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rfie political pandemonium as sacred from reprehension . How large a proportion of human misery may we ascribe to the vices and crimes of statesmen ! But the
misery , which is the neoessary effect of those vices and crimes , is not the only evil they produce . Let it be recollected ,, that states * men are men of consequence , and that their example has a proportionate influence on all ranks of
society . One publicly jeers at * old morality ; '' another denominates by the gentle epithet u misfortune , '' what we have heretofore considered as a base and
scandalous crime ; another contends for a principle , which is founded in injustice , as essential to the existence of our national honour . Each is
suffered to pass without reproof , the ministers of religion are silent , and those who are not guarded by a strong and watchful principle , are left to infer , that such language , proceeding from such high authority , must be allowable at least .
In further illustration of my argurnent , 1 will cite a case not dis < - similar from one which no long time since actually occurred . A personage of high rank and of great influence in the state , is the
habitual slave of the meanest vices . A political writer , desirous of rousing him to a sense of his public duties , censures his course of life , in plain terms , and , in consequence , is visited by an information ex officia * The counsel for the prosecution
describes the enormity of the libel ; the counsel for the defendant ap ~ peals to notorious facts in justification of his client ; tbe judge , the impartial judge , delivers a charge to the jury ; wiijiout offering a single observation in extdnuation of the defendant , he pa ] iiate& the
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facts adduced in the defence , by suppositions which might make them venial ; and he concludes that the writing in question must be a libel , because it is calculated
to bring the personage referred to into contempt . When such doctrine is promulgated from the seat of authority , by a grave oracle of the law , where , I ask in the name
of the persecuted authors of Christianity ^ where are the preachers of the gospel ? Will they hold forth a similar shield for iniquity ? Will they tell us that it is a greater offence to censure the vicious than
to be guilty of the vice ? that the censure , and not the vice , is calculated to bring into contempt ? I protest , I know of no doctrine
more detestable , none which has done , and is doing , more flagrant injustice , none which strikes so directly at the root of morality , none therefore which soloudly calls for the animadversion of our moral
and religiousinstructors , who ought to bear in constant remembrance , that from their congregations may be selected the juries to whom such doctrine is addressed . The maxim , that the pulpit has nothing to do with politics must ,
in a country , where the church and the state are so closely united , convey in the very terms a contradiction , which is frequently manifested in fact . The church , says the Guardian , " is the best
handle imaginable for politicians to make use of for managing the loves and hatreds of mankind ;' ' accordingly , we have our fast days and thanksgiving days specially appointed : the proclamations , indeed , tell us u to humble ourselves
before Almighty God / ' but what is the language of a large majority of preachers i Is it not calculated
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382 On the Necessity of preaching against Political Immoralities *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1813, page 382, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2429/page/26/
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