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Untitled Article
Unitarians conceive , and are very apt to glorify themselves in the reflection , that they have renounced some great errors . If it be so , it is so far well ; but this after all amounts to little more than a negation of wrong ; a relief from incumbrance at starting ; and where is the vast superiority of a mind which has emptied itself of some erroneous principles and is content to rest in that vacancy , over a mind in which the errors , it is true , remain ,
but where there is a proportionate quantity of activity in the mental system , from which good as well as evil may , and often does , emanate ? Unitarianism , it should never be forgotten , can only profess to be a republication of first principles . It is no new revelation , but a bringing back to simple Scriptural truth ; truth which was given to put all our forces into immediate action ; to stimulate every man to do all the good and remove all the evil in
his reach . When it has taken the building of error down to the foundation , it ( i . e . Unitarianism distinctively so called ) has no more to do—its work is accomplished ; it has reached apostolic ground , and there ought to be no more saying , " I am of Paul , and I of Apollos , " for its disciples are " Christ's ; " but upon this foundation let every one build in the best manner he is able . Merely to stand upon the ruins of error and beckon our neighbours round us to come and see what notable fortress we have overthrown ,
is a present gratification , but no realization of future success . It may be that this obnoxious building , like some of our feudal castles , though a strong hold of tyranny and oppression , was a shelter to some destitute people , and we must provide them another dwelling-place , or we shall do them quite as much harm as good . But the misfortune is , that Unitarians , though feeling a good deal of zeal and spirit in pulling down , are apt to grow cool when a good deal of zeal and spirit in pulling down , are apt to grow cool when
building up again is in question . To drop the metaphor—they are anxious to rescue and convert the people from what they deem error , and are not sparing of the direct means by which this is to be accomplished ; but this is conversion only up to a certain point . There may be individual exceptions to this general charge ; but that such is the tendency of Unitarian teaching and preaching among those who are considered as zealous , I hold to be as notorious as it is lanientable . It need not surely be so— there is no incompatibility in helping our neighbours , and at the same time urging our own onward course ; but because we ^ have ^ go ^ a little more insight into religious truth than others , ( truth , so plain and palpable , according to the assertions of many Unitarian writers , that the merit of superior sagacity is reduced to almost nothing , ) to rest there and devote ourselves wholly to the task of bringing those in the rear up to our point of progress , is a strange misapprehension of the spirit of the Gospel . If we are told that a man has gained a truth , the next question to be asked is , what he means to do with it . Does
he strive to follow the apostolic example— " Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward unto those which are before , I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" ? Let me not be misunderstood or thought willing to favour the injustice of those among us , who are continually shifting the burden of their own responsibilities upon the shoulders of their clerical guides , if I say it is a
minister ' s perpetual danger , and very often his ruin for every purpose of practical influence , to be the advocate of very partial , negative , and inoperative truth : to become a teacher , not only before he has learned what it is of most consequence he should know , but often before he has acquired even the habits of a learner . Difficult as it is to point out a remedy suited to the nature of the evil I complain of , we ought not to lose sight of it . Let us not underrate our young ministers , but value their services justly and pro- *
Untitled Article
652 Hints to Unitarians .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 652, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/20/
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