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Untitled Article
If it be true , as some are sanguine in hoping , that a reform in matters more important than the temporalities of the Established Church is about to be proposed , it were much to be wished that the higher powers would immediately take to the study of Chillingworth , from , whom they might not only receive a caution to beware of legislating too much , but also some hints to examine into their right of legislating at all in religious concerns .
No part of the work under our consideration appears to us so interesting as the detail given by the future historian of Nonconformity of his views and feelings when the time arrived for him to choose whether he would be Churchman or Dissenter . Notwithstanding the circumstances of his descent , he had as much power of unbiassed choice in this important question as is possible in a case where all the worldly inducements lie on one side . He was the grandson of the eminent divine who was distinguished among the ejected ministers , who at the same time with Baxter refused a bishopric , and who was also well known as one of the authors of that celebrated book ,
bearing the signature of Smectymnuus , which , it was fondly hoped , would end the difficulties of the Nonconformists . Other members of the Calamy family were also eminent for integrity and talent ; but the influences of their modes of thought and action did not descend with much force upon the subject of the present work , as he lost his father while very young , and received much of his education abroad . On his return from Utrecht , he
spent a year at Oxford , and there he applied himself to the consideration of the great question , on the issue of which the duties and prospects of his whole future life depended . It is observable that his views at this time were more enlarged than those , not only of most of his companions in exclusion , but which he himself held in after years . We can only extract a short portion of this interesting department of the work .
" I had it now particularly under consideration whether I should determine for conformity or nonconformity . I thought Oxford no unfit place to pursue this matter in . I was not likely there to be prejudiced in favour of the Dissenters , who were commonly run down and ill spoken of . I was entertained from day to day with what tended to give any man the best opinion of the church by law established . I was a witness of her learning * , wealth , grandeur , and splendour . I was treated by the gentlemen of the University with all imaginable civility . I heard their sermons , and frequently attended their public lectures and academical exercises . I was free in conversation as
opportunities offered ; and was olten argued with about consorting with such a despicable , such an unsociable sort of people as the Nonconformists were represented . But I took all occasions to express my hearty respect and value for real worth , wherever I could meet with it . —I carefully studied my Bible , and particularly the New Testament , and found the plain worship of the
Dissenters , as far as I could judge , more agreeable to that , than the pompous way of the Church of England . I read Church History , and could not help observing , with many others that have gone before me , that as the fondness for church power and pomp increased , the spirit of serious piety declined and decayed among those that bore the name of Christians . I read several of the Fathers , " &c—P . 224 .
" I with care read over the Articles , Liturgy , Homilies , and Canons of the Church of England , which contain the English impositions , and weighed the terms of conformity as the law had settled them , and found several things required which , after the strictest search and inquiry I was able to > make , I could not perceive God had given any men power or commission to impose upon others , or discern how my compliance could be proved a proper duty . 1 could not see but that in such things , God had left me full liberty to act as most inclined . Since man had done so too , by the act passed in Parliament tor toleration , I apprehended it would be my best way to use the liberty given
Untitled Article
Calamifs Life . 93
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 93, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/21/
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