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knelt to be erroneous , bat wVrch , in sound at least , were favourable to the popular system /—they might have tortured and wrested the genuine and figurative language of Scripture to a sense which they well knew to be the reverse of its real meaning " , in order to support a cause which it was their interest to defend ;—and with the Utmost exertion of ingenuity and industry , and the most pompous display of learning * , they might have laboured to advocate the faulty translation of a faulty text and to oppose with the utmost vehemence and bitterness every attempt at improvement ; and meanly to depreciate the qualifications , to asperse the motives , and to calumniate the characters of those who , with the best intentions , in the calmest and
most inoffensive language and manner , and from the best authorities , endeavoured to correct the text and to improve the version . "— Pp . 70 , 71 . This quotation is from Letter VII ., which , with Letter VIII ., contains a defence of the Improved Version ,
in answer to numerous objections brought against that work by the Lecturer , who * it ^ would really appear , never saw it , but contented himself with the account given of it by Dean
Magee and other like-minded authors . The Editors have something to answer for , we allow , in that they have put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in their brother ' s way .
Mr . Belsham uses very strong language , naturally prompted however by benevolence , on the subject of Eternal Torments , which of course the Oxford theologian believes and defends , though he makes a concession which is more creditable to his humanity than to his " orthodoxy : "
" To do him justice , he seems to be a reluctant advocate of this heart-withering doctrine . < We have all , ' he says , ( p . 212 , ) too much reason to wish that eternity of torment for unrepentant sinners
were not a part of God ' s system . ' This lang-uag-e , surely , is very strange and unbecoming . Believing , as I do , in the infinite knowledge , power and goodness of Ood , I must and do most joyfully believe that every portion af the system which God has formed is the wisest and the best ; that nothing can be added to it , and nothing can be taken from it ; that evil as well as good is over-ruiedforthe best
purposes $ that even wicked agents , with all their malignant purposes , and in all the plenitude of their powers , are but fulfill ing-, noweyer unknowingly and involuntarily , ni * wise and good designs ; and tliat ' wheii they have accomplished his benevolent
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purposes , he puts * his book into their nose , and his bridle into their jaws , ' and saitb , « Hitherto shalt thoii go , and m > further / To wish that what God has appointed were no part of bis system , is fcr set up our wisdom and will in opposition tO F ° ^ & * —n * S tO w - * > ^ kt ? the impious Alpbpnso , that Go < J bad consulted us in . the choice of hh plan : —it is to wish ttat the system which now , in all its parts and bearings , is the most perfect which infinite wisdom could devise , which infinite good . ness could prompt , and which infinite
power could carry iuto effect , were altered and deteriorated , to gratify our humour and caprice , or at least tafall within the limits of our finite understanding , our narrow views and comprehension . " Yet the learned Lecturer is right . He feels that if human guilt is visited wittr
eternal misery , God is an almighty tyrant ; he naturally wishes that he and bis fellowbeings lived under a more wise , a more
righteous , and a more merciful government ; and that be could contemplate the character of the Almighty-Sovereign trUhout dismay . "*—Pp . 97—99 . On a text cited by Dr . Moysey to
prove the eternity of punishment , viz . Rev , xiv . 11 , " And the smoke of their torment , " i . e . of those who worship the beast and his image , * ascendeth up for ever and ever , " Mr . Belsham remarks ,
" It may reasonably be doubted who arer intended by this obscure symbolical description , and whether the passage at all refers to future sufferings . But shoulcl this be allowed , yet surely the smoke of the torment is very different from the tor--meat itself . The smoke may remain long after the miserable victim is consumed
And some memorial uiay possibly be preserved to perpetuate the remembrance of the awful fact , as a solemn warning to ages yet to come , that vice once existed in the creation of God , and that it was exterminated by condign punishment /'P . 104 .
Mr . Belsham vindicates Unitarians from the reproach of being peculiar ) y hostile to the Established Church , and says , ( pp . 1 S 3 , 134 , ) that he knows many strict Unitarians who are decided friends to civil establishments of religion , and who , " without
contending for its divine institution , approve of diocesan episcopacy and the form of government and discipline && established in the Church of England , as expedient and wise , " We were not aware that ^ ny Unitarians carried their approbation of the Church so
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v ReviewsBelsham ' s Reply to Dr . Moysey . 4 gg
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1819, page 499, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1775/page/39/
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