On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    These facts serve to shewhoW natural , it is for our race to admire that which pleases the senses , to receive gratifying impressions from what they behold , and to make use of those means which either nature has taught or art and fashion have invented , to arrest the public eye and fix the attention . It might then be asked , whether that mfan would not act on a principle which human nature abhors , who would scorn all external show , and expect to ekclte U universal or even a general approbation by a shapeless figure of virtue or a mean , uninteresting form and plan of public religious worship ?

    We cannot but acknowledge the mistaken principle which was followed by some of the early Reformers of the Church , the Puritans of their day , who , shocked beyond measure at the gross impositions of the Romish ritual , appeared to think they would do wrong in retaining any single mark of peculiarity that it possessed . Accordingly , they abandoned all outward marks of dignity , every thing that distinguished one man among them from another , every thing that gave their houses of worship a different appearance from other habitations , rejecting in scorn all forms of devotion , in some instances

    refusing to make use of the Lord ' s Prayer because it was in the formularies of the ancient church , excluding all instrumental music from their devotional services , because it savours of sensuality , and abandoning even the delightful worfc of psalmody , because there is in it an affectation of skill and a corresporYdetfee with loose and sensual gratifications . Even , within the period of my own remembrance , there has been one society of Dissenters * in which'the Lord's Prayer was not permitted to be made use of , nor psalms to be sung , and anotherf in which neither psalms nor hymns were ever sung at all .

    It should , indeed , be borne in mind , that for many centuries the societies which dissented from the established religion were subject to much embarrassment ^ severe proscriptions , reproach and obloquy , and often to persecution of either a direct or an indirect nature . Under these circumstances , it was natural for them to carry on their worship in a manner as inoffensive as possible , to seek for stations and follow systems which were the least liable to be observed or to give offence , and to avoid every mark of ostentation and show . Hence we find that in many of our old towns the

    meetinghouses are built on retired spots and assumed a humble appearance , carefully shunning public notice , and seeking nothing more than a quiet enjoyment of their own opinions and worship . Sucb a measure was highly praiseworth y ^ nay , it was necessary under the circumstances in which our forefathers lived . The spot ori which we meet to worship the God of our fathers , discovers in its situation marks of the prudential steps which they found it expedient to take : for this church of Christ sprang up among the very first Dissenting societies , J and has maintained its existence without interruption from the

    * At Hertford . If by any accident a stranger used the Lord ' s Prayer in conWnsjpn < its gave great attcwie , because it is not a Christian prayer . The congregation wi ^ h e 4 ^> r Wajtts ' s Psalnis to be introduced , but the old deacon had . njfcde . a . vow that psalms shpuld , n # jt be , sun g in that place so long as he was in power . It ; happened that the roeeting-house was purchased by the Christ Church School Trustees , who built the Dissenters another in a different spot . Into this Wjitts * s Psalms were introduced with the cmisent of the deacon and without a breach of his pfotis vow .

    f At Luttdn in Cambridgeshire . [ This till within the last sixteen years was the case at Lutton hi Lincolnshire , the place probably here intended . Edit . ] % The first register of baptism Vh the Church of Plymouth bears date iti November of the year in which the Act passed , 1662 .

    Untitled Article

    Past Times and present Times . 72 ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1827, page 727, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1801/page/15/