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CRITICAL NOTICES.
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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Critical Notices.
CRITICAL NOTICES .
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Art . V . —The Prospects of Christianity : a Sermon , delivered at the Ordination of the Rev . Warren Burton . By F . W . P . Greenwood . Boston , U . S . The Exclusive System : a Discourse delivered in Gorton , Massachusetts . By James Walker . Boston , U . S .
We are well aware that the popularity which the discourses of American Ministers have obtained in this country , is regarded , by here and there an individual , with some degree of suspicion , as if it were not the truth , but something new in
the manner of stating it , which had gained upon the affections of the people ; and as it is impossible to penetrate into motives , the attempt to ^ rore that 6 uch a notion is mistaken , may be as idle as the original charge .
The fact is certain , that the sermons of Dr . Channiwg and Dr . Ware , and sereral other American ministers , are ea-,-gerly read and sought after among English Unitarians , and that their popularity is decidedly upon the increase . In looking over a number of discourses and tracts , recently sent hither from Boston , we have been struck by the eminently practical character of the whole , and we cannot entertain a doubt that it is to this
we are to attribute their acceptableness . Of minute biblical criticism we have found very little ; the appeal lies mostly to human feelings and the strength of human reasoning , exercised in comparing the general spirit of the gospel with the spirit of exclusive and narrow systems . The scholar must not think his labours
undervalued , if it should appear that these plain , energetic , forcible appeals are exciting a degree of interest which he may think disproportioned to their intrinsic worth . The different members of the "body of Christ may each perform their several offices , and there need be no division among them . Mr . Walker ' s sermon on the Exclusive
System is altogether one of the closest and strongest pieces of reasoning in favour of entire religious liberty we ever tye t with . —The following remarks have struck us as admirable .-" Much stress is laid on the distinc-
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tion , that modern Exclusionists , at least in this country , do not avail themselves of the aid of the civil arm . But it should be considered , that the true question is , not whether they avail themselves of the aid of the civil arm , but whether their measures are not adapted to injure us in our civil relations . The injustice of former Exclusionists , the Spanish Inquisition for example , did not consist simply in employing the civil arm to inflict the penalties they adjudged , but in
adjudging such penalties as affected the supposed misbeliever in his civil relations . What if , instead of intrusting the execution of their sentence to the civil officer , they had chosen to use the influence they possessed over the public mind , to cause their victim to be put under the ban of society ; or had given him up to be torn in pieces on the spot by an incensed populace ? Would this have made the proceeding less cruel , or less unrighteous ?
** Now , will any one pretend , that the Exclusionists of this country do not aim to injure their opponents in their civil relations ? Denounce me as an enemy of the truth , and a hater of God ; call in question my sincerity , and impute my supposed errors to a corrupt heart ; hold me up as a dangerous man in the community , a man with whom it must be
unsafe to associate from the contagion of my bad principles ; make use of my religious opinions to prevent my political elevation , or represent them as a sufficient reason why I should not be entrusted with the education of the young ; thia is the course pursued by most Exclusionists in this country ; and will any one pretend , that this is not to attempt to injure me in my civil relations ? Is it
not to attempt to injure me in my standing and prospects in society ? But my Btanding and prospects in society are as much my property , as a good citizen , as my houses and lands ; and nothing , therefore , will justify an attempt to injure me in one , which would not also justify
an attempt to injure me in the other . Make it to be juat to do what the Exclusionists of this country have often done ; make it to be just to sow dissension in my family , to injure me in the good opinion of my friends and the community , to subject me to any impu-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1828, page 562, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2563/page/50/
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