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the Church , influenced by the feelings , and entertaining the views that article describes , cannot :, perhaps , be questioned , however it must be regretted , as a fact ; nor do I apprehend that there is the sect of Christians at this
day to be found , within whose pale there are not some intemperate individuals , and may not ever be , it is presumed , without implicating the character or involving . in the censure they may deserve , the rest of the b ^ dy . The persons , however , to whom
the reflections alluded to refer , by no means form any preponderating proportion of the collective mass of the Established Clergy . Arid could any public occasion call forth their feelings in aii aggregate expression of it , I
would boldly venture to predict , that the description of individuals to whom your Reviewer ' s allusions apply , would be found to constitute a very insignificant minority , in point of numerical strength , however supported by some powerful names .
It may not be known , perhaps , to the generality of those who form the usual class of the readers of this Repository , that the very existence of this party in the Church , is a subject of real regret to its more pacifically
disposed members ; men whom I may safely undertake to describe as conscientious ministers , spending their lives in the silent and unobtrusive discharge of their pastoral duties , amidst the affections , and cheered by
the attachment of their parochial flocks , and with too serious a sense of the awful responsibility of their own charge ^ to allow them to exhaust their precious moments in unedifying and vexatious contests with their
dissentient fellow-labourers in the Lord , " to whom , too , they are cordially disposed to give credit ( whenever their lives are in unison with their professions ) , for similarly conscientious and zealous integrity .
Believe me ^ Sir , the characters for whom I am contending , regret that auy of their brethren should even wish to stand forth as the champions for a . renewal of any exploded powers
of ecclesiastical supremacy $ they regret any attempts to gain an extension of the discipline of their church , beyond What is necessary for its own government , or for any that is not strictly con « iflft ^ jat w ith * due regard
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to the rights of religious liberty .. * Jtt conclusion I will only add , what I am convinced , and have ample opport unities of knowing , to be the fact , that a highly respectable portion of the members of the Church , both in talent
and in influence , and of its most zealous and consistent supporters , both in its ecclesiastical and in its lay ranks , are as adverse as the warmest advocates for Christian liberty out- of it can be , to the principles and practice of intolerance and bigotry under any form , or in any shape they can assume
—men steadily actuated by motives , free from all party views or personal policies and connexions , of preserving *• unity in the bend of peace" as the basis on which the security , and support , the interest and prosperity of every just cause , and of every righteous undertaking must ultimately depend .
V . M- H ; P . S . t am rather inclined to think that your Reviewer ' s idea , [ p . 578 , ] that the Established Clergy have ' lost their influence ^ and that they have long ceased to lead , " is not exactly borne out by the existing facts . Their
own experience certainly and decidedly proves the reverse , as in all cases , unexceptionably , where the principles advocated in the foregoing letter are acted upon , they find an harmonious
concurrence in their views , and an affectionate attachment to their persons , which can only be impaired or extinguished by their own imprudence . Nor is this remark of your Reviewer even consistent with his
own position in another article , [ p . 580 , ] where he expresses an inclination almost to envy them " the ample means which they possess of gaining the affections of mankind ly moderation and Catholicism , " ¦ which is , in fact , all
* The casual instances which do unfortunately occur , ( and seldom occur , I believe , without meeting- their merited exposure and punishment , ) of petulant and persecuting- bigotry , are invariably a subject of j ^ rief to tne pacif ic members of the Church ; and they- as I have stated , form no mean portion of that class to which the writer in your Journal , whom Mr . Belsham has so aptly as well as facetiously called your " ChritHanPtfiticwn f * ba * thought proper to attach tbe generalizing- appella * tion of " the LqtitudinariansS *
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S ? 6 Spirit of the Clergy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1818, page 376, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2477/page/32/
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