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Untitled Article
remember , my friends , that I speak oiily of myself . None of you will inflict on me the unmerited pain , of imputing to me a reflection on my brethren in the ministry . My opinions place them under no obtigfftiQn to act with me ; there is no wrong but in thinking one way and acting another . If they felt the objections to the Royal Bounty which have been stated , I am persuaded that they would draw the obvious praqtical conclusion , and give it up . But so long as they do not feel their force , they are quite right to hold it still .
Having thought it right to remain unconnected with the Royal Bounty , it was necessary to decide how to put my resolution into practice . I might have intimated to my much-respected friend , through whose hands the money passes , that I did not wish him to make the usual payment to me , and so have avoided the necessity of troubling you , my friends , with any deliberation on the subject . But I felt that I had no right thus to alienate a sum which has been associated with the stipend of this congregation , or thus peremptorily to decide for my successors as well as myself . I tnight have considered the participation of the Royal Bounty as a thing inseparable from the pastoral office I hold , and so have resigned at once the
situation among you which , in the hope rather than in the exercise of usefulness , I have rejoiced to fill . But then I had no right to take it for granted , without inquiry , that you were unprepared to embrace the views on which I find it necessary to act ; and perhaps I may be forgiven for clinging to the hope that our own society might be the first among the laity of our church to discern the evils of the present system , and promptly to act on the discovery . I therefore determined to put the great question of establishments
on its trial before you ;—to make you its tribunal , and ask you to pronounce on it a practical and emphatic decision . That there may be no doubt or ambiguity on a question so momentous , I state then in plain terms that I cannot receive the Royal Bounty—that I ask only for your acquiescence in my unconditional refusal of it ; and that , if you feel it necessary to withhold your consent , I will promptly relieve you from all embarrassment by resigning a situation with the conditions of which I am no longer able to comply .
My fellow-christians , I have carefully abstained from even the natural expression of my own feelings in relation to the question before you , and the anxious alternatives which it involves , because I earnestly wish not to influence your decision by appealing to any thing but your conscientious judgment . I solemnly entreat you to keep your attention fixed exclusively
on the reasons of the question , and to allow no consideration of me , in the slightest degree , to modify your decision . Nothing would leave me more unsatisfied , or in more painful embarrassment , than the apprehension that you had not utterly sunk the person in the principle . The person may be changed > the principle cannot .
Untitled Article
886 On the Receipt of Public Money by Dissenting Ministers .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 836, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/40/
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