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Untitled Article
goodness , and happiness ? The answer to this question will define the objects to be aimed at in a new and better reformation . There should be the entire repeal of all taxation for the peculiar advantage of any particular sect ; and all sectarian privilege should either be abolished , or be extended into a common advantage .
Church rates , tithes , so far as they fall upon the consumer , grants of public money for churches to be only , used by one sect , are all unjust and odious imposts , which provide some people with the apparatus of religion at other people ' s expense . How Christians can say their prayers , and sing their psalms , and partake of their sacrament , knowiner that the hassock on which thev kneel . of their sacramentknowing that the hassock on which they kneel
, , and the organ to which they sing , and the bread and wine by which they commemorate their Saviour , are paid for by money which the strong hand of power extorts from the pockets of reluctant Nonconformists , passes our comprehension . They are used to it , or have not thought about it , and so it does not shock them . This system clearly ought to stop . Moreover , as it would obviously be inexpedient for a portion of the clergy of all
religious denominations to be ex officio legislators , we see not how it can be for the good of the entire community that those of any one sect should . The conduct of the Bishops in parliament is one cause of the downfal of the Church in public opinion . There can be no shadow of excuse for their continuance in the legislature ( unless by election ) after the decision of the people has been constitutionally ratified that the sect which they represent has failed of the national purposes which it was intrusted with the endowments to accomplish .
If the episcopal clergy can frame services of public worship so comprehensive as that the entire population will join in them , the churches would be the proper places for such worship . If this cannot be done , as all have an equal right to the use of those buildings , they being national , it would be desirable for them to be occupied in succession by all who claimed such
accommodation . The difficulty arising from the multiplicity of sects would be very much lightened by the adoption of simple , comprehensive , and scriptural forms of worship . We see not why even those who use no form of social worship might not have them in turn , for such moral lecturing as they may think conducive to their own edification .
It would be easy to have divine worship performed on every Sunday in every church , according to some three or four modes , one or other of which would satisfy any devout Christian . Persons with creeds so exclusive , or consciences so cranky , or chapels so convenient , as to determine them to stick to their own temples in preference to the church , might be exempted from assisting to keep the one building in repair on showing that they paid for the other . The repairing expense of places of worship for the whole
Untitled Article
810 Churth Reform .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1833, page 810, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2628/page/6/
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