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34 "O Mr . Bekhaw ' n T \ eply to u A Churchma ?? . " -
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judging and making up the mind upon a subject before it has been sufficiently examined . If there - fore the system of modern Asians be erroneous , which 1 think it is , they must , in my estimation , be chargearb 4 e with prejudice . Of criminal prejudice I am far from eitheraccusin ^ or suspecting them .
And I am yet to learn that the imputation of prejudice to human fallibility is a crime deserving of animadversion . Who that has ever thought at all , has not felt the power of the prejudices of education ? Daily am I thankful to the Father of lights and to those angels of his providence * by whom the iron chain of early prejudice was burst asunder , and the doors of the dungeon were set open , by whom I was brought out of darkness into light , out of bondage into liberty , - and out of misery into happiness : and by whom I Avas taught to regard my Maker
not as an inexorable tyrant , but as an indulgent Father , and my existence not as a curse , but as an inestimable blessing . Many pivjibices no doubt still remain , and so far from quarrelling with any who remind me of these prejudices and rouse m }> attention 10 them , I shall ever regard those as my best ar . d kindest friends , by whom one error is corrected , or one truth imparted , or set in a more Impressive , and
advantageous light . I have only . to remark that your correspondent has given to the system , which he espouses the new title of modern Ariani ^ m . This I confess surprises me . 'Vive advocates for the proper humanity of Christ , though sometimes branded by their adversaries as a modern sect , indignantly reject
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the charge , and demonstrate , hy incontrovertible evidence , that their doctrine is coeval with Christianity itself . If antiquity be the mark of a true church , that mark is theirs . But that a person holding a particular sys-. tern , should himself speak ot it as a modern hypothesis , and
desire to distinguish it by that par , ticular epithet is what I should not have expected . To me it bus the appearance of a felo de , sc ; and at any rate , it Too plainly marks the close affinity of ihe doctrine so designated to the spurious brood of that mother of abominations , who bears , her title and her condemnation upon , her brow . I am Sir , Your humble Servant , T . BELSIiAM .
P . S . Permit me , sir , by way of Postscript , to make a few observations upon a singular paper in your last Repository , signed "A Churchman . " This gentleman has taken much disinterested find edifying pains to prove that " Unitarians arc not rational Christians , " and lor this purpose he has generously ascribed to them a multitude of tenets , which have as much connexion with Unitarianism as they have with the Georgium Sidus , or the Milky Way .
I would b < g leave to inform your correspondent that the only common principles of the Unitarians are these : that Jesus o ( Nazareth , a man in all respects like to his brethren , who neither . possessed nor claimed the attributes of Deity , was a prophet of God , commissioned bv him to be u teacher of truth and rig hteous * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1808, page 240, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2392/page/12/
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