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    Untitled Article

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    Untitled Article

    There would be no robbery anywhere ; there would only be the prevention of future robbery , by priests yet unborn , or unbeneficedwith much gain to all parties . The second point in which the Church conies into contact with

    the State , is , that its articles of faith , and forms of worship , are fixed by the interference of legislative authority , The Prayer Book has been justly described as only ' a long Act of Parliament . ' We will not discuss whether they have been well and wisel y fixed ; we will only say that they have been fixed to little purpose ; For , although after sundry changes , their verbal form has remained the same from the time of Elizabeth , their prevalent

    interpretation has varied exceedingly . The spirit of the established religion has been as different as possible at different times . There has ever been discontent within , and dissent without . However , the effect of the proposed separation would simply be to leave the clergy and laity of the Church of England to their own choice in this matter . They could retain all their forms

    unaltered , if they so pleased . They could use all lawful means to preserve them from future alteration ; or they could make any such provision for their amendment as they deemed expedient . They would be free , which now they are not . Was ever a Church more degraded than the Church of England was , when two thousand of its ministers wete dismissed from their livings , amid

    the tears of their parishioners , for conscientiously declining to subscribe to a book which it was physically impassible for many of them to have seen ? Does not the imposition of an invariable directory of worship often occasion incongruities which move to risibility , or shock every pious feeling ? Would it be worth nothing to have some discretion ( to be exercised in whatever way or by whatever persons might be deemed best ) occasionally to vary

    in worship from the ordinances of Parliament ? By all that this Christian liberty is worth , would the condition of the Church be , in this particular , improved by the dissolution of its alliance with the State . A third bond of connexion is , that the king is ex officio head pf the Church , and through his Ministers appoints all its highest dignitaries , as well as to aoout one-tenth of all the livings .

    Is it fitting that the king of England should , as king , be at the head of a party ? that he snould be exclusively identified with one of the many sects into which the religionists in his dominions are divided ? And is it fitting that the Church should be bound to take him for its head , whatever his character may be , licentious ,

    profligate > tyrannical , or profane ? Would any body be injured by leaving both King and Church an option in this matter ? The separation would not preclude the king from being at the head ot episcopacy any more than from being at the head of freemasonry . OnUr he would be placed there for the salt * of his purity and

    Untitled Article

    416 On the Separation of Church and State *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 316, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/4/