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vestigation , yet deviated far from the right way c And found no end in wandering mazes lost / This notice which I have been led unintentionally to take of the labours of Mr . Whiter , diffuses a tender melancholy over
my mind ; for in turning from them 1 have often said to myself with an involuntary sigh , what a poor fallible thing , is the human understanding 1 Perhaps after all this anxious thinking and toilsome inquiry I shall only make a book to lie on the same shelf , or to be thrown to the same heap , with Etyruologicon Magnum . *'—P . 78 .
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Art . III . — A Unitarian Christian ' s Statement and Defence of his Principles with reference particularly to the Charges of the Rt , Rev . the Ld . Bp . of St . David ' s . A . Discourse , delivered at Langyndeirn , near Caixnarthen , on Thursday the 6 th of July , 1815 , at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Unitarian Christians in South Wales , and published at their request , with Notes . By John Prior Estlin , LL . D . 8 vo . pp . 88 . Hunter . 1815 .
BISHOP BURGESS is entitled to the thanks of the Unitarians for keeping alive the Trinitarian controversy . He means not , certainly , to confer any favour upon them , but he cannot write against them without making their principles known , which
is ail they ask . Even his gross misrepresentations and wretched personalities have in one view a good effect , for they lead honest , candid and intelligent minds to suspect very properly that the prelate is conscious ot the weakness of his cause , and is afraid to let it rest upon its own merits .
The good Bishop may see the impotence of episcopal fulminations by looking ardund his diocese . There Unitarian churches have been recentl y formed and they hold their associations under his lordship ' s eye . This sermon preached before one of these may shew Dr . Burgess that elevated as he is in his own church , he is esteemed by his Unitarian neighbours like any other writer , and that the mitre
cannot give weight to idle declamation or hide the meanness and malignity of slander . Not confining himself to the ordinary plan of a sermon , Dr . Estlin takes occasion from Acts xxiv . 14 , to state , defend and enforce the prin-
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ciples of Umtanans , and to vindicate e himself and his brethren from tW charges of their opponents , and panUU cularly Bishop burgess . The dis ^ course is marked by so much soundd sense , so much becoming solemnity * and such correct Scriptural know !!
ledge , and contains so many passages s of great beauty , that we cannot butt wish it were in the hands of all those * readers that have been taught by the-Bishop of St . David ' s and a few like- , minded writers , that Unitarians are " not entitled to the privileges of Christians , the courtesy of scholars or the * rights of men . " In the name of justice , of humanity and of Christianity , what is that great
superiority of intellectual and moral worth , which he who has received the Trinitarian system , or who professes to have" received it , enjoys over the person whose understanding can only admit the Unitarian system ; that wealth and
honours , and all the advantages of this life , should be open to the one , and that the other should not only be subject to the most degrading privations , but " be every where spoken against ; " and to crown all , that one should be admitted into the
regions of everlasting happiness , and the other be exposed to the curse of God for ever ? " O Lord ! how long !* V-P . 41 . Dr . Estlin speaks thus " comfortably" to the Unitarians on the subject of fashion , the whole current of which he admits is now against them :
Ci This last circumstance we know is of a temporary nature ; and although ve consider it as the circumstance which operates most powerfully against us , yet we feel a full confidence from the general circulation of the Bible and the increasing
light and liberality which that occasions , that its operation will soon cease . Nothing is . more changeable than fashion . If eveI the ideas of superiority of intellect should be associated with the religious tenets ot » Newton and a Locke—of coarseness , inconsistency and even nonsense with sontf modern systems which have attracted tje notice of the gaping crowd—of sublimity of conception , correctness of taste an propriety of feeling with unadulterated , Christianity ; if ever this period sbooM arrive—surely it cannot be very * * A the thousands who now only think * ' I us , will speak and act with us ; and tno whose minds are composed of li . * ?\ ut A soft a lasting mark to bear , " wl" I exhibit the visible impiession of Unjta ^ JI ism * Io the mean tu&e , all that we
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544 Review . — Estlin s Discourse in Defence of Unitarianism
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1816, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2456/page/44/
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