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    not to the man , but the office , that if ? heir cause were good , they would not refuse to make this public appearance . With a perseverance and bolcfriess that does them hortour , they went and made their demand at the Old Bailey , before the Lord Mayor , addressing him and complaining of their ill usage . Some

    altercation' took place between them and the recorder and his clerk . They were then dismissed , ( this was Saturday evening-, ) with a promise from the Lord Mayor , that if they would attend early on Monday morning ' , he would make a court on purpose to register them . On the Monday they were at their pot , when two of them only were sworn , and the rest were referred to Hick ^' s

    Hall , on the ground , we believe , of not being citizens of London . In the county court , no obstacle was raised ; and thus the society triumphed , with the New Testament in one hand , and the Act of Toleration in the other , over ignorance , subtlety and . bigotry .

    The affair being soon made known by means of the public prints , crowds flocked to the meetings of this little sect . They boa ^ t of having had among their auditors , on the first Sunday after matters were arranged , one of the city marshals , and a hired short-hand writer *

    They have been at length obliged to discontinue their evening assembly in Cateaton-street , the smallness of the roorn , ( though it will hold'several hundreds of people , } leading them to apprehend danger from the pressure of the multitude .

    The names of the leading members are not published . Their tenets are for the most part such as are held by Unitarians . They a e inimical , however , to all public worship ; and have neither singing or prayer in their social meetings , but debating only . They

    abhor paid preachers , but can object no longer to preachers by profession . They disuse the ceremonies of bapti .-m and the Lord ' s supper . It is said , they think oaths unlawful ; but as they have taken oaths , and religious ones , this must be a mistake .

    In the letter , by " one of the members of the church , ' ' in one of the newspapers ( from which this account is chiefly drawn up , ) there is a com p laint of the Dissenters , not taking" up the cause of the 4 * . Free . thinking Christians . " But »* e Dissenter ^ as well as others , were ignorant of the matter , till it was con-

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    cluded . And had they been formally ' made , acquainted wtth it , what cpuj 4 they have done ? They indeed-are not backward to assert the rights of their bod }' , but they cannot prevent shuffling on the part of the executors of the laws . Besides that Dissenters , in general , regard their meeting-houses , as

    places of ivorship , and do not feel any particular sympathy with one debating society more than another > —with a sdciety that debates on Sun iay , more than one that debates on Monday , — with one that debates theology a more than one that debates politics . This may he prejudice , and we do not vindicate it , —but it serves to shew that before the e

    Christians had made an appeal to the Dissenters and explained and ju rifled their proceedings , it was unreasonable to expect any particular support . The « Free-thinking Christians , " have : in their statement of their conduct and views , di . p ! ayed a corr ^ eneps , which dees not beseem the cause of Christian '

    inquiry . To abuse Christians in genoral is not the way to conciliate or improve them . Priests are indeed fair game ; but it was hardly to be ^ ex * pected from a set of liberal Christians , who owe all their present important opinions to Lardner , Priestley and Winr Chester , that they should adopt , without

    any modification , the maxim of a poet , who all his life vacillated between po ~ pery an $ infidelity , that u Priests of aU religions are the same ; " that ail religious teachers , whether in orders , or pretended holy orders , are alike destitute of sense ancl principle , —fools or knaves——no real difference between William

    Huntingdon and Robert Robinson , Bishop HorsJey and Dr . Price . —Is it the circumstance of taking pay that converts a religious teacher into a priest- —an useful ( in Cateaton-street it will nor be denied that religious teaching is useful , ) into a noxious character ? But a teacher may be '/> d »/ in different modes , —with " solid

    pudding , " or with ** empty praise /* They who refuse the former are most likely to take their full tithe of the latter , which of the two is more pernicious ; for inflation of mind is surely worse than sleekness of body . After

    all , the worst part of priestcraft is cenw soriousness and intolerance , and condemning men in the gross , by whole denominations and professions ; and a man may play the priest under cover of liberty as well as of authority / in thfc

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    Intelligence—Free-thinking Christians . 281

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    vol , m . 2 ' v

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1808, page 285, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2392/page/57/