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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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they were erected must , in soone instance ^ th emselves have left the elmpels which their own hands had built . The changes too have taken place through the whole body . Congregations , trustees and ministers have gone together . For the trustees to eject
the congregation were to eject themselves and to leave the chapels among the waifs and strays of society , not to be used at all for the purposes for which they were erected , or to be taken possession of by persons who neither in themselves nor their
ancestors had borne the burthen of their erection , and who in many points of considerable importance , entertain not a similarity of sentiment with those by whom they were founded . Dr . S . further says , that we have no right to the name of Presbyterians ,
because we have nothing of the Presbyterian discipline among us . But at what period since the establishment of the trusts in question did any of the Presbyterian discipline exist in the
body which , notwithstanding , was called Presbyterian ? At no period since the foundation of these chapels have there been ' * Courts of Review , " &c . ; so that , according to the criterion which Dr . S . would establish , there never
was any right to the name of Presbyterian among the Presbyterian Nonconformists , since they had any chapels amongst them . And perhaps the name , like the name Methodist , never was peculiarly appropr iate . The truth is , that the name was acquired before
they began to take their place as a religious denomination of Dissenters , It was given to them at a time when they were labouring to supersede the episcopal form of Church Government in England by the Presbyterians . A name once acquired usually adheres
to a party ; and this name was continued to them when they appeared in the character of Dissenters , though they were then little strenuous for the Presb yterian discipline , and in fact never attempted any general establishment of it amongst them . From the fi
rst foundation of these chapels they were what , in this respect , they now are , congregational Or independent : * - c . 30 far as each congregation was regarded , competent to the direction *> f its own affairs , with no foreign interfe rence , and acknowledging no 31 > irituul superiority . This ' is now
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the x » ase * So that it seems , if there is a ^ y thing in a name , the modern Presbyterians , can with as much propriety and fairness as their forefathers , call themselves by the name . Under the sixth head of his letter
, Dr . S . insinuates , that many of ibe chapels now called Presbyterian would be found to have been built by Congregatiotitilists . 1 believe that it is much more probable thi | t many € > f the chapels now occupied by the
persons who call themselves Independents , would be found on inquiry to have been erected by the Presbyte ^ rians : the Presbyterians having been at the time when these chapels were erected so vast a majority of the whole body of Dissenters , and through their wealth , so much more able to give
that direction to their zeal . " Of one important instance" he says " he can speak with certainty . The Upper Chapel at Sheffield was built in 1 / DO ,
for Mr . Jollie and his church , wlio were strictly Congregationaiists . " It is too much to say that Mr . Jollie and his church were strict Congregationalists , since it is not unknown , I presume , to Dr . S ., that Mr . Jollie was
ordained pastor of that church , not in the Congregational but the Presbyterian manner . This is expressly recorded by a Presbyterian minister of great eminence , * who took a part in the ordination of Mr . JolHe , and who
regarded the circumstance as a gratifying proof of a disposition to union between the Congregationalists and Presbyterians at that time ( 1681 ) residing at Sheffield . From the academy , over which Mr . Jollie presided , issued more ministers who took tlieir places among the Presbyterians , than
* Oliver Hey wood , of Northowram , one who was ejected by the Act of Uniformity , and continued his diligent labours in the ministry tiLl his death in 1702 . An attempt lias been made to deprive the Presbyterians of the credit of this venerable name . In a life of Mm
published by tjie Hcv . Dr . Fawcctt , p . 79 , is what purports to he a copy of a license granted to him in 1672 , in which he is described as of the Congregational persuasion . Where the J > ivmet with this license 1 kuow wot : but the original license which he took iu that year \ a certainly in { possession of his descendants , and he ix described in it as of the , Presbyterian persuasion .
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on the Right of Presbyterians in their Ckapeh . 261
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1825, page 261, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2536/page/5/
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