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the call of princi p le and of honour , evidently in opposition to all inducements of a selfish nature , resolving to pursue the rugged and , in Scotland , the seldom-beaten track of seceding from the Established Church , nobly
taking his stand upon the inalienable right of private judgment and the iniquity of requiring subscription to the dogmas of man ' s invention . The respectable person to whom I allude , is known to hold opinions highly
Calvinistic , so that his reputation will not , I trust , suffer from the feeble but honest praise which my subject * and my profound admiration lead me to bestow on one whose conduct raises
him infinitely higher than any ecclesiastical preferment could have raised him in the estimation of good men of every Christian party , is more than any thing calculated to uphold the sacred cause of religion , which has suffered so sensibly from the vices
and selfishness of many a pretended friend , and will , I trust , not remain a solitary instance of integrity in that part of the country , in a cause in which , of all others , it is most absolutely necessary , and most peremptorily enjoined , that integrity should be evinced .
If then the arguments of this Essay , and the facts and authorities that have been introduced , carry with them any thing of the weight which they seem to the writer to possess , one thing is certain , that even previous to an examination of the separate formularies of the two Established Churches of
Great Britain , ( a similar remark , indeed , will apply to the candidates for admission into the larger Dissenting bodies of Scotland ,- )* only with a
ten-* I might also have made reference to the enlightened zeal of the projectors of the Metropolitan University , in their aiming to confer the advantages of the higher branches of education , without
subscription to the ** old-fashioned Articles , " and without distinction of sect or party . Surely this comprehensive scheme , under judicious direction , bids fair to contribute the most essential benefits to
our country , and to reflect distinguished honour on the age which has given it birth . ~ t ~ It is presumed that a majority of English Dissenters , with the exception of the Methodists , who virtually subscribe to the writings of John Wesley , have dis-
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fold strength ^ suited to the inconK parably greater disgrace which recoils on the heads of Dissenters requiring subscription to human formularies , ) the ingenuous and conscientious student who has faithfully exerted his
faculties in the attainment of the necessary knowledge and in the slow and deliberate formation of his opinions , when called upon , previous to the receiving of a licence , ( one of those terms which ought never to be used in reference to a Christian profession , )
to sign a formulary , entitled a Confession of Faith , or the Thirty-nine Articles ^ may , with laudable ^ natural , and Christian disdain , repel the temptation . € A Get thee behind me , Satan , " the words of our Master when his principles were exposed to actual
experiment , were not more proper m his case than in that of every conscientious candidate for the sacred office when solicited by the tempter , bearing the name of a Christian minister , who invites him—for this has been shewn
to be the case—to forswear the sufficiency of the words of God , and to bind himself by an oath to the opinions and the words of men . This ought , I conceive , to be his conduct , even upon the supposition , which all
who are acquainted with the doctrine of chances will know to be highly improbable , that of the many hundred separate positions which these confessions contain , he can from actual examination say that he believes them all .
But on the contrary supposition , that it be the result of accurate inquiry that these confessions contain a variety of propositions of the most dubious description , a great many more that are contradictory , many which would reflect most highly upon the character of our heavenly Parent ,
many which have estranged from the communion of the Church some of the brightest geniuses and most benevolent and pious Christians—surely I have a ri g ht to affirm , that the continuance of subscription to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms in Scotland , and the Thirty-nine Articles in England , is one of the most
continued the practice . Bat the Scottish Presbyterians , that are out of the Establishment , even enforce it with greater vigour than the Church itself .
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138 The Nonconformist . No . XXIX .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1826, page 138, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2546/page/10/
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