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error . But , surely , he has little occasion to regret the lavish " complaisance and forbearance , " indulged to Dr . Priestley ! That heresiarch might not , indeed , de » serve respect or ^ kindness—but he certainly found little of either from our Eclectic ' s * Christian world . '
He was , it is true , only driven from his peaceful home ; his library and philosophical apparatus only were burnt ; the copies of his works , dispersed throughout the country , were not committed to
the flames by the hands of the hangman ; his approvers were not every where threatened and harrassed by an orthodox mob ; and war was not made upon America for receiving into her bosom , a €
man with the viper' of heretical pravity * fastened on his hand / and * vengeance' marked out on his person and family . Yet he suffered enough , one would think , to satisfy any ordinary malice ;
« , nd his sufferings would , I verily believe , have satisfied our Eclectic himself , but for the recollection of certain eulogies passed upon the celebrate ^ exile , by some writers , whose talents and eloquence might have been expected
to be * devoted wholly to the orthodox faith but whose philanthropy triumphed , for a moment , over their creed , I am persuaded , Sir , that our Eclectic had in his eye , a beautiful wreath of praise , wound about the head of Dr .
Priestley , by " Robert Hall , M . A . " of Cambridge , in his pamphlet entitled " Christianity consistent with a Love of Freedom ; being
an Answer to a Sermon , lately published , bythe . Rev .. John Clay - ton . " Printed for Johnson , 1791 . Perjmit me to place the passage I allude to in your work ; it is in
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that lofty stile of eloquence , to which a Vigorous writer is
sometimes lifted , unconsciously , by his subject . ** The reader can be at no loss to determine , whom the author intends by a busy active man in regenerating the civil constitutions
of nations . The occasion of the Sermon , and the complexion of its sentiments , concur in directing us to Dr . Priestley ; a person whom the author seems to regard with a more than odium theologim
cumy with a rancour exceeding the measure , even of his profession * . The religious tenets of Dr . Priest * ley appear to me erroneous in the extreme , but I should be sorry to suffer any difference of sentiment to diminish my sensibility to
virtue , or my admiration of genius * From him the poisoned arrow will fall pointless . His enlightened and active mind , his unwearied assiduity , the extent of his
researches , the light that he has poured into almost every depart * inent of science , will be the ad * miration of that period , when the greater part of those who have favoured , or those who have op . * posed him , will be alike forgotten * Distinguished merit will ever riso superior to oppression , and will draw lustre from reproach . The ?
i ? The Eclectic Review was not in * stituted , till many years after IVf r . Halt wrote his pamphlet , or we might have in terpreted him to insinuate here that c Rev . John Clayton' was an Eclectic . It is , however , the diyine faculty ; of genius to see future events , when they arc as yet in embryo ; and Mr . Hafl might fromhisgreat perspicacity , bc . able to foretel that bigotry * after * sleeping many * days and nights , ' would get fcit much c sweltered venom , ' of such potent malignity , a « to require ail Eclectic R «* view far its discharge
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Gogmagog an the curious Extract from the Eclectic Review . l 6 f
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1812, page 167, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1746/page/31/
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