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Untitled Article
state of mind ? A gross injury has been done to the public- — an injury to the Dissenters—and ^ what is more distressing , an injury to the sacred cause of religion :.. the injury demands reparation : and I , for one , will never cease to reproach the authors of it , until they have given us at least substantial proofs of repentance .
II . —The other subject of animadversion is , the Clergy assembled in Convocation . The Convocation is the clerical Parliament . Gibson ( known in his day , and even in my time , as Dr . Codex , ) will explain to your readers its legitimate powers , which happily for the interests of truth and virtue are now seen no where but in mouldy volumes on ecclesiastical law . A
centur y back , the two Houses of Convocation , were regularly assembled with the Parliament , sate as long as the Parliament sate , and conducted during their session the business of the church ; making ; inquisition into heresy , preparing causes £ j . 1 1 W ^ 1 1 ' I 1 ior toe spiritual courts , besieging the- sovereign with addresses , harrassing the Lords and Commons with
compiaiiits and menaces , and Disturbing the country with alarms of the danger of the church . They took cognizance also of the same affairs that are now so ably superintended by the Society for the suppression of Vice . The last act of the Convocation was suitable to its character , and may serve as a specimen of its whole history ; it was the peiv
sccution of the Bishop of Bangor on account of his Sermon on The nature of the Kingdom of Christ . '" This was int the year 1717 , when George I . was King , and Mr . Addison minister . Both King and minister were patriots ; the Bishop was nobly supported ; and the Convocation was prorogued , and has never from that time been suffered to sit to do
business . And jet me add in two lines , more remarkable for their sense than their poetry , which I think I puce heard quoted by Mr . Fox , cc Great common sense ! while thou shalt reign ? cc Convocation ne ' er shall meet again . ' '
"Meet indeed they do , on the assembling of Parliament , to hear a Latin Sermon and to prepare , as occasion requires it , an address to the Throne ; and I would by no means have their meeting discontinued , for it reminds us of what things have been , and exhibits an instance of the triumph
of the mind of a free country over the usurpations of a barbarous superstition , and thereby leads us to expect fiw ture and still greater triumphs . I am not ashamed to corw fcss that I have often assembled with the Convocation in
Untitled Article
20 * Gogmagog , on Lord Nelson ' s Piety , S ( c .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1807, page 204, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2379/page/36/
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