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prove the insufficiency of the Christirn religion to preserve arid perpetuate itself without the fostering care of the civil power ; especially since for three hundred years it had to struggle against the state , and was
always successful . Even churchmen have acknowledged that the preservation of the spirit of piety in England has been owing more to the Nonconformists than to the Established Church .
There appear to us to be certain great evils inherent in a national religious establishment ; $ uch as political patronage in the church and the consequent nullity of the suffrages of the people , the imposition of creeds and tests , the impossibility of reformation or at least of reformation
without convulsion , and the persecution of the minority . The magistrate may exercise only what is called a public leading in religion , but this patronage amounts to nothing if he do not apply some portion of the revenue of
the state to the support of certain external offices : now these very offices may be objectionable and offensive on the ground of conscience to a part of the communit 5 . They may withdraw themselves into separate congregations , and will be tolerated in their secession ! This is so far
well ; in the mean time , however , their property or labour is taxed for the promotion of what they hold to be error and are compelled , to protest against . Is this equitable in a Christian view ?
That the will of the majority should bind the minority is a necessary evil j but it is an evil ; and the object of all good government is to limit and soften the cases in which the principle is brought into action . Religion is not , we think , one of the cases
which call ? for its exercise . Man is naturally prone to religion , and all that is worthy of the name individuals will take care of for themselves , whether with or against the mind of the magistrate . The province of the civil ruler is the public morality of a community : he cannot enter into
the private opinions or the religious forms which help or hinder good mx > rals : as far as he restrains or punishes overt evil actions he is a common benefactor ; this is done every day without regard to religion : but if he * tep beyond thifl liue and establish
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religions forms with a view to their probable secret moral influence , he may do no real service to any man but must certainly do injury to some
men . For these and other reasons , we are not of the number of those wjio would , as Mr . Belsham predicts , rejoice in seeing 4 l not only liberty , but protection and support" granted to the Roman Catholic system of faith and discipline in Ireland . A
statereligion is likely to last as long a » the state itsel f but , with every good tvish to Roman Catholics , we ardently desire the downfal of their system and deprecate its being so morticed into the government of the country that the one must sink with the other .
Letter III . is designed to vindicate Unitarians from the preposterous charge of unbelief . " He , " says Mr . Belsham , " who receives Jesus Christ as a teacher sent from God is b , believer : he who does not allow the divine mission of Christ is an
unbeliever . What room is left for degrees of infidelity ? " In reply to the imputation , which is not confined to the Bishop of London , of straining the scriptures , Mr . Belsham very happily replies for the Unitarians , — u If indeed our adversaries could allege that , when our Lord expressly and solemnl y asserts , 4 that he knew not th © day nor the hour when he should come to judgment , ' the Unitarians explained the text by imputing- to the Saviour of th « world the mean equivocation , that he was ignorant of it in his human nature , though he knew it in his divine : —if it could be shown that when our Lord says ^ c My Father is greater than I , ' the Unitarians understood by it that lie was in all respects equal to tho Father , and neither greater nor less- —and if when St . Paul says , c by man came death , by man . came also the resurrection of the dead , ' the Unitarian expositors , misled by an attachment to system , insisted that the apostle ' s meaning * must be , that though by man came death , it was not by a man , but by a superior being , a God-man , came also the resurrection of the dead : —if such interpretations as these could be fixed upon the Unitarians , your Lordship might reasonably express your astonishment" .
Mr ^ Belsham proceeds , iix Letter IV ., to consider the curious fact so confidently asserted by the Bishop , that unbelievers have embodied themselves in one faction with Unitarian * .
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Review . —JBelsham ' s toilers to the Bishop of London * 76 \
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yol , x . 5 v
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1815, page 761, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1767/page/33/
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