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Friday, July 29, 2011

Tacit Disapproval

This post deals with the Georgian era, when non-jurors were still not crazy about the Hanoverian succession.  The following appears on p. 138 of the Norton edition of Samuel Richardson's Pamela.

"And though it was a thing to be lamented, yet when he and I should set about to reform mankind in this respect, we should have enough upon our hands;  for, he said, it was too common and fashionable a case to be withstood by a private clergyman or two:  and then he uttered some reflections upon the conduct of the present fathers of the church, in regard to the first personages of the realm, as a justification of his coldness on this score."

Thus, the way in which it was appropriate for the state-dominated church to deal with those it could not approve of was by keeping its silence.

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