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them at all . In order that we should guess what actions are likely to follow opinions , we should ourselves first have entertained those opinions ; or if we guess at all , we ought to guess on the favourable side . But , it was said , there were no commands in the Church which might not safely be obeyed ; or at least the Church of England was the safeguard of the State . Was this the fact ? Was it
not possible for a man to become a very bad citizen , even by implicitly obeying the doctrine of the Church of England itself ? Most unquestionably it was ; for the Church of England taught us , that we were to make no resistance to the commands of the
magistrate , although they should be unlawful , or even unnatural ; the doctrine was passive obedience and non-resistance , and consequences were to be left to a future state ; this was
the doctrine of James the Second ; this , it was true , was not now the law , but it was still the doctrine of the Church , and thus , by being a good churchman , a person might become a bad citizen . What was the
result of all this ? That , as in the established church there was so much error , that it could not be obeyed totally , without breach of moral obligation and even of positive law , ( for
a man might be punished for obedience to the illegal commands of a legal master , ) it was the essence of injustice to persecute any person for omitting to conform to this established religion .
The old answer , he said , to all these arguments was , that the laws were obsolete , and that therefore the hardship was ideal . To this he must say , that what was claimed by the Unitarians and Socinians was nothing more than justice ; and that there could be no great harm in removing from the statute book that which we were
either afraid or ashamed to enforce . Of the doctrines of Arius , Arminius and Socinus , he did not mean to enter into a discussion , because he was certain they did not in the smallest degree affect the state . It was not therefore
the duty of the legislature to interfere . The persons fot whom he now interceded were Unitarians , some following the doctrines of Arius , others pf Socinus . They intreated of the Jflouse not to establish them , but to relieve them from statutes of pain mid
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punishment . If these statutes were too bad to be put in practice , they ought not to be suffered to exist . An assertion had gone forth , of the existence of a party who wished to overturn the constitution . In order to counteract any such intentions , it
ought to be the care of the House to banish all those imperfections which tended to disgrace and to , injure the beautiful fabric . If a stranger wished to learn the constitution of Great
Britain , he would seek for it in her laws . "What would he say , when he discovered that the statutes of Elizabeth againgst Catholics , and of William against Unitarians , were still suffered to exist ? Would he be satisfied with
the information , that they were never used ? No . He would contend , that if they were not used they ought to be repealed . Still , however , even the non-execution of them produced the worst effects , insomuch as it tended to divide the people , and to afford some ground for the invectivei of bigoted churchmen .
Previous to the year 1641 , four persons professing Unitarian doctrines had been burnt . Subsequent to that period lived Mr . Biddle , who was considered as the founder of Unitarianism ; he suffered persecution for his religious opinions from Cromwell
and Charles the Second , and though his character was unexceptionable , the persecution against him did not in the smallest degree relax . But though the Unitarians were not now persecuted by the legislature , they were in a manner under the lash of
divines of the Established Church . * Dr . South , in speaking of them , had traced their pedigree from wretch to wretch , back to the devil himself . These descendants of the devil were
his clients . This was the language of former days . More modern times had produced greater moderation ; still , however , invective had not ceased . Dr . Halifax , speaking of Dr . Priestley , had said , that now he had stated hii
opinions , he had completed his crimes . Thus a declaration of an opinion had been gravely asserted to be criminal . Posterior to Dr . Halifax , Dr . Horsley had contended , that even the moral good of the Unitarians was sin ; ana however they served God , loved their kindred , and relieved the distressed , they were sinful because they Yf&e hfcretic **
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( Jgfc Charles James Fox *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1815, page 682, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1766/page/18/
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