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Untitled Article
proaching , he told his medical friend that he was no longer able to endure the fatigue and exhaustion occasioned by those long arguments , and must , therefore , close their religious conferences with one suggestion , which was to be considered as his last and most solemn counsel . He adjured the inquirer to peruse St . John ' s Gospel attentively and repeatedly , without note or comment , and to retain closely in his mind throughout this perusal the
following sentence , ' Jesus Christ is nothing more than the son of Mary , a mere mortal man . ' By this method , said the dying patient , the Socinian hypothesis would be brought into perpetual collision with the sacred text ; and if this incessant conflict does not satisfy you that either Socinus or St . John is in error , I should totally despair of your conversion . ' What was the result of this advice in this particular case we are not informed , but we are unable to imagine how such a contest could well be carried on beyond the first fourteen verses of the first chapter . For we would ask with the Bishop ( Blomfield ) ,
c Would an evangelist , holding the Unitarian opinions of the present day , open the gospel as St . John does ? ' We have here a question which throws a strong light on the value of the counsel given to the Unitarian physician , and to us it appears that the mind which would escape from this assault must be utterly impassive to every weapon or implement in the magazine of reason ; even though St . John should rise again from the dead and wield the sword of the spirit , such an intellect would remain invulnerable . "—The readers of the Watchman will be at least indebted to us for the perusal of a number of stories derived from the abundant stores of the
evangelical warehouse . Therein are tales innumerable , rivalling in number and merit even the treasury of the Minerva pTess ; tales for the old and tales for the young ; tales for the wise and tales for the foolish ; but above all , a plentiful collection entitled , " Tales of Horror , or Death-bed Scenes , illustrative of the Effects of Socinian ism ; humbly dedicated to the old Ladies of the Three United Kingdoms . " In days of yore the story-teller was a vagabond upon the face of the earth , much like his quondam friend and once faithful
companion Master Punch ; traversing the high-ways and by-ways in quest of an audience , and , posting himself " in the chief place of concourse , in the openings of the gates , " he uttered his voice in the streets . But now he mounts the pulpit , disdaining his former lowly condition ; he takes the chair of grave Reviewers , and associates himself not only with the ranting Methodist , but with the grave and evangelical divine . His condition is changed , his duty not diminished ; his talents are in requisition in almost every religious sect , and abundant honours reward his industry . Thus it is in this world ; it is not things , but
their aspects , which change ; and no one knows how soon Punch himself , though now left by his more fortunate brother to pick up a scanty and precarious subsistence , may receive a call equally dignified with that which the story-teller has heard and answered . But to quit this moralizing mood . The Reviewer furnishes his readers with an infallible recipe against all the evils of Socinianism . We fear that when investigated it will prove of no more worth than the following for the tooth-ache , given of old by John Heywood , in his " Four P ' s , a very merry interlude of a Palmer , a Pardoner , a rotecary , and a Pedlar . "
Pardoner . Nay , Sirs , beholde , heer may ye see The great toe of the Trinitie : Who to this toe any money vowth And once may role it in his mouth , All his Jife after , I undertake He shall never be vext with the tooth-ake .
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2 ? 2 The Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 272, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/48/
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