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cuckoo insidiousness taken possession of nests they n-ever built , and hatcfr tfieir brood i » stoten habitations . ' But it seems that they have no right to them ! The Joose declamation of the authors of the * Reply * may be directed against Independents , occupants of these places , who have seized upon property belonging to
others , and given lor the support of another denomination . They propose the case of Wolverhampton Meeting-house ' as a valuable precedent . ' Let them proceed in their brilliant career , and their ' stern , inflexible support of the cause of justice , ' may overturn some interests that may disturb their own repose . "—Pp 41—43 .
u persons who patronize the case of the VVolvethampton Meeting-house , are pleased to say , that ' the liberty for which J . R contends , is a liberty to violate the testaments , to counteract the most so > lernn injunctions of our pious ancestors , and to throw down the mounds which they raised against the incursions of error , anil in
defence of what they regarded as the cause of truth and righteousness . ' They should have understood better the subject on which they have attempted to write , and should have shewn a little more propriety in their selection of expressions . What ' testament * have they produced ? What c solemn injunction * have they shewa
relative to the Case ? What < mounds of defence * against error have they to exhibit as the work of their ancestors , other than the free use of the Bible , and freedom of worship ? These are the only mounds which they raised , the only mounds which it can be shewn they contemplated , and the only mounds which are fit and
sufficient for the purpose . But these same patrons have also asked , whether J . R , would * argue on any other species of property , as he does on that which has been set apart for the service of religion ?' Certainly lie would . That is his prompt answer to this dogmatical but inconsiderate
question . Were J . R . executor to the will of a person , who , he knew , was a Calvinistic Piedobaptist Trinitarian , and who should leave £ 20 annually to be distributed ta the poor of any place , being 1 Protestant Dissenters , ' he would certainly distribute it to Unitarians as well as
Trinitarians , to Baptists as well as Psedobaptists , and this is exactly as J . R . reasons in the Wolverhampton Case . " —Pp . 47 , 48 , u No congregation of religious professors , who admit the exclusive authority and the sufficiency of the Scriptures , can
bind their successors in the place of worship in which they had been accustomed to assemble , to the reception of any doctrine . They have no right to do it , They can judge and determine in matters relating to their own profession , hut they cannot dictate to , or controul the consciences
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and profession of their successors , who have an equal right with their fathers to examine the Scriptures for themselves and to exhibit publicly their own sense of its doctrines . The authority which binds in religion , that on which the truths of Christianity are to be received , is a Divine au < - thority ; and this we find not in the opinions
of our predecessors , but in the word of God . If the former are to oblige us , of what use can the latter be ? The inquiry then would be , What did our ancestors believe ? and we must endeavour fully to ascertain the sentiments which they pro ~ fessed , for the purpose of exhibiting them to the world . But how much soever this
practice may agree with Popery , it does not comport with Protestantism . The Scriptures are our authority , and we receive nothing , we believe nothing , but from them . Our fathers used the liberty ,
which no man could take from them , o € examining the Divipe woid , and founded their profession upon their own conviction of the truths which they understood to be included in , its testimony : they are gone
to give account of themselves as to the manner in > which they conducted their examination of the Scriptures , and supported the doctrines which they received
as from God $ an , d we , having- a like account to give , and living in the constant expectation of the judgment that shall try us , have the same duty to perform . The Bible is our religion . We cannot hind those who shall arise after us as occupants of places set apart for Christian worship , nor can we be bound by those who have preceded us . The liberty of the first worshipers , is the liberty of the last : those
were exclusively judges of their own rights and duties , and these challenge and appropriate to themselves the same competence . "—Pp . 49 , 50 . Mr . Robertson proceeds to protest
against the claim made by the decision of the Congregational Board , on the purses of the orthodox brethren , for the expenses of the proceedings at Jaw .
" The * expenses' are for the purpose of paying- counsel for their exertions to revive the operations of the common law proscriptions \ they are the price paid for arguments to substantiate the illegality of Unitarianism , and for solicitations to degrade and incapacitate men from asserting * rights inseparable from their nature and accountability . " —P . 52 . u Should a thousand resolutions pass the Congregational Board , declaring that any professors of religion , who liave solicited a civil court against other professors , on the ground of the illegality of their opinionsy have a claim oh the religious , puJUlic ,
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Review .- —Case of the Old Meeting House , Wolverhampton ?* 715
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1818, page 715, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2482/page/51/
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