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the text [ Acts xxviii . 15 , ] is taken ; and is next vindicated and urged in its application to great moral and religious objects : here the preacher successfully brings in the Unitarian Fund .
** Christian Unitarian isin depends , under God , for its advancement , on the association of its friends . It is natural , at first view , to wonder and lament that societies like yours had not an earlier existence in this
country . At the conclusion , for instance , of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century , the popular doctrine of the Trinity was rejected by men of no ordinary name for talents and Jearning , for piety and virtue and active usefulness .
These excellent persons aided , most assuredly , by their writings and their characters , the cause of Truth . But they were known only as individuals : they formed no distinct and united body : scarcely any of them separated from churches in which
worship is offered to moffe objects than the one God , the Father of our I ^ ord Jesus Christ ; nor did they publish their sentiments in the manner best calculated to gain the attention of the generality of men . It was the sincere opinion of most
of them that they might safely join in Trinitarian prayers the language of yhich admitted of some construction not altogether inconsistent with the unity of the Supreme Being , Upon this language therefore they put their own interpretation , doubtless not that of the bulk of their
fellow worshippers or of the framers of those services . Without usurping the-office of their judges , we may be allowed to express our concern at their regarding the practice as harmless and justifiable . If , in the character of Unitarians , they had
jointly remonstrated against popular error , they would , probably , have overcome , in the end , reproach and opposition , or at least rendered it an easier task for those who sueceeded them to comber with the fears of the timid , the iiHtofeticfe Of
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the lukewarm , the fury of th $ bi { gott ^ 'd , the calumnies of the inte ^ rested and the artifices of the worldly . " It must be owned that the timer in which they lived wars far from being equally auspicious with the present to the avowal and diffusion of Antitrinitarian opinion s * Party spirit , both religious and political , raged with uncommon violence :, the rights of Conscience , the duty and extent of Toleration , were ? not clearly understood . Cruel
enactments had recently been made by the legislature against persons who denied the Trinity ; enactments the repeal of which , since your last anniversary meeting , is the honour of this age and reign , and must afford
you , my brethren , particular satisfaction when you consider that it has been effected in part through the instrumentality of your society . * You will , in consequence , thank God , and take courage /* Pp . 27—39
The progress of Umtariafrtsm and the different modes in wfrich it has spread in North and in South Britain , is well described in the following paragraph' :
"In thifl division of Great Britain the benefits of education , even at the present day , are less equally enjoyed than among our Northern neighbours . Hence in England
accurate sentiment * , on topics of the £ highest imj > ort , u $ uaHy descend from ; persons whose advantages , habiti ; and professions have prepared th&a& \ for close research to those of theitf- *'
countrymen who are engfaggd in the business of civil life . In Scotland , ' on the contrary , where it i * difficult r to meet with an individual ignorant ^ of the art of reading , or an efltire ; * stranger to religious subjects , ilfe
process is somewhat diflfefenti Sfen" of plain sense and serious reflexion * ~" have ; Net the first example , airtong the inhabitants of that part : jof the « kingdom , not merely of renouncing N > generally received error * b ^ it o ^ ei » >' ?• Month ^ RcpdSi Vol viii . * t& ^ %
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570 Review . —Kentish ' s Sermon for the Unitarian fund .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1814, page 570, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2444/page/46/
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