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than men ; " and an attempt to ascertain a final cause of the nature of which we are profoundly ignorant , and likely to continue so .
a . — nature ls but the name for an effect Whose cause is God . " We have previously stated that our op inions on the nature of the vital principle are extremely unsettled : we hold it right to confess our ignorance , and to leave these secret things to the
Lord our G&d . As liberal Christians , we shall never underrate the value of our reason . God forbid that we should countenance the folly of those who love to soak in mystery and contradictions ; but we do condemn that presumptuous pride which , forgetting the limitation of the human understanding ,
soars beyond its sphere , and that impious arrogance winch , ignorant of the ends of the Deity , dares to judge of the fitness of the means he employs in the government of his creation . Intellectual pride is the Scylla of knowledge , and Infidelity its Charybdis . What innumerable errors does it
originate , and how many youthful minds , ; irdent in the pursuit of knowledge , have been shipwrecked on its dangerous breakers ! And how many delusive meteors have been mistaken for the lighthouse of reason ! " At best thouYt but a glimmering light , Which serves not to direct our way ;
Hut , like the moon , confounds our sight , And only shews it is not day . " Oxford JMisctdl . KJ 85 . We are well aware of the popular imputations against Unitariunism : we may , perhaps , sometimes , in our ardour tftfainst the corruptions and abuses of religion , have fallen into the opposite extreme ; and in our anxiety to root up the dogmatisms of orthodoxy , we may have planted speculative scions of our own . We do not think it
necessary or liberal to anirmulvert on some naekslidings of former years , however lamentable HO-nte of those instances rnay be regarded , or whatever their causes . But we repel with indignation the imputation of infidelity . The
profession of the law , nay , the very h <> Kom of tin * Established Church , and the annals of the mitFe itself , will supply a larger comparative number of those who are known to have renounced
re velation ; and we need fear no mis-^ presentations , however wilfully dc ~
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Review—Recent Controversy on Materialism . 17 $
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signed ; no calumnies , however black , so long as we can triumphantl y appeal to the public libraries of oui country Whence originated your most learned and laborious works on the external evidence of Christianity and on it § internal proof ? Fro-m the pietv and disinterestedness of Unitarian Christ
tians . To conclude : we have thought it necessary to make these remarks , feeling that we are interested parties k * the controversy , and that , with so much contumely wasted upon us , our silence might be imputed to a stricken
. We are not among those who consider that natural religion affords no hope of futurity ; on the contrary , we consider its evidence as introductory to the revealed assurance . Its ar «
fuments have been enforced with peculiar strength by Dr . Jortin and Dr . Price , and lately in the luminous and practical sermons of Dr . Ree 9 . On this subject we differ from many
distinguished I nitarian writers , who , we think , have done great injury to the cause of natural a-ml revealed religion , by denying the evidence of the former * in a > weak jealousy , as if they could not otherwise enhance the value of
revelation . Yet these same writera have written zealously on the anafogtf of natural and revealed religion , as if all other points of resemblance do not sink into insignificancy compared with the grand doctrine of a future state . And , surely , on the most important
of all relations we may expect to dis - cover some analogy . We are far from contending that the arguments fro «* natural religion in favour of fn-tttrit ) , ' are by any means calculated" for the generality of mankind ; nor , indeed , can we consider them conclusive for
the more enlightened and learned , since the contrary opinions of l > eistSj an $ the many pathetic lamentations of the ancient philosophers of their wan ^ of additional assurance , indisputably
prove that they are » ot ; and we also know , that much argument hae been adduced against excepting- human nature from the perishable fkte of the whole material world * Bu > t still w *>
cannot but place great co » nde « e m the attributes of an all-wise , beaefieentf and omnipotent Being ; in the mornt evidence resulting from the unetju&l distribution of good and evil ; from ?
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 179, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/51/
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