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things that are most necessary for us , must be acquired by diligence and attention . " ( Vol . I . p . 2 . ) , This passage affords a fair insight into Mr . H . ' s intellectual character . I
had never the happiness of knowing a more dispassionate or careful reasoner , or one whose habit of mind was fiaore distinguished by the demand and the scrutiny of sufficient evidence , upon every subject . A grosser error could not be committed , than to impute to
such a man the sentiment that , " in the affairs of religion , reason ought to be trampled under foot / 1 As to Mr . Haldane ' s " waging war against good works /* I have no hesitation in saying , that the assertion is another instance of unprincipled calumny . It is undeserving of being
refuted by the induction of particulars . Mr . H / s character , conversation and writings , are a complete exposure of the pusillanimous wickedness of this charge . It is but too probable that Professor C / s theological studies have never carried him so far , as to have informed him that this identical
accusation was the endless outcry of the Papists , in the sixteenth century , against the Reformers , and particularly Luther . It ha& always been the vulgar , ignorant and malevolent objection against the great Protestant
doctrine , the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiee , of Justification freely by Grace through Faith in the Divine Redeemer . Against this rock , M . C . may exhaust his strength : it feels no impression . If he would bring a serious mind to the consideration of the
infinitely momentous subject , he would find his objection completely anticipated and removed in the ivth and vith chapters of the Epistle to the Romans . It would also well become
him to read the earlier luminaries of liis own church , particularly the treatise De ConcordiA JPauli ef Jacobi of Francis Turrettin . Even Alphonsus Turrettin , who employed his line talents with such unhappy success to lower the standard of Christian
doctrine at Geneva , and whom surely M . C . has been taught to revere , sufficiently acknowledges that the genuine doctrine of the gospel has the semblance of being liable to this imputation , when exposed to the animadversion of superficial and prejudiced persons . * ' Having established and
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illustrated his doctrine of Justification by Faith , the apostle proceeds to refute the most reproacmut accusation by which it was assailed , as if it favoured sin , and were unfriendly to practical holiness- For , as that
doctrine proclaimed a declaration of grace or the forgiveness of sins , and this without the works of the law ; its adversaries hence took the opportunity of casting reproach upon it , as giving licence to sin and encouragement to sinners J ( Pr&lect . in Ep + ad Rom . p . 214 . )
M . C . is pleased further to support his represientations by referring to an English book , The Refuge > which , he says , " a young * ecclesiastic did not blush to translate into French and to publish . " I am at a loss for language to express ray sense of the baseness
of any one who could read The Refuge 9 and then represent it as this gentleman has done I His heart must be hardened beyond even a very high degree of moral callousness . To such a heart , falsehood must be food , knd
the most outrageous calumnies a congenial delight . — -It is probably twentyfive years since I read this little work , till just how that I have been excited by M . C . ' s reference to take it up . I rejoice and bless God that it has been translated into French * Its usefulness
is calculated to be very great . I profess that I can scarcely conceive of any human writing that breathes a more pure and holy spirit , that contains a more luminous display of the gospel , or that has a more effectual tendency to promote solid and active
virtue . This tendency is justly expressed in one of its own pages . * ' Though every moment cannot be laid out on the formal and regular improvement of our knowledge , or in the stated practice of a moral or religious duty , yet none should be so
spent as to exclude wisdom or virtue , or pass without possibility of qualifying Us , more or less , for tlie better employment of those which are to come . " ( Refuge : by the Author of the Guide to Domestic Happiness .
Loml . 1798 , p . 11 . ) In this work the great Christian doctrine of forgiveness and acceptance with God is largely and , as I am thoroughly convinced , most justly and scripturally treated : and I "blush not to aver my persuasion , that M . C . ' s representation *
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469 Dr . J . Pye Smith in Reply to Professor € &en # v&re ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1824, page 468, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2527/page/20/
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