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he considers as terra Jirma , and dares to engage at closer quarters , and therefore from his pregnant quiver he proceeds to draw forth , one by one , his six fiery arrows ! Mercy defend the poor Unitarians .
and those who have even squinted at their doctrines ! Without a very seasonable supply of extinguishing ingredients , it is much to be feared this fiery spirit will drink up their vital lluid , and dry up the very marrow of their boneshow tantalizing to our hero must
be the calmness of these men how insufferable ! to behold eacJi of his six charges , with a single twist of their shields , thrown like a brutum Julmen to the ground ;
but as all men are not possessed of such philosophic coolness , if they will allow persons of more impetuous spirits to enter the lists , and under their banners to meet
this general adversary , we will take up these arrows , and endeavour to analyze the ingredients with which they are filled , and we will frankly acquit the Unitarian chiefs , if \ ye should ourselves cnaace to be wounded in making the assav .
The first opinion then which your correspondent attributes to the Unitarians is this ; * that the ; Scriptures are fully equal to complete instruction in religion , though not inspired . " Now mark , Mr . Editor , how this furious knight , in his attempt to overthrow this stctof Christians , and
to make room for his arguments , cuts andslcifches-thronglj thick and thin ; arid tramples under foot both written and unwritten
evidence . Memory ^ common souse- , the powers of common language , anj ^ l the treasure of . common honesty ., are the portion only of the
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wealthy , the learned , and the powerful ; and if a man of mo * derate understanding happened to tell a plain , unvarnished story , he must either have possessed ,
under a rough external , the slyly transmigrated soul of a Plato or a Socrates , or he must necessarily have been endo / ved with such a portion of divine inspiration , that his very interjections have become sacred . If men who had not been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel , saw an obvious mira - cle , it was , according to our good churchman , utterly impossible for them to have distinguished it from the mere hocus pocus of a conjurer , or to believe the evidence of their own senses , unless forsooth , they at the same time heard an audible voice saying to them , " here you may believe , for
this event is truly miraculous . They must have been such blunderers that , although they saw the dead rise , the larne walk , and the blind restored to sight , it was absolutely impossible for them twice to tell the same story ; and to suppose such idiots capable of repeating an energetic and striking
conversat ion , or of even giving its outlines , ( unless they were perpetually animated by a divine afflatus ) , would be to embrace the most monstrous of absurdities . Before however our champion launched
this arrow , it would have been liberal and kind if he had in * formed us what sort of evidence would have been satisfactory to
his mathematical mind , since that produced by Dr . Lardner and others , has been insufficient ; he would assuredly think us very
unjust , and would have an undoubt * . o < l riiiht to call us very unreasonable , if we should ' expect him to
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414 Castigator ' s Answer to i 7 ie Churchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1808, page 414, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2395/page/14/
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