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    Untitled Article

    That your petitioner would draw your attention to the false and tyrannical spirit of the established church , and to the peculiar harshness and severity with which it bore upon his own feelings

    and opinions , by stating the single fact , that the appointed services of the church of England required your petitioner solemnly to profess his belief , as in the si ght of God , that his own father , * and his wife ' s father , and many of their relations and connexions , ' without doubt shall perish everlastingly /

    That your petitioner begs to submit that a national church ought to be founded on the principle of respecting the sincerity of the individual minister , and of not violating the right of judgment of bodies of men ; and that this may be accomplished by the state legislating in the case of the church in the same way in which the

    state legislates in the case of other professions ; thus , for example , the law requires candidates for a medical degree to give proofs of a sufficient acquaintance with medical studies ; but candidates for a medical degree are not required by the law to pledge themselves to hold narrowly defined opinions about which the most able men have not been able ^ to agree .

    That your petitioner would beg further to submit , that the great objects for which a national church has to make provision , are the promotion of pious feelings towards God and the diffusion of religious obligations towards man , and that these objects have been fully accomplished by persons holding different , and even opposite doctrinal opinions ; and , consequently , that in attempting to enforce one system of doctrinal opinions to the discouragement of other systems , the state , whilst it claims to itself infallibility

    of judgment , and divides the community into privileged and degraded orders , thereby placing discord and variance between bodies of men who may be equally pious and religious ., is losing sight of the real objects of a national church . That your petitioner therefore submits , that a national church ought not , by its professions of belief , to exclude pious and religious men who differ in opinion on questions about which the

    wisest and best men have been unable to agree , but ought to avail itself of the services of a Watts , a Wesley , and a Priestley , as readil y as of a Horsley , namely , in promoting pious feelings towards God , and in diffusing religious obligations towards man , and in spreading useful knowledge , and in advancing real civilisation , and in strengthening the bonds of justice and peace through the whole land .

    That your petitioner is desirous , according to the measure of his ability , to promote the objects of a uational church , and is convinced that thousands are to be found with whom his opinions on disputed points of doctrine and belief would give him great * He died tofor * you * petition ** w *» bora .

    Untitled Article

    500 PeiUion of a Clergyman

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 500, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/40/