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210 UNITARIAN CHRONICLE .
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master intended that they should , let them worship together . There let them send up the mingled incense of united adoration and thanksgivings , of penitential acknowledgments and
fervent supplications ; and there let them open their hearts to a sense at once of their relation to each other , tlir ^^ gir ~ tlieiT ^ commoir ^ el'atii 3 Ti ^ "t 0 ^ God , and of their great common interests ; of their reciprocal duties , and of the common and infinitely glorious inheritance to which God is calling :
them . Many may thus be united with our churches , who otherwise would have lived and died unconnected with any of them . Still , however , after all that can be done to bring them into this connexion , there
will be many , to whom , if the gospel is to be pre ached , it must and can be only in the family circle , * many , therefore , who will be without the pale of the Christian ministry , unless there shall be a ministry exclusively
for them . My reply to the third query , Should this ministry be made an instrument for the formation of new religious societies V is plainly to be inferred from what I have said in my reply to the second . If , indeed , a chapel , or a mission-house for the poor , shall become a centre in which those who can build and support a new house of worship shall be
disposed to form themselves into a new religious society , and to unite themselves with the poor who are collected there , it is well . Let a new religious society then be formed there . But most earnestly should I deprecate any measures , which should have for their end the establishment of conereefations , or of religious societies .
exclusively of the poor . It is a very important purpose of the ministry for which I plead , to bring the classes of society into a new and Christian union with each other ; and it is greatly to be regretted , that our religious societies are constituted as they now are , in respect to the accommodatioi * of any but proprietors
in their places of public worship ; The poor , who would gladly unite with them , but who cannot pay for the privilege , in the largest number of our places of worship have at best a very narrow space appropriated for them ; and there they must sit apart ,
as * the class of the poor . ' This is a ^ practice—not—less—inconsistent ^ with . — our political principleSj than it is with the spirit of Christianifcy . Under other governments , where distinctions of rank and of rights are universallv recognized , the poor feel
themselves to be , and revolt not at being treated , both politically and religiously , as & caste . B ut far otherwise is it under our institutions , for the preservation of which , religious as well as political , no means is more important , than the excitement ancL
maintenance of an interest in them , and an attachment to them , in the mass of the poorer departments of society . Let nothing , then , be done by this ministry , by which the poor shall be madetcTfeellliat fehie very religion , which is intended tq be ; a bond of union between them and
their fellow-men ? is itself an instru-, ment of their separation from the more favoured classes of their fellowbeings . Th e attempt , by any means , to build up and to increase the number of religious societies , composed , of those , who , without bringing themselves into great pecuniary embarrassments , and taxing others to uphold ' themrcajiinot supporC' 3
ministry . I deem alike impolitic and wrong ; and if the ministry for , the poor shall be employed for this object , I feel assured that by this single circumstance , it will be not less exposed to fall intp discredit , and to become an utter failure * than itwiUif it shall be engaged in only as a
temporary service , and in preparation for the ministry of our churches . Having given ray judgment upon these questions , I would state a few ) great principles of operation in the , ministry , which I have tested , an 4 hay © found to be of iacyeasing value .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 1, 1832, page 210, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1823/page/2/
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