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Untitled Article
but hi the discharge of the great duties of piety and morality , by which we ho-. Hour God and benefit mankind . We ( believe that faith , without works , is , of . uo more advantage to , the individual , ppssesstug . it , than the gold of the miser in Jiis cotfersy or a oaine of wealth in the centre , of ; the gjofeeyn Nay , more ; we believe that * he faith -of the Christian
which leads not ito virtuous practice , tn not merely useless , but destructive / inasmuch as Us possessor neglects duty , *' sins against the light , " and thereby be ^ comes worse than an infidel . " We believe that works are not ouly the evidence of faith , but the very end and otyect of faith : in accordance with the whole
tenor of the gospel , and the clear design of revelation , which is intended " to turn us from darkness unto light , aud from the power of Satan unto God /' We believe , however , that our works must be sanctified by the motives which faith supplies , and that we cannot approve ourselves to God by either faith or
works singly , but only by both united . In fact , we hold faith , or right principles , to be the foundation , and works , or right practice , to be the superstructure of the Christian edifice ; and yet , that after all we can do , we are still " uuprofitable servants , " and must finally rest upon grace alone .
This leads me to notice the last calumny which has been uttered against us by Mr * Elder , " that we put our hopes of salvation in a mere creature , " jSir , we do nothing of the kind ; we rest our hopes of final acceptance with God neither on our own works , nor upon any mere creature , but upon the
unbounded mercy and compassion of our Heavenly Father , as revealed unto us in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ , I trust to the candour and honesty of Mr . Elder and his friends , that they will now retract their calumnies , and endeavour to disabuse the minds of their people by acknowledging their errors and misrepresentations .
Had we escaped with the groundless Vnvective of plain prose , we might have considered ourselves happy ; but , woe is jnei—the artillery of the Muses has been brought to play upon us from the heights of Parnassus ; and we are likely " to be
damned to everlasting fame , " in " immortalverge . ! ' A poem , entitled * ' The Thinkmg flew , " hm just burst upon the delighted world . 1 do not know whether it may i most properly be . called lyric , epiq , or tragic—; uerf > ap& it is rather a combiuatiou uf the beauties of all the three ,
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Of onej thing , however , there can < be ii < j doubt , the subject is admirable—for I , myself , am the hero . This precious pio ~ ductiou , which -attacks the right of private judgment with the utmost virulence through many pages , surely cannot be the offspring of an orthodox Presbyterian Minister , as is * generally asserted ; but must be the child" of some Catholic
Priest . From the beginning of the world until the preseut time , every villain that has disgraced humanity is represented as having been an Arian . The author should have gone just one step farther back , ( as , I understand , he did in a sermon , ) and represented the Father of lies as the first Arian . He has , however , commenced with Cain , who , it
seems , was a staunch Ariau , aud traced the doctrine through every murderer , suicide , robber , and infidel , down to Carlile aud Taylor , The majesty of the verse is well suited to the dignity of the subject ; the variety of the phraseology is only equalled by the copiousness oi the thoughts . In as many pages we mid this beautiful stanza three times repeated :
" For in their minds there is a lodgment Of all the right of private judgment . " Were it not that time is precious I could read you the whole work with great pleasure . Where all is so unique , and so perfect in its kind , it is difficult to make selection , ?; 1 must , however , content myself with oue passage , which affords a fair specimen of the author ' s exquisite skill , both in poetry and science : —
" I will illustrate this position By Algebraic definition—A Deist is an Arian Theist ; An Arian is a well-cloak'd Deist $ And every thinking Arian Theist Is just—a Unitarian Deist ;
* I owe an apology to the Catholic Priesthood for even hinting ironically that any oue of their body could be guilty of sending forth so base and so talentless a production . Oh , no ! oppressed though they have been , by unjust and impolitic laws , the humblest of their fraternity
possesses too much Irish intellect and Irish heart to be the author of such a work * I have uever concealed . my disapprobation of the Roiuau Catholic Church ; but 1 always wish to speak as 1 feel , kindly and respectfully , with regard to my Human Catholic countrymen . H . ML
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$ &B Intelligence . ~ v Synod nf > Ulster .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1828, page 652, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2564/page/68/
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