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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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and its inhabitants ) , as a candidate for the ministry , upon the resignation of a former minister . The election in that congregation was always with the unanimous approbation of as many as were alive of the purchasers , in every instance that occurred , until the pretended election of the plaintiff , which was very different from the former usage . The house is a large and extensive buiiding , containing * , besides commodious galleries , near tifty pews , ( not twenty only , as the statement insinuates ) many cf the owners of which never concurred in the election of the plaintiff , and the defendant , although a pew-holder , was not so much as informed of the proceeding . The plaintiff at first professed great liberality towards all that differed from him in sentiments , but a
twelvemonth had scarcely elapsed after his partial appointment , when he began to manifest his real disposition , by authoritatively reprimanding * , both in private and public , the conduct of some of his hearers , who had the temerity to attend a meeting * in the
neighbourhood , at which the Rev . John James and the Rev . David Jenkin Rees , of Cardiganshire , preached , two men well known in Wales for their zealous efforts to promote Christian knowledge and virtue . The plaintiff being" accustomed to
preach to a neighbouring congregation every other Sunday evening , those who had never concurred in his appointment expected , as the house was those evenings vacant , that no objection would be started in any quarter to a request they made , to have a Sermon on those vacant hours
from Mr . Evans , the minister of a respectable Unitarian congregation in the neighbourhood , at the same time distinctly assuring the plaintiff and his friends that his salary would in no manner be affected thereby , but all was to no purpose , the plaintiff strenuously opposed them , and spared no efforts to render ihem odious ,
alleging that none of that sect ever preached a tittle of the gospel , and other epithets in the same spirit tending to irritate and inflame the neighbourhood against them . Thus finding the plaintiff so unreasonable they resolved to the number of forty-seven , many of them respectable pewholders , and among tliem the next representatives of the
deceased purchasers of the ground , after signing a request to the above-named minister for his services to solicit permission of the defendant to perform divine service there on vacant hours every other Sunday evening , as was first intended , which he very generously granted , and sent to
acquaint the plaintiff thereof , and this is what Mr . Ileald calls taking on himself , and without consulting the congregation , the sole right of ^ election . The plaintiff , in order to hinder any one from preachingthere without his consent , clandestinely took the key from the person where it wag
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entrusted by the defendant ; and placi a large tran bar across the door plac ' iT * padlock thereon , keeping the key himself * a thing never done by any of his predeces ' sors ; asserting , he had more right theiet than any other person whatever , which th ° defendant finding , he put on a new lock the key of which he offered to one ofth
deacons of the congregation , and by hi desire , left at a house more conveniently situated , that service might be there per formed without interruption at all usual times j but this was not what the plaintiff wanted , for with his own hands he broke
open the door , and afterwards , dreadin * the consequence of his outrageous con ' duct , he , with some pewholders , ( but not to the number of twenty , as mentioned in the statement , for six of them positive !? deny their being concerned in the suit , dedaring their names are used without their
consent ; and others of them disclaiming being pewholders at all ) applied by an ex parte statement to the Court of Chancerv and obtained an injunction to restrain the defendant from disturbing * the plaintiff in his newly-acquired possession . They
likewise filed a bill in the same court , the object of which is to remove the defendant from the trusty and if possible , to transfer the same to the plaintiff , and a few adherents upon whom he might depend for en . joying what he thus obtained . The men brought forward on this occasion to
complain , never before concerned any thing ; in the . affairs of the meeting-house , and on an occasion , lately , when the house was accidentally in need of great repairs , none of the complainants contributed to the expense ; which was discharged by the other pewholders and their friends . Granting
whose request to assemble in the house to perform divine service on vacant hours , although it is well known in the neighbourhood , that to their ancestors the place owes its foundation , is the only possible accusation that can be brought of the impropriety of the defendant to discharge the tmst that has devolved to him , —w hose
conduct in this affair has been marked by a strong desire to promote Christian knowledge ; asserting bis rights solely to enable him to discharge his trust according to the original intention . Thus far we have done what we thought an incumbent duty in giving the public through your columns * candid statement of the case at issue . WILLIAM WILLIAMS . DAVID DAVIS . CHRISTOPHER JAMES . JOHN LEWIS . lll ^ fcM
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192 Intelligence . —Unitarian Controversy in the West of . England .
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Unitarian Controversy in the West of England . Dr . Carpenter has just edited " I *** on the Trinitarian Controversy , insert * the Exeter Newspapers , at the close 01
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1815, page 192, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1758/page/64/
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