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hold " the institutions of their foretattlers in great veneration" from such trivial and abstract reasons . Why '' does he hot , like a good Christian , overlook such doubtful and merely
speculative differences , and join with one class in beseeching God by his * '• holy nativity : md circumcision , " his " agony and bloody sweat , " his * ' precious death and burial ;" . or with others who sing of him , the rich drops of whose blood calmed the Father ' s
frowning face , " This infant is the mighty God Come to be suckled and ador'd !" or with the thousands who devoutly vociferate , " The Unitarian fiend expel , And send his doctrines back to hell- "
Indeed there are some who are too candid ' to be kept from the worship of believers in our cortimon Christianity , by these petty diversities ; but their reasons always appeared to me more weighty in the commercial than in the theological scale .
As your Co-respondent ' s residence rfotfld appear to be in London , I may perhaps be able to inform him better about ihe provincial sociStSs ambulahtes , which I do the more readily as he catfnot have learned much from his Old Unitarian friends in the
country , they being generally kept away , by unforeseen accidents , from such meetings . Sotnetimes they are appointed for the same day as the Bishop ' s dinner party , which it would be illiberal not to attend , or they are held at the very moment that the sacramerrt is administered at church
as a qualification for office , or just When it is indispensably necessary to Visit a neighbouring town , where the meeting was held the preceding year , jufcf tvhen it was indispensably necessary to remain at home . These unfoftuiiare coincidences have prevented your Correspondent ' s obtaining such accurate information of this as of our
otheY faults and follies . The . object of these sbciejties is the distribution of books , controversial and moral . The formeV written by Priestley , Lindsey , JLa ^ fr , Hartfey , Cogan , Etefshdrti ; and other zealot ^ : th £ latter by Lardirer , Mas ~ 6 n , Wellbeloved ,
Mrs . BfertMuid ; Mrs . H . More , Mri . Hdgli ^; arid othe * advdc ' ati ^ far licehtiott&Jtess artd ' thfe cfctti o * of the German
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drama , as your Correspondent may see ^ by reference to their catalogues . To proselyte by preaching is no part of their plan . In varying the place of
their annual meeting , and accompanying , it by a sermon and a dinner , they have only followed the innocent and useful practice of those from whom the Old Unitarian differs ou
merely speculative points . Such meetings have answered their design of being frequently useful to the cougregations visited . Interesting cases of distress have been made known and relieved : measures have been
adopted favourable to the comfort and prosperity of different congregations : the publication of useful works has been facilitated : and to many the intercourse thus occasioned with the ministers and members of other
societies has been both pleasant and beneficial . Poor societies have been cheered by the countenance of their wealthier brethren ; and the solitary professor of Unitarianism been
animated by becoming acquainted with numbers of similar faith and dispositions . I am sorry that to the Old Unitarian the expense of this apparatus is " much more obvious than
the utility j" his diminished estimate of the latter arises perhaps from the 1 infirmity' lamented at the commencement of his letter ; and the habits of some of his brethen make it not very uncharitable to surmise that their extravagant idea of the expense may be accounted for by his remark that " an attention almost exclusive ^
to any particular object—necessarily enlarges its dimensions , enhances its importance , brings it forward into the strongest light , and throws every thing else into the shade . " Worthless as our peculiar opinions are represented , it is nevertheless ad ^ mitted to be desirable that they
should be propagated ; and this it seems would be done by the " moderation and caution * ' of the Old Unitarians , were they not obstructed by the " intemperate zeal" of the New . And what have these moderate O&en done , that they axe eniitled to sneer
and hint away the multiplied proofs which recent institutions and efforts have given of their efficacy ? Let them take the range of fifty years , ' a # d what have they to throw into tH £ tmlance against a single report rf
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Mr . Fox in Tteply to An Old Unitarian . 337
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vol . xii . 2 x
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1817, page 337, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2465/page/17/
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