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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.
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Untitled Article
k il // v Mafsom ^ s Account of the Rev . Mr . Green . 11
Untitled Article
arid of a public controversy in which he was engaged ^ which terminated , as Mr . Jay states , in his being 46 so foiled that he publicly acknowledged that he had been wrong all his life in his no * tions of the trinityi notwithstanding he had published upon the subject . " Tbe person alluded to hy whom he was so foiled is your present correspondent , and as he is fully acquainted with ajl the facts relating to that business , he conceives that it may nor be uninteresting to your readers to be informed of the particulars respecting it .
Mr , Jay says , in the page referred to before , " of Mr . Green , above-mentioned , it is to be observed , that he was a fine classical scholar and he also understood the mathematics well . He said he was a competent master of eight languages ; bfet he was a very uncouth reader and speaker . He never could gain a congregation at Tottenham Court . At Fetter Lane ^ he met with attention . 'I he liberty he gave to any to speak ^
opened a way for the Antinomians to deliver their sentiments , with whom he entered into large and long public disputations . His Monday * evening exercises dege - nerated into formal disputes , and knowing his strength , he was fond of them . TJie Arians took him ypy and by one of the ? n he was one evening so foiled , that he pub " licly acknowledged ^ , that he had been wrung all his life in his notions of the trinity , jiotwithstandring ho had published upon the subject . In this state of mind he continued a week . It vroduced
great distress of souly and though he died sound in the faiths he was so shocked by his temporary recantation of it that he never after lifted up his head . " The controversy referred to . by Mr . Jay , took place about the year 1773- The circumstances which led to it were these . Mr . Green had at that time two chapels , one in Fetter Lane f , 'the other in Dudley Court , St . Giles ' s . The former was occupied by blr . Green on Sunday morning and
* Mr . Jay , I think , has mistaken the day ; it was as the following circumstance Wf ll shew on the Friday evening . -j- In this place , some years after the death of Mr . Green a Unitarian Society was formed , of which Mr . Ebenezer Smith was the minister . Mr . Smith had been assistant preacher to Dr . Gifford , in Eagle Street , whom he was expected to suc- ^ ceed ; but renouncing the doctrine of the .. trinity from a conviction that . it was not a doctrine of scripture , he was necessarily thrown out of that connexion . His Unitarian friends procured for him the chajpel in Margaret Street , Oxford Street , which was then unoccupied , excepting a lecture in the evening by Mr . Hunting- * don . Mr , Smith there raised a congregation , with which he afterwards removed to Mr . Green ' s chapel in Fetter Xane , where they were formed into a church upon Unitarian principles ; in the formation of this church , the writer took an active part . Mr . Smith continued his ministry among them for a considerable time * On hh removal to Chesterfield , which was occasioned by the death of his father , the church hearing of Mr . Austin , a Unitarian General Bapiist minister ^ near Birmingham , agreed to invite him to settle amongst them ; a correspondence of course was opened between the church and Mr . Austin ; in which correspondence , the writer of this account was the amanuensis of the church , through whose hands all the letters between them passed , jn which there was a mutual communication of sentiments . The church being satisfied with Mr . Austin , frofn the unequivocal manner in which he avowed himself to be an Anti-trinitarian , sent for him to town and agreed upon his settling with them , and he waasoon after ordained over them
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1809, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1732/page/11/
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