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Untitled Article
with the grossest misrepresentation ; calumny , and abuse . I most heartily concur with the
Plain Dealer in acknowledging the services of the British Critic , in 50 carefully collating the two editions , and presenting a list of controverted doctrines , to those
who seldom venture to inquire . By such early attention , indeed , he has contributed much to diffuse the merits of the revision : one impression of it has already teen dispersed ; and , if this discussion should continue , I have no doubt a second more hand .
somely and more correctly printed will also speedily be sold . But by this revision , according to your correspondent , the very essence of Christianity is done
away ; tlie great articles of our faith concealed ; and the very vitaUofour religion cut out : " as if so much had really depended on the intercession * the atone *
menff the eternity of hell torments and the devil . To me , Sir , the divine mission , the death ^ and the resurrection of Christ , the moral obligations of the gospel , and the promise of a future life , appear the real . essence of
Christianity . In these every denomination of believers coincide . They present the most cogent motives to human action , as far as religion is concerned ; and may justly be Regarded as the very vitals of our religion , and the great articles of mr faith .
In conformity to these purely scriptural views of Christianity , Mr .- Melmoth ' s work has been revised ; and thereby adapted to the use of all , who , entertaining rational notions of the divine wisdom and benevolence , rise supe * . nor to the prejudice * of tirtre-
Untitled Article
fleeting minds * How then can your correspondent have the effrontery to hold out such a revim sion , as u stripping Christianity
of almost all her faith , and her morality of its most cogent motives . ' * The Unitarians , Sir , whom he so idly and ignorantly assails , maintain every essential doctrine of the Christian scheme . " More
copious articles of faith are undoubtedly professed and believed by good and excellent men of other religious persuasions > but men are not necessarily good and excellent because of their lengthened creed / 1 *
It is by no means necessary for Unitarians to look forward to some future interpolation in the works of Dr . Priestley , for a reasonable ground of complaint . They have
long lamented the errors and corruptions of prevailing creeds ; wherein the simplicity of the gospel is degraded by mere hupaan devices , and the accumulated
fictions of the Gentile schools . But they presume not to arraign the motives and conduct of those , with whom they differ most essentially in points of faith ; or even to assert the superior rectitude
and propriety of their own . However firmly convinced of the truth and importance of their own conclusions , in the genuine spirit of the gospel , they look upon man as responsible to God alone , for the errors or delusions of his creed :
and , without presuming to condemn their neighbour for mistaken tenets , expect in the consummation of all things , the final happiness of all mankind , DETECTOR .
- 4 * See Memoirs of Thomas Biaad * Hollis , p . 26 .
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McbnotJps UnpSrtance of a -Riligidus Life . Mg
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1814, page 469, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2443/page/21/
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