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Critical Notices . 443
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and dignified , but which shall savour nothing of bigotry and intolerance . * ' P . 10 . He recommends it to them to devote a large portion of their time to friendly and improving intercourse , especially with the humbler part of their parishioners , aud by thus offering them in their clergyman a neighbour , a friend , a counsellor , and a guide , prevent their resorting to less competent teachers ,
who seldom gam a footing in a parish except by the fault of the clergy themselves . P . 12 . The time which is not demanded by these practical duties of his office , he exhorts them to bestow on the cultivation of theological learning , and particularly of the Hebrew language , in which he confesses the inferiority of the divines of his own Church to those of the continent . This leads him to speak , in a note , of the merits of those German commentators on whom Mr . Rose has
lately poured forth the phials of his wrath ; and he has the liberality and boldness not only to protest against the injustice with which they have been treated by their superficial ceusor , but to vindicate a class of men to whom it is a still more rare occurrence , in the present day , to be treated with fairness aud respect by a minister of the Church . As the Sermon is dedicated to the Rev .
Francis Wrangham , it is proper to observe , that Mr . Hett takes upon himself the sole responsibility of the sentiments which this note contains : — " The following passage , at p . 82 , 1 give it in his own words , leaves the impression of Mr . Rose being more of an advocate than of the dispassionate , candid inquirer . * It is curious to
observe , ' he writes , c that the common principle of rejecting every thing above reason has conducted the learning of the Germans , and the gross ignorance of the English schools ( the Unitarian U meant ) to the same point of absurdity . ' Now , this passage alone , and it is far from being the only one of the kind , would put me upon my guard against placing implicit confidence in Mr . Rose ' s statements . The insinuation , to say the
least , is harsh and uncalled for , and proves that , though Mr . Rose professes himself to be a great admirer of ' calm and lucid views of theology , * he is not the person disposed at all times to take them . An advocate , he knows , contends for victory , not for truth , and is therefore lavish , when it may suit his purpose , of imputations discreditable to his adversary . I know little of the Unitarians , nor am I the advocate of Unitarian error y but can , with any shew of truth or
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candour , ' gross ignorance * be imputed to Lard tier , to Whom the world is indebted for one of the fullest and best defences of Christianity ever published—can * gross ignorance * be imputed to Taylor , * the author of the best Hebrew Concordance
at present in use ? Was the late Gilbert Wakefield ( I have nothing to do with his political Opinions ) a man to whom gross ignorance is to be imputed ; or is Mr . Betsham , the individual probably aimed at , now living , a man of gross ignorance ? It is in the hand-writing of the late Dr . Parr , perhaps also a person of gross ignorance , that he thought very
highly of Mr . Belsham ' s acquirements both as a critic aud theological scholar . Such severe and unqualified censures upon any body of professing Christians , can only have the effect of making ua distrust , or receive with caution , any assertions or reasonings of a writer who can so far forget what is due to acknowledged talent , as to deny its existence .
" I would further remark of Mr . Rose ' s sermons , that there appears to me to exist in them a constant desire to mystify , to use a term rather expressive than elegant , the real question . The point which he labours to establish against the German divines is , that they have rejected
virtually the authority of Scripture , and have substituted in its place the dictates of their own reason , as their only guide in religious matters . Now , in the unqualified manner in which this point is maintained against them by Mr . Rose , I think the German divines hardly dealt with . I for one have not so read them .
The ground on which they reason , a ground which Mr . Rose will not easily shake—which has been ably defended by divines of onr own Church—is this : That God being the author of reason to man equally as of revelation , there cannot be any contradiction between right reason and revelation correctly under * stood ; but , on the contrary , there must exist a harmony and correspondence between them . The principle is incontrovertible . Whatever doctrines militate
against improved reason , and eighteen centuries of strife and disputation have produced not a few which do' so , may confidently be rejected ; I say , doctrines which militate against , not those which are aba / tr * improved reason—a distinction not sufficiently attended to by Mr . Rose , nor by some others in similar discussions ; for , as Mr . R . justly observes , there will be in all countries flippant
• < tf At p . 176 it seems Taylor was a man of * considerable learning .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 443, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/51/
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