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choice , whichever it be , must take effect . ' " Of similar import is the testimony of the " Parish Priest . " " I consider the Church to he in danger , but more from internal than ex - ternal enemies ; and I conscientiously believe that it may l > e truly predicated of her , that her most dangerous foes are those of her own household . She has no bulwark but her moral strength ; and I am persuaded that things cannot go on much longer as they have done , without imminent peril to her best interests , if not to her very existence /*
Once more ^ then , the Church is declared to be in danger . We must confess that we have no such love for her as to feel alarm at the outcry , nor any such reliance on the declarations of her doctors as to expect a speedy dissolution . We rather fear — to use a phrase of hers , the application of which has often puzzled us no little— *« as it is now , so it shall be , world ( corruption ) without end : " that is , as long as Church and State are united . We have begun to suspect the symptoms of dissolution which the Church is from
time to time said to manifest ; and though those who are admitted to her privacy assure us that she has for a long while laboured under periodical returns of the falling sickness , there is too much reason to think that the old lady feigns ill , and imposes upon her medical advisers , in order to excite our sympathies and awaken our pity , that we may bear with her many frailties , and soothe her maladies with the cordial of gold . There are some hundreds m this kingdom who obtain a comfortable living by exposing lo their fellowsubjects a unisformed limb or a half naked body ; and the Church of England is not less informed than other beggars of the means of moving the
compassion and opening the purse-strings of " a generous public . " We are not surprised thai the lame , the halt , and the blind , of the fraternity of beggars should find the means of taking from our pockets wherewith to subsist . These we see in their own proper persons—their defects we may behold—their distresses we -may scrutinize—their wailing we may hear : in a word , they are flesh and blood—visible and tangible realities . N " o one but a Berkleian can question their existence . But who , what , or where , this said Church is , we never could learn . What is its gender we know not ;
atid we had almost thrown our pen down in despair of discovering whether to nuncupate the Church he , she , or it . Not does our ignorance arise from lack of inquiry . We have searched for ourselves ; we have consulted the learned ; but we are profoundly ignorant whether the Church be masculine , feminine , or neuter . It is somewhat strange , if the Church be a real ens , that no one should have been favoured with a sight thereof ; but such , up on inquiry , we learn is the fact . In our days of ignorance , we thought , with
the Scriptures , that the Church was a body of Christian people ; but we find we were wrong . Next , we imagined it was a steeple-house ; but this would tiot answer the descriptions given thereof . Our American brethren made us hope to find the Church even amongst the Unitarians of therr land ; but the bishops of England were shocked at the idea . We have , in a word , searched 'every where , and searched m vain . That about which so much noise is made— -whose name is with millions a powerful and stirring charm—Which by turns flourishes , declines , and threatens dissolution—we are bound to believe ,
even amid our ignorance of its nature , is a real existence . Perhaps , deep bidden from the vulgar gaze in the archiepiscqpal palace of Canterbtrry , the Church may be preserved in a shrine over winch , as -upon that of Ists , is inscribed , " lam all that has been , is , and ever shall be ; no mortal has ever raised up the veil with which I am covered . " Being thus unknown , how comes it to pass that the Church excites so deeply the pity of the people , or
Untitled Article
226 State of the Curates of the Church of England .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 226, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/2/
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