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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
tlrink ^ r as ^ ane ! afc her creeds think s , andr ttet . ; he .. wlia-i « i ^ M ^ without doubt perish everlastingly /* . t \ I Lfiiav *
These , and some others whk ^ might be mentiofiea , are grave proportions' ; mid the JKsseatsr ; to m temperately withdraws himself from the fellowship of the Church , and refuses that assent which joining in its worship and services would imply . In former times he suffered persecution in the assertion of his right to follow the
dictates of his judgment ; in a wiser age he has been protected in his dissent ; he has always for conscience' sake resigned that claim to an equal participation in the honours and rewards of the State which conformity would give
him ; and if such be the voluntary course of his conduct , can it be otherwise than a violation of his liberty of thought and action , to compel him to give that practical assent to the discipline , authority , and scriptural purity of the Church , which he on ail other occasions refuses ? True , he has not carried his protest against the principle so far as the Catholics , who have even sacrificed the legitimacy of their offspring to the assertion of their
religious rights ; he has thought himself justified in weighing the consequences ; and though he gives up for himself the common rights of citizenship , to follow what he considers the path of duty , he conceives that , in this particular , a still more imperious duty calls upon him to bow to the necessity which morality and the well-being of society impose upon him in the present state of the law ; but surely he is not on that account a less fit object for consideration and relief .
If the man who dissents from the mere discipline of the Church is not governed ^ by conscientious principles , why does he not join in another of its rites , and thus escape the rigour of the Sacramental Test ? If it was not known that every JOissenter would " conscientiously scruple" any such recognition of the authority , discipline , and services of the Establishment as would be implied in partaking of any of its ordinances , why was such a teat imposed , and why does it still work its intended effect ?
In the eye of the law all the < conscientious scruples" that were till lately recognized were scruples to the discipline of the Church . The Toleration Act relieves such and only such ; the Schoolmasters' Act exempted tne parties merely from the consequence of such objections , and it was reserved for the last reign to recognize any sort of attention to doctrinal differences .
With these observations the Committee dismiss the subject , recommending only a careful perusal of the ensuing debate , and earnestly intreating an impartial consideration of the measure to wlich It relates . They ^ # 1 only f & ir candid and liberal inquiry . They desire to stew no perfteal ^ iy W ^ kc &^ fatt to any one form of relief / tlie mode of Wlucffl & ey are willing to teafe , 'Wm
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1823, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1714/page/49/
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