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present day with interest and' instruction . One of them is a " Plan of Lectures on the Principles of Nonconformity , It is a strong , able , undisguised attack upon the Church of Englandr Another is entitled , " A Political Catechism , intended to convey , in a familiar manner , just Ideas of Good Civil Government and the British Constitution . " In the advertisement he saySj it is the duty of all good citizens " to support the present excellent administration , " which was the Rockingham administration . Notwithstanding , however , his attachment to the administration of which Mr . Burke was a member , his PJan of Lectures and his Catechism , some
years after their publication , when Mr . Burke had separated from his party , Drought upon Robinson an attack in Parliament from that eminent man , which he shared in company with Dr . Priestley and Dr . Price . * Robinson ' s high reputation , his talents and virtues , gave him , at one period , great influence with the denomination to which he belonged . But it was shaken and weakened by his liberality of sentiment , by his resistance
of all usurpation over the faith of others , and by his disbelief of many of the articles of the orthodox creed . In 1781 , he published a tract , entitled " The General Doctrine of Toleration applied to the particular Case of Free Communion . " The proposal of free communion was in itself obnoxious ; and Robinson had besides the hardihood to affirm , that " there is , there can
be , no moral turpitude in involuntary error . " The expression of this opinion was regarded as highly o ff ensive by Mr . Abraham Booth , a distinguished Particular Baptist , by Dr . Rippon , an eminent man , and others , who , conceiving that they possessed a monopoly of truth in this sinful and ignorant world , were outraged that their peculiar possession should be soundervalued . At some monthly meeting of Baptist ministers a voice was heard , which may not yet have reached the ears of all whom it is adapted to inform . Mr . Abraham Booth , as Dr . Rippon relates , " stated with an
energy of mind and a force of argument never to be forgotten , that if error is harmless , truth must be worthless ; and with" a voice for him unusually elevated , declared , that every partisan of the innocency of mental error is a criminal of no common atrocity , but guilty of high treason against the majesty of eternal truth . " The words of Mr . Booth and his admirer may sound to many like an echo of one of the Rev . Gabriel Kettledrumle ' s sermons in Old Mortality ; but we are none of us , probably , f ully aware of the state of things in which we live ; and are apt , it may be , to believe the
1 * % • • wir-r i » a / til * world wiser than it is . We are much mistaken if as gross folly is not delivered with as much arrogance and dogmatism , and almost as much effect , to congregations in our own metropolis . In the present case , the effect of this and similar denunciations was considerable . Many of his own denomination were led to view Robinson as an object of suspicion ; and of its leaders , many , without doubt , had before regarded him with jealousy .
Still the weight of his character was such as to withstand , in a great measure , the attacks to which he was exposed . In 1781 , a respectable meeting of gentlemen of the Baptist denomination , convened in London for the purpose , applied to him to undertake a history of the Baptists . He assejated to their request ; and was occupied in literary labours relating to this work during the remainder of his life . The fruits of his studies ap ~
* See Annual Register for 1790 , pp . 76 , 77 , and Dyer ' s Life of Robinson , p . 155 . There must be an anachronism in the date assigned by Dyer to Mr . Burke ' s attack .
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520 Memoir of Robert Robinson ,,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1828, page 520, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2563/page/8/
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