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Untitled Article
to J * eligion . The ejected ministers were not only the most popular ^ but the holiest and most useful bf the clergy * For the body of the people to be deprived of their labours and examples , was a national affliction and disgrace . It
is the prerogative , however , of the Supreme Ruler that he can , in tbe most effectual manner , bring < rood from events which human
beings are inclined to regard as unmixed evils . By the Act of Uniformity the interests of religious freedom and virtue have been ultimately advanced : the excellent men to whom I have alluded were the fathers bf Protestaht dissent .
Thefe is no quality by which thpse venerable confessors appear to have beeii so much distinguished as superiority to the world . In quitting their benefices they bad sbfetfn that they could resist its srtiites , whfcn Conscience chal - lenged their allegiance : after they haft' quitted tliem , they turere called to encounter the frowns of mefi , and terrors and sufferings for the
lake , of truth . Very fevv oat of this large number returned to the bofoia of the Establishment : very few were corttent to remain long ar alto ^ eth ^ r in si lence and
inactivity . ^ Ttiey esteemed , and rightly esteenlred , it their duty to prfeacH ^ as they were able , even though fines and imprisonment $ , and bonds and cruel mockings
JJWflifctf * tliem in consequence * Tfa ^ irgovfermng maxim was , " Wfc ohghl to obey God rather than Wen . " Accdtdingly , though thei ? temporal situation was eommottly
^ eah , andofteti indigent ; though , As tttny be supposed , they were frequently incapable of providing tftsir iiujttitsa—wttfc teead for the
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¦ * passing day , and still less for the morrow , though , in ntit ia few cases , they ri&te piirstied , like criminal outcasts and fugitives ^
from town to town and village td village , and were compelled to leave their homes , Hot knowing whither they were to go , yet with the faith of the patriarch , whom in situation they resembled , they cc endured as seeing him who i $
invisible . " Thus , they kindled a refulgent light , which is far from having been obscurefd through successive years . Had they possessed those superior advantages for the study of the scriptures with which their descendants ba ^ e been
favoured , it is probable that they would have abandoned some of their sentiments on articles of discipline and doctrine , fritespeefr , however , of moral , of ftevotionali of Christian excellence , they ate among the foremost of those fthj s * - trious spirits of whom the urortd was not worthy .
The bond then which unites Protestant dissent and a dissent from the maxims and manners Ibat characterise the generality "of men , is religious prtneipte . I am far from even intimating that this principle may nor be found in numbers of the conformists to ah
established church . But I mean to say that \ tmust influence tht minds and the lives of consistent dissenters , because , as their pro * fession of religion is at least unattended by temporal advantages , it were difficult , perhaps
impossible , to discover' any inferior reason for their separation * Now > it kt precisely 6 n account of their devout and conscientious attach ^ tnent M what they regarded as the suggestions of duty , that out • • ¦>»
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Essay on Protestt&t Noncofiformity . 707
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1813, page 707, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2434/page/15/
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