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religious cant of every description is condemned . " Cant , " says an ingenious writer in ihe Athena&um , u is trie chant or cry adopted by parties , sects or professions , repeated from habit or imitation . "
u On this head , " he adds , no sect has a right to reproach ant other . " So long , however , as the Monthly Repository and fcimjlar publications , persist in heaping the
odium of " religious cant" upon the orthodox , and upon these exclusively , it may not be unfair to retort the charge upon themselves , and shew them " cant for cant "
from their own pages . 1 confess I have alv \« ays considered the assumption of the title " Unitarian" itself , obtrusively as it is insisted on by the party who have adopted it , as savouring not a little of the spirit imputed to tlreir adversaries ^ You have never
yet proved your sole claim to this nominal distinction , or evinced th ^ at it applies more ^ . properly to yotrrselves , than to such as , though they maintain a modal plurality in the Divine Essence , yet are as
strenuous as any for the Unity of Jehovah , as " the only living and true God . " It may be a very convenient denomination For
yourselves , ' to avoid the stigina attach * erf to the old term Socinian ; but it is certainly calculated to give a false idea of your system as opposed to that of the orthodox .
Who c&n look into the Monthly Repository without perceiving that its ^ fcorrespondents consider therti - serVes and their partisans as possessing all the intelligence , all the
liberality , all the unbiassed freedom of thought fcnowju in the Christian Church . Yes , they are the ' impartial inquirers , " the " ftzends of truth " the rational Cftristtiaiisf' ** ine unprefudiced
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4 fO Cant for Cant ^ or Unitarians not Immaculate *
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and enlightened few f all besides but especially poor Trinitarians and Calvinists , are the mere slaves of superstition , prejudice and priestcraft . Our Owens and our Howes , our Docldridges and our
Edwardses , our Fullers and Mac , gees with all their contemporar ies and disciples , have never got be * yond "the trammel ? of the cate . chism , ' ' or the legends of " the nurse . " What insufferable arro .
'gance ! what disgusting cant is this ! Surely it might , for the sake of consistency , be expected that men who profess so great a horror of every thing like presumption and conceit in their opponents , should be a little more modest ia
their own language and pretensions . To read ( , soi disant ) Uoi tarian writers , one would really suppose that till Priestley , Lind < sey , Belsham , and one or two other sons of modern illumination
arose , the whole Christian world , since as well as before the Reformation , had . been immerged in Stygian dkrkness , or that a very few faithful witnesses in the age of
puritanism and non-conformity , rari nantes in gurgite vasto , bad been the sole depositaries of " rational religion , " of 44 uncorrvft Christianity . "
Again , the Unitarian writers and preachers would perpetually persuade the people that the only security of the orthodox system lies in silence and concealment ?
that its abettors dread nothing so much as argument and an appeal to the scriptures ; in fact , that nothing is wanting tp comp lete its overthrow in every candid .. ana inquisitive mind , but discussion , liberal discussion ! Can any words be foui } i | too strong to-reprobate this unwarrantable and unjust assumption , this Wp * i Me determ-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1811, page 470, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2419/page/22/
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