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    To the period when the common law had its origin , the period , when those maxims were established , which , handed down to tradition , and confirmed by authority , are supposed to . have formed part of a written code ? The present establishment had no existence in those times \ and , perhaps , could

    we penetrate into an antiquity so dark , we might even find that Unitarian ism was then the received faith , and that all other creeds are heresies . At all events , there must have been a time , when , under Catholic princes , it must have been an offence at common law to support those forms which it is now an offence at common law to

    impugn . Had the common law of England , then , silently changed and veered round on every variation of the court religion ? If it be so , the evil is not peculiar to Unitarians , but common to every class of Dissenters , and must fall upon those who are now subscibing- to support it . For * if any

    thingmpre be intended by that Christianity which it is illegal to controvert , than those great principles which all who assume the Christian nan \ e recognize as the basis of present moral obligation and the ground of future hope , it must imply all the doctrines , services , rites and ceremonials of the Established Faith . The law can know

    of no scale whereby to measure the degrees of heresy . They who presume to disbelieve that in Baptism a child is made a an heir of Christ , a child of God , and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven , " are then as really offenders as those who deny the Trinity ; and on the ground upon which political interference is everted , they are more deeply criminal because the contumacy of schism

    is greater , and is left more entirely , in the eye of persecutors , without excuse , in proportion as its grounds are more trivial . Also on the princi ple contended for , of those within the church who dispute respecting the meaning of her formularies , one party must be offenders against law , since both cannot be maintaining the true doctrine as she * has declared it . Courts of law must

    decide between the Evangelical and Armenian clergy , and we must add to our lawlibvaTies , already sufficiently extensive , all the volumes of ecclesiastical controversy which have ever been written- If therefore , it were contended , in consequence of the illegality of Umtarianistn , that nil foundations even now reared for its support are void , all other Dissenting trusts , even since

    the Act of Toleration , are in the same condition 5 and , even were the illegality noVv confined to . the former , all of the latter established before the Revolution , niust be liable to be diverted from their purposes , and that very antiquity become the ground of their fall , which seemed tohare rendered thetai more g » cred . Btft , fncontfifttent or ataufd fcs tUe doctrine * referred t& ; might appear , they fead

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    been recently promulgated under the sanetionof Protestant Dissenting Ministers . It was melancholy , indeed , to yiew these , the legitimate guardians of religious freedom , thus attempting to destroy its first principles : —to find men holding their own

    stations by free election , and making the propriety of such election , and the right of dismissal , a ground of their dissent , calling on their congregations to support the doctrine that a Dissenting preacher , once chosen , is established in a freehold for life 5—looking into dark times , when their own ancestors suffered from

    persecution , for maxims of persecution against their opponents;—and searching among the ashes of bigotry for some spark , which only the haste of the legislature to extinguish its flames had heedlessly suffered to remain unquenched , from which they might light a torch to consume the institutions of their foes , and which must shortly destroy

    their own . There was something low and petty in the proceeding , which the furious persecutors of old , would hardly have deigned to employ . They would have acted a bolder part : if they pursued heretics , it would be with a disinterested enthusiasm , not with an eye to their possessions ; they might have led them to the

    fires of Smithfield , but would scarcely have condescended to put them into the Court of Chancery . When it was considered * , then , that these men , justly esteemed for all excellences , save when big-otry usurped the place of kind aii ' ections and solid judgment ,- were our opponents , could it be hoped that societies composed , for the most

    part , of the persons over whom their infill-, ence extended , would advocate our cause against them ? Even supposing the majority , at last , to be with us , should we endure a preliminary struggle before every step in our defence , and act after it , without that promptitude and decision which alone could give us the slightest probability of succeeding *?

    For tbe final result , if this Society acted with wisdom and zeal , he ( Mr . T . ) had no apprehension . Let the battle only be fairly fought , and whether , in a court of law , it was lost or won , the cause must ultimately triumph . The day when the Board Ministers should succeed in establishing- the

    existence of persecution , they would murk it out for destruction . Let them < 4 drag ; the struggling monster into light , ' * and in that light it would instantly expire . But we must fairly meet every objection on the ground of its advocates , and must ascertain tlic fact whether we were tolerated or

    not , before we either sat down in quiet , applied to Parliament for a remedy . ; We must protect our brethren at a distance from petty tyranny ^ aifcd fe rcii it to meet us in th « & face » f the World . ' Then the ctonteat Would be openj oiid whatever tois the iirtu

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    5 £ Intelligence . — Unitarian A ssoeiation .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1819, page 52, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1768/page/52/