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Untitled Article
prebend the Province of Reason In reference to Religion ; a short enumeration of the injurious consequences which have resulted from attempts to substitute the authority of man for the authority of God ; observations on the practical tendencies of this spirit of inquiry ; and lastly , a notice of some of the extensive benefits which have been conferred on
the human race , aud the numerous evils which have been checked or prevented by the spirit of holy freedom in religious inquiry . After premising the truth that the Scriptures are the only infallible guide in spiritual researches ,, we are presented with an accurate description of that
large class of nominal Christians , whose faith seems merely au inheritance or an accident , ending with the declaration , in which we heartily concur , that " ¦ the great heresy is disregard of Scripture . " P . 4 . In distinction from such heretics , our attention is fixed on the names of those venerated men who knew where
and how to apply the divine faculty which forms the highest privilege of immortal natures ; who were as intrepid in the investigation as submissive to the dictates of truth , and who , by a fearless use of the weapons of controversy , disarmed the foes of revelation while they protected the faith of its feeble adherents .
We would fain direct the eyes of all who impose or submit to ecclesiastical authority to the second department of the essay before us , and learn from them why , in a country professing the principles of the Reformation , the authority of man should ever be forced into au
unnatural union with that of the gospel ; why , having cast off the domination of the infallible church , the minds of men should be held in subservience to any other church , be it fallible or infallible ; why , the Romisli church being deserted because it denies the sufficiency of scripture and the rights of private judgment , Protestant Dissenters should be pronounced heretics because they find the Scriptures sufficient , and desire to
exercise their natural mental rights . Let the Church of England read and consider , and then settle her differences as she best may between the Catholic Djlssenters on the one hand , and the Protestant Dissenters on the other . She may , at the same time , endeavour to calculate how long her institutions can withstand the tendencies of a free spirit of inquiry . These tendencies are of general and individual concern . They are directed to the overthrow of error and the establish-
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ment of truth , in which all men have a common Interest ; and in the individual mind , they induce humility , confirmation in Christian faith , and consequently an enlightened spirit of devotion . Of the millions of rational beings who
have been benefited by the Reformation , how many have been aware of the precise obligations they were under to the intrepid spirits of the age , —of the true nature of the advantages which have accrued from that memorable grapple with human authority ?
" If we were required to put the proper answer in fewest terms to the question , ' What was then accomplished ?' it would be , that inquiry in matters of religion was diffused . The struggle was , substantially , whether men should be allowed to think for themselves , or not ; whether they should read the Bible for themselves , or not ; whether they should
give their consciences to God , or submit them to the authority of councils , emperors , and popes . Persecuting dogmatists demanded the public faith for themselves , or rather , that credence should supply the place of faith ; indignant millions were led by the discovery of truth , to reply , * We ought to obey God rather than man . ' The great a-
chievement of the age , then , consisted in this—the emancipation of the mind from its thraldom ; the excitement ; and then the direction , of a spirit of inquiry , by which public and private opinion were set free , and by which that great moral revolution was effected , which has impressed a character of grandeur upon the sixteenth century . "—P . 33 .
How many remain who have nut carried out the principle to all its legitimate consequences ! " It is surely with an ill grace that those who maintain a great principle in their contests with the Church of Rome , and make it the very chief weapon of their warfare , should disown and discountenance the very same principle , when it seems to run counter to their
prejudices or to their practices Why does the Protestant separate from the Catholic , bxit for the same general reason that leads the Puritan to withdraw from the Conformist ? Can the principle of separation be good in one case , and bad in another ? Will he who pleads for the
right of private judgment in one case , refuse it in another ? If the Episcopalian possess by nature the right to judge and decide upon the claims of the parlal hierarchy , and if he deem them inconsistent with scripture to resist tire authority of that church $ does not the Noircotiforni-
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116 Critical Nolket . — Thttotogivat .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 116, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/44/
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