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— as my name has been placed in connexion with certain opinions , which I hold in utter abhorrence . " I will not pretend to say whether your irritable correspondent had any
of my writings particularly in view in this exhibition of grievances , but , conscious as I am that I have myself mixed up > and publicly professed most of the doctrines here stated , I am anxious , not , indeed , to defend their truth ,
for that , I trust , has been already done , far beyond the reach of your correspondent ' imbecile attack , but to clear them from the unjust imputation of having accumulated obloquy upon the Unitarian cause .
That the doctrine which maintains that He , whom Trinitarians worship as God , equal with the Father , was in the first state of his existence a man like ourselves , sin only excepted , " must necessarily give the greatest
possible offence to our Trinitarian brethren , cannot be doubted for a moment : and this will inevitably expose those who hold that doctrine to great obloquy and reproach . But whether tins obloquy will be much increased by the opinions which such
persons may entertain concerning liberty and necessity , I must be permitted to doubt . As to atonement , the rejection of that doctrine follows , of course , from the doctrine of Christ ' s proper humanity . For the Trinitarian
will naturally say , W hat is that atonement worth , which a human being can offer to offended justice ? The Devil , indeed , cannot be well spared from the machinery of the fall . But the late Rev . Hugh Fanner did a great deal towards undermining his
existence , and the learned John Simpson , of Bath , in his most valuable Essays , has given him the coup de gracey so that it is to be hoped , that no person pretending to Biblical Literature will again become the Devil ' s advocate . And , I trust , that the denial of his
personal existence will not by men of consideration be regarded as a ground of obloquy . Last , but not least , is the assertion of " the philosophical ignorance of
Moses . " This , Sir , I am aware , is with your correspondent the galling point . It cannot be touched but he immediately winces . I will not , therefore , annoy him by repeating the ar-
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guments I have elsewhere produce d upon that subject , which lie has never refuted , and never will . I will only allege an authority which , if it does not convince him , will at least convince his readers , that it is very possible for a divine to call in question the
truth and inspiration of the first chap . ter of Genesis , without incurring obloquy by so doing . Nay , that such an one may deny the cosmogenv of Moses , and still remain an orthodox son of the Church , and even be a professor and lecturer in theology in the University . The authority to wjhich I appeal is that of Dr . John Hey , Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge , from 1780 to 1795 , a divine of a very different order , indeed , from your irritable correspondent .
"Ihe natural philosophy of the Pentateuch , " says this learned Professor , " ought not to induce us to reject it . It is not at all likely that God , ia order to enable a man to be a lawgiver of the Jews , should reveal to him all the causes of the phenomena of nature . "
The same learned writer , speaking of the ninth article , says , " I should rather think that the intention of the compilers was to leave men a liberty of assenting-, who should doubt whether the disorderly propensities of man 3
were owing to Adams transgression : my reason is , because in any serious and thinking Christians have judged that the first part of Genesis is not a literal description of fact , but an allegorical story , like the Pilgrim ' s Progress . Now , it was probably far from the intention of our Church to
exclude any such . " Hey , III . 152 . * The authority of Professor Hey will fully exculpate those who agree with the many serious and thinking Christians to whom he alludes , from
involving themselves and others in deserved obloquy on that account . And the palpable mistake of your worthy correspondent in this case can only be attributed to his ignorance of the state of theological opinion : an ignorance
* See an excelleut Collection of Extracts from Divines of the Church of England , published by Hunter , St . Pa ™* Churchyard ,
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416 Mr . Belsham , in Reply to Mr . Frend , an Unitarianism .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1825, page 416, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2538/page/32/
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