DEDICATION. TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND THIS little history is dedicated; in the humble hope that its publication, at the present eventful period in the History of the Church to which they are attached, and at whose altars they minister in Holy things, may tend to excite them more zealously than ever to vindicate her rights and maintain her supremacy, against the multiplied and increasing attacks of her united assailants; accompanied by the desire that it may also serve to instruct the laity of that church in the absurdities, contradictions, errors, and dangers of Modern Dissenterism. February, 1841. INTRODUCTION. THE attitude of the Dissenters in Great Britain and Ireland in 1841, is that of hostility to the Church of England. They are no longer Nonconformists, but enemies. They follow not in the footsteps of such men as Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge, paying respectful homage to the talent, learning, and piety of an authorized and established Protestant priesthood, but have united themselves to the phalanx of opposition to the Church of England, conducted by such chiefs as Robert Aspland, Thomas Binney, James Bennett, and Messrs. Burnett, Fox, and Thorn. In addition indeed to these leaders of the "Hue and Cry" combination against the Church of England, there are the Committees of the Church Rate Abolition Society, of the Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty, of the Deputies of the Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist Dissenters, and, to make use of the very words of James Bennett in his History of Dissenters from 1808 to 1838 "of the heterodox B Presbyterians, who in March, 1836, seceded from the general body, and formed themselves into a new association"—or, in other terms, of the Socinians. The champions in the cause of multiform dissent each sally forth with their bucklers, their swords, their helmets, and in some cases their battleaxes. Many resemble the Don Quixotes of far-famed memory, whilst others, like Mr. Thorn (the Sancho Panzas of the party), afford much mirth to those who watch their Lilliputian vehemence, and at the same time the anxiety with which the more gigantic leaders of the Dissenters, seek to restrain "their zealous but imprudent brethren." Nonconformity was once respectable for its sobriety, its purity of intention, its freedom from worldly-mindedness, its aversion to noise and display, its spiritual character, its distaste for controversy, and its real heart-rejoicing at the preaching of Evangelical truth in the Church of England. Modern times have produced some specimens of this description of Nonconformists, and we mention with pleasure the names of the late Dr. Winter, John Clayton, sen., John Townsend, Mr. Burder, and Robert Hall. Educated in Nonconformist sentiments, they remained Nonconformists;-but from their lips never escaped the language of hostility to a church from whose discipline they differed, but to whose truly Catholic spirit and Christian doctrines |