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    " 'How can you reconcile it to yourself , to continue in the bosom . of that Church , whose doctrines you impugn ? Hooper and Ridley might

    with the same consistency have continued in the Church of Rome . What need of Catholic emancipation ? What need of the repeal of any test , if all men could adopt your principles ? The Sacrament is a test ( whether

    properly or not is another question ) of a man ^ s faith and principles . If you can attend the Church as a member of the Church , teach your children to kneel and pray in language which you yourself condemn , and satisfy yourself that you take the Sacrament , and do all these things with a different animus from that in which all who

    kneel with you participate , and from that with which the priest administers it : —what can you say to the man who may justify perjury by saying that he kissed the book , and said , ' So help me God / with a mental reservation different from the sense in which

    the court thought he did this act , and spoke these words ? The shrewdness of vulgar minds is quick ; take care : how many , who cannot read Evanson , may read this living comment on him . Far be it from me to allege that you ever reflected on these consequences ;

    but let me awaken you to them : if your principles or your conduct ( observe I do not mean to say that you are aware of it ) were to be imitated in all the collateral effects of it , all the lies that bind society would be broken ; the Catholic and the Protestant might all mingle together with

    unity on their lips , and hatred in their hearts - and no outward accordance would be any guarantee of sincerity and union . We oppose the Dissenter , but we respect his integrity , and he respects ours : but if such a system were to prevail , we should trust no one , and respect no one .

    < c ' In arming your children against infidelity , ought not the first step to be to lay the foundation in sincerity ? Does your reason teach you to reverse the order of things , to bring your children to Church , and to sow that

    which at a future period you intend frith your own hand to root out ? Are you not acting in direct opposition to the law of nature , which teaches , that earliest impressions are the strongest ? Are you not acting in direct opposi-

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    tion to the positive command of God , who * established a testimony with Jacob , and appointed a law in Israel , which he commanded the fathers that they should make them known to their children * ' F The poor Jew tells

    you , that if you could convince him he is wrong , and that our faith is true , he would immediately teach it to his children . Take a poor little Jew boy of six or seven years old - , offer him

    any forbidden meat ; tempt him in any way , and see with what firmness the child will resist : Why ? Because he has been early taught what his parent deems right or wrong . Fas est et ab hoste doceri . f

    At what precise age , after what quantum of instruction , at what precise period is the awful discovery to be made ; ( O ! most awful ! what each child feels you will never know ,: they may reveal it to some bosom friend in future life ; but you as a

    parent can never be told it y ) the awful discovery , that you were leading them in infancy to a worship—to prayers , in which you did not sympathize , in which your silent acquiescence ( for I suppose you speak not , though you stand or kneel ) was to

    them a deception ? Arm them against Infidelity ! By all the laws of nature and of experience you prepare them for it . You disarm them : you rob zeal of its best weapon ^ —sincerity :

    you remove the foundation , or rather lay it on a shifting soil , and say that the building will be firmer . How can they be expected to be sincere in a cause , in which you teach them that to dissemble is no crime ? It is with

    the heart that man believeth unto righteousness , and all the first impressions of the heart you will tear away . At what precise time is the awful discovery to be made to them , that those clergymen , your neighbours , whom they have seen treated with respect ,

    are all very ignorant , or very dishonest ? When is the discovery to be made that those men , the clergy , who are connected with ail our nobility and gentry from infancy to manhood , forming an indissoluble tie , and giving a

    tone to all the feelings which liberalize society , are either knowingly or unknowingly impostors ? With this discovery what sentiments will rush in through the breach that may be made , you can n ^ v £ r know . Their

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    402 Mr . he Grice's T ? t oughts on Religious Consistency ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1824, page 402, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2526/page/18/