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Untitled Article
cha racter upon them without consulting them at all ,, as is in some countries the practice ; nor , although not in an equal degree censurable , can the confinement of
their choice to a particular class of men be deemed any other than an infringement of their just and undoubted rights * This maxim , ^ equally sound as applied either to civil or ecclesiastical government ,
we conceive to be fully exemplified by the existence of our society in Us present form , and think it must be viewed with complacency by every real friend of rational freedom .
We iind another source of satisfaction in observing , that the Unitarian principle is of sufficient strength to keep a number of worshippers together , without those adventitious aids which have com *
monly the greatest influence in the formation of religious societies . This , however , though a subject of congratulation , is by no means of wonder * You , my Unitarian brethren , have probably found yourselves ( as I am sure I have
done ) in a most distressing dilemma . Your early habits have taught you the love of social worship : your convictions and experience hav « shown you its great importance to individual and public virtue . And while no other
than Trinitarian worship was to be found all around you , your only alternative has been to neglect the duty altogether , or to run the hazard of having your feelings
harassed and your attention drawn aside , by addresses to other beings than the only supreme and legitimate object oC devout homage , and with allusions to doctrines
which you could not but belifeve were highly derogatory from his all-perfect character . But hay *
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ing experienced the relief , the satisfaction , the comfort , of joining in religious ' services * -, exclusively directed to the One Great
Eternal Spirit , of' waiting upon God without distraction , and obeying what you are convinced is his first and great commandment , you have beeti content to excuse the want of oratorical
declamation , and to accept of the unostentatious productions of prepared composition ^ instead of the more brilliant effusions of unpre ^ meditating genius .
Our numbers , it is true , arc small ; and we are far from affecting a fastidious indifference as to their increase . Btit we deprecate additions to thjem by any
other means than through conviction of the truth of our principles , after full and impartial examination ; and we ha ^ vei etfery reason to wait with patience and calmness the testilt of such a mode of
making converts . In fact , so strongly and directly do the natural operations of reason tend tfo confirm that grand principle of revealed religion , the" Unity of
God , that the very absurdity of a plurality of divine beings , or that trinity and equality can be consistent with unity , is gradually working its own extinction . There was a time when the belief of it
and of its sister-error ^ transubstantiation , might be said to be universal . It survived as well thatj as many other papal corruptions , at the sera of the reformation , and was retained in all its
extravagance in Protestant creed * and confessions . Bu ( t , the fetters of spiritual despotism once relaxed , R « ason soon began to reclaim her violated rights , and many individuals were found who ncrbly asserted the diyine unity i »
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^ J ) ft Zeal in the Cause of Religious Truth *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1810, page 296, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2405/page/24/
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