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Untitled Article
Unitarian need not answer it . Against his faith it is not directed , except by unwarrantable inferences from the unsoundness of one man ' s opinions to the fallacy of another ' s . The Unitarian may read Paine ' s book , and , as far as conviction goes , become a firmer Christian , by perceiving the futility of its arguments . Danger there is in reading it , of another kind ;—the danger of becoming
familiarized to a light and frivolous , a low , gross , and profane style of discussing serious subjects . His moral and devotional sensibilities will be in danger of being corrupted . There is pollution in every page , but there is no valid argument anywhere against the truth of Revelation . The writer of this may be permitted to avow , that no book he ever read did more to establish his firm conviction of the truth of Christianity , or to satisfy him that its
Unitarian aspect is that in which Christianity must be regarded , if it is to contend effectually with the weapons of reason and evidence against the attacks of unbelief . The perceived irrelevance of all that is advanced to the true question at issue , and the consciousness that , with any other convictions than those of an Unitarian , his faith in Christiatiity could not have remained scathless , made him know the satisfaction , as far as opinion is concerned , of being a Christian Unitarian .
Palmer ' s * Pr inciples of Nature , '—a book distinguished generally by candour and propriety of argument and spirity—exhibits the same phenomenon more distinctly , from the absence of the profane and gross character of the last mentioned . Orthodoxy is powerfully assailed , and Christianity supposed , of course , by the
author , to be the object of successful attack . I hesitate not to say , the attack upon orthodox doctrines is legitimate , and , in my opinion , victorious ; while I rejoice to believe that the evidences of the Gospel are untouched , its characteristic doctrines unimpeached , its hopes unclouded .
Let us only add an attestation from the pen of Byron , as preserved by his biographer , Moore , to the fact we are maintaining . If Lord Byron was an unbeliever in any other sense than an indifFerectist , orthodoxy had made him so . It gave him an early disgust for what people in general called religion . In a classified list of the books he had read , dated 1807 , there is this item : —
* Divinity ; Blair , Porteus , Tillotson , Hooker , —all very tiresome . I abhor books of religion , though I reverence and love my God , without the blasphemous notions of sectaries , or belief in their absurd and damnable heresies , mysteries , and Thirty-nine Articles / ' The Human Origin of Christianity' is a production which , according to the author ' s distinct avowal , dates its suggestion from his disbelief in orthodoxy , or rather in one of its doctrines .
He recoiled with horror from the Calvinistic tenet of eternal torments , and , therefore , could not believe Christianity to be a divine revelation , so set about showing how it may , in his opinion , have
Untitled Article
77 fc Orthodoxy and Unbelief *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 772, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/52/
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