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then only in an afternoon for a solitary walk , and without any manner of view to a party of pleasure , or to any diversion common for young people to delight in . While I lived here some 4 > f us fell into the Unitarian scheme about
the Trinity . The first in it was Mr . Joseph Hallett , our tutor ' s eldest sou , who held a secret correspondence with Mr . Whiston , then publishing his " Primitive Christianity . He was a very grave , serious , and thinking young man ; he was most patient of study ,
and read most of any in tli £ house . He had a good judgment and memory ,, and was very well versed in divinity , morality and such kind of things as most suited him . He turned out afterwards a popular preacher , learaed and laborious , and published some
things which had much more of clergy than of the mother in them . He had , however , a great propensity to rule and management , and was very careful to maintain correspondencies which promoted these , arid made him significant . I was more intimate with him
than with any of the rest of the young men , but knew nothing of his notions till our class was lectured on Pictet ' s chapter concerning the Trinity . He then laid several books upon that subject in my way , which extremely surprised me , for I had always taken this doctrine for an undoubted truth , which
was never to be examined or called in question . I remember what startled rne most was the famous Mr , Boyse ' s answer to Emlyn . At that time I had never heard of either of their names , and knew nothing of the prosecution of the latter , or any part of his story , and , therefore , I could not
possibly have any bias or prejudice upon me . But the bare quotations which Boyse made from Emlyn , in order to answer him , seemed to strike so strongly , that I began to doubt from that moment ; notwithstanding my own natural prejudices and all the art and learning of Mr . Boyse . We were about five or six of us who understood one
another in this affair , but we conversed with great caution and secresy . And from this small beginning sprang the grand quarrel and dispute at Exeter : for the notion by degrees got abroad among some conceited citizens , who perhaps at first talked of more than they understood ; then the ministers tegan tp be alarmed , and the danger
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of heresy was uppermost with them , not only in their conversation , but in their prayers and sermons * At length ; they began to dispute , and consequently to be angry , all which laid the foundation for that war which broke out soon
afterwards , I returned to Plymouth after three years' stay at the Academy , but with , no great disposition of being a minister . I now knew the difficulty of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles . I had seen so much of the ways and practices of the Assembly , that I dreaded an examination . Both these
were to be submitted to before I could exercise Jthe function , and for one of my sentiments to do the former seemed to me hypocrisy , and to comply with the latter mean and base . This lay very heavy upon me , for I was obliged
to conceal them , partly for fear of the ministers , and partly for fear of my father . I took all opportunities x to talk of the unreasonableness of being obliged to subscribe articles of faith made by men , and how hard a task it was for an honest man to tell the
world he did believe such articles when in truth he did not , and that though the Church thought it right to impose them in point of policy on its own members , yet I was in doubt how far imposing them on Dissenters was consistent with a toleration , or at least with their principles to subscribe them .
My ^ father liked this reasoning very well , as it was an argument against the Church , but when I ventured to speak plainer , and to hint that I could not believe that the sense of the compilers in some of the Articles was agreeable to the Scripture , that for this reason it was not honest to subscribe them ,
and that if I did not subscribe them I could not be a minister , he began to suspect something , and to be alarmed . And as he had acknowledged what I said was true before he suspected the use I intended to make of it , he
became quite out of humour , and made many reflections . He employed every one he could think of to talk to me , and to persuade me . Sometimes he was angry , sometimes he was sorry , at length a coolness ensued , upon which I thought myself ill used , and sullen and reserved it reserved is
grew upon . grew sunen ana upon . Upon the whole , I led a very untoward life , the ideas of which do still make so strong an impression on me that the
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Memoirs of Himself \ by Mr . John Fox . 131
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1821, page 131, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2498/page/3/
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