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JIt . CleeveVthird letter was published ;¦ the Western Luminary of Dec . 20 . In Aisle says , "I shall , " with the Editor ' s permission , goon till I have examined the Doctor ' s three grand characteristic principles , the whole of his works , as far as they relate to the divinity of our adorable
Redeemer , and the editorship of the UnirARUN Society . " These projects were so zealously taken up after Dr . C . had hinted his intention of retiring" from the contest ; tbat Mr . Cleeve omits to make any acknowledgment that he had groundlessly charged Dr . Carpenter with actual
misrepresentation . The republieation of PemVs " Sandy Foundation Shaken , " by the London Unitarian Book Society seems to have engrossed an undue portion of his attention , wader the mistaken notion hastily taken up , that it is a " mutilated edition" of that work . Now the fact is , the proof sheets of this edition were carefully compared
with the three editions of that Tract published by the Society of Friends ; and we challenge any person to prove that it is not as correct an edition of that Tract , as ever was . published . Mr . Cleeve is therefore not only unwarranted in saying that it is a mutilated edition , but in asserting that it was published by an expelled Quaker . The person alluded to , afterwards
published an edition in 8 vo . as a u Portraiture of Primitive Quakerism , " with an Appendix comprising all the official documents relative to his expulsion , as a u Modern Sketch of the reputed Orthodoxy and real Intolerance , " by the Monthly Meeting which disowned him . But mutilated quotations from authors of high reputation , » re a much more frequent , because they
are a more easy means of misrepresentation . Of this Mr . Cleeve has furnished in this letter a sig-nal example . He has quoted Locke ' s "Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures , " to prove » iat the author u asserts the consubstannality of ttie Son with the Father "—that
he has immortality , as having- the same essence or subsistence as his Father , " where-& 8 neither in the passage quoted , nor in its co ntext , has Locke said any thing- like this unscriptural language . The parallel * e drew in the passage quoted ( Vol . ii . P 560 . Edit . 1751 ) is widely different , » ut more correct and scriptural . It is
W * em Adam , " the Son of God , " and as ^ ch possessing " ttie likeness and image * fhts Father , viz . that he was immortal , " store he transgressed " tlie command giv-*« him by Ms heavenly Father ; " and Je-^ Christ , who being also " the Son of T * * without sin , he was like his Faine Jy immortal . " ^ In the other passage quoted by Mr . lee , Lotke is speaking " of , the im-
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mortality of the sons of God , who are in this like their Father , made after his image and likeness . But that our Saviour was so he himself farther declares John x . 18 . All this parallel Mr . Cleeve passes
over . Locke adds " where speaking , &e . " Mr . Cleeve ' s quotation marked with inverted commas begins thus , Our Saviour speaking of his life [ he ] says no one taketh it from me , " &c . But with all this contrivance it did not suit Mr . Cleeve ' s
purpose to give the conclusion of the paragraph , brief and explanatory as it is of Locke ' s meaning . Instead of which Mr Cleeve ventures to assure bis readers , that " het-e Locke asserts his [ Christ ' s ] inherent power of laying down his life , and taking it again , and therefore be must be and is very God j" whereas nothing * can well be farther from the evident
import of the whole passage . The two next letters contain Dr . Carpenter ' s very satisfactory reasons for declining " auy farther controversy with the Rer . Mr . Cleeve , or in the W . L . with any " stouter wrestler " whom the editors of that paper may introduce into their u arena . " The
principal object of the letter which follows , is to shew how much Mr . Cleeve has mistaken and misrepresented the true character of these writings of Penn , which be has quoted from a small pamphlet sent him by post , and how blindly he has adopted the errors of the author . This letter also
contains a vindication of the writer of it Mr . Thomas Foster , from the unjust aspersions east on him by Mr . Cleeve For republishing Penn ' s Sandy Foundation
Shaken . The lust letter in this collection is from the Rev . Mr . Cleeve , in which he labours to prove that the revision , alteration or even a selection from the Hymns of Watts , Doddridg-e or others , is a breach of the law of God . " Thou shall not steal ! " He
tells us also that " Dr . Watts did notaltcr his Hymns ; " perhaps not in anew edition . But we understand he applied to the Printer to whom the copy of the 1 st . edition was sold , for his permission to correct them , and was refused . It was not for his
supposed interest to have such corrections made in them , as the author would gladly have introduced . We have not room to say more than that this controversy has excited great attention in the western counties , and occasioned an increased demand for
the papers in which it was carried on . The letters are now republished in a cheap but commodious form , and containing the arguments on botli sides of the qnestion , possess an advantage over the most candid ex . parte statement . \ s such we recommend them to our reader's as likely to promote the cause of truth , and of geuninc Evangelical Christianity .
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Intelligence . — Unitarian Controversy in the West of England . 195
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1815, page 195, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1758/page/67/
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