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

    forms of church government , and stifles our predilection for what many of us believe to be the better system , that of the Independents . But there is a mode in which doctrinal profession is affected by the Royal Bounty . Though the State makes no inquiry into the creed of those who receive this fund , their Synod usually does ; and it is well known that the Synod had

    the power of influencing government by its representations ; and hence it becomes the interest of every minister to be subservient to the dominant party in the ecclesiastical body to which he belongs . Those who are acquainted with the North of Ireland will not require me to support this statement by an appeal to fact . In commendation of the freer Synod with which you are connected , I will say that we enjoy great liberty of opinion .

    The reason , however , is obvious : it is because the influential portion of the body hold Unitarian opinions . If time were to throw this liberal influence into a minority , there is-no security against the imposition of tests , and all the mental thraldom which it infallibly creates . I regard our

    superior freedom , then , not as any merit of the system , but a mere accident of position and relative numbers . That the average tendency of funds placed at the disposal , direct or indirect , of ecclesiastical bodies , is to produce subserviency to their leading faction , is a truth which may rest on an appeal to the whole history of establishments .

    4 . My last objection is , that the credit and influence of Christianity are much diminished by its alliance with the state . It is my firm conviction that more unbelievers have been made by establishments than by all the speculations which the friends of establishments deem so dangerous . As it is generally known that there exists a personal interest in religious profession , a wide-spread distrust in the sincerity of all belief is produced : a

    suspicion creeps over the public mind that , if interest were out of the way , much of what now passes for faith would appear to be but hollow pretension : and religion assumes a professional air which prevents its being felt and believed and loved , with that pure sincerity from which it derives its

    only value . It seems to me strange , my fellow-christians , to hear it said , that if there were no establishments , Christianity would not be sustained . Why , if there be a real love of it , it will be sustained . If not , then its present support is a reluctant one , and its acceptability is only in appearance , and our establishments have failed to carry it to the nation's heart . I am

    anxious , my friends , that we should relinquish every thing that can throw a doubt over our sincerity ; that we should prove our religion- to be no concern of interest , but a vital principle enshrined in our deep affection . This is a plain statement of the reasons that have convinced me that the principle of the Royal Bounty is wrong . And if the principle be wrong ,

    how can I believe the practice to be right ? I am not blind to the inconveniences of any general plan , for relinquishing it ; but if in its abandonment I see difficulty , in keeping it I see wrong . Let me entreat you to

    Untitled Article

    On eke Receipt of Public Money by Dissenting Ministers . 835

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 835, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/39/