London (England) -- Religion; Religious thought -- England -- London
other cases exercises the right of patronage alternately with the
Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Bishop of London, with private
individuals, and with the parishioners. The parishioners possess the
sole right of patronage in only three or four instances; and, in one or
two cases in the City, particular corporations possess the right of
appointing the clergy. The doctrines of the Church of England are
embodied in her Articles and Liturgy. Her orders consist of bishops,
priests, and deacons. Besides, there are dignitaries—archbishops, deans
and chapters, attached to cathedrals, and supposed to form the council of
the bishops, archdeacons, and rural deans. The average income of a
beneficed clergyman is £300 a year; of a curate, £81. The number of
church-sittings in London and the surrounding districts, according to Mr.
Mann, is 409,834.
Next in order are the Independents or Congregationalists, who differ from
the Church of England more in discipline than doctrine. They maintain
the independence of each congregation—that a church is simply an assembly
of believers. Only two descriptions of church officers are regarded by
them as warranted by Scriptural authority—bishops or pastors, and
deacons; and the latter office with them is merely secular. Amongst them
the deacon merely attends to the temporal affairs of the church. In the
Episcopalian Church, the deaconship is the first step to the priesthood.
In London and its neighbourhood the Independents have about 140 places of
worship. Mr. Mann’s return does not give them so many, but he states the
number of sittings to be 100,436.
The Baptists have much in common with the Independents. Like them, they
believe in the unscriptural character of state churches; and, like them,
believe each church or assembly of faithful men to be able to manage its
own affairs; but they differ from nearly every other Christian
denomination on two points—the proper _subjects_ and the proper _mode_ of
_baptism_. According to them, _adults_ are the proper subjects of
baptism, and _immersion_, not sprinkling, is the proper mode of
administering that rite. As an organized community, we find them in
England in 1608, about thirty years after Robert Brown had begun to
preach the principles of Independency. The Baptists have many
subdivisions. The Particular Baptists preponderate: they are
Calvinistic. A remarkable unanimity of sentiment has always existed
among them, except on one particular point—the propriety of sitting down
at the communion table with those who reject adult baptism. Mr. Horace
Mann gives the general body 130 chapels; Mr. Low, 109. The Census
returns give them accommodation for 54,234.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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