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tropolis ; and the expression of their opinion on any important question , though they speak and act only as individuals , may be considered as a tolerably correct representation of the state of opinion among the intelligent part of the religious body to which they belong . " It ought also to be mentioned to your Lordship , that these separate boards of ministers have no laws , so far as is known to the writer of these
pages , by which any respectable minister , holding their general sentiments , is precluded from uniting with them , if so disposed . They have no inducement to monopolize any privilege which they enjoy , and are ever ready to welcome accessions to their number , of those who from principle and choice are disposed to act along with them . As they are well known to be Nonconformists as well as Dissenters , those ministers who use the liturgy of the Church of England in their congregations have , I believe , never been found amon g them .
" By the special permission of the trustees of the late Dr . Williams , granted from year to year , the ministers are accustomed to meet at the Library in Red-cross Street , founded by that gentleman ; but they are in no respect connected with that trust , and no part of the responsibility of it devolves upon them . % The Library itself is not the common property of the Dissent - ing body ; but has exclusively a certain number of trustees who all belong to the Presbyterian denomination . " '—Pp . 9—12 .
The writer , then , for the purpose of shewing " the relative strength and numbers of the several denominations" gives a list , of which the summary is , that the whole number of ministers belonging to the Body is 155 , viz . 24 Presbyterians , 80 Independents , and 51 Baptists . Of the Presbyterians there is , we believe , but one Trinitarian ( or at most two ); and of the Baptists four are avowedly Unitarian . So that the Unitarians , including three or four Arians , are about one-sixth of the whole .
To the confidential propensities of the Body must be added , that it is somewhat courtly , and rather inactive . It is very attentive to the Royal Family , and loyally observant of all great events in its history . When princes or princesses are born , marry , or die , up goes the Body with a dutiful address of congratulation or condolence , as the case may be . All the members are admitted to kiss hands ; and such is the influence of earthly splendours on those who for the first time gaze on palaces and kings , that in some
cases the conversation in congregational visitings is said to be less spiritual than usual for many a week after . There was , indeed , a Queen who was not addressed . The Body was lethargic . She had lost her daughter ; she had acceded , de jure , to the throne ; but the Body would neither condole nor congratulate . It is true there was no refusal ; the address was delayed , not negatived ; nor was it every one of the delaying majority who would have said , " We must not do this , or we shall affront the King . 11 Still
there was no address ; and for this once the Body deemed its " custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance . " This was a singular case . Usually , it is difficult to move the Body , because there is a tacit understanding among the leading members that it is inexpedient to act upon the vote of a majority , unless the majority be so large as to approximate to unanimity . This is unfortunate , inasmuch as it must often happen that the
very questions on which it is desirable that the Dissenting Ministers should , by their opinions and examples , influence the public mind , are those on which unanimity cannot possibly be expected . The Catholic Question had , as we shall presently see , a very narrow escape . On the outrages to which , just after the Bourbon Restoration , the Protestants of the south of France were subjected ; on the objectionable provisions in Mr . Brougham ' s Education
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428 The Body .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 428, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/60/
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