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    jfetit-maitres" \ vho shrink with disgust from madness or " any thing like madness" in religious controversy ; so ignorant indeed as never to have heard what Christian madness is - , so confined in my reading as nevef to

    have met with any mention pf it in the writings of Shakespear , Bacon , Taylor , or Barrow , to say nothing of the New Testament , which , however , I do recollect , says something of Christian meekness ; and lastly , so mean-spirited as to rejoice that I live

    in an age , " finical and dwarfish , " though it be , in which candour and courtesy are not universally deemed inconsistent with honesty and zeal ; in which the odium theologicum is beginning to subside , in which the philosopher is no longer known by his tub , nor the Christian

    controversialist by his coarseness * But to come to the point , whatever may be thought of the argument of Mr . G . ' s sermon ( which though clear and simple does not I confess strike me as peculiarl ' y ingenious or novel ) , of the manner and spirit of it I think there can be

    but one opinion amongst sober and serious Christians , —an opinion decidedly unfavourable . Where , I would ask the author , is the wisdom or the decency of those affected exclamations of disgust and repugnance to his

    Subject , with which his discourse is £ o copiously interlarded , such as these : ** I feel at every step as if condemned to a degrading task . —I feel as if brought upon the stage to fight with wild beasts or to contend with

    madmen . "—* ' I am weary of such solemn trifling . "— " It is a most irksome task toliandle subjects to which one can neither apply argument nor ridicule , " &c . Such exclamations if affected are disgusting , and if serious , are ridiculous . He who undertakes a

    task voluntarily ( and a man need not print against his will , even thouyh he should be asked ) has no right to torment you with complaints of its irksomeness . He who voluntarily descends from his elevation , whether real or fancied , has no right to

    complain of being degraded . If Mr * Gilchrist really deemed his subject of serious importance he should have treated it with serious * earnestness , if he did not deem it important , he was not Obliged to treat it at all . An intolerant and contemptuous spirit seems to me to pervade almost the whole

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    composition , —a spirit which I do not hesitate to say , ( even at the risk of being « ' trampled in the dust for a dwarfish tyrant" ) is unbecoming a Christian minister . Suqh fiery discourses seem to me likely to answer

    no one good end , neither of pleasure nor improvement , conciliation nor conviction . They may feed the vanity and illiberality of the red hot convert who is already too much disposed to merge his Christianity , I mean his charity , in his

    Unitarianism , —but they will grieve the serious and Catholic Unitarian whose comprehension of mind is not narrowed by party spirit , —and they will excite the determined hostility and aversion of the adversary when it ought to be the object first to conciliate , and

    then to convict . " Though speaking honourable things of God , " says Bishop Taylor , an author in Mr . G . ' s admiration of whom I warmly agree , " be an employment that does honour to our tongues and voices j yet we must tune and compose even those

    notes so , as may best profit our neighbour . " It should not be forgotten that the same spirit of uncharitableness , which we condemn in the anathema of the Calvinist , may exist in no less lively vigour , in the contemptuous sneer of the Unitarian . Coarse

    language and oppfobious terms are a disgrace to any cause , and no real friend of Umtarianism will , I hope , be ashamed or afraid to avow that " bis ears are shocked by them . " In conclusion , Mr . Editor , I shall make an extract from Mr . Gilchrist's

    sermon , which might have served , I think , both for a favourable specimen , and for a review , and the candour of which ought perhaps to mitigate the severity of censure . " If any illiberal remark , if any unseemly expression escape from us , place it to the account of human imperfection , —place it to the account of the individual

    addressing you ; on him be all the blame : let it not be charged to his opinions , nor to other men who profess them . A good cause may come into the * hands of injudicious advo- - cates : and if one man should give

    offence by his manner of treating ^ subject , you ought not on that account to be offended with the subject itself , nor with a whole class of Christians / ' What a pity that the excellent feeling displayed in this , and tb «

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    Animadversions on Mr . Gilchrist ' s Sermon . if

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    voju xi . j »

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1816, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2448/page/17/