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his innocence in any speculative consequence ? to which it may conduct him , the Catholic is the most consistent and the most humane . He requires but a single effort—the resignation of all the discursive faculties , and then leaves the subject of his faith , in peace , to believe and admire : the Episcopalian sets an example of schism from his original Church , which he will allow no one to follow : while the Calvhiistic Dissenter , more inconsistent still , is at once , openly nonconformist and intolerant ; appealing against the miracles of . the Roman Church to that reason which
he will not adrnit as the judge of his own—and imposing on the young the duty of freest investigation , while he carefully inculcates that , unless \ ts results are of a peculiar kind , everlasting torments will be the doom of the inquirer . We should , however , fall into a
greater inconsistency than those which we deplore , if we spoke of the bigoted as the guilty . Intolerance , unless it become active in the form of persecution , is a misfortune and not a crime . It is often mingled with the deepest and most intense affection , and a holy earnestness for the salvation of those whom it considers in
fatal error , which claims a revering pity . In speaking , therefore , of the
intolerance of our Dissenting brethren , we only mean to lament its consequences , not to censure the motives of those whose souls it darkens
and oppresses . If the discipline of Dissenting churches seems to us to be founded on mistaken views of the Scriptures , and to be productive of bitter fruits , we cannot failto acknowledge the stern honesty for which it has been famed , and the feeling of moral purity with which it is defended .
J he ordinance from which the great body of Dissenters exercise a right of excluding those whom they think unworlhy , is the Lord ' s Supper . To this commemoration of our Saviours sufferings , they will admit none but
those whom they believe the subjects of saving visitations from on high . Over those whom they allow to join in the solemn duty , they exercise a light of inspection , and maintain a power of farcing them to abstain fro tat
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the privilege , if they become unworthy to enjoy it . For all this authority , which they most conscientiousl y exercise , we think they have no warrant from him whom we esteem as the only Master of Christians . The . Lord ' s Supper was instituted doubtless on a most solemn and memorable occasion . The active labours of Christ on earth were finished , and nothing remained for him but to suffer . He was about to leave the companions of watchings , toils and
hardships , the partakers of his acute sorrows and of the deep joys- with which his devotion to his God , or his lovefor mankind , sometimes cherished and sustained his soul . Endowed with a lioly resolution to meet an
agonizing tleatb , he felt in its near approach some shrinkings of his human nature . A tinge of awful solemnity was on all his thoughts , discourses and actions . After celebrating the passover with his disciples , he exhorted them to eat and drink in remembrance
of him . Hence , the early Christians were accustomed to assemble and break bread , in food recollection of their great Master . On these occasions some irregularities arose , not in the admission of persons who were
uunt to enjoy the social remembrance of Christ - but in the conduct of some who changed the solemn festival into an occasion for revelling : Paul , there * fore , rebuked the offenders , and declared " that he who ate and drank
unworthily , ate and drank judgment to himself , not discerning the Lord ' s body . " The import of this reproof is so exceedingly plain , that it is surprising by what a total forgetfulness of the context the Orthodox Dissenters
have construed it , as excludingall but a . certain description of men from the table of the Lord . Nothing can be more clear , than that the apostle only warns those who eat and drink to vicious excess on the sacred occasion , that they render themselves
awfully criminal . I here is not a word in the Scripture which requires any qualification from a communicant , except that which is necessarily implied , a sincere desire to participate in those feelings which the occasion is calculated to excite . There is , in fact , as much reason for requiring that men should be truly religious before they
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172 The Noncenfm-mtst . VIII .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1819, page 172, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1770/page/36/
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