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so acute a rea&onex , in some future Number pf your Repository . JOHN MORELL .
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Essew Street , Sih , Febrary 7 1820 . YOUR Correspondent from the Isle of Wight [ p . 21 ] seems not # little out of humour with my statement of the object of the Original Unitarian Society : namely , to support and propagate the highl y important doctrine of the simple humanity of Jesus Christ . Nor should I have
thought it worth while to notice his Letter , notwithstanding the mis-statements that it contains , had not the proceedings of the Southern Unitarian Society furnished a memorable example of the inexpediency of persons of widely different sentiments uniting in a propaganda Society .
The Southern Unitarian Society was the third Society of the kind . I had no concern in its institution , and , excepting one highly respected friend , I did not know a single individual who belonged to it . But I entered as a life subscriber without making any
particular inquiry about it : and being asked in 1802 Oapt 181 ? *) to preach before the Society , I did npt decline the office . After the service about ten or a dozen gentlemen , all strangers to me , met in the chapel , to tra » 6 act the business of the Society ; previous to which it was whispered to me that a
declaratory principle was to be recommended , which I was requested not to oppose . And as I considered myself as little more than a mere honorary member , and likewise that the gentlemen who formed the Society had a right to make laws for it , I acquiesced W silence , though I didl not altogether approve . So much for my alleged
inconsistency . Now , mark the consequence . A few years afterwards a gentleman of ? [ We h ? 4 boen already desired by P ' ecti ? tQ correct , this eri ^ r of 1812 for 1 802 . He ^ o 3 riMbe& us to giye the Resoluti on of the Southern Unitarian
Society , correctly , as fojfowa : " lElefifblved , That the thanfer of the Society We given to Mr . Belsham , fbrflie candid manner in which he t ^ edived the Intimation of the Society ' s character and design , as well as Jlsteued to their request of adapt-** 8 f < iktfteGQm * etothtm * h Eifc ]
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great respectability , who was invited to preach ^ befai ^ e the Society , deitvwed , a very eloquent discourse in fswmxr of high Arian principles . Far fee it from me to condemn him for so doing . He had just as good , a right to state his sentiments as I had to state mine , and
neither he nor the Society conceived that he had delivered any doctrine contrary to their avowed principle . But I who believe that Jesus ChMst was a human being , who had no more concern in the formation of the world
than Moses or Abraham , and wh@ also believe , with the Psalmist , that the Maker of the world is the only proper object of religious worship , because He alone is- our God , cannot in conscience join in a Society professing the diffusion of pure evangelical truth ,
with one who represents Jesus as the Maker of the world and all things in it : yet not on that account the , object of worship ; for that , not our Maker , but our Maker ' s Maker , is alone entitled to our religious addresses . If I
m m * J _ A * _ were to join in propagating a doctrine which appears to me so contrary to reason , to Scripture , and to the very first principles of natural religion , and one of the very grossest of the corruptions of Christianity , I should strangely
belie my own conscience , and be guilty of a very great offence in the sight of God . Your Correspondent may , if he pleases , sneer at these principles as of no more weight than a dispute concerning the stature and completion of Christ . To me they are sacred and serious truths .
T . BELSHAM . P . S . I cannot help smiling at my friend Mr . Clarke ' s tirade [ p . 17 ] against the use of the phrase simple humanity of Christ as an unscriptual expression : and I should be glad to know where he finds the phrase «• Bible Christian" to which he is so partial .
Not , I am sure , in the Scripture , unless in the same way in which Lord Peter found shoulder-knot in his father ^ will . The truth is , that as all parties use * Scripture language , and adapt it to their own creeds , if ajjerson writes to be understood , it is indispeaeably necessary that Jhe should explain the flense in which he uies Scripture
language , i » words that are not scriptural . Olliemise . * a ^ mayi go on wrangling for ever to ijd jxurpofte And my woi ? thy friend himself i * rnb
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Mr . Belsham on the Plan of Southern Unitarian Society . 87
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1820, page 87, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2485/page/23/
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