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under which professing Christians , in most places , and the Hindoos , worship the Supreme Being . But the bill does not attrnpt to explain the enigmas of Athanasius on tbis subject . It leaves the Trinity just where it found it ,
neither the better nor the worse for this new act . It preserves only . all persons who do not believe in the Tri-unity at full liberty to follow their own opinions , and worship the one and only God , ac cording to the dictates of their own conscience . The Tri-unitarian cannot now
under the auspices of an Act of Parliament , harrass his brother Unitarian , and deprive him of civil rights , because the latter believes God to be one , in the manner that Moses and the prophets ,
Christ and his Apostles , did , and rejects the fiction introduced into the Christian religion , under a barbarous Latin term , by which vain philosophers and quarrelsome divines , designated the Creator of the Universe .
The bill passed through the Houses without finy debate , and this is one of the improvements of the age , which with all its faults , is no longer under that subjection to priestcraft , which formerly created so much confusion in the world . The doctrine of the
Triunity set people together by the ears , some hundred years ago , and the last martyrs at the stake , burned by order of the Protestant king , James the First , were condemned for not believing that the three , of whom each separately was said to be a God , were only one God . From the time of the execution of these
confessors , very few have suffered , for till of late years , very few have openly avowed their belief , that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God , and chat no other person is to be
worshipped . About a hundred years ago , however , the Tri-unitarians thought it necessary to guard their favourite doctrine of the Ti i-unity , with pains and penalties , subjecting the worshippers of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ to various
civil disabilities , equal to those inflicted by the heathen persecutors on the early Christians . At that time the doctrine of the Tri-unity had been under much discussion ; the members of the
Established . sect differing very much from each other in their account of it : but both parties were equally averse to those few who proclaimed that there is only £ n ^ God : to be worshipped as the scriptures taught , and not according to the
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idle traditions of men . For fear of being ranked with this class , they were both equally zealous to show their animosity against the Unitarians , ana ! hence the Act of Parliament was passed against them without difficulty . Locke and Newton had given decisive proofs of
their being Unitarians , but their belief was confined to very few . It scarcely appeared in any public assembly of Christians , till the time of Mr . JLindsey , and it was circulated chiefly in , writings , and embraced by those who did not on that account forsake their
customary places of worship . / The Unitarian is now placed on the same footing as other Diss ? nters , from the established sect , from the former orwhom , if they were possessed of power , he would be much more in danger than from the latter . It must be mentioned , however , to the honour of the Wesleyan
Methodists , that they are an exception to this censure . They uniformly oppose the use of the civil authority in matters of religion . The sword of the spirit not the sword of the flesh , is the only weapon , which they wish to see branded . The Calvinists also , are much moderated , and we do not imagine that even the divine who distinguished himself in the
prosecution at Cambridge , against the minister of Soham , is very much grieved at the withdrawing from ou < « Statute Books some passages , which however countenanced by that French persecutor , whom so many Englishmen are not ashamed to acknowledge as ^ their head , were a disgrace to a free people . The new act indeed is not of much
consequence in itseif . The term -Unitarian has lost the discredit some time ago attached to it ; and for a long time no one has been deterred from professing this faith , from the fear of civil disabilities : and as far as the faith itself is concerned the enactment of penalties against
it was rather in i ( s favour . Let us , however , receive this acknowledgment of our countrymen , that the opinions we maintain are not to be coerced by civil authority , with that satisfaction which this hope of their being farther improved must excite ; and let us shew that we
bear attached to our names one of much higher import than that of Unitarianthat we are Christians—disciples of him who laid down his life for us , and that we are firmly convinced that in spite of every opposition from worldly power , philosophical argumentation , aadpricstlj
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State of Public Affairs * 486
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1813, page 485, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2430/page/61/
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