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question the legitimacy of the union between ecclesiastical and civil authority . They did not object to a national establishment as such ; they were far from professing to disapprove of the government of the church by bishops ; they were strongly attached to the theological system contained in the Thirty-nine Articles , and to the use of a public formulary of worship . While they had before their eyes daily examples of the impossibility of
expressing varying opinions in unchanging language ; while they bitterly felt the evils arising from an arbitrary assumption of spiritual authority ; while they mourned for the dissensions which disgraced the church , and which in < - variably broke out in their own body as soon as tests and subscriptions were proposed , they were still blind to the radical defects of the system , and their successors only arrived at this important knowledge by the imperious teachings of a melancholy experience . They deserve to be held in all
honour for their uprightness , and to be regarded with gratitude for their emi * - nent services to the best of causes ; but our respect and gratitude cannot preclude our wonder and regret that they should consent and even desire to confine the ever-expanding influences of religion within the strait Iimit 3 of conventional forms , and to enchain its free spirit to the crumbling edifices of human power , from which , as it is destined to survive them , it is also
destined ultimately to escape . When called to account for their Nonconformity , their appeal was ( among other authorities ) to Chillingworth , who , strange to say , was held in equal veneration by a great number who belonged to the church . It is marvellous that while appealing to such passages as the following , the ground of difficulty should be , not the intervention of human authority , but the rigorous nature of the terms of conformity .
cc If a church supposed to want nothing necessary , require me to profess against my conscience that I believe some error , though never so small and innocent , which I do not believe , and will not allow me her communion but upon this condition , in this case the church , for requiring this condition , is schismatical , and not I , for separating from the church . " " The presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God , the special senses of men upon the general words of God , and laying them
upon men ' s consciences together , under the equal penalty of death and damnation ; this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God ; this deifying our own interpretations , and tyrannous enforcing them upon others ; this restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality , and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the apostles left them , is and hath been the only fountain of all the schisms of the church , and that which makes them immortal : the
common incendiary of Christendom , and that which ( as I said before ) tears in pieces , not the coat , but the bowels and members of Christ ; Ridente Turc& nee dolente Judteo . Take away these walls of separation , and all will quickly be one . Take away this persecuting * , burning , cursing , damning" of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God . Require of Christians onl y to believe Christ , and to call no man master but him only . Let those leave claiming infallibility that have no title to it , and let them that
in their words disclaim it , disclaim it likewise in their actions . In a word , take away tyranny , which is the Devil ' s instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties , in the several parts of the world , which could not otherwise long- withstand the power of truth . I say , take away tyranny , and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding * to scripture only ; and as rivers , when they have a free passage , run all to the ocean , so it may well be hoped , by God ' s blessing * , that universal liberty , thus moderated , may quickly reduce Christendom to truth and unity . " —Religion of Protestant * , &c .
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92 Calamy ' s Life .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 92, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/20/
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