The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-05-23 00:00:00

REV. MR. NEAVE AND "DISCENS."

To as Ealuor.

Sir,—! have • sincere respect for all honourable com-
batants, and whether they airree with me or no, I always
endesvonr to do justice to the strength of their argument.,
and to offer an honest reply; but when • disputant so far
forgets the courtesies of debate as to descend to • mean
and unmanly attack on • body of Christians whe do not
I,IICOTTI themselves one straw about him or his mntro-
versy either, and who even endeavours anonymously to
brand the individual members thereof, he so completely
, tremens/es the rule of honour and good breeding, to say
, nothing of Christian spirit, as to brand himself as an un-
worthy critic who deserves not to be reckoned amongst
fair and honourable men, and whose lurubntions may
well be consigned to the limbo of all nasty and speedily
to be forgotten missives. If, therefore, I do not traverse
the points in his letter, it is partly because they
have been replied to over and over again, and because the
temper of his letter makes it undesirable to prolong the
correspondence I will only refer to his statement
respecting the Puritans as the true representatives of
rid 'thorn and equality, an assertion on his pert
w can only be amounted for on the ground of his
inability to attend to his historical studies amid his many
other engagement,, and his diligent attention to the
Inner and outer life of the dissenting churches which he
so ardently loves! But as I should like to return good
for evil, I can only say that "Dianna" will (lad the
whole subject of the position of our Puritan ancestors to
religious liberty and equality discussed with the greatest
fulness in two articles in the two hat numbers of the
intiat Quarterly Review; and failing these he will find •
succinct statement of the question in the December num-
ber of Good Words for lea, by Principal Tulloch. The '
careful reading of these articles will greatly moderate his
tone, and convince him not only of the truthfulness of
my assertion, but teach him that none are so assertive
and impertinent as the men who know nothing of what
they are speaking. I will Rive a few extracts from these
periodicals : "The early intolerance of New England
Puritans," says Principal Tulloch, "Is a well-known
story. It had its excuses in the necessities of their posi-
tion, and no doubt served to give compactness and
solidity to their religious life; but it is, nevertheleaa, a
curiously painful story. Fleeing from persecution at
home, no sooner bad they settled on the rocky and barren
coast of Massachusetts than they began to protect them-
selves, not only from the encroachments of the Indiana
but from all teachers of doctrines at variance with their
own standard of orthodoxy. Not only episcopacy, of
which their dislike was intelligible, but every form of
opinion and policy different from their own was placed
under ban." To say that men ought to have liberty of
conscience" was pronounced ' impious grievance."
"Poly piety is the greatest impiety." Religion had "no
eccentric notions." but must he conceived of according to
one uniform pattern, both of dogma and ritual. "Such
was the hard and narrow Puritanism out of which the
varied religious thought of New England has grown." To
Roger Williams belongs the honour to have been the first
to resist this intolerance of the IPuritaas of New England.
He was the pastor of the first Baptist Church which may
be said to have taken its rise as a re-action from this
intolerance. The Puritans, with that "sweet culture and
mild reasonableness," which in his MN ignorance
" Diseena" claims for them, urged his immediate ejection
from Boston. For a while he retired to Plymouth, to
evade the rage excited by his opinions. But at length by
these kind Christians, be was driven forth in the dead of
winter to seek • new refuge. "For 14 weeks," he says
himself, "be was sorely test in • bitter season, not knowing
what bread or bed did mean." Such was the treatment which
the first to assert the liberty of conscience in New England
secured at the hands of our Puritan ancestors, when they
became the masters of the situation. As they had been
mulcted, and lined, and imprisoned, and finally driven
from their own shores ; so in turn with little less 'event,
did they persecute, fine, imprison, and banish those who
diffeed from them, and asserted the rights of conscience.
Your readers, therefore, will judge whether we have not
advanced from the position of our forefathers, and
whether they deserve the commendation which in his
unpardonable ignorance "Discens" claims for them. I
would not thus long have dwelt on the criticism of his
letter, but that there is so much misapprehension on this
matter even with Nonconformists themselves, and who
consequently fail to realise the disastrous Walls which
have ever Rowed (rein the connection of Church and
State, whether the Church has been Episcopalian,
Congregational, or Presbyterian. Speaking of the imprison.
manta which took place in Norwich, Connecticeut, when
as many as forty persona, men and eminent were
Imprisoned in one year for refusing to pay ecclesiastical
taxes, the writer in the British Quarterly Review, save
—"Mere is no need to dwell upon these painful facts.
But they surely demonstrate that there was nothing in
New England air to give mellowness or mitigation to
the iniquities and exasperations that are essentially
inherent in any union between Church and Slate; let the
Church on the one hand, and the State on the other, be
of what quality they may."—Brieisis Quarterly Review for
April, 436 page.
If I should have the pleasure of encountering " Dismiss "
again, I hope to find him somewhat better informed on
the question which he somewhat erratically Manures, and
with the unclean spirit of 'sermons] vituperation and
anonymous abuse gone out of him.
I am, yours.
Tuoras Num
Dorchester, May 16th, 1876.