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Untitled Article
discontentwith ' regard to thechtufbh . was confined to a very small number * all , ; perhaps ^ dissented ; but now be should say , that m 6 re than half the people of the United Kingdom were anti ^ churchmen in their hearts . Of those who remained nominally" in the-chur . ch , _ nojb _ half eyer entered its
doors except On two or three occasions in their lives . The poor almost in a body had left the church ; so that the principal part of church - going people were the rich and fashionable , many of whom had a direct interest in keeping the church in its present state . The speaker duoted the opinions of Dr .
Warburton , Bish 6 p of Gloucester , who had answered the question , 'As there arejso nrany different sets of opinions , what set of opinions shall be established V by saying * * Certainly chat entertained by the majority . ' Then , according to the bishop ' s own showing-, seeing that churchmen were 4 ess numerous-than
dissentersv there was no goad reason why the Church of England ought to be supportedi If the bishop was right , how very improper , tyrannical , and unchristian it must be to maintain the established church in Ireland ! The ? cure for all these
things was , to do away with all establishments j and leave every one to choose his own religion , and to support it as well as he could , without being called upon -to Gpntribttte ~ to the support of any other . The chairman read a statement which he - said he had gleaned * so f&r as related to the church , from ' The
Clerical Guide ; ' as to Catholics , from * The Catholic Laity ' s JEKrec-. toiry . ;! ^ and > 3 a ^ to .. ^ dfssr 0 iit e ^ s . » -Jf rpm 4 Congregational Magazine . ' The nuitiber of church peOple , in-1
cluding ' that branch of it in Ireland , and supposing that all really belonged to the church who professed to do so ( a very great supposition indeed ) , was 6 j 858 jOOO ; whi ] e the number of dissenters and Catholics combinedy ( and that was the- only fak
way to estimate < it , for Catholics -were dissenters ) , was lO , 992 ylQ 0 , snaking" a « difference of more than 4 , 000 , 000 . In Irelandy the number in the church establishment was estimated , iii round numbers , at 1 * 000 , 000 , the Roman Catholics at 5 , 600 , 000 , and dissenters at
1 , 000 , 000 . Mr . Abraham Bennett thought that the king ' s supremacy over the church had been stated rather too strongly . The tithes were a great grievance in various ways . As to the dues of the church , those that chose to have
the ceremonies of the church ought to pay for them . If they would have their infants carried to church , and have the cross made upon them with holy water—if they deemed it essential that a beB s ^ demons from intercepting the soul as it rose to heaven—then let theni
pay for it . He would have the church stand upon its own ground : as it stood at-presents-great-alterations must , and he dared to say \ vould v he made in it . If the opinions of the people were fairly represented in the legislature ( and he trusted they would be more than they ever had
been ) , a change must take place in the church , and he hoped that that change Would be for the better . The chairman then , said , that by ' The Clerical Guide , ' an orthodoxpublication , he found that out of
10 , 872 livifigs , ioM : were ^ nithe gift of the king and government ; 5030 in the gift of lay nobility and gentry ; 1304 in the gift of bishops 5 1048 in that of deans- and chapters ; 1423 of private ecclesiastics ; 794 in the gift of the universities s 167 in that of
c 9 ^ RffilL 9 J 0 LS _§ niprivate institutions ; and in the gift of ffiei inhabftantTno more than 68 ! The Rev .-William Smith , of Bolton , thought that the people ought at once to set about a radical and complete reformation in the church . It was the nationality' of this church \ Vhich made it the drag * -weight lipon levery . generous piuriiciple and kitjdly
Untitled Article
UNITARIAN CHIIONICLF . II
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 1, 1833, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2605/page/11/
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