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    cf&ya 4 be « oft arid stately repose of palaces . $ } Tita this unfashionable associa tiq ^ i pf < jdeas w ith ^ meeting-houses , where the mind fashions the church $ ipd nQt the church the mind * we h ^ ve been from the . first not a little anxious far the success of Mr . WiU « an ' 8 design . No history of "

    Dissenting Churches" -was ^ ver before drawn up , and it is evident that in a very little time all traces of some of them would have been worn out ! All that could be collected t > y diligence is here recorded with regard to the churches in the cities of London and

    Westminster and the Borough of Southwark . The author ' s design extended farther ; he had planned and prepared materials for a history of all the Dissenting places of worship in the Metropolis and the circumjacent villages , which would have filled

    another volume ; but a scanty subscription-list , of scarcely three hundred persons , afforded not encouragement enough for the undertaking . This fact is by no means creditable to

    the Dissenters . It is not perhaps too late to repair the neglect , and we take up these volumes with some faint hope of exciting such attention to the work as may dispose the author' to pursue and complete his design .

    Mr . . Wilson , we understand , is now pursuing a learned profession , but JW engaged at the , period of the commencement of his work in a considerabje book-trade in JLondon , which W mention only to shew that he had opportunities rarely enjoyed by

    authors of collecting materials for his history , which lay scattered in numberless single sermons and pamphlets . These authorities are carefully acknowledged , and qf themselves form jnin ^ lex % o t ^ e literary history of the

    Wi&ae ^ ers . . . TJie . Jtpjst qualification of the histo-? W # f Dissenting Churches is a , spirit of religious impartiality . Of the v ^ l ucof this , our author is fully aware , pd remarks v < ify justly ( Pref . p . v . } that <* to arrive at truth , we most

    di-Tw oiTOfJjfjes ° f sectarian prejudices , weig ^ well tbe opinipns of others and ^ dP& $£ Jpf our , o \ vn judgment , " £ aci that "> triie wisdom is always al-* l ^ A , i \ Q pjodeaty , apd whilst it bec iui to W decided in our own pinions , a recollection of human fal-

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    libility will teach us a lesson of can * dour to others / ' We shall have © ccasion , hereafter , to point out in * stances in which Mr . Wilson appears to us to have lost sigh . t of these

    Christian sentiments ; but it is only justice to'him to observe , that there is a growing liberality , in the work as it advances , which we take as a pledget that should the public patronage evei induce the author to revise his

    volumes , he would correct some pas * sages which in their present form offend such readers as consider History degraded when , instead of being the handmaid of truth , it is made the servant of a party .

    At the same time we are willing to inake allowances for prepossessions which spring from a sense of religion and a zeal for its promotion ; and we applaud that strong attachment to the

    common principles of dissent which our historian every where manifests . Without such an attachment , he could not have been expected to qualify himself for his labourious task or to

    accomplish it witfi credit . His own ardour , however , leads him to form an unfavourable , and we hope an unjust estimate of the temper of his fiellow-dissenters . The compliment which in the following passage is paid to one denomination to the prejudice of the others is a hasty and censorious re * flection : —

    " A spirit of inquiry as to the disting"ui 8 hingf features of nonconformity , has , with the exception of the Baptists , wholly jledfrom . the different sects . The Presbyterians have either deserted to the world

    or sunk under the influence of a lukewarm ministry ; and the Independents hare gone over in a body to the Methodists . Indifference and enthusiasm have thinned the ranks of the old stoek , and those who remain behind are lost in the crowd of

    modern religionists . " Pref . pp . xi , xu . We have no wish to disparage the Baptists as Dissenters , but we fear that there are striking examples a-

    mongst them of an attempt to gam popularity by sinking the principles of nonconformity . They have not certainly been accustomed to take the lead in the assertion and defence

    of religious liberty ; nor do the Preebyterians and Independents of the present day yield to any generation of their fathers in zeal on behalf of the rights of con » ct $ nc £ . And may

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    Mtoiew .- ^ W&onVMKsse ^ npXXmrches . 89 ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1816, page 167, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2450/page/39/