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Untitled Article
with gratitude on the past , and to look forward with hope to the future . "~ Pp . H , 12 .
This is truth ; but yet it is not the whole truth . Assuming in their fullest extent the facts which are here affirmed , and the public utility of the influence of those facts , there remains behind the important lesson that a Sovereign may , by his wrong-headedness or wrong-heartedness on public questions , immeasurably overbalance all the good which his private virtues can confer on the community . The reign of-George the Third will always darken our annals 3 and they will always be brightened by that of George
ihe . Fourth . Unhappily , the identification is less clear of the good with the personal qualities of tl ^ e one , than of the evils with the personal qualities of the other . The common notion that religion has nothing to do with politics , fearfully perverts our moral sense . A man who does not obstruct the measures by which millions are visited with blessings , but who drinks and uses his wife ill , we leave under universal opprobrium ,
and justly perhaps , for his profligacy ; but a man who , while he says his prayers and is true to his wife , is an active party to proceedings which make hundreds of thousands of men profligates , and as many women widows and orphans ; who sanctions starving and grinding oppressions , and aids in demoralizing and desolating the world $ him we laud to the skies as a good man and beautiful Christian . Where is a man's Christianity to be seen , if not in the manner in which he influences the condition
01 rmjhons of his fellow-creatures ? He is a courageous Christian who voluntarily sustains the responsibility of such a position . But neither he , nor others , should ever forget the awful degree of moral and religious responsibility which that position devolves upon him personally . It should
never be mystified by phraseology which , if it mean any thing , means that morality is independent of our blessing or cursing mankind by millions . Such " holiday and lady terms" as that " difference of opinion may prevail on political measures , " when employed to blink this responsibility , are scarcely more defensible than it would be to tell the inmates of a
certain edifice at Brixton that " difference of opinion may prevail as to " financial " measures . " The distinction of roeum and tuum ; and the sacred rights of mankind , the blessings of peace , and the means of human improvement , are topics on which indeed persons do think differently . To form a correct opinion , and to pursue a beneficent course of action , we take to be a moral duty in the latter case not less than in the former , and one to which religion , well understood , applies its most solemn sanctions . The Bishop only speaks the common language— -we had almost said , the
common cant , upon this subject . He proceeds in a tone to which our hearts respond more harmoniously . The admonition towards the conclusion of the sermon must have been felt as very impressive : " While the joyful acclamations of a loyal people hail the accession of
Untitled Article
728 Coronation Sermons .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 728, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/4/
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