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c < if we mistake not the signs of the times , the period is not far distant when the whole controversy between the English and Romish Churches will be revived , and all the points in dispute again brought under review . "—Bishop Kaye .
There are persons who declare themselves convinced that the season approaches , when the people of this country will be mainly divided into two classes , as to religious profession—the votaries of the Catholic faith and discipline , and unbelievers in Revelation . This , surely , is a very confident prediction , a very sanguine hope . Nevertheless , such a state of things , if it ever arrive , can hardly be brought about , until there has been much previous controversy . The probability , indeed , is , that such discussion will take place : indications of it may be perceived ; and no man who deserves to be
called a Protestant will indulge apprehensions for the result . Many circumstances denote that the questions at issue between the two rival churches will be agitated more generally and zealously , perhaps , in the end , more exactly , than at any period within our recollection . There is already a call " to arms ! " Meanwhile , and before " Greek meets Greek , " it may be a useful employment to think how such a conflict should be carried on ; upon what topics it will principally turn ; and what sort of reasoning it will , on both sides , elicit .
The ebullition of feeling awakened by the petitions in reference to the civil rights of the Catholics , has not , it is true , yet subsided . Still , Catholics and Protestants are in a far more favourable situation for stating and defending their respective tenets than previously to the Relief Act of last Session . Less of political and secular prejudice can now mix itself with
their controversies . Henceforth , it is not so likely that any minister of religion , even though he " dwell in the North countrie , " can , with the same eagerness and effect as formerly , " set up his old bugbears of the Inquisition , and of the Lady who sitteth upon the seven hills . " - ) - The magistrate no longer placing one class of the disputants under a civil p roscription , a powerful bias towards insincerity is removed . Truth , we may hope , will
be sought with greater disinterestedness , will be illustrated and vindicated with more of the temper which it demands , and which indeed the love of it has a tendency to form . Let all such discussions be , in the most important signification , public : as such , however , let them not be verbal , but conducted by means of the press ; open as it is to both p arties , and the vehicle of more extended , more correct , more dispassionate research and argument , than any other mode of
agitating controverted opinions . To some weapons of warfare we are averse : some fie-lds of combat we will not enter . Disputations hefore miscellaneous and popular audiences , are not academical disputations : nor do they possess any of the advantages belonging to intelligent conversation . They attract those who are fond of spectacles , of display , of stage-effect : the most fluent , not necessarily the ablest and best informed , speaker receives disproportionate applause ; and the judgment , feelings , and demeanour of * ' an unusually laree audience , " J are governed by the
theolo-* Correspondence between WUittaker , &c , ami Norris , &c , occasioned by an Invitation from the Vicar and Clergy of Blackbiune to u public Discussion , &c . London .: Hivingtous . 8 vo . Pp . 16 . 1829 . f Sir Walter Scott ' s Miscellaneous Prose Works . Vol . V . [> . 2 . X No . ( 7 ) of the Correspondence .
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( . i 6 : * )
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THE PROTESTANT CONTROVERSY . *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 363, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/3/
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