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vainest of their friends did not expect their proceedings would hive afforded topics for university discussions . But in It volume of eight sermons preached last year before the University of Oxford , at the celebrated Bampton Lectures , " On the Religious Principles and Practices of
the Age , the learned preacher , Mr . Morgan , had in the fifth sermon , on the Principles of the Nonconformists , attacked those principles , and had illustrated the unscriptural nature of their principles from the resolutions of this Society . ( Laughter . ) The following was the
resolution he condemned : " That every man in every age and in every country , has a sacred and unalienahle right to worship God according to his conscience , which no individuals or governments or legislatures can , without injustice or oppression , directly or indirectly , infringe . ** Gentlemen , said Mr . Wilks , if this be heresy , we will be heretical . We will re-resolve that
resolution again this day . ( Bursts of applause . ) To the force of argument they would yield . But they must be better arguments than those presented in that volume to justify their yielding . Mr . Morgan , indeed , had urged that
Christianity did not teach an inherent sight of free inquiry , because , though it commanded believers " to prove all things , " it also taught them " to hold fast that which is good ; " and that Jesus Christ was a friend to established
religions , and to the union of civil and ecclesiastical authority , because the apostles , as Jews , were used to a church establishment , and our Saviour - actually recommended an obedience " to the Scribes who sat in the seat of Moses . " Would such arguments appal or vanquish them ? Must they be recreant knights before such weapons , hurled by an arm
so impotent ? Who so practically illustrated as Jesus Christ the duty of free investigation ? An establishment really theocratical had been by him levelled to the dust , that amidst the ruins might arise an edifice sacred to a purer faith , a better hope , and more expanded lovean edifice simple , unworldly , spiritual and sublime ! ( Loud applause . )
To another , though less direct attack , hq must allude . He referred to three sermons just published by a Rev . gentleman , ( Mr . Belsham , ) eminent among Protestant Dissenters of the Presbyterian denomination . They were entitled , " Christianity Pleading for the Patronage
of the Civil Power , " and had previously been preached to his opulent and welliaatructed congregation : a congregation including gentlemen of great legal emineuce , and members of the Commons House of Parliament most intimately connected with Protestant Dissenters .
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Two of those sermons were devoted to the proof of a proposition , " that Christianity deserved and required the support and patronage of the civil power . " When such doctrines were avowed , he thought his duty required him publicly to state .
that if he knew any thing of the principles of Protestant Dissenters , from such propositions they ever must dissent . That gentleman advised , that for Dissenters of certain sects , a provision should be made , and stated that he saw no good reason " why Christianity might not occasionally lift her mitred front in courts and
parliaments . " Experience in France had proved the evil tendencies to the Protestants of any dependence on the state ; and as to mitred men in Parliament , the history of Dissenters taught in every age , that peculiar protection and emolument produced assumption and abuse ; and that even when the Stuarts and successive
monarchs were disposed to concede to the unendowed and dishonoured sects , those men with mitred heads had been to toleration the most strenuous foes . Fortunately , However , the work of the Bampton Lecturer stated the principles
it condemned , and the Sermons announced candidly the objections to the theory the ^ Upheld . The remedies would accompany the disease , and wherever the poison was diffused , there would be the antidote . But if these were only speculations , he would have abstained from all remarks .
Their practical tendency excited his alarm . They increased the difficulties which prevented the attainment of real rights . Many of these difficulties originated in the misconception of their principles , and that misconception he did not wonder at . To their present noble
Chairman it was known , that the moat eloquent Member of the Cabinet had stated , " that he would not assist in the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts , although he would endeavour to emancipate the Catholics . " He said " there wa * an Annual Exemption Act , under which Dissenters might qualify for offices , and
by virtue of which , if they did not qualify , they were exempt from punishment . To Dissenters , therefore , no practical injury could result ; and , unless they wished to despoil the Church , and to partake their treasures , they might be content /* Such were the sentiments ot
practical statesmen . Those sentiments excited in him no surprise . The men who thus reasoned were men " tout pow la trippe , "— " all for the quarter-day . " They mingled not with men of principle * not with men who loved truth for the sake of truth—not with thdse who knew that trutlt would eVer usefully operate on the human mind , tlirhen pissenters demanded an e * emt * ti& * f from the Cor-
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492 Intelligence . ' S —Protestant Society z Afr . fWk ss peech .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1820, page 492, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2491/page/48/
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