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Untitled Article
quire you to abandon it wherever religion is concerned . When once they have gained this point with you , they can lead you whither they please , and impose upon you every absurdity which it is expedient for them that , you should embrace , '' Priestley's Address to the Professors of " Christianity , p . 2 . 3 . " - ——Believed the doctrine of the trinity without
understanding it , which , in fact , is no belief at all . " Priestley ' s Hist . of Early Opin . v . iii . p . 232 . See excellent remarks on this subject in Letters to Wilberibrcc , by A Layman . Let . i . p . 28—37 . I believe , Sir , that it is a notion generally entertained by the Rational Dissenters , and I may add , by all consistent rational
men , that no proposition can he possibly believed , except all the terms of it be understood ; that propositions which assert things incompatible with one another , arc not mysteries , but palpable contradictions and absurdities ; and that if in the bible itself , such contradictions were to be found , the pretensions of that part to a divine origin , would , ipso facto , be unavailablebecause there cannot , in the nature of things , be a stronger evidence for it , than there is against it , viz . its dissonance with the only principle in man which can reason and judge .
1 ksk Cler . jJunelm , or any other person , How is the volume of inspiration proved to be entitled to credit ? If not by the sanction of reason , human reason , ( for alas ! we have no other ) , let them inform us by what other evidence . But if
reason be the only criterion or its truth , are we- not necessarily obliged to renounce the belief of its infallibility whenever it contradicts the dictates of that reason ? except indeed our reason be of such a nature as to fye capable of proving the same things to be at the same time both true and false . Admit to Ciev . Dunelmy- \ hit inspiration of the scriptures , and set aside the rules of criticism , and he is ready to meet you ; and
equally so is the most ignorant enthusiast that disgraces Christianity . I now hope , Sir , that the observations I have made , have quite expelled the sarcasm of the Doctor ' s awkward irony ; that the same analogy of language , which designates the worship of one God by the term Unitarian , will signify the worship oi three Gods by the term Trinitarian ; and that to the title of Rational Dissenters and Christians we have a just claim , and might , it
pride were allowable , be proud of the distinction . As to our onodesty , I am afraid we are deficient in that virtue for lack of good example . But I hope we shall never follow another example , exhibited on every side , an example of spleen , malignity , prejudice and unappeasable rancour , vented in every possible
Untitled Article
574 Remarks on the Appellation of" Rational Dissenters . "
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 574, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/10/
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