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Marks of precipitancy appear in several of the pages of this little tract . Tthe subject is confessedl y important : but the writer does not discuss it with the judicious reflection and critical accuracy , which the nature of his inquiry demands , and which are indispensable
to its success . That he is a sincere and zealous friend of Christian truth , we see no reason for doubting : and on this account we the more deeply regret that he has not done greater justice to his wishes and his character . He often seems to have made his
extracts merely from the English Testament , and to consider the erroneous associations existing in the minds of many English readers as correct views of tne meaning of our Lord and his apostles . The " remarks on the propriety of
any liturgy being entirely Athanasian or entirely Apostolical , " or , in other words , of our worship being consistent with itself , form the best part of the pamphlet . There is something , however , in the author ' s style and manner , which little suits our taste ; an air of levity and occasionally a tone of irony ,
which are uncongenial with his theme . When he says , ( p . 28 , ) " It is not , I repeat , with the creed of Athanasius that one quarrels ; it may be , for ought I contend now , an improvement upon that of Christ , " this broad sneer will repel the serious Trinitarian , and cannot be applauded by any reasoner among Unitarian Christians .
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Art . II . —Letters to a Protestant Divine \ in Defence of Unitarianism . By another Banister . 8 vo . pp . 120 . Hunter . 1818 . THIS is a new and valuable contribution , from the pen of a layman , to the Unitarian treasury . The
author was formerly a Trinitarian , and having embraced Unitarianism , was led into an amicable correspondence with a friend , " a Protestant Divine , " of which the present * ' Letters , " make part . They refer to some of the
principal texts adduced on either side in the Unitarian controversy , which , as well as the general subjects which they involve , the Barrister has treated with judgment and ability . A mild Christian spirit pervadea all his pages . In reply to a remark of his Correspondent ' s thut the Greek fathers , who
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understood their language better than we do , interpreted John x . 30 , ^ Ir and my Father are one /* of the equality of the Son with the Father , the author says , that a very long period elapsed
before this construction was attempted to be put upon them , and that even contemporaries , which none , of these fathers were , do not always correctly interpret works written in their vernacular tongue : he then proceeds ,
" We lawyers can furnish hundreds of instances of this kind in the construction of modern acts of parliament , which are usually drawn by professional characters , men of learning and experience ^ well acquainted with their own language , and
whose object it is to render the acts they draw as clear , and their meaning as certain , as possible : yet when it is necessary to reduce them into practice , and to decide upon their construction , we have
often not only one counsel and one judge against another , but even different courts differing in opinion from each other upon the construction of the same sentence . You would be astonished to hear how many hundreds of judicial determinations there have been—how many conflicting , and clashing opinions and authorities ,
to determine the meaning of three acts of Parliament , passed in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James the First , relative to bankrupts , and to the relief of the poor ; some of them in the very reigns in which these acts were passed , and others in our own times , though we do not live at a more remote period since their enactment , than the
fathers you allude to did after the publication of the Gospel of St . John . Is it any wonder then , that the meaning of one of the fishermen of Galilee , writing in a language which was not his mother-tongue , should have been sometimes doubted , and sometimes misunderstood , by writers following him at the distance of two or three centuries ? That learned and
ingenious persons , many of them recently converted from Paganism , and eager to introduce their preconceived notions and opinions into Christianity , —the simplicity of which they had begun to corrupt in the " very days of the apostles , as the latter themselves lament , —should by degrees , in the course of two or three
centuries , have succeeded in the opinions pi a considerable part of their readers , many of them similarly circumstanced with themselves , in putting constructions upon several passages in tfce Sacred Writings , which the apostolic writers themselves never intended ? Is it no £ rather matter of surprise that these writers should have expressed themselves with so much sim-
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360 Review *—A Barrister ' s Letters in Defence of Unitarianism .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1820, page 360, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2489/page/36/
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