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Untitled Article
superstition , in those very points in which the two are not only different , but absolutely contrasted . ' ( p . 110 . ) In charging the Church of England with the same vices that characterize the Romish , we do not mean to convey that they
subsist in so monstrous a form or to so pernicious an extent . Ihe progression of ages forbids that they should . But the amelioration of practice is no proof of a rectification of principle , though it may and must lead to it , and be in its turn acted upon by it . Pious frauds are , from their very nature , dependent for their extent upon the darkness of the age . With an equal disposU tion to be fraudulent , knaves of every class must calculate their
measures , and estimate their success by circumstances beyond their own control , by the light of the age and the advancement of the people they have to do with : and no church , however ill * constituted , could now rival the enormities in the way of pious frauds which were perpetrated by the Romish church in the dark ages . But institutions which foster the disposition and multiply
the temptations to such frauds are not therefore the less pernicious . Of these we hold the Church of England to be one . There is pious fraud involved in her plea for her gains . She connives at pious fraud in all the distinctions she originates between the clergy and the laity , and sets a premium upon it wherever she offers privileges or emoluments which have for their
condition a certain profession of faith . Could the minds of our British clergy be laid open as the minds of Christian men should be , how many real churchmen would be found among them ? Set aside those who have no opinions on their faith at all , and those who will have none ; those who stifle their own instincts after truth , and those who pervert them ; set
aside the tri-theists , and the Unitarians , ( equally condemned by the Athanasian Creed ;) set aside the Arians , and Sabellians , and Deists , —set aside those who pledge themselves to the Articles without thinking , or in spite of thought , those who fear to speak heresy , and those who quietly inculcate heresy , —all , in short , who would not in God ' s presence say amen to the Common Prayer Book , from beginning to end , and how many remain ? None of these have a right to the privileges of the church on her own
conditions ; and though we will not say that a large proportion of them are not really blind , we cannot but think that a strong temptation is held out to them to shut their eyes . We will allege - against the church , in this particular , only what she herself admits ; that there is a diversity of opinion within her pale , while her emoluments are offered on a supposition of uniformity of opinion . This she will not deny ; and this is enough . By her own confession , she ; sets a premium upon hypocrisy . She does not , like the Romish church , cajole the crowd with mummeries , and saints with false promises , and sinners with false threats , and devotees with a jugglsry of the imagination . Site doea not dp
Untitled Article
38 $ Romanism and Episcopacy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 386, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/26/
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