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INTELLIGENCE.
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Untitled Article
DOMESTIC . Religious . Correspondence in the Times Newspaper , relating to the Unitarians . fWe are urged by many Correspondents to register the following * Letters in the
Monthly Repository . To explain them we prefjx . the Clergyrna ? i s Letter , tog-ether with the remarks of The Times * Editor , which appeared in that Newspaper on Tuesday tlie 9 th instant . The Letters were inserted on the two following days .
Ed . ] The ClergymaiCs Letter . To the Editor of the Times . Sir , I was much pleased to find you talcing an interest in , and g ^ ing so good a report of , the proceedings of
the Bible meeting , at the Mansionhouse . There are , however , one or two observations which you make in relation to those proceedings , in your journal of yesterday and to-day , respecting which , J shall merely offer to vour consideration one or two
queries . 1 st . Do you not think that the repeal of the Act in reference to Socinians , afforded Mr . Carlile the only show of defence which he made on his trial ? And was there not—I appeal to you as a member of the Church of England—was there not
some truth in his definingxa Socinian to be a Deist in a cloak ? Was there not , also , some point in his question , " Where were your bishops and Christian advocates when the abovementioned Act was repealed ?"
I may just add , on this head , that I wish no sect of religionists to be called to account for their principles ; but , still I think the permitting the Act to remain as originally passed , while it would have been an effectual barrier
to infidelity , would not have operated * any thiftg like persecution , with Regard to the persons against whom it was levelled . It might have been suffered to remain suspended as a
sword over their heads , not , indeed , to be ever employed against them , bl tp shew that the Legislature , though it did not punish , at the game « nhj disapproved of their tenets . * % . Does it not strike you , as a
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defect in the law of the land , that & blasphemer , after conviction , may carry on , and most profitably and shamelessly too , the nefarious trade for which he has been convicted by a jury ? Where was the wisdom , then , of repealing a statute , or part of one , by which , in the case of Eaton , his whole stock was seized and
destroyed after his conviction ; and will it not be wise in Parliament to revive the said statute , or provide in some other way for the remedy of such a grievance ? I am convinced religion is in no danger , so far as the enlightened and reflecting are concerned ; but ought not provision to
be made , both that the Infidel should not be ' suffered to outrage the public feeling by continuing to sell what his country has condemned as blasphemous ; and that the ignorant and unthinking should be defended from exposure to the seduction and the plausibility and the impiety of blasphemous publications ?
With regard to the statement made by the clergyman * with whom Mr . Cunningham differed , allow me to remark , that the former has been very recently in what are called the disturbed districts , and gives , as the result of his observations , the
somewhat alarming view of the progress of infidelity which his speech exhibited . -Were it not that Bible meetings are not to degenerate into debating clubs , I am confident he could have produced to the meeting sufficient reasons for what he asserted ; and I doubt not that he satisfied Mr .
Cunningham ' s mind at the close of the meeting , that his opportunities of information had been such as to render considerable regard due to his opinion . The gentleman in question is not in the habit of forming opinions hastily , nor publishing them rashly .
I am , Sir , your obedient 1 mmbitservant , A CLERGYMAN . Nov . 6 .
Remarks of the Editor of the Times . We insert a letter from ** A \ Clergyman , " which treats , of the late meeting at "the Manaion * house f
Intelligence.
INTELLIGENCE .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1819, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1778/page/55/
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