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On Coleridge * s Attack on the Unitarians cotiiubted in his Second Lay Sermon . 2 f 3
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attack yon favour as with an ingenious piece of verbal criticism ori the term Utiitarian as used by the sect you are opposing . "This is a word , * ' you observe , C € which in ft . s proper sense can belong only to thetr antagonists : for unity or uriition and
indistinguished unitii or oneness are : incompatible terms j while in " the exclusive sense in which they meau the term to he understood , it is a presumptuous boast , and an uncharitable calumny . " * I have no
objection to admit that , recarrmg to the original meaning of terms , unit y inipHes rather the perfect combination of two or more substances than the oneness of an individual" quality , And , in this sense , the term might be used by the believers in the existence of three persons in the Divine nature in opposition to those who
maintained an absolute plurality of Deities . But it could have no meaning' as opposed to the faith of those who assert the perfect oneness . of . Jehovah . It may'imply the combination of several things in opposition to their existence in a state of separation from each other ; but it presents .-no antithesis <> f sense to the idea of
an ori g inal and unminglfcd essence . At the present day the term Unitarian is perfectly understood to describe , a believer in one Cod in one person » and that of Trinitarian to designate one who -maintains that there are three persons in- the Divine Unity , _' , In this view , the assumption of the
term , though not eiymologically correct , is neither " a presumptuous coast " nor " an uncharitable calumny . " * Your objection Ps evidently a mere cavil or * a word . For it is impossible you can imarine that those who call thefnsclves by the name , have assumed it in the sense that you say it properly
bears—since that would be to claim a belief in all which they most strenuously deny—and assert in ther ? * very name , the great principle which they regard as the foundation of re- , ligious error . The term
Ami-Trinitarian might , indeed , be less i " nvi- \ dious ; but that which you suggest of 1 Psiltrntrophists would be utterly ? ui— . proper . For if it was understood' % o assert the mere humanity of Chrjjft * , it would exclude all those who wliije _ they reverence the Father afoiie a § . 1
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Ta S . T . COLERIDGE , Esq . On the Attack on the Unitarians con * tdined in his Second Lay Sermon . LETTER I . " ThoH com ' st in such a questionable shape ^ Fh at I wi ^ speak to thce . " Hamlet . Sir , Temple , April 3 , 1817-' TT ^ HE Unitarians are happv that JL you have , at length , aftbrded
thefiri an opportunity of meeting you on even ground . The nature of the attack with which you honoured them in ** the Statesman ' s Manual " precluded all intelligible reply . They felt that it was impossible to fight with sufi beams or to contend ' against a cloud . But you have now thought fit-to idy aside some part of the mystery with which your former charges' wefe surrounded , and to
brirj jf forward something like a defii ) ire Accusation against them . They thitik , at least j they can discern armdst the profusion of your imagery , the gftwJnoVon Vvhich you found your repmtsiifon- —grounds wliich" they are most artrttoufc to exartiine . At fhb cDrn-menoemerit of your
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st ? etf < rthetfetf by , trie loss of Jirhbs , all pfdvrfe ^ iht- boiii pFete ^ clistirictiori betv ^ reeri body and" ftimU . ' it this vital prftteipte can lay dormai ) t for years , . and ' as"ill' blighted- ' corn perhaps for age § without injury '; if it is but a
point which exerts its energy from its centre of actiori through die whole frame ; if it is , as it may easily be proved to be always , by the cerebf-aF arid sympathetic nerves , at war with destruction , and by its energy through our temporal existence
preserving the organized matter it is clothed with from that destruction to which all inert matter tends ; if in , addition to this it is seen annually to forsake the last year ' s bark that it may inhabit the new formed bark , and the same in the new formed bud ;
and if we find it equally active in the animal creation ; have we not a right by deductions from nature , ta conclude that the point called life , the only seat of personal identity , is capable of existing and animating a new form after the death and dissolution of the body ?
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1817, page 213, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2463/page/21/
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