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MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.
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To S . T . COLERIDGE , Esq . On his Attach upon the Unitarians contained in his Second Lay Sermon . LETTER II . < c Such tricks hath strong imagination . " Midsummer Night ' s Dream . Sir , Temple , May J , 1817-HAD your attack on Unitarianism been confined to the declamation which my first letter was intended to expose , I should scarcely have thought it required a reply . But you have condescended to make use of other weapons , which though unworthy of hands like yours , are mare dangerous than the fair and lawful arms of intellectual combat . You
have stooped to misrepresentations of our creed which are only to be met by a positive denial . At the same time , I do not believe you intended falsely to blacken us . Strange as it may seem , I have no doubt that you realty believe your own portrait of tTnitarianism to be faithful ; and yet I will venture to affirm that a more unjust representation of any sect has
jiever been made , since the good old times when holy men were attired previous to their martyrdom in dresses On which the figures of demons were fetched out and the flames of hell neriieted .
Venerable , however , as the art is , it will not now avail . ** It is the eye rf chiWhopd that fears a painted cRjvil . As , however , the picture is d ? £ wn professedly € C as an act of kindness to the unwary , " it will he right to shew , for the advantage of this
ljumerous class of your readers , how ttbiike it is to the original . For the tjjnefit of any other set of men the task would be undoubtedly superfluous . The , first " affirmative article * ' of faith which you impute to us is the jftoper onenesg and unimpersonality of God and the mere humanity of Christ . TTo this statement I have only to make
two objections . First , that many Unitarians believe both in the pree&islence and super human nature of Jesus ; and secondly , that though you have professed ; to bring together aTl tfce * affirmative articles of our faith /* ybu have actually omitted to state that we receive Christ as the Messiah to
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( 2 f 38 )
Miscellaneous Communications.
MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS .
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whom all the prophets bore witness— - as the author and finisher of oar faithas our spiritual and triumphant master—as the captain of our salvation , " made perfect through sufferings . " So that , in a catalogue of the doctrines we receive , drawn up expressly for the purpose of shewing their scantiness , you insert what we
hold in common with the Deist , and only omit all which gives us a right to the name of Christian . Nay , more , yourstate the opinions which part of us reject concerning Christ , and then , set them down as an ' affirmative article of our faith . " And afterwards
you triumphantly assert , " These-a reall the positives of the modern Socinian creed ]** You must , indeed , congratulate yourself that , on this occasion , you addressed ' tbe unwary . " But you make ample amends for
this omission in the second article . " They ( Unitarians ) believe men ' s actions necessitated , and consistently with this affirm that the Christian religion ( i . e . their view of it ) precludes all remorsejfor sins , they being a preseut calamity but not guilty Now , in the first place , it is utterly untrue that the doctrine of philosophical necessity , in any form , and the belief in Unitarianism are in their
nature united . It is false that , as a body , the believers in the latter connect them . The opinion that men ' s actions could not have been otherwise than they are , may be part of the creed of a Unitarian , but it is no part of a Unitarian creed . True , it has been maintained by Dr . Priestley and is held by Mr , Belsham ; but it has
also been powerfull y enforced by Kdwards , and is implied in the dogmas of Calvin . It is a doctrine peculiar to no sect ; but much more essential to the support of the orthodox than of the heretical creed . Frdm the opinions of those who entertain milder views of the Divine intentions towards
man , it naturally acquires a gentler colouring . But , in itself , it is a docv trine of philosophy and not of rei ligipn , much less of any particular sect of believers . Unitarian * might therefore as well be charged- fcvitlr all the theories of Or . Priestley on the subject of chemistry , or of all his
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1817, page 268, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2464/page/12/
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