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
On Coleridge ' s Attack on the Unitarians contained tit his Second Ley Sermon . & ?\ ***
Untitled Article
have maintained ; but they have ever asserted the contrary to those which vou impute to them . Of course , the long chain of consequences you have buik on these false assertions cannot n . ow demand our scrutiny . Here you close your " catalogue , "
bat not your censures . You attack the Unitarian scheme , still confounding it with those of materialism and necessity , on the ground that it degrades the nature of map . You assert that •* if man be no nobler creature essentially than he is represented in their
system , the meanest reptile that maps out its path on the earth by lines of slime , must be of equal worth and respectability , not only in the sight of the Holy Otae , but by a strange contradiction even before man ' s own reason / 1 In order to support this
astonishing proposition , you first take for granted that without free-will , in a stense fipposed to necessity , there is r * o ground for love and esteem ; next you assume ; that man ' s intellect independently of the will is more than counterbalanced by his vices j next sneak | 4 of intellect as a more shewv
instinct ; and then conclude that 4 < compared with the wiles and factories ^ bi the spider , or with the cunning of the fox , it would be but a . mere efflorescent , and , for that very cause ,, a less efficient salt to preserve the hog from putrifying before its destined hour . " Now , Sir , supposing this lamentable conclusion true ;
adjnitting your picture of man as faithful ; -taking him to be less distinguished from the beasts by intellect than by vice ; does allowing him freewill , or a two-fold nature , turn the balanee in his favour ? On your own principles , it only renders him id ore
criminal , without making him more exalted . You assume , as a point of fact , that man , in action , is lower than the beasts that perish ; and then you ask , unless he is distinguished by will , how is he above them ? Whar , Sir ! is it then an alleviation of his
wretchedness that it is all of his own voluntary choice ? Is he less degraded because he ha 3 been liis own degrader ? And what consolation do you offer him by asserting that he is •? essttitiall y" above the brutes , if you , at the same tuire , argue that he is pkacticaUy below them ? " No , Sir , tht teal nobleness of itoan
Untitled Article
consists not in speculation but irt fact . It depends on 11 *) metaphysical system . It is proVed b y his actual and present greatness , by his glorious energies , his never-dying loves , his generous
virtues , his universal conscience ^ his unbounded powers , and his high desires and Teachings forth of spirit far beyond the limits of earth or of time . However this grand piece of Divine workmanship is constituted , or rather by whatever names it 3 frame is
distinguished , whether it is termed matter , or spirit , or a combination of both , its actual and inherent grandeur remains the same . There is breathed into it the breath of God . The image of the Divinity is stamped on it . JCsill it * bv what appellation you please , it is stilf the most glorious of God ' s visible works , the fit subject for the admiration of angels . After your deepest
researches , you must deduce the su * . periority of man to the brutes from that which he Is , independently of ail systems and theories . H « re ho is with dominion over earth and afc fmity with heaven — holding communion with all ages and with all worlds—joyous in life— " splendid in 1
ashes and pompous in the grave . ** if you do not know and feel this , whatever may be your theories of freewill , it is we who would elevate " and you who would degrade our specie ' s . I gladly pass over all the rest of yoatf incoherent declamation agairtst us . While others accuse us of giving undue honour to the understanding , you
speak of us as rendering it too little . You declaim against us as if we appealed not at all to the reason but entirely to the affections . * f You accuse us ttf *• plucking away live ~ asundrr as it were , from the divine organism of the Kible textuary morsels and fragments , *' and yourself actually apply ttv us soine dreadful prophecies in Isaiah I lY > these charges reply is needless . AiUl
as . to the accusation of paying Christianity * ' no other compliment than that of calling by its name the previous dictates and decisions of our own mother wit / ' we are too accustomed to such unsupported assertions from the lowest order of Calvinistic Lay-preachers , to regard them anv ¦
* " —<—• ' — —» * Jsjir Tbomns Browne on ° Urne B « kri * l / f Sec pp . 60 , 61 .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1817, page 271, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2464/page/15/
-