The parish church of Wisbeach, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, is a spacious handsome fabric, though of a very singular construction, being furnished with two naves and two aisles. The naves are lofty and separated from each other by a row of light slender pillars, with pointed arches. The aisles are the most ancient, being divided from their respective naves by low massy pillars, and semicircular saxon arches. The tower is deemed very beautiful, and has been thought ancient, but its claim to antiquity is said to be fully refuted by existing records, which prove its erection to have been posterior to the 10th of March 1520.—On the west side of the north entrance is a small chapel or chantry dedicated to St. Martin, and originally endowed with lands for the maintenance of a priest, to say masses for the soul of the founder. The church is a vicarage, said to be heretofore worth 500_l._ a year, but now, it seems, more than double that sum, in consequence of a late litigation, which terminated in favour of the vicar, and the complete discomfiture of his opponents. This is said to have occasioned not a little ill blood between the good pastor and some of his flock; but however that may affect them, so large an addition of income will probably prevent his laying it very deeply to heart. It may, however, perhaps be somewhat doubtful, if the present extraordinary juncture, and most eventful period, be altogether the most safe or proper for the clergy to promote or engage in these unconciliatory and offensive litigations.
Besides the parish church, there are at Wisbeach six other different places of worship; one belonging to the _friends_, commonly called _Quakers_, one to the _Independents_, or _Culymites_, one to the _Wesleyan Methodists_, and three to those of the _baptist_ denomination. Between the latter, though they all go under the same name, there yet exist some strong shades of difference, so that very little of any thing like good understanding or christian harmony is discoverable. Yet they all lie, more or less, under the imputation of heterodoxy, from the great or main body of their brethren, who are usually termed _particular baptists_,—as well as from the rest of the right orthodox clans. Of these three societies one belongs to a certain order or description of arminian or general baptists, who are pretty numerous about Leicestershire and the adjacent counties, and also in some other parts. Except on the point of baptism, they agree very much with the Wesleyans, and may, perhaps, without much impropriety, be called _Wesleyan baptists_.—Another of these three societies belongs to a small party of baptists, sometimes called _Johnsonians_, from the late John Johnson of Liverpool, to whose peculiar tenets and spirit they are very much attached; and they have, seemingly, but little charity or forbearance towards any thing that does not come up to, or accord with that standard; which may be said to be the worst trait in their character. They are otherwise respectable, and so are the members of the society before mentioned. Less bigotry would make both more amiable and more respectable. The people who constitute the other baptist society assume the name of _Unitarians_, and belong to a notable class of that denomination which is said to be now much on the increase in different parts of the kingdom. The leaders of this new religious class profess to have for their main object to restore Christianity to its original purity: they adopt a popular strain of preaching, and are by some people looked upon as highly _evangelical_; so that, as we have had for some time _evangelical trinitarians_, both in the church and out of it, we are now, it seems, to have likewise _evangelical __unitarians_. Some zealots among the orthodox will probably nibble at this, and even pronounce it absolutely impossible; but the pastor of the said society, at Wisbeach, is said to be ready to maintain, against the very best man among his opponents, not only that those of his connection are really _no less evangelical_, but even much _more so_ than any of those on whom it has been the fashion of late years to bestow that honourable appellation. Nothing further needs here be said on the subject: the public will have an opportunity to judge for themselves, if any one will enter the lists, or step forward to discuss the point with the said pastor.