CHAPTER XXXIII.

A GEOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF RELIGION IN EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA AND

AMERICA.

HAVING closed our account of the different creeds of the principal sects, we will now proceed to give a geographical account of the different sects tolerated, and established in these countries; beginning with

ICELAND.

The only religion tolerated in Iceland is Lutheran. The churches on the east, south, and west quarters of the island, are under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Skalholt (the capitol of the island) and those of the north quarter are subject to the bishop of Hoolum. The island is divided into 189 parishes, of which 127 belong to the see of Shalholt, and 62 to that of Hoolum. All the ministers are natives of Iceland, and receive a yearly salary of four or five hundred rix dollars from the king, exclusive of what they have from their congregations.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

SWEDEN.

IN Sweden, Christianity was introduced as early as the 9th century. Their religion is Lutheran, which was propagated among them by Gustavus Vasa, about the year 1523. The Swedes are surprisingly uniform and unremitting in religious matters; and have such an aversion to popery, that castration is the fate of every Roman Catholic priest discovered in their country. The archbishop of Upsal has a revenue of about £400 a year; and has under him 13 suffragans, besides superintendants, with moderate stipends. No clergyman has the least direction in the affairs of state; but their morals and sanctity of their lives endear them so much to the people, that the government would repent making them its enemies. Their churches are neat and often ornamented. A body of ecclesiastical laws, and canons direct their religious œconomy. A conversion to popery, or a long continuance under excommunication, which cannot pass without the king's permission, is punished by imprisonment and exile.

CHAPTER XXXV.

RUSSIA.

IN Russia the established church is the Greek, the tenets of which are quite too numerous and complicated to be discussed here. It is sufficient to say, that they deny the pope's supremacy; (though in principal and practice they are catholics,) and though they disclaim image-worship, they retain many idolatrous and superstitious customs. Their churches are full of pictures of saints, whom they consider as mediators. They observe a number of fasts and lents, so that they live half the year very abstemiously: an institution which is extremely convenient for their soil and climate. They have many peculiar notions with regard to the sacraments and Trinity. They oblige their bishops, but not their priests to celibacy. Peter the Great shewed his profound knowledge in government in nothing more than in the reform of his church. He broke the dangerous powers of the patriarch and the great clergy. He declared himself the head of the church; and preserved the subordination of metropolitans, archbishops, and bishops. Their priests have no fixed salary, but depend for subsistence on the benevolence of their flocks and hearers. Peter after establishing this great political reformation, left the clergy in full possession of all their idle ceremonies: nor did he cut off their beards; that impolitic attempt was reserved for the late emperor, and greatly contributed to his fatal catastrophe. Before his days, an incredible number of both sexes were shut up in convents: nor has it been found prudent entirely to abolish those societies. The abuses of them, however, are in a great measure removed; for no male cau become a monk till he is turned of thirty; and no female a nun till she is fifty; and even then not without permission of their superiors.

The conquered provinces as already observed, retain the exercise of their own religion; but such is the extent of the Russian empire, that many of its subjects are Mahometan; and more of them no better than Pagans, in Siberia and the uncultivated countries. Many ill judged attempts have been made to convert them by force, which has only tended to confirm them in their infidelity. On the banks of the river Sarpa, is a flourishing colony of Moravian brethren, to whom the founders have given the name of Serepta; the beginning of the settlement was in 1765, with distinguished privileges from the imperial court,

The Russians entertain many fantastic notions with regard to the state of departed souls. After the dead body is dressed, a priest is hired to pray for his soul, to purify it with incense, and to sprinkle it with holy water while it remains above ground, which, among the better sort, it generally does for eight or ten days. When the body is carried to the grave, which is done with many gesticulations of sorrow, the priest produces a ticket, signed by the bishop and another clergyman, as the passport of the deceased to heaven. When this is put into the coffin between the fingers of the dead body, the company return to the house. of the deceased, where they drown their sorrows in intoxication; which lasts among the better sort, with few intervals, for forty days. During that time, a priest every day says prayers over the grave of the deceased; for though the Russians do not believe in a purgatory, yet they imagine their departed friend may be assisted by prayer, in his long journey to the place of his desnation after this life.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SCOTLAND.

WE shall now proceed to give an account of the rise and progress of religion in Scotland. Ancient Scottish historians, with Bede, and other writers, generally agree that christianity was first taught in Scotland by some of the disciples of St. John the Apostle, who fled to this northern corner to avoid the persecution of Domitian, the Roman emperor; though it was not publicly professed till the beginning of the third century, when a prince, whom Scotch historians called Donald the First, his Queen, and several of his nobles, were solemnly baptized. It was farther confirmed by emigrations from South Britain, during the persecutions of Aurelius and Dioclesian, when it became the established religion of Scotland, under the management of certain learned and pious men, named Culdees, who seem to have been the first regular clergy in Scotland, and were governed by overseers or bishops, chosen by themselves, from among their own • body, and who had no pre-eminence of rank over the rest of their brethren.

Thus, independent of the church of Rome, Christianity seems to have been taught, planted in Scotland, and confirmed as the national church, where it flourished in native simplicity, till the arrival of Palladius, a priest sent by the Bishop of Rome in the fifth century, who found means to introduce the modes and cere

monies of the Romish church, which at length prevailed, and Scotland became involved in that darkness which for ages over spread Europe; though their dependance upon the pope was very slender, when compared to the blind subjection of many other nations.

The Culdees, however, long retained their original manner and remained a distinct order, notwithstanding the oppression of the Romish church, so late as the age of Robert Bruce, in the 14th century, when they disappeared. But it is worthy of observation, that the opposition to popery in this island, though it ceased in Scotland upon the extinction of the Culdees, was in the same age revived in England by John Wickliffe, a man of parts and learning, who was the forerunner in the work of reformation, to John Huss and Jerome of Prague, as the latter were to Martin Luther and John Calvin. But though, the doctrines of Wickliffe were nearly the same with those propagated by the reformers in the 16th century, and the age seemed greatly disposed to receive them, affairs were not fully ripe for that great revolution, and the finishing blow to popery in England was reserved to the age of Henry VIII.

Soon after that important event took place in England, when learning, arts, and the sciences began to revive in Europe, the absurdities of the church of Rome, as well as the profligate lives of her clergy, did not escape the notice of a free and equiring people, but gave rise to the reformation in Scotland. It began in the reign of James V. and made great progress under that of his daughter Mary, and was at length completed through the preaching of John Knox, who had adopted the doctrines of Calvin, and in a degree was the apostle of Scotland. It was natural for his brethren to imagine that upon the abolition of the Roman Catholic religion, they were to succeed to the revenues of that clergy. The great nobility, who had parcelled out those possessions for themselves, did at first discourage this notion; but no sooner had Knox succeeded in his designs, which, through the fury of the mob destroyed some ecclesiastical buildings in the world, than the parliament, or rather the nobility, monopolized all the church livings, and most scandalously left the reformed clergy to live almost in a state of beggary: nor could all their efforts produce any great struggle or alteration in their favour.

The nobility, and great landholders, left the doctrine and discipline of the church to be modeled by the preachers, and they were confirmed by the parliament. Succeeding times rendered the presbyterian clergy of vast importance to the state; and their revenues have been so much mended, that though no stipend there exceeds £150 a year, few fall short of £60, and of £50.

If the present expensive mode of living continues in Scotland, the established clergy will have many unanswerable reasons to urge for the increase of their revenues.

The bounds of this work do not admit of entering at large upon the doctrinal and economical part of the church of Scotland. It is sufficient to say, that its first principle is a parity of ecclesi-astical authority among all its presbyters; that it agrees in its censures with the reformed churches abroad in the chief heads of opposition to popery; but that it is modeled principally after the Calvinistic plan established at Geneva. This establishment, at various periods, proved so tyrannical over the laity, by having the power of the greater and lesser excommunications, which were attended by a forfeiture of estate, and sometimes life, that the kirk sessions, and other bodies, have been abridged of all their dangerous powers over the laity, who were extremely jealous of their being revived. It is said that even that relique of popery, the obliging fornicators of both sexes to sit upon what they call a repenting stool, in the church, and in full view of the congregation, begins to wear out, it having been found, that the Scotch women, on account of that penance, were the greatest infanticides in the world. In short, the power of the Scotch clergy is at present very moderate, or at least very moderately exercised; nor are they accountable for the extravagancies of their predecessors. They have been, ever since the revolution, firm adherants to civil liberty, and the house of Hanover; and acted with remarkable intrepidity during the rebellion in 1745. They dress without clerical robes; but some of them appear in the pulpit in gowns, after the Geneva form, and bands. They make no use of set forms in worship, but are not prohibited that of the Lord's prayer. The rents of the bishops, since the aboli tion of episcopacy, are paid to the King, who commonly appropriates them to pious purposes. A thousand pounds a year is always sent by his majesty for the use of protestant schools, erected by act of parliament in North Britain and the Western isles; and the Scotch clergy, of late have planned out funds for the support of their widows and orphans. The number of par-ishes in Scotland are eight hundred and ninety, whereof thirtyone are collegiate churches, that is, where the cure is served by. more than one minister. The highest ecclesiastical authority in Scotland is the general assembly, which we may call the ecclesiastical parliament of Scotland. It consists of commissioners, some of whom are laymen, under the title of ruling elders, from presbyteries, royal burghs and universities. A presbytery consisting of under twelve ministers, send two ministers and one rul-ing elder; if it contains between twelve and eighteen ministers