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" made perfect by suffering , " and not , as this writer seerns to imagine would have been more consistent with his dignity , b y opportunities for the display of an impassive superiority to the sense of pain . Had there been no sense of suffering , it is obvious there would have been no merit . Had Jesus
acted like an incarnate deity or subdeity , it is obvious he would have been no pattern for our imitation , and would have had no claim upon our sympathy . Had his sense of the apparent desertion of his God and Father been less , the resignation to his will would have lost
proportionately in merit . The writer , in short , insists that to evince perfect dignity of virtue , it would have been necessary for Christ to resign himself to his Father ' s will , under a Stoical insensibility to the sufferings that awaited him ; that in proportion as he
felt his sufferings , his patience under them was less exemplary , and his magnanimity in meeting them more doubtful and imperfect . This is in entire consistency with the logic , that he who prays with submission to the will of God , is all the time seeking his own !
If , however , this be so , there is an end of the imitation of Christ altogether : if , instead of being * ' tempted as we are , yet without sin / ' he sinned fust to a certain point , and " just so far" is not an object for our imitation , he is not an object for our imitation at alL The apostles must have been mistaken when they described him as
" knowing no sin : " and the just appreciation of his character must have been reserved for the later sect of philosophizing Christians , to whom the age is indebted for a projected alliance between Deism and Christianity . CORNELIUS .
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Sir , November 9 , 1820 . IN" common with many other persons vrho respect the talents of Mr . Beisham , I read with some surpr ise , during last summer , his Three Sermons on the Patronage of Christiapity
by the Civil Power ; in which he exhibits a view of the subject very opposite to that which k commonly supposed to be entertained by the great bulk Of Protestant Dissenters . The
fairness and precision with which he states the arguments of his opponents , and the general candour displayed
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throughout the tvorkj cannot but command Admiration * I must confess , however , I was mueb struck with the poverty of his reasoning , and could not but call to mind an anecdote of
Jeremy Taylor , who , in his * liberty of Prophesying , " is supposed to have stated the case of his adversaries in so powerful a manner as t © overturn the
force of his own reasoning . My present remarks , however , will refer principally to Mr . Belsham ' s paper in the last Number of the " ^ Repository . " [ XV . 575—578 . ]
IS ' O one who is acquainted with the cool , deliberate mind of Mr . Beisham , as portrayed in his writings , or with his acuteness in conducting an argument , can imagine for a moment to
impose upon him by rhetorical flourishes , hard words or inconclusive reasoning . If he is to be assailed by the rude arts of controversy , as he seems to anticipate , it will not be by the
present writer . When a man of learning and talent advances an opinion upon any subject , even if it be ever so novel and repulsive , provided he does it in a gentlemanly manner , he is entitled to a can- * did hearing . But if the subject be
hackneyed , and one upon which the wise and good confessedly differ , there is still farther ground for consideration and forbearance . If Mr . Beisham , after mature deliberation , considers that Christianity has ever gained , or i $ likely to gain , any good b y the patronage of the civil power , he has unquesot tne civil power , ne nas
unquestionably a rignt so to think , without incurring the displeasure or ilkvvill of any person upon that account . 1 think he is mistaken , and in the excise of this judgment must put in my claim to the same indulgence that I have granted to him , or that we should both of us be disposed to concede to his Grace of Canterbury .
The question of civil establishments of religion has never , perhaps , been so ably argued , with a view to their sup-, port , as by that prince of dogmatists Bishop Warburton . If you grant him his premises , I do not see with what propriety you can withstand the force of his conclusions . When the civil
magistrate is once let in , who is to set bounds to his authority ? What are the prescribed rules which say to him , " Hitherto shalt thou go , but no far * ther" ?
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On Mr . Belsham ' s Arguments for Civil Establishments of Religion . 77
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 77, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/13/
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