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To the Editor of the Monthly Repository .
Derkinfieldy March 20 > 1810 . SIR , , Notwithstanding the subject of the decay of dissenting congregations has occupied many pages of the Repository * already , I think it
is by no means exhausted ; and , without troubling you with remarks on any preceding paper devoted to this inquiry , I shall confine myself to such additional observations ^ as h ave hitherto remained unnoticed .
Sir Thomas Browne , developing the religion of his profession , gave the ' public his Religio Medici ; and , in imitation of him
Dry den produced his Religio Laici . It yet remains for the vorld to be favoured with Religio ReipublicL What it is may , perhaps , be best ascertained by
inquiring what it is not ; and , as it has yet assumed no systematic arrangement , it is only by occasional incidents that we are .
furnished with any materials towards , drawing its outline . That it is not favourable to congregational devotion , appears from the followingdeclaration of a poet , whose eminent talents have been devoted
to the cause . cc Let others seek the house of pray'r , I to the woodlands will repair , And find religion there . " » That it is at enmity with old establish ments ^ apd counts lightly the authority of divine injunctions or divine prohibitions , the ' « Age of Reason" can abundantly sub-
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stantiate . Andj although other Christian denominations have been thinned of their members by this
recent and prevailing delusion , yet the Unitarian ones have beeft particularly liable to it from the freer spirit of inquiry , and the readier opening that new discussions find among them .
The effect of this in some of the well-educated but more particularly in the impressible and half-ripened understandings of our younger brethren , who , that is in
a congregational connection , has not witnessed ? who , that is * interested in the religious improvement of his neighbour , has not to deplore ?
Anpther cause of decay , but this is experienced only among the illiterate , is the disuse of denunciation , threatening and alarm . This our rough-mouthed orators used as a battering-ram
formerly , in besieging the fortress of the heart . The language of momentary penitence then was , and now is , I like to be told of my faults * " This patience in being scolded , by that class is reck-6
oned sincerity . The * meal ymouthed preacher ' is , by them called a " dumb dog . " What , then * are we to expect from those
who now will venture to question the eternity of final punishment ? whose prevailing theme is the goodness of the divine being , whose incitements to obedience are his love . This , however elevated and correct , hits not the
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C 171 )
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Mtt . HAMPSON , O& THE DECLINE OF PRESBTTTEUIAN CONGREGATIONS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1810, page 171, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2403/page/11/
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