On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
of Mr . Potter , of Manchester , as local Treasurers of the Association , was drank with great applause . The Chairman next proposed " The health of Lord Holland , and the Members of both Houses of Parliament who hare supported the cause of Civil aud Religious Liberty . "
In introducing this toast the Chairman took occasion to pronounce a high enlogiuui on the Rev . W . J . Fox , who , on its being drank , was loudly called for from different parts of the room . The Rev . W . J . Fox rose amid the cheers of the company , which continued for some minutes ; when they had
partially subsided , the reverend gentleman adverted to the state of his health , and said , that nothing but the direct and irresistible appeal which had just been made to him by the chairman and the meeting , would have induced him to address them . He had been involuntarily absent two successive anniversaries of
the Association . He had been in a state which one of his worthy friends had called ' being buried alive , " but he had been called upon in a trumpet voice to rise from it , and to the utmost of bis power he would obey the call . With regard to the subject of the last toast , he should confine himself to that portion of it which shewed its connexion with the
proceedings of the present meeting , and the objects of the Institution . He regarded the recent change in our legislatiou not merely as a political triumph ; not merely as the triumph of religious liberty 5 but , iu his judgment , and in his conscience , he considered it as an Unitarian triumph . It had beet ) said that Unitarians were doing little . Whether this were true or not , their principles were doing much . He considered the
passing of the Catholic Relief Bill a Unitarian triumph , because it appeared to him that universal and unqualified religious liberty was one of the distitw guishing and most glorious tenets and principles of Unitarians . He would appeal to facts iu proof of his statement . Who were they that advocated the measure most consistently , that advocated the measure universally ? Who were the foremost in the field ? Who fired the
first -shot ? Aud who remained most active in the field till the fight was won ? He would reply , without fear of contra - diction , the Unitarians of this country . Taking : any statement which he had seen of the number of petitions from Protestant piiasenters for Catholic Emancipation , it was ati undeniable fact that the great , majority were the petitions of Unitarians . Indeed , to decide whose prin-
Untitled Article
ciples were those of religious liberty , we had only to look to the state of religious , societies . See spiritual despotism pervading them , from the followers of the Pontiff , who thunders forth his anathemas in the Vatican , to the village Diotrephes , who excommunicates his fellow-worshipers in a barn . It is with us , that every man may be fully
persuaded in his own mind , and speak his conviction . Here then he saw Unitarian piinciples advanciug in the advance of religious freedom . Looking in another direction he saw that if Unitariaus were doing but little , iheir principles \ urc doing much . He looked to the laws , and he watched , and watched with delight , as eveiy friend to human kind in this country must , the progress which was making towards the simplification
of the modes of legal procedure , towards the prevention of crime , and the reformation of criminals ; and what was that but the application of the great Unitarian principle , that the proper end of punishment was not revenge but correction ? As the state of society advanced , the theological opinions which corresponded with it must advance also . When laws became more righteous and more merciful—when the courts of law
admitted of procedures more consistent with common sense—then must men be weaned from a theology which . by the imputation of righteousness and guilt held oufcamore monstrous absurdity than the worst legal fictions of our law couits in the worst of times ;—then would men be weaned from a belief that the wise
and merciful God puuished vindictively as to the principle , and eternally as to the duration . He would say again , that if Unitarians were doing little , their principles were doing much . He now particularly alluded to the spread of knowledge and education .- When he heard of the " march of intellect" he
rejoiced therein , for what was intellect but a herald to prepare the way and to make a straight and broad path for the triumphalchariotof pure religion ? ( Cheers . ) It had been said that the schoolmaster was abroad—he rejoiced therein , for the schoolmaster was neither more i . or less
than a Unitarian Missionary . As he communicated facts , and exercised the faculties of his pupils , he was providing for the future detection of error and reception of truth . When he found rival colleges about to rear their heads in this metropolis he rejoiced therein . Let them rear their heads ever so proudly , if men were there taught scientific truths , aud the principles of s * ouih 1 logic , those two rising Institutions wtuld but be
Untitled Article
518 Intelligence . * - Unitarian Association .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 518, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/70/
-