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Untitled Article
were falsifiers . We hope the former is the fact—it is , at least , except when it is connected with conceit , more easy of correction than the abominable habit of lying . Before we proceed to the gravamen of our complaint we shall state on what evidence it is known that Whitby was an Unitarian . Ignorance on subjects which serve for the impeachment of their fellow-christians is no new qualification of Churchmen . Even Archdeacon Wrangham knew
not that Whitby was an Unitarian , till made acquainted with the fact by one who , in his letters to that dignitary of the church , has reaped a plentiful harvest of honour . * In his " Last Thoughts , " let our evangelical brother know , Whitby , as he himself declares , " seriously considered all he had said in his Commentary to the contrary , " i . e . of the Unitarian sentiments which he finally adopted , " and fully answered the most considerable places he then produced for confirmation of the doctrines he there too hastily endeavoured to establish . " Again , in his preface he says , " This , my retractation , or
change < if opinion , after all niy former endeavours 1 to assert and establish a contrary doctrine , deserves the more to be considered , because it proceeds , and , indeed , can proceed , from me for no other reason , but purely from the strong and irresistible convictions which are now upon me , that I was mistaken . " Perhaps , when our evangelical contemporary learns that Whitby did become a Unitarian in his last days * he will find some story of his having been found dead in his bed in consequence of his heretical pravity . Such it seems was the punishment of Robert Robinson , according to the Christian Observer . Now , the aforementioned Archdeacon will not allow that R .
Robinson was , in the latter part of his life , really and truly , as supposed , an Unitarian ; against such a conclusion he earnestly contends . Well , then , if one Churchman believes another , and he of the Christian Observer recalls , in consequence of an Archdeacon ' s testimony , his averment of the heretical nature of Robinson ' s creed , what will he do with the insinuation he has shamefully thrown out , that he suddenly died in consequence of preaching against the divinity of Christ ? The fact of his death remains the same ; but surely sound orthodoxy could not be visited with God ' s judgment . How
will our evangelical calumniator rid himself of this difficulty ? Even let him resort to the hard alternative o £ denying the authority of his own churchpray , who told him that Robinson died in consequence of preaching on this or on that doctrine ? Some people speak as if they had direct intercourse with the Almighty , and knew by intuition the secrets of Heaven ; of such people Cicero has thus spoken , Book i . De Nat . Deo : " Fidenter sane , ut solent isti , nihil tam verens , quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur ; tamquam modo ex deorum consilio , et ex Epicuri intermundiis descendisset : Audite , inquit , nonfutiles commenticiasque sententias *"
But the writer evinces too great an ignorance of earthly matters to receive much credit for a knowledge of heavenly . Robinson did not die the next morning , as he states , but on the Wednesday after the Sunday on which he preached at Birmingham . There is no mystery in his sudden death . The intense study to which , in the latter days of his life , he devoted himself , in order
to prepare his excellent works on Baptism and Ecclesiastical History , had reduced him , with other causes , to " a shadow" of what he had been , to adopt his own language used when in Birmingham . For a long time he had been in a declining state , and when he set out for Birmingham he was a dying man . True , he preached on the Sunday ; but this fact , as well as many
* Weil beloved ' s JLetters to Wrangham .
Untitled Article
192 The Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 192, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/40/
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