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Untitled Article
and told me lie should be glad to talk over such things as these more fully and freely , and discourse with me sometimes upon public occurrences , which might be no way disadvantageous : and I must own the motion was not disagreeable . Accordingly , the very evening before the famous conference about the Occasional Bill , Mr . Robinson and I waiting on his Lordship together at St . James ' s , he received us with very great civility , and when we signified our particular design in giving him that trouble , he appeared to take it well , and gave us all imaginable encouragement to be frank and open with
him . He told us he could not see how such a practice as that of corning to the sacrament according to the Church of England , merely to qualify for a place , could possibly be justified ; but should be very willing to hear any thing that could be offered . " We told his Lordship that the communicating with the Church of England was no new practice among the Dissenters , nor of a late date , but had been used by some of the most eminent of our ministers ever since 1662 , with a design to shew their charity towards that church , notwithstanding they apprehended themselves bound in conscience ordinarily to separate from it ;
and that it had been also practised by a number of the most understanding people among them , before the so doing * was necessarv to qualify for a place . We reminded him that Mr . Baxter anfi Dr . Bates had done it all along , and been much reflected on by several of their own friends on this account ; and added , that should the bill then depending pass into a law , it would not only give great disturbance to a number of her Majesty ' s most loyal subjects , contrary to ail rules of policy , which required to keep all quiet and easy at home , when there was such a hazardous and expensive war to be carried on abroad ; but would bid fair for destroying that little charity yet remaining among us , and make the breach between the two parties wider than ever .
cc His Lordship heard with great attention what we at that time offered upon these and other heads , and by his speech afterwards in the conference , we had the satisfaction to see that our labour was not wholly lost . I , for my part , by what I observed on this occasion , was fully convinced that it might answer very good ends for some of us sometimes to wait on great men tbat would admit us to freedom of discourse upon critical contingencies . "—I . p 472 .
Nothing can be clearer than that there must be something radically wrong in the administration of ecclesiastic affairs , where society is divided , as we have seen it was , on a point of common integrity , and when such a case of conscience as the following could be submitted to the casuistry of a divine : " About this time ( 1706 ) , I was applied to by a certain gentleman of the long robe , with a question on a case of conscience , to which lie earnestl y desired I would give an answer in writing . The question or case proposed was this
" Whether a gentleman , whose moderation in the debates between the Conformists and Nonconformists is well known , who lias publicly declared himself in his judgment on the side of the Nonconformists as to their capital plea of the necessity of a farther reformation both as to worship and discipline , and has publicly communicated with them at the Lord ' s table , as well as with
the Established Church , and has pleaded for such interchangeable communion with each party , as requisite to the supporting that little charity that there is yet left among us ; whether such a gentleman may , with a safe conscience , for a while withdraw from all the worshipping assemblies of the Nonconformists , in hope and prospect of a considerable public post , in which lie may ( probably ) be capable of doing much service to the public , and particnlarly of serving the cause of charity , by his interest and influence . ' " To the question proposed , 1 made the following return : " ' The solution of this case appears to me very plainly to depend upon the fair weighing , in an even balance , of the good which such a gentleman
Untitled Article
Calamy ' s Life . 95
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 95, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/23/
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