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% hat only winch fee - ter ^ that as sfccfe he will suffer them , as lie did CaSn and his posterity , to end in destruction and mingle for ever with the mass of inanimate nature . BEN DAVID . ( To be continued . )
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Mnnchester , Sir , December 31 , 1821 . CONTROVERSY is now car-A ried on in this town between the Catholics and orthodox Protestants , which was begun by the Catholic Priest of one of our Catholic chapels ,
in ( as appears to me ) a weak and impolitic attack upon the Bible Society . My view in this communication is not to give an account of the combat or the combatants , but to direct the notice of your readers to the following passage * extracted from the jmest ' s second piece in the controversy , concerning Unitarianism .
cc For my own part , I have ever considered Unitarians , if not the best , at least the most consistent Protestants j and my reason for considering them so , is , because they adhere more elosely than those of any other denomination to the principle of private judgment . Rejecting the authority of catechisms and creeds , the Unitarian
takes the sacred volume into his hands , and , before he opens it , thus argues with himself : This book is given to me by the Almighty ; from it , by the means of my own judgment and understanding , I ana to gather the truths of salvation . Now I know and feel ,
that , unlike the animals of the brute creation , I possess within myself a rational soul , which is the very principle of judgment and understanding , and , consequently , I must practise nothing , I must believe nothing , that is not completely conformable to the reason
which my Creator has given inc . He then opens the sacred pages , and , reading them with the fttll persuasion that they contain nothing- above the standard of his reason , if he meet with any thing that wears the appearance of a mystery , he very justly rediDces it to
that standard , by adapting it ta a sense tfeafc is not at variance wjth ham understanding arid his judgment . Such is the mode df reasoning which the Unitarian adopts ; and such ought to be that of every consistent Protestant . *' > Though the Catholic Priest intends
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as a manifest reductio-ad-absurdron of the Proteataat principle , with vvhiei * , m its bearing upon the Unitarian , bis ey » Bgelieal opponents tvill readily acqraiesce , yet , upon the whole , the picture , is not drawn with an unfriendly hand , nor much earieatured : and it is a curious
circumstance , with which many ^ of your readers may be unacquainted , that not only in the Church of England and Scotland , but also in the Roman Church , there are many disguised Unitarians . From a French geographical work of merit , I extract the following passage :
* tfThe principal Christian sects are : The Unitarians , Socinians , or Antitrinitarians , whose opinions are protected in Transylvania and in Russian Poland : a very great number of Catholics , of Lutherans and Calvinists , are secretly attached to this system /' Malte-Brun , Geography , I . 579 .
The number of adherents affords no presumption in favour of a system . Motives of interest will always sway a fearful proportion of mankind . The great mass of the unlettered and ignorant are deluded by the arts of zealots
and enthusiasts—many of them , no doubt , hypocrites . And , perhaps , a stiM greater proportion of men are indifferent to all systems , and readily embrace , as far as they can be said to embrace , that which is nearest at band .
Numbers , therefore , are no criterion of truth . Yet , if there be an instance in which a sect has risen and spread on all sides , without much activity in
its partisans , without much party spirit , with scarcely any union and co-operation among ita adherents * the members of which earunot possibly be actuated by interested natives , and
its chief promoters have been men generally of a studious , retired and unobstrusive character , there exists , I imagine , « . strong" presumption in Us favour . Unitarianism has the advantage of such a powerful pre ^ uBaption . CRITO .
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P bears to inert mat the above rsroark& ' ££ Testimony of a Catholic * i&st t& Unii&riatiism-
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Clapton , Sir , January 1 , 1822 . 1 REQUEST your wfceptance of the following remarks which occurre d to m « on reading the last portion ot Mr . Fax ' s M $ S , Vol . XVL p . 697 , © ol . 2 . Mr . Chandler " -MM -on- - the ^ brink of m ^
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1822, page 26, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2508/page/26/
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