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occasional presence would be of great benefit both at Colchester and at Ipswich . To that place I never go without thinking of my own illiberality , and the excellency of a man now no more , an ornament to our cause , and a true friend to liberty and social happiness .
When I was orthodox , I thought I was doing right in cautioning a friend from being acquainted with Wm . Notcutt , or even using his shop . I often told him of my narrowness of mind , after I saw that among heretics there was knowledge , kindness , and a love of man , founded on the love of God to man . Never was there a man who
more wished for the peace and liberty of his country than Wm . Notcutt , or was more anxious that religion should be without priestcraft , and benevolence without ostentation . How delighted was I to see the union that prevailed in his house ; his children assisting
in the shop—rising early to teach the poor—and on the Sunday joining to celebrate the loving-kindness of God in the house of prayer ! Had a distinguished Unitarian minister shewn the same zeal , and applied the same judgment , when he resided in Ipswich that he has done since he fixed in London ,
the cause might have received great strength , and the cold and languid state in which it now appears , have been somewhat prevented . This is not produced by either indifference or want of ability in the minister ; yet it becomes
the congregation to consider whether all is done to spread the truth , and whether the lower classes especially receive the attention to which they are entitled . My regard for the interest of genuine piety will excuse the freedom of these remarks of an UNITARIAN TRAVELLER .
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Nottingham , Sir , August 5 , 1820 . fTHHE inclosed remarks appeared _ M _ some months ago in one of the Nottingham papers . I should not have thought it necessary to give them further publicity , had it not been for the recommendation of an intelligent
friend at a distance , to whom I happened lately to mention the circumstance which gave occasion to them . It was his opinion that the pages of the Repository ought to receive a record of every opinion expressed by authority on a question so important
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to Unitarians . And though judicial addresses of the nature now alluded to are not always the result of much deliberation , and would not in any case be cited as authorities , yet they shew the bias of some of those to whom we look up as interpreters of the law
The charge on which the following remarks are made , appeared in the most authentic shape , as it was published from the revised notes of the Reporter at the unanimous request of the Grand Jury . Upon the whole , therefore , I trust that this communication will not be thought unworth y of a place in your useful Miscellany .
H . T . To the Editor of the Nottingham Review , Sir , In perusing your report of the Charge delivered by Sir W . D . Best to the Grand Jury , at the late assizes for the county , I was surprised to meet with the
following passage : "He must state , that if the words attributed to the prisoners , attacked the divinity of either of the persons of the Trinity , that was undoubtedly a blasphemous libel . The liberty of the press , the liberty of Englishmen , allowed
a man to question the propriety or authority of any text in the sacred volume ; but it never could be permitted , in a Christian land , that any should dispute the first and leading principles of the gospel , which held out to man his brightest hopes , and opened to his view another world . "
Concluding that this passage conreys a correct statement of the learned judge ' s opinion , I think myself called upon , in justice to the religious ^ denomination to which I belong , respectfully to state some reasons which lead me to believe that his
opinion is unfounded ; for you will be aware , Mr . Editor , that there lies an appeal both in law and reason , from the opinion of any individual however respectable . Should it even appear that I had
been mistaken in my view of the law as it now stands , it would be allowed me , in a question materially involving the principles of religious liberty , to shew ,
that if such be the law , the sooner it done away the better . But that it is no longer a crime in the eye of the law , to call in question the doctrine of the Trinity , appears from this —that , by an unanimous act of the
Legislature , commonly called Mr . William Smith's Bill , all the statutes inflicting penalties on such as impugn that doctrine , are repealed ; and Unitarians are now protected in their Dissent from the doctrinal Articles of the Establishe *
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532 Remarks on a Passage in a Charge of Judge Best * s .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1820, page 532, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2492/page/32/
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