Church Reform: The Only Means to That End, Stated in a Letter to Sir Robert Peel, Bart., First Lord of the TreasuryCarlile, Richard
Religion
Church Reform: The Only Means to That End, Stated in a Letter to Sir Robert Peel, Bart., First Lord of the Treasury
Carlile, Richard
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Church and state -- Church of England; Rationalism
Gather together all the property that was ever ecclesiastical; get
it back from whoever may hold it; take it out of the hands of the
priesthood or the ministers of the Church, tithes and all; and give
it into the hands of its true owners, the people, each parish with its
separate share, and let the majority of the parishioners make the best
use of it they can for ecclesiastical, that is scholastical purposes;
and with it, also, provide for their infirm and accidentally poor. This
one act of public justice and public good would go far toward settling
the affairs of this distracted and unsettled nation, and do injury to no
one. Let the State Parliament be also the Church Convocation, which may
be well done when there are no superstitious disputes, all will go on
smoothly with due and sufficient authority and order, and Britain look
forward to happy days. It would be the regeneration of the whole earth
in a few years. This is what is meant by the promise of the knowledge of
the Lord covering the earth as the waters fill the ocean.
Somebody must publicly break through the trammels of superstition, I
have done it as far as a private man can do it; but wo public man in
England has yet dared to approach the subject. Be you the first. No
other circumstance could bring you a more imperishable name and fame.
Of wealth you have enough. I ask nothing more than that you fulfil the
promise of your administration made to the Electors of Tamworth. If you
say, that you did not mean what I express, I shall answer you, that you
could have no other meaning. Were I in Parliament, I would carry the
subject in spite of prejudice; so strong is my faith in the power of
knowledge. I would move, in such a clear and simple way, that a man
should not hold up his face to his fellow man after voting against me.
Give us a commission, with power to enquire into this subject. I will be
content to wait all the time that justice to all concerned may require.
If religion be any thing more than I make it--mental cultivation from
infancy to death, it must be the private business of every man's life
and nothing national; like national sobriety, it must be made up of
the sobriety of each individual, and cannot rest on social forms and
ceremonies. Ceremonial sobriety would be but the mockery of a good
principle. I care not how much repenting and proving we have, how much
trial, let us but have free, full, and fair enquiry and discussion, in
Parliament and out of Parliament. Giving a man knowledge cannot be a
disqualification for true religion. Feeding him with science can have no
tendency to injure his morals. Occupying his time well can be no source
of bad habits. Spurring him on to a moral emulation in the acquisition
of equal or more knowledge than his neighbour, will not create ill will
toward that neighbour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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