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I Knite , Sky purely for inforinjatian ; and any of yaar Correspondents will oblige me who will instruct me how m&ny of the titled Dissenting divines xtefive their honours from the United States ; what mints of academic digbesides 4 €
© ity there are Brown Uni-Fersity in Rhode island ; " whether Columbia ia Carolina , Louisville in Ohio , Onion .-Poinit in Indiana , Big-Creek in Missouri , &e . transmit diplomas into Great Britain ; and how many years lands must be reclaimed from the Chickesaws or Cherokees in order
tQ qualify them to manufacture literary patents of honour . Another question , Sir , and I have done : your Dissenting ministers are , as appears from their late Address and their reception at Court , / c < % T ' £ fo % ^ v , loyal : but I have always understood
that it is a constitutional principle that the King is the fountain of honours in Great Britain , and that no titles can be lawfully assumed here which do not flow from the Crown , immediately or through the channel of some establishment under a Royal charter . If I am correct in this principle , it must be
inconsistent with his oath of allegiance for any British subject to take , without the King ' s special license , a foreign title or degree , and any One doing so is guilty of petty treason . I startle , however , at my own conclusion , and , eagerl y awaiting help in my difficulty , hastily subscribe myself , CIS-ATLANTICUS .
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Essex House , Sir , June 6 , 1820 . CANNOT think that my objec-I tions against visiting Unbelievers with the pains and penalties of the law , are in the least degree invalidated by the observations of your ingenious and learned Correspondent Hylas .
1 . I see not the shadow of contradiction in asserting the expedience of an interposition of the civil power to encourage the promulgation of the Christian religion , and denying its right to punish Unbelievers and scoffers at
religion . It is one thing to establish a professorship for teaching mathematics , and allowing premiums to proficients in that sublime and useful $ p | $ nce , and another to inflict penalties upon those who dislike the acuepice , or wao ignorantly declaim against it as useless and dangerous . And the same
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princi p le is applicable to the subject of religion . 2 . I do not think that Hylas has proved that our Lord's precepts , to bless those that curse , an « to pray for those who despitefully injure and calumniate , are intended to be limited to the infant and suffering state of the church . On the contrary , it appears to me dishonourable to our Lord ' s
character to prohibit retaliation only while retaliation is impossible , and to allow it when his disciples became possessed of power . 3 . Nothing can promote the cause of infidelity so much as visiting the impugners , and even the blasphemers of the Christian religion , with the
penalties of law . Can any thing be more disgraceful than to bind a man hand and foot and then offer to fight him ? Is it not mean and pitiful in the extreme , first to throw a man into jail and suppress his writings , and then pretend to reply to his arguments ? What must be the conclusion which
any one who has the sense and feelings of a man would naturally draw from such premises ? Such absurd conduct is really no better than a contrivance to rouse the best feelings of our nature in favour of a bad cause . No , Sir , let scepticism have fair play ; let the
infidel do his worst - let him attack God ' s sacred Truth , not only with his arguments , but with his calumnies and his revilings—Truth , invincible Truth , laughs at his puny efforts , and scorns his malice and his rage . For a time ,
indeed , they may appear to produce some effect , but in the end Truth , if left to her own energies , will be completely victorious . No one who possesses a just confidence in the omnipotence of Truth can doubt her ultimate
success . 4 . The Christian religion can never be purified from its grossest corruptions , unless infidel writers are allowed their full scope . Christianity is a plain and simple doctrine : it teaches that God will judge the world in righteousness , by the mat * whom he liath
ordained , of which he hath given assurance to all men , in that he hath raised him from the dead . It requires to love God with all the heart , and to love our nei g hbour as ourselves . These are plain , dimple , sublime practical truths and precepts 5 incapable of being distorted or turned into ridicule ; ana
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346 Afr * Bel&kam , in Reply t& Hytus , on the Punishment of Unbelievers .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1820, page 346, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2489/page/22/
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