On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    Storer ' s Cathedrals appeared , has this objeet . Now , Sir , this «« Friend of Justice , Truth and Candour" himself actually commits the very blunder which he erroneously and very uncandidly attributes to the orthodox writer ; for he confounds the object of two works

    published at very different periods , which are very dissimilar , and support distinct paradoxes , although the inquiries in the one may have facilitated those in the other . Again , your " Friend of Truth , " &c . roundly asserts "it is impossible that the writer of the note should have read Mr , Jones ' s book . "

    This is an assertion certainly as bold , as dogmatical , egotistical and gratuitous , as any ever made by the most fanatical Methodist , or the most ferocious champion of election and reprobation . Had your correspondent , Sir , shewn only half as much candour and Christian toleration as he has done blind zeal

    and vulgar dogmatism , he would have logically concluded , that the writer of the note was liberally willing to avail himself of every effort to support Christianity , whilst he with no less caution

    took care to guard against the adoption or implied reception of any sentiment which according to his mode of thiirking was of a heterodox nature . If the Unitarians thus seek to

    stigmatize every writer who presumes to tliink for himself , and to follow his own opinions , however contrary to theirs , then what are they better 01 * more tolerant in this respect than the

    Papists ? If the dogmas of Unitarianism be as infallible as those of Popery , if the one must be obeyed or received as well as the other , and if all Trinitarians are to be deemed knaves or

    fools , as all disbelievers in Popecraft are considered heretics , then what has ociety gained ? what have liberality and toleration to boast of by the Unitarian reform > Alas ! poor Candour , how hardly art thou dealt with by both professed friends and enemies ?

    Truly , ^ ir , I feel ashamed of such a professed friend , but real enemy , to " Justice , Truth and Candour / ' He adds , " had the writer read only the preface with as much sound judgment

    ; is orthodoxy , he would have known his man better , " Where is the proof that he did not " know Ilia man / ' as it is vulgarly expressed ? He candidly admits the talents and learning of Mr . Jones , at the same iinte he expresses his gerterous > liberal , and I

    Untitled Article

    must say , truly Christian hope , that his fancy may not prevail ovei * hi * judgement , that he may not be misled «* by every wind of false doctrine , " and that he may not persist in what the orthodox note-writer supposes ttf be heterodox notions . Surely , Sir , the

    laconic expression of such sentiments and feelings can neither be " blundering bigotry , * uncandid , illiberal not unworthy selfishness . Mr . Jones hafc repeatedly in the Ecclesiastical

    Researches exposed the errors of Dr . Priestley , who wished to be considered the apostle of modern Unitariamfemw As to the epithet , ** puerilities of Uiiitarianism , " I leave it where I found it . I wish mankind had no errors but

    those merely puerile . Yet 1 must ofr * serve , andl do it with regret , for poor human weakness , that tfcrisr writer ' s sneer at bells , &c . is an example , even in the pages of the Mon . Repos . In th «

    present state of society all poor men and women cannot-have watches ; public worship also is a little older than this invention for measuring time ; and as there are to be nochurchesei ? houses

    of worship with bells , andrcensequefttly with clocks , how are the poo ? to krtow the hour of public meetk * g ? Is it enmity to the arts that would exclude bells and clocks ? or is it to imitate more closely the Mohammedans * in order to have a person sit on a high tower to ea& the time ? The

    Unitarians are , I hope , as attentive to public worship as other Christians ; they have also fixed hours for it * ami a * to " forms of prayed' the chiefs of them read all their prayer * as fotfnally as if they were printed . The scoff therefore at the very convenient use of

    bells is puerile ' and unphilosophical - the professed rejection of all forms being inconsistent and impracticable * But the most flagrant instance of vulgar bigotry is your " candid correspondent ' s' * assigning causes and ascribing motives to others merely from his own feelings . From time immemorial , merciless bigots , intolerant and

    unchristian dogmatists , men of fire and faggot , who would burn their neighbour for the glory of God * have uniformly attributed their owninotives to all other persona who differed from them in opinions This hafcr be £ » the grand besetting sin of all professing Christians , andinfidele htiw 6 too troly observed , that <* all deefa and denomination © persecute whenever it is in

    Untitled Article

    34 Passage in Stover ' s Cathedrals on Unitarians .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 34, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/34/