systems have had in the world."

and Independency to Democracy. The loyalty of any Christian man, however, especially under a free government, and his attachment to the peculiar constitution under which he lives, will not be affected in the slightest degree by the circumstance of his belonging to any one of these Christian denominations rather than another: the American Episcopalians are as thorough Republicans as any other Christian denomination in the Union; and the Presbyterians and Independents of the United Kingdom will not yield to any other denomination in Great Britain, as staunch supporters of the British throne.

As it was the influx of Presbyterians into the Middle

Illustrations of the Character and Conduct of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia. By John Holt Rice, D.D., Minister of the First Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia. Richmond, 1816.

As every one has his own theory in these matters, my theory for many years before I visited America was that, as the system of Republicanism had a strong tendency to nurture the pride of the human heart, it was not the political system, so to speak, of Christianity, which goes directly to humble the pride of man. On seeing Republicanism and Christianity in actual alliance, however, in America, I was constrained to modify this theory very much. For I confess I did not find such exemplifications of the principle I have mentioned as I anticipated: and the reason is obvious; for where all men are placed on the same footing as to political privileges, there is nothing of that kind that any man can individually be proud of. It is in England, where the republican hopes to bring down lords and dukes to his own level, that pride finds something to feed on in that system. At all events, the simplicity of manners which results from the alliance in question is a most remarkable feature in American society. If Mr. Jacob Astor, for instance, the wealthiest citizen of the United States, who lives notwithstanding in a plain though genteel house in Broadway, in New York, were setting up a coach and four, and dressing out his servants in the harlequin attire in which the English nobility and gentry dress out their lacqueys,-I suppose to show the world that they are an inferior breed of human beings, he would excite no indignation in the respectable portion of the community; he would simply be laughed out of society as a man who had lost his senses and was fit for Bedlam.

States of the American Republic during the latter half of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth, century, that gave their peculiar tone and character to these States, and in great measure to the whole Union, it is worthy of remark, in connexion with this historical fact, and as a further illustration of the correctness of M. de Tocqueville's principle, that the spirit of the Presbyterian system has evidently gone hand in hand with the genius of the Republic in exerting a plastic influence on the other forms of Christianity in the country, and in modelling their institutions into something like conformity to those of the Presbyterian Church. I have already pointed out the remarkable coincidence between the New England Congregational and the Presbyterian systems in giving to the aggrieved minority of any particular church the right of appeal to the church generally, which the system of English Independency uniformly denies, thereby acknowledging, in one most important particular, the union and communion of saints. Indeed, the unity of action which has hitherto characterised the New England churches; their strength and vigour, evinced in such cases as those of the Rev. Mr. Fisk and the Rev. Mr. Sherman; and the high character, as to ministerial qualifications, which their clergy have uniformly maintained—are to be ascribed in great measure to the Presbyterian elements of their ecclesiastical constitution.

But this plastic influence is still more remarkably exhibited in the American Episcopal Church; which, in direct opposition to the semi-popish dogmas of certain pseudo-reformers in our own country, has incorporated into its system the two great Presbyterian principles of popular election and lay-representation. The pastor of each church in this body is uniformly elected by the people; and is uniformly accompanied also in his annual visit to the State or District Convention, in which the general affairs of the church within the State or

district are transacted, by a lay delegate from his particular congregation, who sits and votes with the clergy on behalf of that congregation, in all matters of common concernment to the church; the bishop, who presides in the Convention, being himself elected to his office by the clerical and lay members of which it is composed. The Convention serves as a court of appeal to both clergy and people, either against the act of the bishop, or in any other case of grievance whatever; the aggrieved party having a still further appeal from the State Convention to the General Convention of the whole American Episcopal Church, which is similarly constituted, and meets triennially. In short, the system of church government in the American Episcopal Church is totally different in its principles from that of the Church of England, and coincides entirely with the comparatively liberal system recommended by Archbishop Usher in the reign of Charles the First.

Nay, even the Lutheran Church in America, which numbers not fewer than a thousand congregations, has experienced the same plastic influence to which I have been adverting; for, while it retains the Confession of Augsburg, it not only rejects Luther's peculiar doctrine of consubstantiation, but has completely divested itself of the German apparatus of General Superintendents or Bishops, and become thoroughly Presbyterian ; its affairs being under the superintendence of a General Synod, which holds friendly communion with the other branches of the American Presbyterian Church.

During my stay in the United States, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, President of the Lutheran Divinity College at Gettysburgh, Pennsylvania, who has been labouring zealously for several years past to bring about a general union of evangelical Christians of all denominations in America. An American by birth, but of German parentage, Dr. S. speaks the English and German languages with equal