The religion of this place is Lutheran, in which the government is so strict, as to admit of no other religious assembly, except that of the church of England, which is allowed to the English company. The city is divided into five parishes, that of _St. Catharine_, _St. Peter_, _St. James_, _St. Nicholas_, and _St. John_. To each of these are dedicated so many fair and spatious churches, all well adorned with sculptures, paintings, organs, and altars. That of _St. Catharine_ exceeds the rest, and is particularly remarkable for a noble stone pulpit, the whole consisting of the bed marble, carved into the figures of the twelve _Apostles_, and other religious devices; for several large inimitable pieces of painting in _fresco_ against the north wall; and for a stately organ, supposed to be the largest and finest in the world. It has fifty four stops, and consists of five thousand pipes, all gradually proportioned from the biggest, which is three fourths of an English yard in diameter, to the least, no larger than the last joint of ones little finger. In the same church is admirably well painted the _Temple of Solomon_ in perspective. Besides these parish churches, there is the cathedral, commonly there called the _Dome_; and a new church in the middle of the _New City_. The _Dome_ is now almost out of use, except for some occasional sermons; and the porch, with the several isles, are possessed by booksellers shops: tho this is what is likewise common to the porches, and other outward apartments, of the most frequented churches. The five parish churches, and that of the _New City_, have each of them their pastor, and besides him two or three chaplains; so that the number of clergymen here amounts to above twenty, of which one is superintendant over them, and the clergy of the whole territory. This however is very small, as not reaching down the river _Elbe_ farther than the limits of _Altena_, a large town within half a mile of _Hamburg_, belonging to the King of _Denmark_. On the other sides it is encompassed with the dominions of the Duke of _Holstein_, at the distance of two or three miles; only up the _Elbe_ it has a narrow tract of ground subject to the city, for the space of twenty miles, in which are some small villages, that acknowledge its jurisdiction. The church lands belonging to the cathedral are now possessed by burgers, or others of the city; but under the same titles, by which they formerly belonged to the church, as _dean_, _canons_, and others. Which sequestration, as it seems to be a sacrilegious usurpation; so their continuing the right under the same titles, is only a monument and confession of the crime.