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enjoyment of their peculiar modes of faith and worship /* Its openness and its quietness are accompanied with the deprivation of civil rights and privileges to which they have as just a claim as their brethren in the
Establishment . The disabilities are inflicted on those who are as good subjects and as honourable men as any of the members of that Church to whom these privileges are secured , and which is itself a mere creature of the State .
" Situated as you are , " says a very acute and forcible writer , " your whole ritual , all your ordinances and articles , are a part of the law of the land ! The ecclesiastic corps , through all its ranks , is as much subject to this law as the army is to the annual Mutiny Bill /* " Our ecclesiastical establishment , from
first to last , is the work of the civil power . " * The Inquirer proceeds , " But Christianity in its most comprehensive sense , including the divine mission of our Lord and the doctrine of a future state of reward and punishment , is a part of the law of the land . "
Does the Inquirer forget that the Apostles ' , the Nicene , and the Athanasian Creeds also form a part o the law of the land ? In what part of the Scriptures is it enjoined that the religion of Jesus shall become the common
law of any land ? Does not Jesus say his kingdom is not of this world ? And where does he constitute the civil power of any country , the interpreter of his doctrines , the illustrator of his instructions , or the elucidator of his precepts for the benefit and advantage of his
disciples ? Does he not say , Ye have but one teacher , even Christ ? And does not his apostle Paul say , that every man must stand or fall to his own master ? Is not every man to judge for himself what he can receive
as truth ? €€ What is truth ? I protest I have no better answer to give to any one putting this question to me than by saying , with Mr . Horne Tookk ' , that it is * what a man
troweth . It is not for me to guess at the degree of respect with which this distinguished scholar and philologist may regard the sanction of the most learned of all the apostles / ' t The Inquirer afterwards proceeds ,
* Layman ' s Letter to the Rev . Dr . Goddard , p . 30 . Chichester , 1811 . t Ibid . p . 38 .
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" that , for the protection of this ^ offender / ' i . e . " the blasphemer , the scoffer , the daring violater of ^ the national law , the reviler of the national faith , " ( the Athanasian Creed , ) " the misleader of the simple , the abuser of the ignorant , the corrupter of youth , the destroyer of all that is sacred and
venerable , Mr * Scott would impose an absolute restraint upon the exercise of lawful authority . " In what part of my discourse can such an assertion be found , or any such inference be justly drawn ? Or in what part of my life can such a spirit be attributed to me ? And yet the Inquirer says , " Ail that
I know of Mr . Scott claims respect . " What ! respect a man who is the abettor , or who " would impose an absolute restraint upon the exercise of lawful authority" " the blasphemer , the daring violater of the national law , the abuser of the ignorant , the corrupter of youth , the destroyer of all that is sacred and venerable" ! And
this charge is brought against rne because a miraculous exertion of power in an apostle of Christ does not appear to me to be a scriptural precedent for the civil magistrate of this country , who possesses no such power , to inflict what punishment he pleases on an Unbeliever . If this punishment of Bar-Jesus is to be established as a
scriptural precedent , on the same principle we ought to adopt that which has been set us by the apostle Peter , for those who practise religious fraud and dissimulation , religious
prevarication and falsehood , who thought it necessary to infljct the punishment of instant death on Ananias and Sapphira , who were guilty of these crimes . And why not punish with sickness , infirmities and death , those who misuse the
Lord ' s Supper by introducing improper practices into its celebration , by obliging men to employ it as a qualification for a civil office ? These precedents stand each of tjbem upon a similar foundation ; that of peculiarity in their nature , their circumstances , their time or their cause , and can have no kind
of affinity to the case of modern Unbelievers . In the next paragraph the Inquirer goes on to remark , " I beseech you , says St . Paul , be ye followers of me . No , says Mr . Scott , you must not follow Paul , unless you can produce similar evidence of being divinely com *
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Mr . Scott in Reply to Remarks on his Sermon . 105
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VOL . XVI . P
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 105, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/41/
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