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Untitled Article
if nobody in England knows of an active smithery for chahVmanufac Jure established in the north of Ireland ? Has nothing been done in Ulster to depress the human mind or gall the human conscience ? Which of the proceedings of a body , in which the spirit of the inquisition seems to have become again incarnate , has been discountenanced by those who could have interposed with most effect , by the English Trinitarian Dissenters ? Against what act of persecution have they
remonstrated ? Nor need we look abroad , — ' Sin lieth at the door . Which of their churches has imitated the State , and abolished its own little Test Act ? The Independents know that they dare not allow the freedom which they claim ; and that in their societies , where most they have power , an honest freedom of thought and speech on theological points may have to encounter the threat of damnation and the infliction of excommunication . Let but the ear be unstopped , which an
exclusive , and therefore unchristian , creed has sealed , and they may , in their own churches , hear the clanking of chains around the table of the Lord . And now , saying nothing of a long list of negatives which would reach half over Europe , —we will advert to the immediate topics of this burst of emancipatory enthusiasm . We ask , what indications [ did the orthodox dissenters give , for thirty long years , of these deep feelings and high sensibilities , and of this impatience of the disgrace of toleration ? They bore it very quietly . Who roused them from that long , unbroken slumber ? Who excited them to action for their own liberation *
and marshalled them the way to triumph , and rendered that triumph auxiliary to the yet greater victory of Catholic emancipation ? Who ? The Unitarians . We know it ; and they know it ; and the Catholics know it ; and every man knows it who was , or makes himself , acquainted with the proceedings . It was the formation of the Unitarian Civil Right Society which led to the revived discussion of the Test and Corporation Acts . It was an increase of the number of Unitarians
among the deputies which infused new vigour into that previously inert body . It was by recognizing , quoad hoc , the Unitarian Association , that greater strength was gained for the general committee . And of the power of that committee , the numbers ( in proportion to the whole ) , activity , talent , and zeal of the Unitarian members were a most important and essential element . It was by the Unitarians that the petitions to parliament in favour of Catholic emancipation , from the
general body of dissenting ministers , were saved from being smothered by the previous question . It was by the orthodox dissenting ministers , in and about London , not members of the general body , that petitions were presented to the legislature against Catholic emancipation . In congregational petitioning on that great question of religious liberty , the Unitarians not onl y led the way , but fought half the battle . ' Let the emancipated Catholic say * on what help he most securely reckoned
all through the conflict . It was not that of orthodox dissent . And if in Yorkshire , or other parts of the country , ( for the scene is not , we believe , laid in London , ) she did kneel at ' the altar of liberty / with 4 hands thrown aloft , ' and vow the vow which Mr . Hamilton records , let all due credit be awarded for the exhibition ; but its breathings must have been a little interrupted by those chain-clankings of which he speaks . We have no desire to curse Meroz ; but it is rather too much for Meroz to boast of having won the battle of the Lord . The intelli-
Untitled Article
* 4 * Critical Notices—Single Sermon * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 54, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/54/
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