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to think that the likeness is not quite * as strong now as it was then : " He is to be a great advocate for devotion , rind a warm promoter of damnationa prodigious declaimer against wealth , ^ nd a prodigious engrosser thereofhe avers that his Church was built
upon a rock , and that the gates of hell cannot prevail against her ; yet if a poor tailor creeps into a barn to pray , he throws her into a mortal ague and convulsions . He preaches charity , but damns all moderation and forbearance .
He is a professed orator for peace , and a trumpet for war . A mighty reasoner , ^ and a mighty champion against reason . He spiritually feeds you , and temporally starves you . He talks of trust in God , and to shew you how much he has of it himself , will rely upon God for nothing , but crams his nest with the wealth of the world . He
damns you if you do not believe the Bible , and damns you if you read and understand it . c All our possessions , ' quoth he , ' are by divine right / and , as a demonstration thereof , holds out a secular parchment of human institution . "
Such is the practical effect upon the clergy , as we see and feel every day , of the connexion between Church and State . Many honourable and noble exceptions there no doubt are—men whose lives and conversation would do
honour to any church ; but of the majority , of the great bulk of the clergy , what I have stated is notoriously true . What its effect upon Statesmen is , may be gathered from the reply of a celebrated Lord Chancellor in the late reign , who when applied to
by the Dissenters for his support to their petition for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts , said , " No ! I shall support the Established religion , and if your d d religion was established , I should support that ? Let Christianity rely solely upon her own merits ; let her be established
simply upon the truth of her own evidence , and . let not the civil power be called to her patrdnage . fehe never yet received any thing but contamination from the connexion , and it is
irigh time she were emancipated from it for ever . When in its infancy , when Wider the necessity of alone contending against the prejudices of mankind , arid T > f subduing them by the intrinsic vgorth < &nd purity of its doctrines , did Chris-
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tianity then receive •' thi £ patronage of the civil power ? Far otherwise . Yet those were the days of its most splendid triumphs , and of its brightest purity . Let religion assert its own claims , and fight its own battles . Ir ,
termingled and connected with the State , it has been made an engine for every species of fraud and cruelty and baseness . We expect those who live by this monstrous alliance to laud and uphold it ; it is their craft ; they have sworn to defend it , and they are not
very nice in what way they do so : but when we see a minister of ( may I call it ?) a Dissenting church invoking the assistance of Government , and calling out to the civil power for help , we must cry out in our turn , " To your tents , O Israel ! " We have seen
orthodox Dissenting ministers bowing and cringing to royalty , and bedaubing it with the most disgusting and fulsome flattery ; nay , some have even read the Church of England Liturgy before princes ; but that an Unitarian minister
should implore the aid and patronage of the State for the gospel of the everblessed God , was ( I hope ) never hefore seen . Mr . Belsham has a right to the enjoyment and promulgation of
his opinions . I usually read them with instruction and delight , always with respect ; but I trust the Unitarian body will on this occasion disclaim and disavow any participation or concurrence in them . I do not know what
the feeling of the London Unitarians may be ; they do not see so many of the evils which result from the union of Church and State as we do in the country 5 but from all my Dissenting brethren who have read the Three
Sermons , I have heard but one sentiment as to such passages in them as I have now animadverted upon , and that is of regret and disapprobation . A NONCONFORMIST .
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bin , HAVING formerly proved the sufficiency of Dr . Parkhurst ' s Grammars for self-tuition in the Hebrew and Greek languages , permit me to request information through the medium of the Repository , concerning
the estimation in which his Lexicons are'held by the learned ymong the Unitarian ^ and notl haivint , feccess to them at present , 1 wish to knpw wh ether others can be recommended , particu-
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& 80 Parkhurst ' s Hebrew and Greek Grhrfimars .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1820, page 280, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2488/page/24/
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