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Untitled Article
/ Parliament is a pierce where mischief is sure to be neutralized . Anybody snay be trusted in St . Stephen ' s , but no care is too great to be taken as to the lefms on which he holds a seat among the wise men who counsel together in Guildhall .
" The result , " he adds , " of the investigation leads , in my opinion , to these conclusions , that if the Corporation and Test Acts were in force , ( which , be it constantly remembered , they are not , ) they would no more coerce the religion or the conscience of Dissenters , than they would their household affairs ; that the civil and ecclesiastical parts of the government are so closely combined , that , as Lord Coke has said of civil and ecclesiastical law , ' the one cannot subsist
without the other / and , therefore , he who is known to be unfriendly to a part , is not unjustly suspected of having no very strong attachment to the whole ; that the assertion of a violation of political rights is not founded in good logic , or borne out b y the ordinary principles of government ; that the historical assumptions of the Dissenters respecting these acts are altogether erroneous ; and finally , that , as they cause no practical inconvenience to the Dissenters , the objections against them are not only bad in theory , but quite uncalled for by the existing state of circumstances ; as the Dissenters suffer no real grievancey no measure of redress is necessary " . —Pp . 44—46 .
The rest of the pamphlet is devoted to a description of " many evil spirits which are still working , " against whom our author exhorts great activity to be used . * "There is , however , one sect ever ready to thrust its offensive doctrines before the public eye , although unimportant in respect of the numbers , the rank , or the learning of its adherents , which I am unwilling to pass without
the strong expression of my opinion respecting it—I mean the men who call / themselves Unitarians , and who take upon them to deny the most important and plainly asserted truths of our religion /'—P . 52 . " Cold coarse ^ and stubborn , busy , meddling , and discontented , insensible to glory , incapable of generous enthusiasm , proud without dignity , austere without profoundness , we find the adherents of this sect amongst the ranks of the calculators , the economists , and the innovators , and ever ready to cavil at the long-established institutions of the country ,
" * Obtruding false rules pranked in reason ' s garb / " Had they the power , our Constitution would probably suffer in their hands a similar mutilation to that which they have already inflicted upon our Liturgy in some of their chapels . Nobility—dignities—the magnificence of high station , and all the lofty inventions which a great and cultivated people have found it for their advantage or their glory to make use of , would be exploded by these people , as antiquated and absurd institutions . "—Pp . 55 , 56 ,
After a compliment to individuals of this terrible sect , whom he excepts from the enormities of their brethren , he describes the bulk as infected with " republican and levelling principles , " and concludes with a vehement reprobation of their late attempt to get rid of the religious character of marriage . The man who is ignorant or factious enough to get up such a cry as this , may well be selected to be the opponent o ? the general cause of the Disseiiters in the approaching struggle . If he finds no fault in them , he can make one ; and if he cannot meet them in argument , he can at least slander them ..
We have occupied so much more space than we at first intended , that we have not room to enter upon any detailed consideration of Mr . Bowring ' s pamphlet , which we can , however , recommend to our readers as an eloquent protest by an energetic friend to the most extended principles of Teligious liberty against that dignified indifference which coolly measures jprmciple by political convenience .
Untitled Article
$ 62 Remexa—Defence of the Corporation and Test Aeti >
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 182, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/38/
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