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Untitled Article
prejudices , without assuming the grave and formal air of judge and law-giver , yet some expressions in the former part of has last paper I could not altogether reeoticile with the extensive liberality of sentiment to which his pi inciptes should lead * In calculating upon the tendency of your publication , he justly
anticipates , in commendatory language , its superiority above those periodical works which are mere journals of sentiment * collections of literary trifles , or records of metaphysical debate ** He , then , hi reply to your very proper caution ^ admonishing him to avoid €€ politics" and € C personalities ;** proceeds in a philippic against candour , which he describes witfi " her Chinese baby-face , her censer of cloying incense , and her
neverfailing cruise of oil , the flattening unction which she lays ta teens' souls , to mollify thend , forsooth , and to flatter them into virtue * " He forbids you the exercise of this candour towards " theological evil-doers * " This term / theological evil-doers * ** I think he mrist allow to be , as well as that of politics , sdhiefrhat ambiguous . The good women , for instance , of wfctom he makes mention , whose tender nerves dreaded the concussion ot
Controversy , and whose weakly consciences pronounced no good can come from thence , were certainly not theological well ~ doers ? siiicfc they did all within their little power to sttfp the Progress of truth and free inquiry ; yet their obfiquity Being of
the head rather than of the heart , and their malady proceeding from debility ^ they stand more in need of restoratives than of stimulants . To this puny class we may add those ignorantly pious hearers who discountenance what they conceive to be the semi-heathenish doctrine of iC the right of private judgment /*
In a different light , however , must we view the dogmatizing priest , who , enraged with his polemic overthrow , starts up , and for once , in order £ o indulge in the gratification of pronouncing &n anathema upon his opponent , renounces those very opinions the defence of which urged him to this malediction . This is a Very different case to the former ; there is some proud flesfr , here , to be eaten away , before a cure can be expected . All pride ,
selfishness and arrogance , I consider 16 be the origiri and essence of evil-doing . Having in some theasure explained what I understand by this term , whether applied totnorals , theology , or politics , I proceed to Gdgmagog ' s delineation of candour . The proper definition of this must be of some consequence to Goginagog hiitiself , since he professes to be eminently endued with this quality towards all , except impostors and tyrants . He indeed seems to declare himself the champion of virtue , the
rectifier of abuses—bf those abuses which are sanctioned by authority and prescription—the overturner of domination , the very knight-errant of unbiassed inquiry , who , stung to the soul by
Untitled Article
A Plea for Candour . 239
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1806, page 239, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1724/page/15/
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