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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
passages * vhich are obnoxious to the canons , and do reflect upon the governors of the said Church , J do hereby openly revoke and renounce all by which I have justly incurred the displeasure of my superiors . And furthermore , whereas these two propositions have been deduced in the same book ; first , that it is not lawful for superiors to impose anything in the worship of God that is
not antecedently necessary ; and secondly , that the duty of not offending a weak brother is inconsistent with all human authority of making laws concerning things indifferent ; I do hereby openly renounce both the said propositions , being false , erroneous , and schismatical ; and whereinsoever I have offended therein , I do heartily beg pardon of God and the Church for the same . " More than this , the book was condemned by a formal decree of the University of Oxford , and burnt by the University marshal
within its precincts . Who could expect religious liberty from a Church that would do an act so tyrannical as this ? And who does not see that the liberty now enjoyed by the nation is not in consequence of the tender mercies of a Church capable so recently of such an act , but of the irresistible influence of its own enlightenment and liberality ? Yes , the Church has continued its yoke on those who were obnoxious to her , to the last possible moment . How long is it since the Catholics were emancipated— - since the Dissenters were exonerated from their disqualifications ?
And did the Church relax its grasp till compelled ? It was the Nation , not the Church , that set these captives free . ' Look at institutions , where thou art enabled to follow the bent of thy own will . Have they the badge of freedom on them \ What ! those Universities into which an Englishman cannot enter , or from whose lowest honours he is precluded , except he first declare his assent to what he does neither understand nor believe—which he
must be singularly fortunate if he ever does understand , and singularly besotted if he ever does believe ?—that Church in which no one can honestly minister , but such as take up their sentiments on trust—preach as truth what , for want of investigation , is no truth to them—are content to pass their lives hoodwinked and biassed in their scriptural inquiries;—that Church which makes the decisions of barbarous ages the standards of religious truth to
the most enlightened times ;—which in religion does all it can to arrest the onward progress of the human mind—which fears to leave the Scripture to speak for itself- —which assails , not with the weapons of fair argument , but with the once deadly and still baneful cry of heresy , every departure from its determinations —and t not content with all the influence of wealth , honour , and
privilege , ivith all the power of earth , seeks to wield the . stupendous agencies of eternity , and to scare the mind from its quest of truth , by declaring that it will perish everlastingl y ^ should it be led by its inquiries to deny what the ( Church falsely terms the universal fttitfi ? What ! that Church favourable to religious
Untitled Article
100 Question between the Nation and the Church .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 100, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/28/
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