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Untitled Article
time of what is termed the Reformation . In Scotland the people took the work of reformation into their own hands ; and they did the work in so masterly and effectual a manner , that it has withstood all the corrupting and , by turns , violent influence of its neighbour in this country , and remains to the present day an efficient instrument of moral and spiritual good to thousands . In England , the monarch and his courtiers assumed , to such , the unusual character of Reformers , and consistently with the ordinary views
of persons of a rank so elevated , they made the least possible change that was compatible with the renunciation of papal authority . They did not wish to correct abuses , so much as to augment their own power and wealth . They cared less for the flock than the fleece . The Reformation was in consequence merely begun in this country at the time when it was asserted on authority to be terminated . Not a department of the Established Church was there but was fraught with abuses that needed an unsparing and speedy cleansing . A few of the grossest corruptions of Catholicism , which affected the coveted supremacy of the king , were removed , while hundreds of others
pervading and , to a great extent , vitiating every branch of the ecclesiastical tree , were permitted to flourish in foul luxuriance ; and others , rank shoots of Protestant growth , were ingrafted as if to compensate for what had been uprooted . The nation tolerated existing abuses in the hope of seeing them gradually removed . But year after year has that hope been deferred , till now it is sick at heart , and prepared to use the language " Set thy house in order , " for unless thou change " thou shalt die and not live . " Various pretexts for delaying the needed reformation , some with more , others less
reason , the nation heard adduced . England was the bulwark of Protestantism in the days when the Pope had not yet renounced the dream of universal supremacy , and was prepared to employ any weapons to reinstate himself in this island in his former authority . How improper , it was urged , to enter on domestic changes when the collected force of the nation was needed to withstand external enemies 1 The excuse was heard and allowed . The time of peril passed away , and the nation expected it to be succeeded by the time of reformation . But new pleas were found to authorize delay . True , corruptions did exist—but the efficiency of the Church was not affected by them 5 and how foolish , how impious to peril actual good in the quest of theoretical perfection ! The excuse was heard and allowed , till the lapse of years brought proofs upon proofs in number and cogency overwhelming , that the alleged efficiency was but a dream , and that the scandalous corruptions which were known to exist , were found by experience not merely to have marred the form , but vitiated the frame of the Church in all . its workings .
Feeling the imperative call for reformation too strong to be resisted openly any longer , the heads of the Church devised a pretext to elude what they could not combat . Surely , they exclaimed , you would not have the ark of God touched by unhallowed hands . Leave the work with us and we
Untitled Article
The Question between the Nation and the Church . 825
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 825, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/29/
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