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Untitled Article
, If your Lordship withstand the monstrous pretensions and impious usurpations of a church called infallible , assert the right of private judgment , which is the true principle of the Reformation , and call our , in the language of an honest Bible-man , " The Bible , the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants , " you grant the Unitarian all he asks . He takes the Bible to his breast , and consigns the creeds and confessions of all theological usurpers
to their own place . He thanks your Lordship for advocating the sufficiency of the Bible , and looks upon you as his friend and ally in the sacred cause of truth ; or , as your Lordship would express it , " the Socinian makes a tool of my Lord Mountcashell , " to file off the chains by which the human mind is enthralled , and raise it to that scale of dignity which the Protestant inhabitants of Fermoy know to be " characteristic of its nature . " Thus does the Unitarian employ the ascendancy which he derives from reason and
common sense , from the Scriptures and the concessions of his adversaries . He crushes the irrational and unscriptural doctrines of orthodox Protestants by the weapons of Catholicism ; and overthrows the mental tyranny which Catholicism would establish , by asserting the great Protestant right of private judgment . He is furnished with *? tools" from the armouries of both , to pioneer the march of truth , to sap the foundations of long-established error , and discover that the only firm basis of religion is the pure and unadulterated word of God ,
Pray , my Lord , what is the essential difference betwixt infallibility and orthodoxy ? Are not both names characteristic of that pharisaical pride which the Saviour condemned ? Are not the pretensions of both equally audacious , and equally hostile to the rights and liberties of man , to the interests of truth , to the dictates of reason , and to the doctrines of Christ and his apostles ? They are twin-sisters , the offspring of priestcraft and superstition . They crawled into existence together , and their lives are
suspended by the same thread . But Mr . Maguire has presented to the Unitarian one arm of the forceps , and thanks to your Lordship for presenting the other , which will help to cli p it asunder and complete their destinies . Some other subjects remain to be discussed , but to these your Lordship ' s attention shall be solicited in a future letter , by Your Lordship's Most obedient humble servant ,
W . H . DRUMMOND . P . S . It grieves me to find your Lordshi p's name in the intolerant minority against the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts . You are a Vice-President of a new Reformation Society . But what reformation is to be expected where such reluctance is manifested to cancel so enormous and so disgraceful an abuse ? Fie upon it , my Lord ! But more of this , anon .
she has received no such clear determination from Chn « t and hi « apostles , she has power to declare her own sense in the controversy , and to determine which part shall be received and professed for truth for her members , and that under ecclesiastical censures and penaltys . The sentence shall bind to submission , though the superiors may err in the sentence . Better that inferiors be bound to stand to such fallible judgment , than that every man be suffered to interpret inws and determine eontroversys . " Could the Pope , in all the pride of supremacy , claim more thau this ? Yet was the writer a bishop calling himself Protestant !
Untitled Article
438 Dr , Drummond ' f Letter to Lord Mountcaskell .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 438, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/6/
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