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    floral causes , keeping * pace vnth mteU Jcctual improvement , wHl fit and qualify mankirid for the enjoyment of such pure and moral effects , as their several capacities may be susceptible of : and if their powers and employments are made , from time to tinie , and during an infinite succession of

    changes , as full of perfection and happiness as those powers and employments , to their utmost extent ^ can possibly contain , it is all that the most voluptuous in future bliss can desire ; it is all that Omnipotence can grant ; it is even all that infinite , be ^ aevolence , with all its varied stores of

    felicity , can devise . I now turn to combat the strictures of my two other opponents , Mr . Eaton and Mr . J . Johnston , pp , 584 and 585 of your Number for October last . Mr . Eaton says , * The argument of what God can do , and what he cannot

    do , is scarcely becoming such frail and ignorant creatures as we are , for the least flaw in our conception and argument , destroys our conclusion . * ' " Can any Christian so safely rely on the soundness of his metaphysical abstractions and conclusions , as to place

    them in opposition to the plain language of Scripture ? " " Ought metaphysical subtilizes and speculations to interfere with the glorious hopes of the gospel V " Ought the cold and baseless speculations of

    metaphysicians , to be permitted to chill or becloud such transporting prospects and assurances ? " " After the greatest thought and labour , if there be one single error in the premises , the glittering castle tumbles to the ground . " And Mr . Johnston has the following

    remarks— "They are far above the measure of the human understanding-. " These mysterious points are far above the range of human thought" * ' It leads us to place no confidence in niany express promises of God /* and naany other similarly unfounded assertions . Your readers Will perceive that

    these gentlemen have first assumed < w true , the objections upon which these remarks are funded , and that without one tittle of evidence , ( L e . ) that the subjectof njy bypothe&ia d ^ ea really possess a flavv , is in opposition to the plain language of Scripture , is & metaphysical subtilty , does interfere with the glorftms hopes of the gospel , 18 cold and . baseless , does chill or

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    becloud tlifc prospects of the gftBjtel , is erroneous ^ as above l ^ feiiieatore © f the human undeT 8 tandaig , &C ^^ all which t > utterly deny , and challenge any evidence to > the contraryt fett ^ I cannot help remarking , that thesfe observations eorae with a peculiarly ill gracfe from heretical pen 6 ; : ikef » m out of their element ; thfey belong to orthodoxy , since all the fearful

    weapons , which these gentlemea have here opposed to ihy hypothesis , have with equal force , and with much more consistency , been brandished in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity a thousand times . I certainly $ ni not aware of any . limitation for the human

    understanding , nor any boundary for the operations of reason , where certain and definite ideas , founded upon assignable evidence , and reducible to intelligible language and definite terms , form the governing principle of speculation ; and while this is or

    can be done , it is nothing short of Popery , to becloud the intellectual vision with the blindness of mystery , pretended frailty , and convenient ignorance , weakness of the understanding , &c . Such observations as these might reconcile us to all the sacred mysteries

    of orthodoxy or heathenism , ancient or modern ; and certainly if there be such an arbitrary boundary to rational speculation , it may' be much more consistently found within the infallible pale of Popery , than the uncireumscribed range of heterodoxy : and if the inquirer after truth is to , be silenced in this manner , it is a great reflection upon those of us who have come out from the regions of mystery into the pure and unclouded light of the gospel , in defiance ; of precisely similar observations on the part of reputed orthodoxy : and such persons cannot reasonably complain of their

    Trinitarian brethren , when they attempt to silence them in the same way . Besides which , this convenient scepticism and pretended frailty must inevitably tend to weaken the force of all truth , certainty and evidence ; for if the plain deductions of reason are not to beJreliedon ,: ther&is anend , of the only legitimate staftdtord of truth , and of all inquiry aftfer it $ and acting under the influt ^ fel of this self-delu

    sion , we should 7 * W fair in time to arrive at that ttfbroiigh ^ paced so ^ pti cism , which would dictate a eimilariy

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    Mr . Hinion on his Hypothesis of the inevitable E&fotenxfc ffiEffiL fflf

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1823, page 707, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1791/page/27/