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air . The spirit Antichhist was disturbed , and as he is said to have insinuated himself into the Garden of Eden to blight that felicity which he could not participate , so he determined to creep into the Bible Society to create confusion and to scatter among the sons of peace the fiery seeds of discord and rebellion against the Most Hig h , tlndelrthe mask of superior sanctity , and in the guise of one who pretended that he had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge , and had his eyes opened to distinguish between good and evil , he entered their councils , and began to whisper that their sanctified body was tainted with the poison of heresy , the leprous and
soul-destroying heresy , —that they ought to undergo a purgation , —that the heretics should be expelled , —and , to guard against their re-admission , a test of orthodoxy should be administered to every member of the holy conclave . The evil one having thus infused the venom of his serpent tongue into the bosom of his elect , left it to work and
ferment , and it wrought and fermented according to his wishes . At last , some whom he had made his confidants and the organs of his counsels , had the assurance , in defiance of all shame , to give utterance to his wicked suggestions , and propose that a belief in the Trinity should be adopted as the test of membership by the Bible Society ! 4
This proposition was in direct violation of the principle on which the Bible Society was founded . It was annexing to the Bible a note of portentous sound , —a comment of most anti-biblical , most anti-christian tendency , ' —an audacious attempt to overthrow a system whose peculiar beauty
and utility lay in the broad principle on which it was based . That-such a proposition should have been a subject of discussion in the Bible Society , nay , that it was not met at once by an universal burst of indignation and scorn , is a matter of reproach . After a stormy meeting , which a Rev . gentleman , who was present * compared to a
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bear-garden , the motion was lost , attd the Bible Society was rescued froiri ruin and everlasting opprobrium . ' Foiled in their endeavours to Over- * throw the beautiful creation of the British and Foreign Bible Society * the adversaries resolved to form a society of their own , which they bap » tized with the water of contention , the
bitter water of Marah and Meribah , the Trinitarian Bible Society . They had now got a bantling of their own to nurse , and might indulge many a glowing anticipation of its future beauty and its future strength , wheri it was to come forth like Samson to
smite down the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass ; or rather , like a man of Gath , to defy the armies of the Living God . But , lo ! while they are yet gazing and gaping with parental delight on their baby-giarft , they behold with amazement and horror that it is speckled like a vi per ^
dotted ail over from top to toe with the plague-spots of the Irving heresy ! and , to add to th . eir , horror jind mortification , they heard their first-borri denounced , sneered at , and ridiculed even by some of the sanctified fra * ternity as a lums natures , a mon * strous rhfscreation . Having formed a new society , and adopted a purifying test of admission , it was to be
presumed that it would be hailed , by the elect at least , as a beautifully orthodox and perfectly immaculate corporation ; and , above all , that their chosen committee , the sanctwrn , sanctorum , would be impervious to the maX-aricu of heterodoxy . How completely they were mistaken , the orthodox journal , named u The Record , " testifies . '
The Rev . Speaker here read several extracts from the l Record' newspaper confirming his statements of the total failure of the Trinitarian Bible Society , one of which is the following : —
' Although there were sixty-four individuals who signed the requisition for the special meeting of the Tri ^ nitarjan Bible Society > only forty *
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UtflTAitlAN CHRONICLE . %$
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 1, 1832, page 75, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1813/page/11/
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