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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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pol ^ ical churches , from which , according to the Bishop ' s concession , truth may be outlawed * 6 . A church established by law , i . e « a legal church , may be a false church , which it must be if it is not true . Now , then , how is a man to act with regard to such a church ? To continue in it 5 is dishonest : to leave it is to become-a Dissenter . What if the church of England should be esteemed a church of this sort , and the Bishop , instead of reclaiming nonconformists , should cause churchmen to wander ? He will not be the first who has argued for the church till he has convinced the world that no argument can support it . The right reverend catechist , having thus satisfactorily explained how truth may be impure , and how truth and puritymay be illegal ^ and of course justly punishable ^ goes on first to assert , then to pro \ r e , that the church of England , the King ' s daughter , is all glorious within . " She is a true church , CQ because the word of God is oreached in her , and the
sacraments are duly administered by persons rightly ordained : " fche is . also & pure church ,. *'_ because she is free from all doctrines and ordinances which are contrary to the Scriptures : ' she is also a legal church , " because she is established by y
law ;' z . e . she is true because she is true , pure because she is pure , legal because she is legal . This is what logicians call arguing in a circle , and arguing , like walkings round and round , necessarily makes a man dizzy , with this only differpnce , that no man argues in a circle till he is too giddy to move in a right line of argumentation *
* Will you indulge an old man in telling a story connected with the memory of a friend , now no more , the witty and dreaded antagonist of religious bigots and oppressors , Robert Robinson , of Cambridge . A farmer in the neighbourhood © £ Cambridge , wishing to register his house for dissenting worship , went thither during one of the quarter-sessions , and applied to the Magistrates then sitting ort the bench for that purpose . These gentlemen , mostly clergymen , finding that he had brought no requisition , and was extremely illiterate and bashful , bantered him on the subject of religion till he was glad to leave the court , his errand unaccomplished . In the street , he recollected that he had heard much of Mr .
Robinsons scholarship and boldness , and he resolved , though a stranger , to apply to him for advice . He found him out , and told his story . Robinson drew up a proper requisition , directed him to sign it , and ordered him to hasten home , and get it signed by any two householders of his village whom he should first meet , JEie did so , and returned before the justices had left their scats . Robinson now took the paper , and presented it in persont The bench stared in confusion , first at him , then at one another ; behaved with studied civility , and ordered the register to be instantly made out . -As he was returning home , he was overtaken and accosted by one of the justices , who knowing and esteeming him , apologised for the behaviour of his brethren in the commission , and added that it was all
owing to the instructions of the bishop of , who is , concluded he , *« the devil of a man !"— " Thank God ! ' * said Robinson , in one of his arch tones , an 4 it the same moment parted from his civil companion— " Thank God , I am not § jpcrufre ? p £ that church over which the devil k high priest !'
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JBp . Burgess ' s Principles * " 637
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 637, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/21/
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