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S * r , Jan . 2 , 181 7-THOUGH it is perhaps seldom worth while to employ many words in asserting or disclaiming a name , there is one appellative which has been coupled with the name of Christians , that I should be sorry to
see grow into frequent use : —I allude to the term Philosophical Christians . If by it nothing more is meant than to describe that part of the Christian world which has received the Christian
revelation , not from deference to authority , or in compliance with custom , but as a conviction of the judgment , the result of inquiry carried on with philosophical circumspection , the name an do neither good nor harm . I ^ et the unbeliever shew if he can that he
is a better philosopher in rejecting Christianity , than the believer is in receiving it . But if by the term be intended to describe a body of Christians , contradistinguished from all their fcrethren , by entertaining views of Ohristtan doctrine more consonant
with philosophy than those of . other Christians , it is a name of bad omen , and one which those who hold the gospel in its simplest form , should least of all men choose for themselves . Christianity has not fared so well iti the hands of philosophers ^ that any of its professors should arlect the
appellation of philosophical Christians . The "interested craft of priests has scarcely < itme greater disservice to the Christian cause , than the temerity and subtlety of philosophical expounders of the faith . ! xhe ftrst great corruption 6 f the religion © fc Christ was effected by men who
were disciples of Plato , and ventured tQt form an unhallowed combination of the dreams of their master of philosophy , with the doctrine of . the great teacher of religion sent from God . for many centarfes the philosophy of . Aristotle was received in the schools
with implicit faith , and it was necessary to interpret the Christian Scriptures , when they were interpreted at all , in consistency with the precepts of that philosophy . From the sera of the reformation to the present day it has
Jaeen'but too plain , that the two great < Uviaidns of the Protestant Church nave « ach its p hilosophical hypothesis , with whiclv . their system of theology must be made to accord . The followers of Calvin iand A rminius have shaped thyeir religious cfced respectively in conformity
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with their notions of the nature of tire human will , and the laws which they have assigned to the human mind . Both have their philosophy of * the mind , and their religious views differ as their philosophy differs . v ^ It is honourable to the creed af
the Unitarian , and presumptive of its truth , that it is distinguished from the more popular forms of * faith , by indifference to every hypothesis of the powers and laws of the human mind . It asks no aid , it professes no alliance
with any metaphysical speculation . The facts upon which it is built remain the same , the great events to which it points are equally the objects of hope or fear , whether the soul oi man be material or immaterial , whethe will determine itself or be
determined bv causes out of itself , whether the moral nature of man result from his intellectual nature alone , or depend upon a distinct faculty , a moral sense . All that he believes as a Christian is well-attested historical
fact ; all that he as a Christian expects beyond the grave he expects solely on the ground of well attested facts . His faith has no necessary connection with any hypothesis of the human mind , which men have laboured either to establish or to
explode ; it can exist either with them or without them : it requires only that man possess a moral nature , and be a fit subject of a moral government *; and that he is such a creature is matter of daily experience , a fact which demands no confirmation , and which fears no diminution ^ of proof from any
philosophical hypothesis whatsoever . It has , however , happened that many believe , and more aflfect to believe , that there is an intimate , and almost necessary connection between the Unitarian faith and certain
metaphysical doctrines , those particularly of materialism and philosophical necessity . This will riot appear isrui ? - prising when it is recollected , that these words have always carried ^ dread and odium with them \ and that Dr . Priestley ,- who pursued fearlessly ,
wherever he thought the traces < of truth were visible , was led by his inquiries to embrace the unpopular sid * in metaphysics , as well as in theology . It js also true , that many of ibis theological followers , more probably than of . any other class of Christians , hav «
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On the Term Philosophical Christians . * 36
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1817, page 35, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2460/page/35/
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