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Among those who have not yet avowedly Separated from the Roman Catholic Church , but are indifferent to its dogmas , there is ( f saw reason to believe ) a rapidly increasing class , consisting of men of religious or at least not autireligious dispositions , who feel the importance and need of religious faith , but see around them no form of it on which
the understanding can rest ; and who only require to have liberal views of Christianity and the arguments for its divine origin presented to them , to lead them to the adoption of the fundamental principles of Unitarian ism . Belief in materialism , which had been extensively held in a more repulsive form than we have known much of in England , and
been often connected with atheism , and commonly with disbelief in a future state , appeared to be rapidly giving way toa , n enlightened and serious spiritualism ; and by this change the minds of intelligent , thinking men were , as I believed , preparing for the effectual reception of religious truth , if not immediately of the Christian ' s faith .
When I went over to Paris some mouths ago with my daughters , I found that my two friends and their associates were engaged in establishing a Review , to be commenced next January , which is to be devoted to Philosophy , iu the French extent of the term , as distinct
from Physics , aud including all that respects Mind ; and that one of them purposed to insert iu the first number an article on my book entitled Unitarianism the Doctrine of the Gospel , a copy of which I had transmitted to him , by a highly-valued mutual friend , as a mark of grateful respect .
I have recently received from these gentlemen * some information which I deem alike interesting and important , whatever be its immediate result , and which induces me to address this letter to you . One of them , a man of profound aud reflecting mind , and at the same time of great activity and general information , expresses his warm satisfaction in the volume of Dr , Chanmng ' s works ( the
8 vo edj which I had sent him , aud especially of the 8 th aermon , — " than which ( he says ) I know no arguments more conclusive and more aptly calculated to support the doctrines we cherish ; " and states that he should have endeavoured to translate and publish an abstract of the ' voluiriP ,: but ^ for the following circunristauces ; Th £ Edrtof of the CouHer Francois (^ s ro ^ nV of the readers of the Repository itiay hare ob-
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served ) has recently been called to the bar for u certain expressions respecting the durability of the Christian dogmas . ' * The tribunal condemned the Editor on the ground that " la perpituiU de lafoi w ^ a received dogma of the Romish Church , and could not be called in question ; that as long as a man had not
declared what sort of worship he adhered to , he must be supposed to follow the one in which he was brought up ; and that the Editor having made no such declaration , he ought to be considered as a Roman Catholic , " &c , &c . This sentence caused much agitation among the newspaper writers ( who , in France , are a class including many in the higher
ranks of society , as well as their first literary men ) : " they consulted together how they could escape or parry the attacks of the Attorney-General ; and they have come to the resolution of building a church with the inscription Uni Deo , and to make an avowed and public pro-9
fession of Unitarianism . * My friend , who thus writes , would have rejoiced at the measure , if it had not been taken up on such grounds , because ( he says ) " I know of no other form of worship that a reasonable man could , now-a-days , unreservedly admit : " but he is apprehensive that , from the motives which have
influenced it , and the known , opinions of the authors of it on philosophic and religious subjects , men who are seriously attached to their religious opinions will not join them , or come forwards as Unitarians . These circumstances make him hesitate to publish several small tracts which he had prepared in order to call the attention of his couutrymen to that grand and
solemn question , religion . He expects little , he says , from the men above forty , their minds having long received another bias : " the young alone are seriously at it ; and I rest great hopes on the severe examination to which they are now bringing all the documents of human evidence . " My frigid writes in English , and the passages marked as quotations are of course his own wor ^ dsi
My other friend is also a man of an active , intelligent iniud . He is a physician , and is the Editor of a Medical Journal . His engagements lead him to a more constant acquaintance with what is passing in the world ; aud though his
mind is fraught with domestic affection , moral principle , and serious sentiments , this circumstance may have contributed to lessen $ he repulsive feeling with which our older friend views the motives and dfcirrnstances which arc probably leadrug to the foundation of a Unitarian
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Miscellaneous Correspondence . C 67
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1829, page 667, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2576/page/67/
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