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Untitled Article
Faint and feeble were its earliest rays , bui they were welcomed by inquiry , the parent of truth , till their light gradually overspread our country . In tracing the growth of liberty from birth to infancy , and thence to maturity , it is delightful to observe it almost identified with
Nonconformity . . Let those , whose system it suits to do so , separate our civil from our religious rights . The Reformation planted the seeds of both , and they have grown together , though often on different soils . 1 shall not sever them
here , for I hold them to be necessary and equal deductions from one great and glorious principle , the natural , unalienable independence of man . * 1 see no reason why he who submits his conscience to the crosier of an
intolerant bishop , should refuse to surrender his liberty to the sceptre of a tyrant king ; and if there have been those who have been content to maintain only half these privileges , it has been because they were too blind to perceive , or too feeble to assert , the obvious consequences of admitted principles .
But why did not our early Reformers do npiore ? " They had done what they could , ' * and left behind them a noble testimony for the encouragement of those who have fallen on better days . " They had done what they could in reforming the church , considering the times they lived in , and they hoped
those that came after them would , as they better might , do more . "J Besides , the reform of ceremonies always precedes that of creeds , and the removal of the ostentatious parade of devotion makes way for more sublime conceptions of that great Spirit who * ' is not worshiped with men ' s hands as though he needed any thing . " §
* Quisque nascitur liber . X Preface to the Old Prayer Books . This sentence was afterwards expunged . ^ The pomp of worship suits a barbarous age . It was therefore prescribed for
the Jews . When the Portuguese missionaries introduced Christianity into the East , they found it' necessary to add very much to the ceremonials of even Catholic superstition r and at the present moment , the station and at the present momentthe
; , most extravagant of the religious processions and autos of the European peninsula are those conducted % y the converted Africans and their descendants .
Untitled Article
At a very early period after the Reformatjpn we find just and liberal notions of government making their way , especially among the Puritans . Anthony Gilby ventured to tell King
Henry , that he had no right to any authority in the church . * Dr . Whitaker affirms , that even general councils cannot frame laws to bind the conscience * t John Knox boldlv
asserts , that a tyrant prince can demand no obedience from his people , and that a nation may arraign and depose an arbitrary king , % Christopher Goodman contends , that kings are but the attorneys of their subjects , who may resume the authority they have conferred , whenever it is
employed to their detriment , and , moreover , that it is lawful to kill a wicked king . § Dean Whittingham says , that these were the opinions of the best and most learned of the disciplinarians , || " who" ( adds the then Bishop of Ossory ) * ' were the first to broach
these uncouth and unsufferable tenets 5 fopperies blowne up by the blacka Deville to blast the beauty of * ' kingly unaccountableness . ^[ Cartwright , ** who was called by his adversaries •« the English firebrand , ' Periry , most unjustly hanged for sedition in J 593 , |||) Buchanan , Travers and mdny others , contended for the same great
principles y and the political creed of the Puritans is t . hu $ laid down by oqe of their opponents : " They will have all sup-erne power to be originally , radically and primarily seated in the people , to wbom kings are accountable , and by whom they are censurable , punishable and dethronable tooj"tj
* Admonition , p . 69 . Gilby is called hy Fuller u violent Noncon . " He ( with Fox and Humphreys ) refused to subscribe to the 39 Articles . t De Concil . p . 19 . t Hist . p . 62 .
§ On Obedience , pp . 25 , 90 , 103 , 113 . He wrote to prove that Sir Thomas Wyatt was no traitor . Consult Fuller ' s Church History B . ix . || Strype ' s Annals , II . 185 . f [ Right of Kings , pp . 53 , 69 .
** B . ii . p . 411 . Cartwright answered Cecil ' s charge against big ¦ " faction * innovations , ' " that his cause being * almost 15 * 70 years old , was venerable enough for its antiquity . " 11 ( 1 Pence ' s Vindication , |> p * 148—151 . \ % SacroBan « ta R « gum Majegtag , C , i . and x .
Untitled Article
On the Opinions of the Puritans inspecting Civil and Religious Liberty . 115
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1818, page 115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2473/page/35/
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