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chiied to ( adoptrthe sentiment of King Harry , who , when Westmorland wished that they had more men in their distresses , said , " No , good cousin ; if « we arc to die , there are enough to do our country ' s work ; and if we live , the fewer there are the more the honour . "
If , then j the Unitarians , as some say , are going headlong to perdition , they surely could not wish to have others united with them ; but if they were really pursuing a system likely to lead to a better arrangement of things , their paucity of numbers should only make them the more staunch and firm . The
present Association naturally asked for support from all the ministers of its persuasion ; indeed , it was certainly entitled to claim the support of every Unitarian throughout the country ; for when any should ask its ministers what were its objects , and what it was doing , it would be enough to put into their hands the Report of last year , and still more , the Report that would emanate from that Meeting . Such services as he was
able to render , either here or hereafter , were entirely at the command of the Association ; their religion was not to be considered as the religion of a Belsham , or a Priestley , great as those men were , but as the religiou which was to be found in the pages of the New Testament , the religion of the life eternal , of the living God , and of Jesus Christ , whom he had sent among us for our salvation .
The Chairman said , that his next toast was one which had lately excited a good deal of discussion ; he meant " The Test and Corporation Acts ; " and he was glad to perceive that the Protestant Dissenters were beginning to rouse from the lethargy in which they had so long been wrapped , to express their feelings on the subject . In what had been
said on the previous day , he heartly concurred . He hoped that the question would not again be abandoned till the rights of conscience were fully conceded . There was nothing now belonging to the question about which they need feel uneasy , for the Dissenters were every day justifying their characters as loyal servants of the crown , and good subjectH of
a free ^ tate ; the only thing that the question had in it hurtful to the country , was , that such a question should exist at all , for it was a stigma upon England , and at once placed it behind most of the other countries of civilized Europe . While they said thus much for themselves , ; they were bound to support the wame rights , of conscience for all , and if
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he were consulted , he would say , they ought to receive it on no other condition . It was , therefore , with great pleasure that he proposed " the health of Lord John Russell and Mr . J . Smith , and a speedy Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts , which were a scandal to the conscientious churchman and a dishonour to the nation . ' *
Mr . Bowring said , that he trusted his rising would not be deemed intrusive ; but , connected as his name had been , and in no friendly spirit , with this important question , he was most anxious to justify the course he had recommended and pursued . Undoubtedly he had not been convinced by the arguments of those who thought that longer delay should be added to the too long delay already incurred in bringing
forward claims which only wanted open and constant advocacy to force their way into every honest mind . He thought that the hesitation and doubt which , for nearly half a century , had paralized the exertions of the Dissenters , had been injurious to their cause and their character . To argue , that because they had sinned for forty years in negligence and carelessness they might go on and sin a little longer , seemed to him neither a wise nor a virtuous resolution . Tt would better
become them to enter upon a course of penitence and reform , —it would better become them to perform the duty they had so long forgotten , and to give evidence of the interest and confidence they felt in the triumph of their principles , by submitting them to discussion whenever they could find any to lead or any to listen . He saw not how the Catholic
claims could be injured by bringing forward the claims of the Dissenters , both being founded on the same great principles . When the Prime Minister had stated that the grievances which oppress the Dissenting body are theoretical grievances , not a day , not an hour should have been lost in demonstrating that those grievances were practical and real . It had been said we should
embarrass the Government . He did not think we , as Dissenters , had any thing to do with the political changes of the State . Even those among our parliamentary friends who were most urgent for delay had distinctly told us , that no
such consideration ought to influence us . In truth , the question never could be brought forward without embarrassing the Government , —without exciting the hostility of those who would make peculiar privileges the reward of peculiar p pinions . If we continue inactive
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intelligence . —British and Foreign Unitarian Association . j > 4 l
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1827, page 541, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1798/page/69/
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