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
teitant Dissenter , for having taken up Mrtns in the defence of the State , should be considered as an enemy to his country , and as a Jacobite . # 7 Alliance between Church and State . ( March 2 , 1790 . )
The admirers of the Test Act had contended , as feebly as in their use of other arguments , that the Church and State were so inseparably interwoven , that any changes in the one must immediately be followed by innovations in the other . A' most
eccentric , yet certainly a learned , and in some respects , an able and conclusive writer ( Doctor Warburton ) drew forth the whole power of his reasoning in the defence of this incongruous principle . According to this newfangled and absurd opinion , the Church was not to rely solely upon her own
merits , neither was religion to be established simply upon the truth of her own evidence ; but both were to receive their props and bolsterings from the assistance of the Civil Power . Was this the principle which introduced the first establishments of
Christianity ? Did it , during a state of infancy , when under the necessity not alone of working its way against the narrow and infatuated prejudices of mankind , but of subduing their violence by the innate purity of its spirit , and the winning aspect of its doctrines , receive assistance either from
the Roman Emperors or from the Raman Senate > Shameful was it that any Christian Prelate should have inculcated such an idea . What i appeal from the truth of the sacred writings to the authority of the Civil Power ! W - _ mJ
KeJigion should remain inseparable from the political constitution of a state . Intermingled with it , what purpose could it serve , except tlie baneful purpose of communicating and of receiving contamination ? Under such an alliance , corruption must
alight upon the one and slavery overwhelm the other . The Christian re"gion was neither dictated by politicians , nor addressed to politicians , nor cherished by politicians . The noblest
object to which religion could be directed in a state , and the object for which it was primarily intended , wos ^« influence and correct the morals of le people . Thus far religion must Prove eminently beneficial to a state : out the Corporation and the Test
Untitled Article
Acts might be said to militate against religion , because they were Jikely to render the professors of it hypocrites 2 $ . Mobs . ( March 2 , 1790 . ) To stimulate the House to caution .
under the present circumstances , they had been most pathetically called upon to remember the Riots in the year 178 O , and the public calamities which were then likely to have ensued under the blind and infatuated
idea , entertained by the mob , that they were acting for the defence of the Established Religion , when they attempted to enforce the most intolerant persecution ; when they had nearly leveled the Constitution in Church and State ; when they tad selected
the Judges and the Bishops for the peculiar objects of their vengeance $ when they had surrounded that House , and when they excited the most violent alarm , lest , by the demolition of the Bank , the national credit should have been annihilated for ever . In
this affecting imagery of language , had his right honourable friend , ( Burke ) in some degree , endeavoured to assimilate the past occurrences with the present - > and thus did he exclaim , Beware ! He recollected the
laudable and the spirited behaviour of his right honourable friend , during the tumults and the devastations of that disgraceful period : he had not forgotten that , with the noblest ardour of a virtuous intrepidity , his right honourable friend , bidding defiance to
the ungovernable frenzy of a misguided nibble , persevered m the purpose which then occupied the attention of the House , and pleaded for the blesjsings of Toleration in favour of the Roman Catholics > but let his right honourable friend remember also , in his turn , and he would not find
himself at a loss to discover by looking back upon those unfortunate days to which he had alluded , that according to the arguments in the present case , the clergy of the Established Church stood in the shoes of the mob , and the Dissenters in those of the
poor persecuted Roman Catholics . As to himself he should always remain prepared , upon the principle of tolerance , to support Protestants , Dissent ' ers 9 or 3 toman Catholics , 'jThe ntob , in 178 O , shamefully insisted upon the repeal of a salutary law : and the mob of the High Church now insisted against
Untitled Article
Ckarles James jFox . ( $ h
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1815, page 611, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1765/page/11/
-