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Untitled Article
The first feeling which will arise in the mind of an Unitarian on reading the publications to which we have alluded , probably will be some natural indignation at the light in which he is viewed by both friends and foe , to his continuance in the Society . To the latter , we have nothing to say ; to the former , a good deal . From them we have received our sharpest wounds . They advo *
cate our toleration , but it is in a tone of apology to their orthodox friends , for obliging them to keep such bad company . Their language is something like that of a duchess who , being unfortunately of rather low extraction herself , has to plead hard with her lord for the admission of some of her poor relations to a side-table * Sometimes we have been compelled to suspect our co-operators of a deliberate design to affront us away , in the midst of their
pleadings for our stay . Well , —grant it be so ; still we would say to Unitarians , * stay on , —abide this shower of contempt patiently , and endeavour to separate , in your own minds , the ideas of what is personal from what is of general application . ' Herein it is that we are so apt to err . Our pride takes offence at the language of bigotry , as if it were that of malignity , rather than of ignorance or prejudice ; and our neighbour ' s heart is made to
answer for offences which are not of its own spontaneous growth . We must not indeed carry our charity so far as to excuse wilful ignorance and careless and unfounded slander , but we do say that it is our part to place the ill treatment we have received , in general , to false notions of the Bible , false views of duty ; and that , therefore , to feel and act by those who speak ill of us as if they
were acting in defiance of a rule , clear and understood , and allowed by themselves , would be in a high degree unjust . They , indeed , will not understand this distinction . Having defined the boundaries of sacred truth themselves , they seem unable to comprehend how we can have a conscience , and yet allow them to follow theirs ; but this consideration should have no weight when we are forming the plan of our own conduct .
With regard , farther , to the future , —it is intimated , over and over again , by Mr . Wilks , though not by Mr . Gurney , that though it is on the whole desirable to retain Unitarians as members , they ought to be permitted to exercise as little influence as possible ; that they had better neither be secretaries , nor committee-men , nor even speakers at a public meeting . Now it appears to us that this is by far the least honest and most exceptionable part of
the whole business ; and that were Mr . Wilks and his friends really to act upon this plan , such conduct would form a ground for separation , not less on religious than on social and moral grounds . A partnership in which one of the partners is excluded from all concern in the management of the property , —a pretended union , in which there is to be no sympathy , —a society formed for co-operation , which shall not co-operate;—we cannot understand
Untitled Article
The Bible Society Question . 335
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 335, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/47/
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