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    off from these laborious and difficult enquiries , and to give up thy word and thy gospel as an unintelligible book , and betake myself to the light of nature and reason : but thou hast been pleased by thy divine power to scatter these temptations , &c . "

    It is clear from the whole of this most interesting composition that the writer ' s sentiments upon the matter in question , were far from beipg absolutely settled : his creed was not altogether fixed ; he had not , as is the case of some men , renounced enquiry and closed his

    understanding against evidence and conviction . We perceive that a regard to the * Supreme Majesty * ' of God is , as it were , his Polar Star , but that hitherto it is obscured in some little degree by the cloucfe of early error , and has not yet enabled him to discern and reach the haven of truth .

    The title of the Address , I conceive , Sir , does not imply that he yvrote nothing in the Trinitarian controversy after those tracts which he row reviews : and since

    he prefixed it to some pieces on that subject which it was not judged necessary to publish , it were too much to say , or even suppose , that , in his subsequent meditations and M . SS ., he made

    no further advances to Unitarian , ism , nor arrived at complete Unitarianism . It is beyond dispute that some of those M . SS . were * eeo by Lardner : and there is nothing in the nature or the a ?~ * Umed date of the Solemn Address

    which renders Lardner ' s testimony i& * probable—~ but the contrary . Weighing all the circumstances , I bold rt to be most likely thai * e have np where tc Dr . Wattes *<** £ b ^ ntiments in print } " and I Also gee much reason for believing

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    ( though , independently on the ex . press declaration so often quoted , I would not positively pronounce ) that those sentiments 4 * were completely Unitarian . "

    Suppose , Mr . Editor , a man of undoubted judgment , of parts , knowledge and integrity , to affirm that among the posthumous papers ( now destroyed ) of a friend . he had seen that friend's last and

    genuine wilL Imagine , moreover , a testamentary document , appa * rently of rather a prior date , to be discovered , which , when compared with certain memoranda shewn by the deceased , in his lifetime , to his family and associates ^

    makes it not unlikely that he would modify and limit his bequests in the way stated by the witness . To this testimony what could you oppose ? I mean , in fair and just reasoning : for I ant aware that in our courts of law *

    as in physics , the maxim , * ' De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio / ' must be . preserved inviolate . Granting the Competency of the witness , I takd the probability of his deposition being correct to admit of formal and scientific proof .

    Much therefore as I esteem Mr . Palmer , I cannot but be of opi <* nion that he has by no means considered the subject before hint with the attention which it requir- * ed «~ The name of Watts is so de «*

    servedly dear to serious men of all persuasions , and especially ta the btxly of Dissenters ; the supposed authority too of such a name is so convenient a , &helter for some theologians ; they can so easily retreat to its protection *

    * St ^ ap vw Axavflos crsiHsi TsKa [ Jt , wyi&buo + *• # . A . Hom « !*¦ viii , 2 O 7 , &c .

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    Strictures on p recent Publication of Mr . Palmer * s > No . II . 77 %

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1813, page 775, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2435/page/23/