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Untitled Article
and holds in the main the religious opinions of his forefathers ? Would you take from him the name of Episcopalian who thinks with yourself that Episcopacy should be frittered down to little more than a " namej" thoifgh he worships with Episcopalians , receives the rites of an Episcopalian church , labours to extend and is not unwilling to accept the honours and rewards . of
Episeopaey ? Now is there any ambiguity in the language which the conduct of Unitarians holds ? Do they not regularly assemble as professed Unitarians ? Is not Unitarianism , as another name for the gospel , the avowed bond of their union—its defence and propagation the object of local and general association ? What say the various places of worship over the land in which Unitarian worship is maintained ? what say those which have been built expressly , and often with no small sacrifice , for the service of the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ? what say the prayers of our ministers offered up ¦* in the name and as the disciples of Christ ?' what say their discourses , not merely those in defence of the gospel , and the assertion of Ohrist ' s office , work , and character as set forth in the scriptures , but those of which the direct intention is to enforce the practice of righteousness ,- —what say they , based as most at least of them are , on the great practical principles of the New Testament ? what say our academical institutions for the
supply of our chureheswith-men of God , mighty in the Scriptures , and not destitute , of the power and grace which secular learning gives ? what say the voluntary supplies by which these ~ and nearly the whole of this spiritual machinery is kept at work ? what say our Sunday-schools , our libraries , our fellowship funds , our periodicals ? what says the moral heroism evinced in no few instances by ministers among us who take willingly the loss of almost all the comforts of life and respect of the world , and quite all of the honours and emoluments of popular systems of faith ,
choosing rather a peaceful conscience and a pure faith than a show of godliness with much gain ? what says the resignation of Belsham , and the conversion of Priestley , and the sacrifice of Lindsey ? what do all these tongues declare but the fulness of our conviction , that we are Christ ' s even as much as you are Christ's ? Or is all this but one great , multiform , and unanimous falsehood ? Are you prepared to assert that a lie is our bond of union , and deception our habitual and intentional practice ? The only alternative is to allow that our conduct evidences our own conviction that we
arein the faith ; and who should know better than ourselves ? who can know better than ourselves ? who , in the admitted ( among Protestants ) absence of infallibility , can plead for himself a better plea than his own convictions deduced from the recognised standard of Christian truth ? It appears to me the more inconsistent in you to deny to Unitarians the appellation of Christian , since you disown the ordinary test of discipleship among men , and even reflect on the
Untitled Article
THE TRUTH TELLER . 101
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1833, page 101, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2611/page/5/
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