On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
If your " caution" had not led me astray , I intended to fyavfi sat as censor upon the sermons preached by our Dissenting ministers on the late thanksgiving day , which in the course of my reading , have come most of them under my notice . Your re- * viewer has in part anticipated me , but his " prudence' * has left
me still something to say * The discourses published by the Dissenters on these occasions are of much greater importance : than as pamphlets or single sermons would seen * to be * Their circulation is , usually , wide < They give the tone to the ! political sentiments of the bulk of our congregations , and they are regarded I know by the public * whether justly or not I am
not to enquire , as the measure of our good sense and loyalty * These circumstances admonish us that they ought always to be narrowly examined , and when they are objectionable to be publicly protested against . They should likewise prorfapt our most patriotic and able preachers to come forward in print at Such times , and not to relinquish the public stage to the v&in ^
the flippant , and the parasitical , and thereby to expose us as a body to the derision of spectators * Some Dissenters object td the observance of these political Sundays * if I may coin a new epithet , as a matter of conscience ; ail of them ought , I think ^ to object to them as a matter of policy i for it seldom happens on these days that some of our ministers are not led by the silly af
fectation of loyalty , or the wretched ambition of popularity t& utter gross falsehoods * , to make concessions which do away Entirely thejustifiablenesa of dissent , and to establish such slavish , high-church , popish dogmas on the subject of the civil power , as would in the purer periods of our history , have subjected a minister in the church of England to the censure of Parliament , and the loss of his gown , I mean not , Sir , to go into these sermons fcritic&lly , fot though I do not despair of gaining some note , and thia is what we all live for , as a censor , 1 believe I should earn little
praise as a reviewer . I shall put down , in order , a few dbser- * vations upon them in the lump . And , 1 * They all agf ee in over-rating the victory of Trafalgar . Judging from them , you would suppose that France lik ^ Britain , was a maritime power solel y * and that with her fleet ,
or rather a division of her fleet , fell her very power and existence . Certainly you would not suppose , that it was well known at the time they were delivered , that the battle of Atistertitz bad made France the undisputed mistresa of the Continent from the boundaries of Turkey > to t&e shores of the Atlantic , ftfovr this partial dealing of our preachers , wai not only politically * As iu what relates to a fsrtaUt mof&teh *
Untitled Article
123 On the Study of Politics *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1806, page 128, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1722/page/16/
-