LETTER I. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. SIR, IN assuming the liberty of addressing you upon subjects of no less importance than those in dispute between the Church of England and that sect of Dissenters to which you belong, and of which you are a Minister, I might occupy your time with a host of apologies, but I think it quite unnecessary. Before, however, I enter more immediately on the consideration of the points which I intend to examine, and engage your attention to the arguments which appear to me to be so weighty, I will make a few remarks, and lay before you a few facts connected with the history of my own opinions. In the first place, then, I consider it expedient to intimate, that my parents were rigid Dissenters of the Congregational Independent Denomination, and that they brought me up strictly in the principles and sentiments of that sect; and that when I came to years of thought and to be free from parental guidance, not doubting the truth of those principles and sentiments, I adopted them as my own, and became and remained for some time a Member of a large and respectable Congregational IBdependent Church. Nor was I a cold, nominal Dissenter, but a zealous and warm-hearted-a conscientious and rigid one. I used every exertion in my power, in various ways, to promote the extension and welfare of the " Dissenting Interest," which I then con B sidered synonymous with the Redeemer's Kingdom. With regard to the Church of England, I was ever taught to believe, and like the generality of Dissenters, I really did believe it to be full of ceremony, superstition, and idolatry, and neither more nor less than a slightly modified system of Popery. I, therefore, hated it, and thought that no person could be spiritually safe in communion with it. I looked upon all Churchmen as mere formal professors of an adulterated system of Christianity. I considered them in the cant of Dissent as "men of the world," and entirely destitute of genuine religion; and I need not inform you, that in such a light they are charitably viewed by the majority of Dissenters, who thus, with great humility and equal modesty, arrogate to themselves exclusively the appellation of" the Saints"-" the People of God." Some little time before I became a member of a Dissenting Church," Palmer's Non-conformist's Catechism" was put into my hands by a bigotted Dissenter. I read it, and confess that it confirmed me, not only in my dissenting notions, but also in my hatred to the Church; so that I then became what is sagely termed a "Dissenter on principle." About two years after this, and shortly after I had united myself to a Dissenting Community, a book entitled "Christian Fellowship, or the Church Member's Guide," by Mr. James, a Dissenting Minister at Birmingham, was recommended to me as a most excellent work, and one which every Dissenter ought to possess. I immediately afterwards procured it, and gave it an attentive perusal. But, although my views respecting the Established Church were materially strengthened by the bitter invectives and calumnious falsehoods against the Church, which the author has foisted into his book, yet I confess that such was not the case with regard to iny dissenting views; for the monstrous evils of Dissent which he has there pourtrayed, and not in the most tempting colours, are by no means calculated to strengthen even Dissenters themselves in their attach ment to the cause. And sure I am, that every pious and intelligent Churchman would rise from the perusal of that book with sentiments of the most unfeigned gratitude for the happiness of belonging to a truly scriptural and Apostolic Church, in which no such evils can ever occur. Previously to my reading it, I certainly had no idea that evils of such magnitude and frequent occurrence existed amongst Dissenters, whose purity and excellence I had always been accustomed to hear so highly extolled. But I had not been long a member of a Dissenting Church before I discovered the truth of Mr. James's remarks, for as I regularly attended all those which you call " Church Meetings," which none but Members are allowed to attend, I was soon a witness of such scenes of confusion and uproar as would scarcely have been tolerated in a decent public-house. I have seen a Dissenting Deacon, whom Mr. James terms "the Patron of the Living, the Bible of the Minister, and the wolf of the flock," unite with one or two others of the richer Members, and carry everything his own way, in opposition to almost all the Members besides; and the dependent Minister, knowing from whom the greater part of his salary proceeded, obliged to resort to the degrading expedient of " run-ning with the hare and holding with the hounds." I have seen Members of the same Church actuated by such mutual enmity as to meet at the Meetinghouse, and pass without even noticing each other. I also found that slanderous backbitings, and the most illiberal and uncharitable judgings and condemnations of each other, were by no means uncommon, and sometimes even sanctioned, if not encouraged, by the Ministers themselves. After I had been some time a Member, I had occasion to remove to a considerable distance; and as it was a populous district, there were several Dissenting Meeting-houses in the neighbourhood. I attended See Mr. James's Church Member's Guide, p. 146. 2d Edition. |