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doctrinal Views in which they cordially agreed , and which they equally held to be of vital and eternal moment . The former difference was no bar to ministerial and ecclesiastical communion , or to a public and affectionate
co-operation : but from any who had differed from them as completely as the modern Unitarians do , the old Presbyterians would unquestionably have maintained the most complete separation . To every man who is acquainted with their character and
writings , it is impossible for a doubt to exist , whether they would not have shrunk with the deepest horror from the idea of permitting their names , their property , or their influence , to go for the support of a system of doctrine which was subversive of all their
own faith and labours , and which they conscientiously believed to be utterly ruinous to the everlasting welfare of mankind . Surely , Sir , your correspondent stated the case without due reflection , when he wrote , " We differ somewhat from our forefathers
on matters of doctrine and of discipline . " Who , in reading this clause , would imagine that the diminishing word somewhat represents a
consideration beyond expression great , a distance and opposition so wide that , in comparison with it , the dissent itself , and all the imaginable varieties of order , discipline , and rituals , sink into nothing ?
VI . It is by no means certain that all the places of worship to which your correspondent refers , were built or endowed or originally occupied by Presbyterians . Of one important instance I can
speak with certainty . The Upper Chapel at Sheffield was built in 1700 , for Mr . Jollie and his church , who were strictly Congrcgationalists . There is reason to suppose that , upon investigation , a similar origin would be discovered in other cases .
VII . The modern Unitarian congregations are not really Presbyterian , and they are so designated only by a customary but improper application of the term .
Are they not as completely Congregational and Independent as we are ? Do they constitute ruling eiders in each congregation , to act in conjunction with their pastors , for judging of the qualifications of comr-
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muni cants and other acts of discipline ? Have they courts of review ? Have they classical , provincial and synodical assemblies ? Do they even , in general , maintain any kind of
church discipline whatever ? Howthen can they , upon any principle of truth and fairness , call themselves by an appellation which has not the semblance of propriety ? In point of fact , they are as little entitled to be considered as the successors and
representatives of the old Presbyterians , in relation to ecclesiastical order , as they are with respect to the most important principles of doctrine . Your correspondent thinks that he presses me hard by appealing to facts in the first introduction of Christianity , and at the Reformation . I feel no
weight whatever in the argument which he deduces from them . The apostles never claimed a property in the synagogues in which , according to undisputed usage , they were admitted to preach tlie doctrine of Jesus ; and
Christianity was not a rival system to the Mosaic dispensation , but was its completion and perfection . The ancient heathen temples were the property of the state , and the use of them was directed by no assignments of trust . As little relevant do the
confiscation and new application of Roman Catholic foundations , at the time of the Reformation , appear to me . Great injustice and cruelty were exercised by Henry VIII . and other persons , while they were throwing off a yoke of iniquity and oppression :
but these were acts of the legislature , and might have been conducted with equity and liberality . Yet , in either vindicating or condemning the conduct of the states which , at that time , burst the fetters which ignorance , fraud , and force had forged , there are numerous and complicated considerations to be taken into the account .
If your correspondent is not aware of them , I beg to refer him to Burnet ' s History of the Reformation ; or , for a sketch of them , to the introductory part of Schiller ' s History of the Thirty Years' War .
But all these facts , in the origin and the constitution of secular churchestablishments , are remote from the case under consideration , and can serve only to obscure a plain question : Is not a trust perverted , if it is atl-
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210 Dr . P . Smith on Dissenting' Trusts .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1825, page 210, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2535/page/18/
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