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610 Mr . Frend on d recent Notice of him in the British Critic .
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I have given an instance of a firm believer in the thirty-nine articles , who yet rejected the Newtonian doctrine of Gravitation : I shall be
content with a single instance of a believer in Monotheism and yet an advocate for tire doctrine of Gravitation , and this is Newton himself ; he was an Unitarian .
Thus we see that a man may believe in the doctrine of the Trinitjr , and disbelieve the doctrine of Gravitation ; another may disbelieve the doctrine of a threefold God , and be the inventor of the doctrine of Gravitation ; and I am an instance of a person who believes neither the one nor the other .
.. HoW the Critic has drawn from my rejection of these two doctrines an illustration of Unitarian principles I cannot conjecture . For > if this had any thing to do with the argument , we should naturally be led to imagine that the Unitarians would be distinguished by this rejection of the Newtonian doctrine of Gravitation , But
this I do not find to be the case ; for among the many persons I have conversed with on the subject , I can scarcely bring to my recollection a single Unitarian Christian who agreed with me in exploding the doctrine of Gravitation , though I remember a celebrated writer of that body treating
my notions with a degree of levity and contempt , such as the Critic himself would not , I ana sure , have indulged in my presence . The last person who expressed his doubts to me of the Newtonian theory is a clergyman , and was a distinguished tutor in one of our universities .
The Critic asserts that I reject botli the doctrines in question precisely on the same grounds , namely , because it is beyond the limits of the human faculties to conceive them . In this he labours under a mistake . I
did not reject the religious hypothesis on any such ground . I rejected it because I could not find any basis for it in scripture . The question with me was simply this , Is the doctrine contained in scripture or not ? To this test and to . this test alone did
I apply myself , availing myself of what knowledge I might have of the Scriptures in their original language - y and my other sources of information in interpreting them , were chiefly drawn from the favourers of the es *
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tablished doctrines . With respect to the term itself by which the majority of Christians worship the Supreme , and which is derived from a barbarous
Latin word , I could not of course find that in the Scriptures , nor were the two expressions God the Son and God' the Holy Ghost to be found there . This of itself is now a
sufficient reason for me to reject , without farther inquiry , the use of these t € ?* ms ; for had the Supreme deemed it fit they should be used , I can have no doubt that the holy persons through whom his communications have been
made to us ,- would have 'employed them in those writings on which and on which alone iqy faith and the faith of every Christian ought to be established . The propriety of using these terms is justified only on the ground of inference , and by whom was this inference first made ? I leave that to
the ecclesiastical historian to settle . By whomsoever made , my argument remains the same . These terms are not used by Christ or his apostles , and therefore rest on an authority to which we owe no deference . On this subject I beg leave to call the attention of our Unitarian
brethren , who , like myself , may have frequently been taunted with the . assertion , that it Is to the pride of reason we owe tbe rejection of the mysterious union of three persons in the Godhead , and that it little becomes us who know so little of ourselves that
we cannot explain the union of the soul and body , to pretend to deny a union in the Godhead , which is a greater mystery . For rny own part , I entirely disclaim this pride of reason . I do not reject the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead because it is above my comprehension , but because I believe that no such union
is taught in the Holy Scriptures . I waive therefore all reasoning upon the credibility or incredibility of this doctrine , and I keep to this single point : We have the Scriptures before us ; shew me one single passage in which we are commanded to offer up prayers
to God the Son . or God the Holy Ghost or the Trinity . Upon this plain statement the whole of the controversy which now agitates the Christian world rests . It is intelligible to the meanest capacity . All the authority « £ Fathers of the Church , of Councils , of Acta of Parliament , on which there
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1824, page 610, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2529/page/34/
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