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proves that " the practice of Christians immediately after the Apostolic Age" was consonant to the present usage of the Christian Church , as well as to that of the ancient Jewish Synagogue .
It is stated in the title-page that the volume is " printed for the author , " and we are informed that , for reasons not necessary to be detailed , it is ex * tremely desirable that the public should so far patronize it as to exonerate him . This alone would not induce us
to recommend the work ; but we confess that it increases our desire to bespeak the favour of our readers for a publication whieh on the ground of its merits is entitled to no small portion of praise .
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Art . IV . —A Letter to a Friend at Saffron TValden ^ touching' some Recent Disputes amongst the Dissenters in that Place . By a Member of the Church of England . 8 vo . pp . 8 . Rivingtons . 3 d .
FTHHIS " Member of the Church of JL England" has taken advantage of the intolerance of a Dissenting Minister and his congregation , ( see the Review of the account of Mr . W . Clayton ' s " Extraordinary
Proceedings" in our last number , pp . 504 , 505 , ) to disparage and revile Nonconformists in general , and to chaunt the praises of his own church , " the bestconstituted church in the world . " We
forgive his jokes and gibes at Dissent : for these Mr . W . Clayton has to answer , it being the necessary consequence of outrageous , unchristian conduct like his to provoke the sneer and to aid the triumph of the
champions of political churches , churches 1 > y law established on the ruins of the fundamental principles of the gospel : yet , we think that this " Member of the Church of England" has not chosen the fittest moment to extol
the frame of the national ecclesiastical polity , and to claim fop his church " apostolical discipline ; " a moment , when the distress of the leading interests of the country causes the Church to be felt an insupportable burden , and when certain occurrences have
filled the community with shame and indignation at the open traffic in church benefices and the corrupt appointments to episcopal rank for the
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sake of ministerial patronage and parliamentary votes . > The iJetter-writer laughs at the office of a Dissenting " deacon " but he must allow the Dissenters tq look with as little veneration upon a Churchof-England bishop .
The " ' moderation * ' of the Church of England is much vaunted by this author ; but if we are to judge of the mother by her sons , we must dispute the boast , for the public is sickened
with the high priestly claims that are set up at every Visitation , and sorel y aggrieved by the rigour with which ecclesiastical dues are constantly enforced . True , the church does not
persecute Nonconformists , but let the Bishop of St . David ' s say , whether this tolerance of hers be owing to a tender regard to conscience , or to legislative enactments by which "heresy" is taken from the cognizance of the priest , and put under the protection of the magistrate .
Our Churchman appeals to " the history of the last two hundred years' * for the fact , " that the different Nonconformists , amidst all their clamours for liberty of conscience , have uniformly endeavoured to seize every opportunity of suppressing all modes of worship but their own : " the reproach ought to be felt by such Dissenters as those of the " Abbey-Lane Meeting" at Saffron-Walden , that make popes of their ministers and cherish bigotry as an idol ; but it falls pointless at the feet of the leading bodies
of Dissenters in the metropolis and elsewhere , who have on every suitable occasion , for the last quarter of a century at least , proclaimed their deliberate judgment of the equal right , of
all men to adopt their opinions and observe their worship , without restriction , molestation or even censure . The " Member of the Church of England" asserts the safety of relying " for the sense of Scripture upon the wisdom of our learned and pious Reformers ; " just as if he did not know
that those Reformers interpreted the Scriptures differently , and that their " wisdom" is a riddle of which no two Churchrrien living will give the same solution . Scripture , we humbly think , is quite as intelligible to the people of the present day , as the " wisdom" of the Reformers ; and it would surely be more consist-
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566 Review . — A Letter on the Dissenting Disputes at Saffron-fFalden
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1822, page 566, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2516/page/46/
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