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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
boundary of Cranmer ' s state of knowledge , is a sort of Protestantism that seems very muck akin to Popery . It is not a little singular that your
correspondent should taunt the Churchmen with over-stepping the limit of their Articles , by way of proof that they are no true Protestants ; and that he should think this title the exclusive
property of men who deem outlawry and damnation only equitable measure to those who falter in their assent to every tittle , doctrinal and even verbal , Of the Creed of St . Athanasius the great . It is i ¥ ell known that the
liberal soirit of the regular church has ral spirit of the regular church has outgrown the creeds of its rubric , and from this 1 should certainly draw an opposite conclusion to that so ingeniously drawn by your correspondent . If leniency towards honest doubt and candour towards conscientious error
be characteristics of a Protestant spirit , it is not among the Evangelical party of the Church that any man in his waking senses would seek them . Let us examine a little the justness of your correspondent ' s similitude of the crocodile and the lion . Should it
not be transposed in its application ? The high Churchmen , as your correspondent styles them , ( not with much propriety , as those who are called low Churchmen are equally distinct from the Puritanic or Evangelical party , ) seem to me to be precisely that body in the state which has a fair claim to
the designation of " honest and Qpen antagonists . " They , the regular clergy , da not affect to amalgamate with Dissenters : they openly avow their opinion , that the consistency of their principles , as holding themselves to be the true church , is compromised by
any such junction : they manfully proclaim that they will only circulate the Bible in conjunction with the Prayer Book - y which they think a sound commentary on its doctrines , and which they have a right to think so : in short , they keep themselves to themselves : and here what is called their want of
Christian charity ends . They do not prevent any other body of religious professors from circulating the Bible in their own way . They stand aloof equally from the Methodist and the Baptist ; from the Quaker and the Unitarian : they do not act with some and persecute others : they hold themselves apart from ' ell alike , and they
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injure none . Where is the cruelty' * of this , and wherfe is the €€ treachery" ? I call this * ' open and undisguised hostility . " But when I see the
Evangelical Churchman pretending to give a pledge that he exceeds his less spiritual brethren in universal charity ; stepping out of his church , and assisting in debates for the promulgation of the Bible alone on the floor of a
meeting-house , and when I find that he has a reserve and a grudge against some one particular sect , that he is at heart a busy bigot and a mischievous and meddling political persecutor , I recognize " the false prophet who comes to us in sheep ' s clothing , but who is
within a ravening wolf : " or , to adopt the allegory of your correspondent , I detect " crocodile shedding marble tears and " stealing with crouched shoulders on its prey . " It is with the
Orthodox Dissenter only that he consents to fraternize , or whose opinions he can allow himself to tolerate ; from the conscientious heterodox religionist he recoils with the self-righteousness Of the Pharisee and the muttered
wrath of the Papist . The Orthodox Dissenters may consistently acknowledge their obligation to Evangelical Churchmen , and they have , indeed , sHewn no want of disposition to join them in moving the laws against heretics : but the Unitarian will feel
somewhat at a loss for the grounds of gratitude towards this new holy brotherhood , who are only restrained from " making havock" of his people by the tolerant wisdom of the legislature , . and the humane temper of that church which , by its reviled
ascendancy , prevents the strong from devouring the weak . The Unitarian will remember , that between himself and the preachers of the " filthiness of righteousness" there is a " great gulf fixed y" but that the regular Churchman is his natural ally : that
in several points of faith and practice they draw near to each other : that the regular Churchman gave his frank and magnanimous consent to . the repeal of the bill which punished him in person and estate for impugning the scholastic doctrine of the Trinity ,
and that the Evangelical Churchman , that " genuine disciple of Cranmer , " has never since ceased to clamour for its re-enactmerit . The assertion , that "" the Evange-
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714 T ) ie " Evangelical" Spirit not a Protestant Spirit .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1821, page 714, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2507/page/18/
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