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wretched partisans , teachers ill-informed and perverse , writers who betray a shallowness as to theological criticism , and whose works are a nauseating crambe recocta . " These are « ome of the lighter skirmishings of
Archdeacon Wrangham ! To the same class may perhaps be referred his censure of Unitarians for claiming the association of great names , those of Newton , Locke , Watts , Paley , Bishop Watson , &c , upon the slightest pretexts . Pp . 6—12 .
These several topics Mr . Wellbeloved discusses in the compass of the first of his Three Letters : and he discusses them with admirable intelligence , judgment , temper and effect . While he points out the variance of his antagonist ' s language with good
sense , good taste , good manners and the genuine Christian spirit , he exposes the weakness of the ground on which his assertions rest , and the injustice and self-contradiction of his charges and insinuations . We particularly invite the attention of our readers to what the author of the
" Three Letters" has written concerning the theological sentiments of the very distinguished men whose names we have copied . Newton and Locke " both placed themselves in circumstances , as
theological writers , in which , had they believed in the doctrine of the Trinity , they could scarcely have refrained from avowing that belief . " But for withdrawing those truly great men from the ranks of orthodoxv we have
more substantial reasons than their silence . No Trinitarian , we are confident , could say of the baptismal formula what Sir I . Newton has said , — " That it was the place from which they at first tried to derive the Trinity" We have , moreover , the direct testimony of Mr . Hopton Haynes ,
Deputy Assay Master of the Mint , under Sir I . Newton , with whom he was intimately acquainted . He unequivocally declared that Sir I . Newton did not believe in the pre-existence of Christ ; that he disapproved of Dr . Clarke's Arianism , and expressed his firm conviction , that the time will corne , when the doctrine of the
incarnation , as commonly received , shall be exploded as an absurdity equal to Iran substantiation . The testimony of Mr . H . Haynea cannot justly be sus-
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pected , and it can be disproved only by Sir I . Newton ' s papers , in possession of a noble family , * who might , no doubt , be persuaded to lend their aid in supporting the orthodoxy of this illustrious person , if it were in their power . When to these considerations we add the fact , that Sit I . Newton addressed letters to Le derc
on the spuriousness of 1 John v . 7 , and on the true reading of 1 Tim . Hi . 16 , who can with justice question his Antitrinitarianism ? Pp , 12—14 . As to Mr . Locke , can it be thought possible , that if he had been a believer in the doctrine of the Trinity , no intimation of it would appear in his
commentary upon so large a portion of PauPs epistles , or in his wor ) s on the €€ Reasonableness of Christianity" ?—The attempt of Archdeacon Wrangham to prove the orthodoxy of this celebrated person , is ably refuted by the author of the "Three Letters ;" of the weight of whose arguments our readers will j udge from the following
passages . In reply to the venerable dignitary ' s reasoning from the phraseology employed by Mr . Locke , his antagonist says , ( p . 15 , ) " Here is your
syllogism : Mr . Locke speaks of the mysteries of salvation ; the moral precepts are not mysteries of salvation ; ergo ,, Mr . Locke speaks of the doctrine of the Trinity , Atonement , &c , and was a Trinitarian . —Had a Unitarian
argued in this inconsequential manner , he would have met with little mercy at your hands ; and , in truth , he would have deserved little . " The Archdeacon of Cleveland has not referred to the place where Mr . Locke expressly speaks of " the mysteries of salvation / ' On the other
hand , the Rev . Gentleman ' s opponent points to texts in Paul ' s epistles * which fully shew the scriptural import of the word mystery ; texts f which Locke has well explained , and the learned dignitary misapprehended .
Mr . Locke , in one of his letters to Limborch , ( dated Oates , January 6 , 1700 , ) informs his correspondent of the high estimation in which some persons held Allix ' 3 g € Judgment of
* Lord Portsmouth ' s . Nicho la s Lit . Anec . &c . IV . 677 . t Rom . xvi . 25 , 26 ; Ephes . i . 9 , Hi . 3-D 1 CoL i . 25—27 .
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38 Review . —Wellbeloved's Letters to Archdeacon Wrangham .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1825, page 38, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2532/page/38/
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