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Untitled Article
wigpal act $ > f justice , were passed at ipost af the . provincial Unitarian associations ,. The reply seems to foe satisfactory eve © to the Old Unitarian , wlo , to Ms 2 nd tetter ( p .-64 ) , acknowledges hiaiself incorrect in this first charge . The acknowledgment is , faowevet-j ,
incautious 5 as it appears to admit * what is elsewhere denied , that by the New Unitarians are meant the supporters of the Unitarian Fund and the members of the various Unitarian associations throughout the kingdom . But
the Old Unitarian will not wholly abandon the charge of a fondness for persecution * and he finds , "if not a proof , at least an illustration of it 1 8 ( p . 52 )* in Mr . Fox himself , who whilst he denounces the Old
Unitarian ' s observations as calumnious , takes them to himself ! This jeu d ' esprit cannot prevent any reader from returning to the indictment a verdict of not proven * The second charge is * that the New Unitarians are disposed to inflict
persecution , and the proof is that they make use of bigoted and intolerant language 3 * ' not content with thinking Unitarianism a good thing * they will have it that there is nothing good besides : " The charge is denied by
Mr . Fox , who challenges the Old Unitarian to produce a single writer qr preacher who has advanced the above position . The Old Unitarian retorts upon Mr . Fox some phrases of his own culled from his sermon before the Unitarian Fund . These
taken from their connexion , may have a harsh . sound , but they cannot be fairiy quoted out of that connexion . By this mode of citation , the Old Unitarian represents Mr , Fox as denominating Calvinism " a curse , " when the preacher only says that it is a sometimes a curse / ' and points out a few " examples" of his meaning .
The charge of ** seif-comp ! ace « c y >" " self-ad mi ration * " self-adoration , " which the Old Unitarian founds upon Mr . Fox's sermon for no other reason tbat we can perceive than that the preacher exhibits the character of the
apostle Paul as a model fat imitation , is not . a happy instance of the superiority of the Old to the New Unitarians in the treatment of an opponent . I ' d truth * all Christians , whether Tri ~ iftitarimsB or Unitarians * and all Unitmimuh whether Old or N ^ w ^ are
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liable to the charge of 'Using hnid ^ r language ifeao the occasion justifies , and had the Old Unitarian only warned his brethren against a commote error , instead of framing an accusation against ** these Galileans / 9 *< sinners above all the Galile&Bs , " we should have regarded him as a peacemaker and not as an accuser . He
mighty by his process , convict of persecution the charitable Priestley and even the mild Lindseyo Nay , we suspect that he might'by a rigid scrutiny of his ? own publication ? reduce himself to the necessity of pleading guilty to the charge of verbal
intoleranee . The third charge is * that the New Unitarians undervalue " purity and * The Old Unitarian will not we are sure , plead for discarding all decency o £ language with regard to New Unitarians but be will be at a loss to reconcile with
bis own sense of propriety the passage ( Letters p . 13 ) , where describing the 66 very great injury and disgrace * clone a to the cause" bj the Provincial Unitarian Associations , he speaks of 4 i the tongues of not a few controversial coxcombs' * being € let loose . " Ifj however , the demerits of
the New Unitarians justify hard epithets $ Calvinists and Churchmen are by his own shewing entitled to toleration 5 but what would the former say lo his representation of their system as almost excluding infinite benevolence from the divine perfections ( Pref . p . xii . ) 3 to his pronouncing
the general disposedness to what is termed u Evangelical religion , " to be a u hastening back to the regions of implicit faith , of intolerance and of other beggarly e £ e ~ menis "** ( Pref- p . xviii . ) 9 and , above all , to his declaring * that " Insanity has been either a pre-disposing cause ef partiality for" " Calvinistic or ( as they are called ;
Orthodox doctrines , " " or tlie effedt of too warm an attachment to them ' ' * ( Pref . p . xxviii . ) : and what would the latter say to his scheme for u sweeping out the rubbisk and defilements which disgrace the national church" ( Letters , p . IB ) , < or to bis portraying the following ct prominent and characteristic features" in the
clerical body ; " fixed abhorrence of Unitarianism , " " abusive language , " 6 t designed and deliberate misrepresentations , " a disinj ^ enuity" and " meanness" ( Pref . p . xxii . ) ? They might say , as the Old Unitarian says , in the next page , —hut their intra would be his extra , and their extra would shui him out equally with hw 31 onager brethren , * ---$ U&co $ intra mprvs n&GCatwt tit e&tra *
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&m . £ faieubt *~ ffni&ari ( shism Old anANeWo
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 58, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/58/
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