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Untitled Article
opposed to that of the rest of the community . Great indeed must be the virtue which , in these circumstances , can resist the temptation to become an instrument of mischief . Mirabeau , desirous to avoid the necessity of making the clergy ex qfficio proprietors , yet anxious that none should be reduced to the miserable condition of being * passing rich with forty pounds a-year / brought into the National Assembly a bill to fix the salaries of ministers of the established church , at a minimum of about 500 Z .
sterling per annum . It was carried by a large majority : — 1 st . That all ecclesiastical property belongs to the nation , with the charge of providing in a proper manner for the expenses oi worship , the support of its ministers , and the relief of the poor , under the inspection and instruction of the provinces ; ' and
2 d . That , in the dispositions to be made to provide for the ministers of religion , no curate shall receive less than 1200 livres per annum , exclusively of house , garden , and dependencies . ' The remark which applied forty years since , becomes every day more true , that numbers , nay , we shall not be far wrong if we say the larger proportion of those who are supported by the wealth of the church , neither practise its injunctions , nor believe in its
doctrines . Large as is the number of persons holding what are called deistical opinions , we believe , if it could be made matter of proof , it would appear , that a considerable proportion of such belong to the state church . In one of the letters is this passage : * Socinus has a great many followers , both amongst the clergy of the church of England , and the Puritans . The Freethinkers , or , as the Sorbonne classes them , the Theists and Deists , have given a new extent to the spirit of toleration , to which the political
atheist is a declared enemy . This spirit , which was the chief foundation of the grandeur of the Romans , is at present the source of that of England and Holland . From these two countries arose its first apostles . To this spirit the Roman Catholics are indebted for the peace and quietness they enjoy under both these governments . Indeed every one , regarding his eountrymen who are out of the pale of the church , as damned , should wish them rather to damn themselves as Freethinkers ,
without joining any persecuting sect , than as untolerating sectaries . It may with truth be observed , that freethinking is , in a free state , an asylum open to those who , in other countries , are obliged to have recourse to the mask of hypocrisy . And with regard to public morals , the consequences of this freethinking are less dangerous than those of hypocrisy . * —p . 22 . Church reform ,
however , like all other reforms , must come . And the signs of the times seem to point to this as the first . To enter into the wide question of church property would exceed our present design . Suffice it to record the opinion of this , on all political q uestions , most sagacious observer . To those who would examine the subject for themselves , we would recommend the . perusal of
Untitled Article
606 Mirabeau ' $ Ketterg , during his Residence in ^ England .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 606, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/30/
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