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

    ficial changes in the manners and sentiments of mankind are often indirectly accomplished by their instrumentality , and they imply , in their very existence , a state of intellectual excitement and vigour . Their worst effects can onfy be considered as the rank and unprofitable luxuriance which , in the commencement of culture , shoots forth amidst the more generous and healthful produce of a fertile soil .

    There is this wide distinction between the spirit of an establishment and the spirit of sects . Sects are usually regardless of forms , but they demand an explicit avowal and consistent profession of opinions . An establishment , while it exacts the most studied respect for forms and an outward compliance with its terms of communion , allows the greatest latitude of private opinion , provided it be not indulged in the spirit of proselytism , or made the ground of public dissensions . What is more , the extent of

    latitudinananism is generally in proportion to the strictness with which external conformity is maintained . In Spain , where the power of the church is absolute , and the slightest expression of dissent is visited with the heaviest penalties , the scepticism of most , and the total irreligion of many , of the educated ecclesiastics is notorious . Our English establishment , from the superior liberality of its principles , the general freedom of our laws , the wide diffusion of knowledge , and the intercourse and sympathy which subsists between its members and numerous bodies of sectaries without its limits , has had the

    good fortune to preserve amongst the clergy , amidst endless varieties of opinion and feeling , a large mass of sincere piety and practical worth , founded on the great general principles of Christianity . In Protestant Germany , on the other hand , where the compromise between the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches has occasioned a suppression of all sectarian distinctions , we behold

    the utmost boldness and diversity of individual opinion , carried to an extreme which must be pronounced startling , if not dangerous , and yet combined with an universal acquiescence in established forms . While outward profession is kept within certain fixed limits of decorum , the discussion of opinions , being confined to studious and speculative men , proceeds for that very reason to more daring lengths .

    Where opinions are the badge of a numerous and active sect , openly professed and zealously propagated , they are brought into practice , are reduced to the test of experience , and are met and controlled by the counter-agency of rival sects ; and whatever may be the extravagances of new sects , these circumstances , in a country where unlimited toleration is enjoyed , bring them all down in time to the level of common sense and practical utility , and fit them for promoting , under various forms , the great moral purposes of existence . In the other case , the opinions of men who are not called to

    give any account of them , and who view them as mere theories , may be more refined than the prejudices of the vulgar , but they are not more innocent , not more practical ; certainly they are not less visionary from being nursed in solitude , shut out from the healthful air of publicity , and far removed from the animadversions of plain and honest minds on subjects in which they feel deeply and sincerely interested . The attachment of such

    men to their church is often as bigoted as that of sectaries to their opinions ; it is perhaps more invincible from the worldly prepossessions with which it is mingled , and from being rooted in selfishness . With many exceptions in good men on both sides , the characteristic qualities of a sect are zeal , ardent and sincere , but fierce and uncharitableboldness of spirit , founded on strength of conviction and rectitude of moral conduct , frequently deformed by austerity ; of an establishment , liberality of

    Untitled Article

    On the Spirit of Sects . 805

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1828, page 805, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2567/page/5/