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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), February 1820, Edition 1 of 1, Page 85, Untitled Article

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      As I do not find this Inscription in your preceding Volumes , I beg leave to send it for registry on your pages . E . R . This Tablet Is consecrated to the Memory Of the Rev , Joseph Priestley , LL . D . By his affectionate Congregation ,

      In Testimony Of their Gratitude for his Faithful Attention To their Spiritual Improvement , And for his Peculiar Diligence in training up their Youth To Rational Piety and Genuine Virtue : Of their Respect for his Great and

      Various Talents , Which were uniformly directed to the noblest Purposes : And of their Generation For the Pure , Benevolent and Holy Principles , Which , through the trying Vicissitudes of Life

      And in the awful hour of Death , Animated him with the Hope of a Blessed Immortality . His Discoveries as a Philosopher Will never cease to be remembered and

      admired By the Ablest Improvers of Science . His Firmness as an Advocate of Liberty , And his Sincerity as an Expounder of the Scriptures , Endeared him to many Of his enlightened and unprejudiced Contemporaries . His Example as a Christian Will be instructive to the Wise and

      interesting to the Good Of every Country and in every Age . He was born at Fieldhead , near Leeds , in Yorkshire , March 13 , A . D . 1733 . Was chosen a

      Minister of This Chapel , Dec . 31 , 1780 ; Continued in that Office Ten Years and Six Months . Embarked for America April 7 , 1794 . Died in Northumberland Town , In Pennsylvania , Feb . 6 9 1804 .

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      should exchange congratulations on the officioup activity of magistrates , and the ready zeal of juries to pour vengeance on the head of men who presume to say that the religion by law established is not divine . Have they forgotten that they are themselves Dissenters in part , and no small part ,

      from the religion by law established ? Or are they prepared to acknowledge a right in the magistrate to dictate and decree what the people shall believe , or , which is not very different , what they shall profess to believe ? If they are not , I am at a loss to imagine on

      what principle they will maintain that it is right in a Christian people to punish any man for declaring his conviction that Deism is true , that is , that Christianity is false . It is , indeed , possible that this opinion , or even the truth of the Christian religion , imay be maintained in terms that are

      inaeeorous and offensive both to taste and to delicacy . Certain doctrines , commoitty thought by Christians to be diving , have been so maintained , as every one knows who is a little read in theological polemics .

      Whether it is wise in any people to arm their magistracy with the power of interposing , in such cases , to preserve good manners and decent language between disputants , will scarcely appear questionable to any man who knows the value of free inquiry . The interference is not likely to be

      warranted without disservice to the cause of truth ; and it is unnecessary to provide it , because the evil which is to be remedied carries in itself its own remedy . That which is offensive to good morals will be read by few , and what few will read , none will be disposed to publish ; or , if published , none will be

      able to get into general circulation . It may do harm , but the evil will be local and temporary ; while the civil power , which is to correct it , would be built upon a principle that has enslaved , and that would to the end of time enslave the human mind . But if

      legal prosecution is directed against the avowal of infidel principles , and not against the manner of the , avowal ; and if a Christian of the Unitarian or of any Nanconforming body ^ pproyes the ptosecution , he witt * * pave little reason to cqmplaia , should the power that is exerteato silence-the Ujibeliever be directed to silence him also ,

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      Dr . Rforell on the Prosecution of Unbelievers . 85

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      Hove-House , near Brighton , Sir , February 7 , 1820 . ^ T ^ HE manly protest of your Chiches-X . ter Correspondent , J , F ., [ XIV . '?^ 0 . ajpuwrt intolerance in every direction , reminds me of what used

      to be , and what I hope will never cease to be , the language of well-informed Jhssem ^ rs qf ey er ^ class , I ventu re to believe tfo $ t foe is not singular , very * a r ; fromit , f ampag Uiutariatts , in siwv Pnse , and displeasure , that any of us

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1820, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2485/page/21/