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ham , has two admirable sermons Cm the srrbject , Among the lessons taught by the resurrection , be says that it affords a triumph over the unjust ground of of ~ fc . nce which contracted minds would conceive , who judge of the goodness of a cause by its suecena , that if Jesus had not risen , men would have fancied he had been defeated in his scheme , and have withheld their support . He also
cotJsiders it a token of the love of God who permitted this sacrifice ; but who was anxious to honour Jesus above ordinary martyrs , by shewing him openly to the world . All this- is very true : but it does not invalidate my previous remarks . These ends might have been fulfilled by other means : the whole life of Christ , and the future success of his gospel , shew , in the amplest manner , the divitie love and the honour God sought to confer on his well-beloved Sou . But the
most valuable use be could distinguish of this fact , is the evidence it affords to ** the senses of men of that reward which righteousness may promise to itself from that Being who delights therein . " Mr . Samuel Bourn , in the Eleventh Discourse of his First Volume , considers the fact of which I am speaking as * an experimental evidence of a
future state , more proper in itself to determine our belief , and in all its circumstances to govern our practice ,, than the most probable conjectures of the ablest reasoner . " " If , " says he , " there ever was an instance of a person actually returning from the dead to assure men of a future life , this fact is decisive , and is a kind of proof which gives the mind more content and satisfaction than the
deepest refinements of the wisest philosophers . " This , I apprehend , is carrying the fact too far , and arises from a misconception of the apostles' meaning , when they so frequently make mention of it . No doubt , if the resurrection could be disproved , it was true , in their sense , that the whole scheme must fall to the ground , because one instance of falsehood would be fatal to the truth of the whole . In no other sense can the saying hold good .
1 have presumed , Sir , to offer the above remarks more for the purpose of information than to lay down any fresh hypothesis . If I am mistaken , it will give me the siucerest pleasure to be set right ; I may , perhaps , be wrong in my idea of the use of the fact of the resurrection as conceived of by the generality of mankind ; I can only say I have written from my own imoireBsions and obaerration \ aad in all the books to whieh
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I have had access , I find thtfse vle * a fa . sisted upon which I have ventured to animadvert upon-. Hoping that some of your enlightened readers may he induced to communicate their sentiments for the beueiit of the community , I remain , &c ENQUIRER . ' *
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$ 52 Miscellaneous CvrregpendenM .
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Smith ' s Designed End to the Socxnmn Controversy . To the Editor . Clapton , Sir , February 5 th , 1829 .
In 1813 I communicated to the Repository ( VHI . 710 ) some accomxt of tkA Divine Antidote to a Devilish Poison , " a volume , puhlished in 1696 , by Dr . Gregory , a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England . It is described as " a scriptural answer to ' a designed find of the Socinian Controversy , written by John Smith /"
That tract , of whose author's history , or its first reception , no aecouot could be recovered , was found among some waste paper by the pious and learned Michael Dodson , and reprinted , under his direction , in 1793 , for circulation among the tracts of the Unitarian Society .
I endeavoured to shew how ill-supplied with scriptural arguments , against the ' heretical clock maker , " was the Reverend Doctor r though abounding in the varieties of rancorous abu . se , and astounding the " illiterate mechanic" with " words of learned length and thundering sound . " Little did I then suspect that John Smith had been tempted to
recant , and thus , it is to be feared , ( urless some caution apparent in his " retracting" should absolve him , ) to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience , " awed by the terrors of a Bishop ' s
Court . That Protestant Lnquisitiou , the spirit of the times , and not the repeal of absurd and unrighteous statutes , ( for which , probably , we must wait till " the school master" has beeu much longer " abroad , " ) has now reudered comparatively harmless , and its threats , generally , a brutum fulmen .
The following document I transcribed , not long since , from ' Bishop Keunet ' s Collections" among the Landsdown MSS . ( 038 N . xvi . fol . 242 ) . On a comparison of dates , the doughty Dr . Gregory can scarcely escape the imputation of having hit a man when he was down , or , in concise pugilistic phrase giveu a coward ' s blow . Should there be any among your readers ( they must , I think , be a rapidly
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1829, page 352, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2572/page/56/
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