The right of private judgment in religious matters, which follows immediately from the first principles of dissent, has been too generally denied by the rulers of this world to their subjects. Nevertheless, its enemies have frequently been constrained to bear a _practical_ testimony in its favour. Under varying circumstances in our own history, for instance, this indestructible privilege has been assumed, alternately, by the christian convert from paganism, by the protestant, and the papist, again by the reformer, again by the Roman catholic, and, still more recently, by the puritan, and the dissenter from protestant establishments. This is the moving power which has caused, and the unfailing clew which has run through, all these changes, and will only find its termination in the perfect concord and liberty of the universal church. To the truly liberal and candid, it must be a subject of profound regret, that, for so many ages, no party duly appreciated, or heartily countenanced, the liberty which each, in turn, asserted. But in proportion to the sorrow which such a view of ecclesiastical history occasions, will be the joy, if a gradual though tardy approach to the full recognition of the rights of conscience can be perceived; and especially if it be discovered, that there has long existed a numerous and intelligent portion of the christian world, among whom those rights have not only been claimed, but generally conceded; not merely assumed to serve a purpose, but watched and advocated as the invaluable and inalienable birthright of man. And although it will be admitted as a sad evidence of human frailty, if intolerance be found lurking even among the class of persons just referred to, yet, as a body, they ought never, on that account, to be ranked with those whose principles would lead them to enthral the conscience within creeds and formularies of man’s devising. The characteristic views of congregational dissenters, containing the very elements of freedom, rise up to condemn, with double energy, the least departure from its laws in _them_. They, assuredly, should be the last to lord it over the consciences of their fellow-men, who, themselves, acknowledge in religious affairs, no lawgiver but Christ, and no directory but the Bible. {10} A glance at some of the great religious alternations which have occurred in England, will serve to illustrate the preceding remarks, and, at the same time, furnish occasion to trace, imperfectly, the origin and operation of dissenting principles in the locality to which the following pages are especially devoted. Perhaps it may be found that institutions which, even by the candid and charitable, are sometimes supposed to have their foundation in a morbid disaffection towards secular rulers, or at best, in a too prurient scrupulousness, and to lead to anarchy and infidelity, are based on nobler principles and tend to happier results.