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    Because they think as the writers of tfe £ ' vNe \ tr Cfesiament never thought . Much 03 theyreproach their theological adversaries with wresting the declarations of Scripture from their obvious meaning , they themselves use e phraseology , inseparable indeed from

    their system but which is nowhere to be found in the sacred volume ; and a phraseology > vliich , were they to cease to use , their doctrine ,, I verily believe , would not long survive its disuse * They make it their constant boast that their viewB of Christianity

    are conveyed in the New Testament from beginning to end , as though their doctrines were there expressed with the same clearness with which they are sometimes , expressed in their own creeds and confessions ; and it never seems to occur to them that their

    system ( granting for a moment that it is not unscriptural ) is laid down in no part of the sacred volume as a connected scheme , and that no one article of it is promulgated in terms which do not at least admit of a

    different interpretation . And yet their doctrine is capable of being laid down , and is laid down by themselves , in language which no man can misunderstand . For instance , that all mankind were sentenced to everlasting misery in consequence of the sin of their first parents , is a proposition , the terms of

    which are perfectly intelligible . And it would have been as easy for an apostle , as for Calvin or any other man , to have stated this proposition in language which would have equally precludea mistake and evasion . And if the belief of the Calvinistic doctrine

    is essential to our future happiness , the least that we might have expected would have been , that it should be clearly denned in that volume which is intended to make us wise unto salvation , arid not be left to be inferred

    from it by the interpretations of fallible men . The orthodox divine , indeed , will tell us that his interpretations of Scripture are obvious and certain , and can be rejected only by a mind which is perversely add "wilfully blind to the truth . So says the Catholic :

    and so , if he pleased , the Unitarian might say too . But who is to judge between them ? In truth * the whole OalvinistijC system ifc neither more nor less ' than' an hypothesis to explain a certaffi phmeolog # which is found in

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    the New Testament , and ait hypothesis ao abhorrent -to reason as ( previously toi alHnquiry ) to afford no small presumption of its falsehood . And granting that it would explain , some passages in the volume , there are many others ( to say nothing of the general tenor and spirit of the book ) to which it stands manifestly and

    diametrically opposed . When I said that the Calvinistic system is abhorrent to reason , I said nothing more than what is acknowledged by some of its advocates , who vehemently object to reason as an arbiter in matters of religion . But

    reason is like nature , expeilas furcd , tamen usque recurret . It may indeed be misemployed , but employed it will be . Calvinists themselves reason in behalf of their doctrine ; though , in my judgment , they reason ill . Their

    system is deduced from Scripture by reasoning , though reason impartially exercised will never find it there . Reason , indeed , we . must , if we wish to reconcile the sacred volume with itself . Otherwise , we may believe any thing and every thing ; a 3 there is no doctrine which certain passages of Scripture , detached from their connexion , will not appear to support . E . COGAN .

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    Birmingham , Sir , December 6 , 1822 . HAVING many applications for information respecting the management and success of the Sunday-Schools belonging to the Old and New Meeting Societies in this town ; and

    each such request subjecting me to a lengthened detail in writing of particulars , which even leisure itself would rather avoid , I beg leave to trouble you with the insertion of the following proposal in your liberal Miscellany . Some time ago , I published a statement of the establishment and

    progress ot the said institution , with the display of its laws and management , together with a few lectures prepared for and delivered to the youths therewith connected , under -ilse'title of

    " Moral Culture . " [ See Mon Repos . XIII . 767-3 This Contains all the general information in my power to give , as it was not intended to enter imo the minutiae of the arrangements , but rather to exhibit such an outline « s would fee better iiHed tip ' bjTTth ^

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    vol . xvni . c

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    Mr . Luehcbok on 4 he Bifimin&ham Sunday ^ Schools . 9

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1823, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1780/page/9/