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name then will he give to his own fancy respecting the improvement of telescopes ? it is quite aYnusing to hear him say of his favourite , " had he been like the majority of other men he would have broken free from the
fetters of a sober and chastised understanding , and , giving wing to his imagination , had ( have ) done what philosophers had ( have ) done after him ;—been carried away bv some meteor of
their his ) own forming , or found their ( his ) amusement in some of their ( his ) intellectual pictures , or palmed some loose and confident plausibilities of their ( his ) own upon the world /'* There is no occasion for the reader
of Dr . Chalmers to go far iu order to find an example of the faults which are deprecated thus : —except , indeed , that though the fancies they will discover are sufficiently " loose and confident , " they are not very " plausible . " Jt is proper here to observe , that the Preface contains an abatement from
the praise so liberally bestowed on Newton . We are told that " amid the distraction and the engrossment of his other pursuits , he has not- at all times succeeded in the interpretation of the book ( Bible ) , else he would never , in my apprehension , have
abetted the leading doctrine of a sect or a system which has now nearly dwindled away from public observation . ' f The allusion is here , of course , made to those who deny the Trinity .
Now , whether these persons are diffusing error or truth—whether their numbers are large or small , they are the constant objects of attack in all the orthodox pulpits within these realms . Half the controversies of the
present age have respected their obnoxious system . This assertion , at first , therefore , a little surprised us . We soon , however , remembered , that as Dr . Chalmers , like Tilburina , in the
Critic , sees a great variety of objects that are " in sight , " it is only poetical justice , that like the same immortal heroine , he should overlook the things immediately before him . He seems to have looked at the heavens
till he has become blind to things of earth 1 He has a telescopic eye . He can see the " blush of vegetation t ? t in * P . 66 . f P . 8 . J The reader will not fail to observe the discovery implied in , this phrsue . The ve-
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Jupiter ; but he knows nothing of the controversy which has just been carried on in the city where he preaches . § How unreasonable would it be to expect that one who is surveying the contest between the armies of heaven
and hell for the ** strong-hold" of this world , should be acquainted with petty discussions which arise among liis fellow mortals ! Here Dr . Chalmers thinks it time to consider the question which he had proposed to discuss . He conceives it may be the feeling of all his readers ,
• ' that he has hitherto indulged in a vain expense of argument . " || We will undertake to obviate his scruples on this subject , as we can honestly assure him we have not yet discovered any argument at all If the •* expense " has been " vain , " it has , at least , been
of less costly materials . At length the ** argument" begins . It consists of two branches ; 1 st , It is contended th ; tt the assumption of the Infidel , that Christianity extends only to this world , may be untrue ; and secondly , that , supposing it correct , the inference he wishes to deduce
from it will ' not follow . The amplification of the first of these propositions occupies the residue of this discourse . Persons of less brilliant genius might have thought it sufficient simply to have observed that , as we know nothing of the moral condition of other worlds , we cannot ascertain
that the Christian religion has no influence over them . But this is not enough for our author . Even when the whole amount of bis argument is , that the human mind can obtain no information respecting the systems we dimly behold , he cannot refrain from
exhibiting the knowledge respecting them which he imagines himself to possess . Did it never occur to him that he was thus defeating his own cause ? Surely the Infidel has as much right to one negative guess as be has to a thousand positives . He is not
g-etation of the stars , is not like ours , sober green , but a beautiful crimson . What pretty worlds ! Even the common grass u bears its blushing- honours thick upon it . " What an enviable condition is that of a Scotch Doctor endowed with second sight !
§ See Month . Repos . for May and June last , pp . 292 , 364 , and preceding * article . II P . 76 .
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I&view . ' D *—Chalmerss Astronomical iscourses . 42 !
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1817, page 421, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2466/page/45/
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