the bishop of london and the dissenters.
(From the Times.)
A second edition of a “Remonstrance addressed to the Lord Bishop of London, on the Sanction given, in his late Charge to the Clergy of that Diocese, to the Calumnies against the Dissenters contained in certain Letters signed L. S. E.,” has recently appeared, with the respectable name of Mr. Charles Lushington. The letters referred to, which are addressed to a Dissenting minister of the Congregational denomination, and written, it appears, by a clergyman of the church of England, might well be mistaken for a subtle and refined ruse of a bitter enemy of that church. At a moment when the feelings of the Dissenters are wrought up to intense excitement by a sense of wrong from grievances unredressed, an individual of that class who teach from the pulpit that a man who lacketh charity lacketh every thing, has had the daring effrontery to vomit forth a mass of rancorous scurrility against the whole Dissenting body, especially its teachers, applying to them epithets proscribed in almost every species of polemical warfare, except that carried on by Carlile and his party, detailing disgusting anecdotes thinly veiled in the decency of a Latin translation, excluding them from the pale of Christianity, and proclaiming that “the curse of God rests heavily upon them!” It is to be regretted that there are a few individuals of the letter-writer’s class, men who have exchanged the sword for the gown, or who desire to transform the pen into the sword; but these intolerant zealots, so long as their acts are not countenanced by their superiors, do but little mischief. The letters in question, however, have been specifically recommended in a note appended to the late charge of the Bishop of London, as “containing a great deal of useful information and sound reasoning, set forth with a little too much warmth of invective against the Dissenters.” Mr. Lushington, who avows himself a member of the church of England, has had the candour and manliness to step forward and publicly vindicate the Dissenters from the effects of such a recommendation of such a work, suggesting, at the same time, “some political and Christian considerations, which should operate to secure for those calumniated persons a little more conciliatoriness from their opponents, and a far greater measure of justice from their judges.” He shows what the Dissenters have done, and are doing, to supply the deficiencies of the established church; he disproves the accusation that the Dissenters, as a body, seek to destroy that church, which would be repugnant to the system to which they owe their distinction as a religious body; and he suggests that, if the religious wants of the community are to be adequately supplied, it must be by one of three plans—either by the establishment and other sects, as at present; or by the establishment alone, all other sects being merged, comprehended, or put down; or by the episcopal church and other denominations, without an establishment. He assumes that the second is impracticable, inasmuch as the establishment could not be extended, on the basis of taxation, so as to meet the wants of the population, and the sects could not be merged or put down. The choice is, therefore, between the first, which renders the Dissenters necessary as auxiliaries, and therefore to be conciliated; and the third, which would reduce the church of England to the dimensions of an episcopal, but non-established, church. Such frenzied partisans as “L. S. E.” would be more likely to bring about the third alternative than the second.
extract from a correspondent’s letter, addressed to the right rev. the lord bishop of london.
My Lord,
In the notes appended to your Lordship’s Charge, delivered at the last visitation, reference is made to a work, entitled, “Letters to a Dissenting Minister, &c., by L. S. E.” It is most prudently admitted, that the work contains “too much sharpness of invective against the dissenters;” your Lordship has, however, added, “I recommend the publication as containing a great deal of useful information and sound reasoning.”
It was prudent in L. S. E. not to attach his name to a work that would give him a notoriety for impudence and slander which no future penitence could by any possibility remove. How far it was wise to sanction with the authority of your Lordship’s name, the work of an author who had not the rashness to reveal his own, remains for the effects it will produce upon society to determine.
L. S. E. has stated in page 360, that “the late Mr. Abraham Booth,[B] an eminent dissenting teacher in London, would never pray for the King (George the Third) at all.” Allow me, therefore, to inform your Lordship and the nameless individual who enjoys your patronage, that the assertion is entirely false. During the thirty-seven years in which he administered the ordinances and truth of Jesus Christ in Prescot-street, he not only never refused, but made it his uniform practice, to pray for “our rightful Sovereign the King, his Royal Consort the Queen, and every branch of the Royal Family;” of this many living witnesses may be brought, who still remain the fruits of his exertions. Much sympathy is due to your Lordship on account of the present intensity of professional excitement; but the injunction laid by inspiration upon a Bishop must not be forgotten, “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be thou partaker in other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.”
With sincere respect, I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s humble servant,
Isaac Booth.
Hackney, Dec. 4, 1834.