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    that he has no exclusive claim to the title of 4 C A Consistent Christian /' Before I proceed to notice the Consistent Christian ' s arguments , allow mo . to premise , that I am

    not going to plead 4 C the antiquity of the practice , "—* ' the authority of the fathers , "— " that it can cki no harm /' and that to w 4 discard it

    all at once might too violently shock people ' s prejudices / ' I hate all time-serving . And if the service cannot be defended per se * stand upon its own ground , lei ct people ' s prejudices be shocked . ' - tC

    let the authority of the fathers ' dwindle into its native nothingness /* let an t 6 ancient practice " which may cC do no harm" yield to a modern one which may do some good . The Consistent Christian makes

    his charge upon the two following grounds ; that " the practice is not enjoined in the Christian scriptures , '' and that ct it has done much towards the corruption of Christianity . * ' Let us attend to

    the last charge first : u It has done more towards corrupting Christianity , and continuing those corruptions , than many other causes which are assigned . '' Sure - ly your correspondent does not mean to maintain that we are

    invariably to lay nside the use of every thing which has been abused . Is not this an error into which Unitarian Christians are too liable to fall ? Are they not in danger of running into the opposite extreme from the rest of their fellow

    Christians ? Because others have con * - verted the means of virtue into the e « d , is there not reason to fear that we neglect the means , and look for the end without them ? Is not the great art of living , the

    Untitled Article

    grand duty and difficulty of a Christian ^ the discovery of the medium in which virtue lies ? The best things are the most liable to abuse . Upon this principle your correspondent to be u co n * to

    sistent" ought to cea . ^ e be < c a Christian . " What has been more abused than the Lord ' s Supper ? " The doctrine of the atonement , and the reception of the Lord ' s Supper are ( to use nearly the author ' s own words *) so associated in

    the minds of the multitude , that the good effects of the former , it is conceived , can only be experienced by a participation of the latter /' Can I not therefore administer , 01 * partake of the Lord's Supper ^

    without inculcating the doctrine of * atonement ? Or am I to give up the celebration of the Lord ' s Supper because it has been a means of corrupting the Christian religion ? Upon this argument alone I am sure the 4 C Consistent

    Christian" will not rely for his discontinuance of the practice wJhich he condemns . But there Js another argument connected with this 1 * The practice is not enjoined by the Christian

    scriptures . " Is public worship enjoined in the Christian scriptures ? Is the cultivation of friendships enjoined in the Christian scriptures ? Is family devotion enjoined in the Christian scriptures ? And yet I doubt not the " Consistent

    Christian' * practices these as helps to virtue . But there is one case which appears to me in every respect parallel , I mean that of prayer with the sick and

    dying-It must certainly be allowed that this practice originated in the-opi " nion of the efficacy of a deathbed repentance , and of the power of the priest to grant absolution .

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    318 Anti-baptists justified in Baptizing Infants *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1809, page 318, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1737/page/16/