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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
some readers to distinctly remark , that this University is in the interest of the Unitarians . Turning from America to our own country , we hail with inexpressible joy the measure of justice which will shortly , we trust , be effectually completed ; a measure which rests on the broad and immutable principle that
no one should be injured in his civil rights on account of any religious opinions he may entertain . In the recent agitation of this measure , the Methodists have taken that part which , from their principles , we were prepared to expect . Not content to remain at rest like the Quakers , they have sided ith the favourers of exclusion . Methodist chapels have been made ready means of obtaining signatures to Anti-catholic petitions . Methodist ministers have volunteered their services to retain on the neck of their brethren
the galling yoke of civil disqualification . There is no sect whose principles are , in our opinion , more hostile to the great cause of religious liberty , and there is none that requires a more vigilant watching . With the exception of this aspiring and domineering sect , the Dissenters , as a body , have done themselves great credit in the struggle . Some things , indeed , have occurred which call for animadversion ; and they shall have it in due season . But the fitting time is not yet come .
The Bishop of London has revoked his decree . His Lordship was waited upon . It was told him , that the case of the remonstrants was already drawn Tip and in the hands of counsel . So soon as the Bishop saw this determined opposition , he also saw reason to change his opinion . His Lordship ' s , therefore , must be added to the catalogue of famous conversions which the last six weeks have witnessed . We confess we do not think his
Lordship has added much to his respectability by his interference ; but in retiring from the contest—a contest in which victory would have been a loss—he has shewn no little of that virtue of discretion which stands with tt many men in the stead of courage . The Bishop will do well for the future to listen to the old proverb , " Look before you leap / ' and to keep watch over a disposition to meddle , which , we fear , he has in excess . The hierarchy have the greater need of discretion , since , as they tell us , their house is
divided against itself . The Bishop of Bath and Wells , in a recent Charge , declares , " The Church , alas ! instead of being at unity within itself , is sadly torn asunder by contentions and schisms . The rent , however , does not reach to the centre . The main difference exists with a class very respectable in number , highly respectable in character and conduct , and who are found in the bosom of our church . These , however , I would remind in the true spirit , I hope , of Christian charity , that it is always dangerous and
delusive to trust to the imagination and feelings , instead of placing our belief and reliance on the sure , unerring word of the gospel . Fain , too , would I impress on their recollection , that an age of enthusiasm has always been succeeded by an age of infidelity . And to both parties I would observe , that * a house divided against itself cannot stand . ' " These remarks are in themselves very good ; but the fact which they set forth overthrows one position which the defenders of the Church are wont to take , viz . that articles
and creeds are necessary to keep away schism . We knew well enough before , that they did not , and could not , and ought not , to effect such an object ; but we prefer hearing the truth from the mouth of a dignitary of the Church There is now in agitation another matter in which the authorities of the Church are divided . The incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts , is possessed of a considerable number of slaves in the island of Barbadoes , from whose labour it has drawn large sums of mo-
Untitled Article
264 The Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 264, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/40/
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