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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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pretend to know nothing of matter but its properties ; but whenever your correspondent shall condescend to explain to me its essence , should I find it to prove that materialists are irrational Christians ,
I will make a speedy concession ; but as I suspect he will not do this very soon , and as I am growing rather old , I shall not again most probably Mr . Editor , have to trouble you by occupying your valuable pages on this subject .
Whatever have been the motives with your correspondent for this attack , he has certainly displayed considerable talents and an acute mind , though apparently so tinctured -with scepticism , as must 1 fear in those moments of retirement that ought to be the happiest oE his life , rob him of its best consolations . i would therefore seriously advise him to re- consider the evidence for the truth
of Christianity , as I conclude he neither from education or abilities wants the means ; and if any thing in the train of evi-
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derce I have so briefly stated above , should strike his mind , and lead him by a fresh examination to a conviction of the trLith of Christianity , so strongly am I persuaded that it will tend to the promotion of his happiness and best ir terests , that to know it would afford me sincere
pleasure . 1 would once more appeal to him as a man of calculation , ( for such I think lie must be ) and request him to consider that should Christianity even prove a fiction and the doctrine of Necessity be unfounded , the Necessarian Christian has learnt the ait of extracting the sting , or lessening the pressure of all the
calamities of hie , and smpothing his passage through it , and when that solemn hour shall arrive to which they are both hastening , he is upon a footing with the unbeliever ; but if Christianity be true , to him it is of vital consequence . I am , &c . AN UNITARIAN .
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that much of religious speculation may be true , which appears not consistent with human reasoning . " But what other reasoning can be exercised by human beings ? Or how are we to distinguish between what only appears to be
inconsistent with reason , and what is so in reality ? Or what other means have we of distinguishing truth from falsehood , than the proper exercise of our reasoning faculties ? Or why should we apprehend that we are under an- eternal nece / sity of being deluded in points of
the highest importance to our welfare , whatever pains we may take to investigate the object ? However , I readily admit that it is but fair , to examine distinctly the claim of rationality , advanced by Unitarians ; and this shall be my object as well as a " A Churchman ' s . "
But it is sufficiently obvious that no system of theology , however , consistent in it > elf , can justly be considered as rationale if its evidence be defective . ** A Churchman" therefore directs his . principal" force against this main oulwark both of Unitarianism and of orthodoxy * He Jio \ veyer , does not state the objec *
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MR . ALLCHIN ^ S ANSWER , TO THE CHURCHMAN ' S REPLY .
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To the Editor of the Monthly Repository .
SIR , Maidstonc , iVW . 15 , 1808 . With respect to the question between " a Churchman" and myself , relative to the reasonableness of Unitarianism ,
as it appears to me of the greatest imaginable importance , I am happy to find that he has replied to my remarks on his first letter . 1 thank him for his politeness , but as it is my wish to come to a speedy issue , to that point only my attention shall be directed .
The importance of the controversy between us is evident to me , from this consideration , that no other denomination of Christians make any pretensions to rationality . I do not mean that they will not defend their sentiments by reason , but they refuse to submit them to its sciutiny abstracted from their
evidence . It seems therefore a perfectly legitimate inference , that if Unitarian ' ism be not rational * every individual mode under which Christianity has hitherto been professed is truly absurd , and I can by j \ o means admit that what is evidently absurd can posaibly be true . Your correspondent however professes to , l ^ e of a different opinion * Jie " thinks
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• JMr . Allchins Ansicer to the Churchman ? s Reply . 663
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1808, page 663, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2399/page/27/
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