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sense of honour , to your regard for consistency of character , and to your respect for truth and moral rectitude , whether it be proper for you and other Unbelievers to associate for religious worship with a hody of men
who believe in a divine revelation , and who worship the Father in the name of Jesus . Would it not be more honourable , and are you not called up # n by every manly feeling , to form a separate society , and to address your Creator in a way that may harmonize
with your views of truth ? Do you fear the civil power ? The Unitarians boldly proclaimed their principles and worshiped God in the way that was deemed heresy , when placed under similar restrictions with yourselves ; and even yet it is declared , that we
are liable to prosecution at common law . But if you have not courage to worship God in a Deistical form , why not petition the Legislature to remove your present disabilities ? I , for one , will cheerfully sign such a petition , and from what I know of the views
of our Legislative Assemblies , I should sincerely hope that a proper application of this nature would not be made in vain . I am , Sir , Yours respectfully , GWILYM MAESYVED .
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SIR , HOPE that Mr . Jones ' s impor-I tant communication ( pp . / " 2 , 73 ) will engage the serious attention of all your readers whom it may concern . It is an apostolic question , What part hath he that helieveth with an Infidel ? In the common duties
and pleasures of life we may indeed associate with Unbelievers without blame , nor could we without an uncharitable bigotry do otherwise . But to desire any union with them in our religious services is every way unreasonable , for if we are really Christians , light and darkness are not more
opposed than their views and ours in all that regards religion . If the Unitarian chapel is found agreeable to the Deistical worshiper , is there not just ground for suspecting that the ^ ligious views which are there
incuL-£ * ted under the name of Christianity ™ ve but little real claim to that title i ™ > indeed , are the Unbelievers t . o ^ hom the pages of the Bible yield
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an acceptable entertainment , bttt if the same men can listen with comh » placency-to the disquisitions of the Unitarian preacher , what inference can be drawn but that the preaching savours but little of those mysterious realities which form indeed the bur *
den of revelation , hut which the seep * . tieal mind regards with so much fastidiousness and impatience ? If Deists love to be hearers , it is to be feared the preacher may be but half a Christian .
Yet this is not a matter in which any half-way , compromising dealing is admissible . It is not enough to be even almost a Christian . A decided character is here the only consistent * the only safe one . If one thing ou earth is more solemn than others , it
is to have received a revelation from God , to hold that revelation in one ' s hand , to behold it opened , to hear it read . If the mind is susceptible of pious reverence and awe , they will he exercised here . This revelation will
be felt and acknowledged to be the only standard of truth on those great subjects on which it professes to inform us . Its testimony will he allowed to be conclusive , and will not be disputed . All tampering with the
words of the sacred record , all attempts to explain away their obvious meaning' in order to adapt them to our own opinions will be felt to be presumptuous and vain . The truly Christian minister who has the BibJe
before him , will have no other wish but to proclaim with simplicity and energy the very truths which that Bible contains , and no others . If , abandoning this exalted post , he descends to the low and fluctuating level of human opinions , and begins to inculcate not what God has said , but
what himself thinks , how is the true dignity and authority of his office obscured ! And if , what is still worse , but not uncommon , he has not only taken on himself to preach what is not written , but also been so bold as to enter on a course of doubting and
cavilling and evasion in respect to much that is written , what wonder is there in such a case that the Deist b found among the complacent and well-satisfied hearers ? The authority of the testimony of God , like that of his law , ia of such a nature , that if rejected in one point it i * in effect rc ~
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On Unielietxers joining Unifarien Congregations . 345
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1826, page 345, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2549/page/29/
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