On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
tton which * s the ^ only foundation of mir « nmottdFh 6 pes . » * But passing over these baby-controvcmeB , which , are obly fit for those who have need qfmitk 9 and who ore not cfcte to hear strong meat , I proceed to the main business of my epistle , which is to explain and apologize for an erroneous representation which I have been understood to have made of the
late Bishop Shipley ' s sentiments concerning the person of Christ in my ^ Letters to the Bishop of Lo ndon . I dkt indeed conceive , by what I had heard from my friends Mr . Lindsey and Dr . Priestley , that their friend the
Bishop of St . Asaph , had been an Unitarian like themselves . I misunderstood them , I am now informed , from very high authority , that Bishop Shipley was an Arian , similar in his p rinciples to his learned friends , Dr . trice and Sir William Jones . I
reeret to place the venerable prelate a degree lower in the scale of theological excellence than that to which I once believed him to be entitled . He i $ , indeed , still in very good company . But , -like David ' s worthies of the
second order , he does not reach thehigh pre-eminence of- lindsey , Lardner * Priestley and Law . I hope , however , that I nave now done theological justice to the memory of Bishop Shipley : and that those whose feelings were hurt at 'his being clashed with Unitarians * will accept of my public , and , I
* I wish , say ' s this charitable writer , p , 290 , " that he ( Mr . B . ) had not , in a note to p . \ 6 * & of his Review of Mr . Wilberforce , given us too good reason to apprehend that his private notions of Christianity are of a kind very faintly distinguished from Deism . " TUc passage alluded to in the Review of Mr , W . is as
follows : ** Their professed principles co >; i prehend the essence of the , Christian religion r But not admitting the resurrection ai : Ckrist the Theophiltuxttifupists deprive tVeinaclves- of the . only solid ' ground ou
which t *» build the hope of a future exists e ; if 8 e . ' * With tbi ^ passage before his eye $ and quoting tlifl former part of it , Mr . H « ber pre » uip 4 & , tp represent me as an unbeliever in the Christian revelation !
3 M * 4 affects t « ponder at my expostulation v ^ tli the Bishop of London for charging the UjDMtarians with being Deists in their ] i « ribrts l < : ^ n ; tl » at he thfe cause of truth and ttlonpuft ^ i 1 ; ieh re *(| iir « s such' gross and jigipf tbte limirefNceseiAUi ^ ians in its de-
Untitled Article
own , reluctant recantation . V&x I ckn assure them , thslt no personal disrespect was intended to that learned and liberal prelate by placing him in the highest rank of enlightened Christiah divines . The learned lecturer , not content
with advocating Bishop Shipley ' s on thodoxy , in confutation of my sup * posed erroneous statement , prompted fey his overflowinc zeal , travels a little out of his record and Tolunteers an
assertion which ,, if I am not mistaken , many of the prelate ' s friends will not deem to be either necessary or prudent : I will cite his own words , p . 121 : — , " Had Dr . Shipley ' s faith been inconsistent with that of the church to which he belonged , those who knew lx ^ s utte r disregard of wo rldly interest and his characteristic frankness of
character , knowthat he would not have retained his preferment a single hour /* This paragraph will excite a smile in many of the readers of Mr . Heber * elaborate performance , and b y many will be regarded as the eccentric flight of a juvenile imagination , more conversant with books than with the
World . This gentleman talks of a bishop ' s resignation of his . mitre as if it were an every-day exploit * I recollect , indeed , tnat Chrysostom states , that no man is worthy of the-office of a bishop , who is not prepared to
resign it whenever duty calls . But Ghrysostom wrote fourteen centuries ago , and both he and his doctrine are become completel y obsolete . A bishop resign his onice kmt conscience sake !! Mr . Heber , Sir , I am told , is a young
man . He is but entering the lists , as a candidate for ecclesiastical p referment . When he becomes- a bishop himself he will know better . Mr . Heber charges me , p . 289 ,
taxing nBLshop Horsley witVi insincerity , because I have said in my Review of Mr . Wilberforce , " I strongly suspect that the prelate of Rochester would smile at the honest simplicity
of the member for Yorkshire , in supposing that a sincere faith in creeds and homilies is at ajH necessary to the permanent prosperity of a national church / " I deny that the learned gentleman ' s inference can be fairly drawn frofrt the premises . Fair has not Popery stood for ages though popes and cardinals have been notoriously tuibeliev ef *? But to say th « tntfh , thouga 1 deairc to exercise that charity , in & *
Untitled Article
358 Mr . JSelaharns tieply to the Animadversions of the Rec * Reginald I&ler .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1816, page 258, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2452/page/6/
-