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Untitled Article
controversy , revived with so mudh animation by the writings of Mr . Lindsev and Dr . Priestley , and brought home so closely to the feelings by the truly Christian and disinterested conduct of the former , in the resignation of his vicarage , was at that time in its zenith . And the tutor regarding it as -a question of the highest importance , conceiving it to be his duty to state it fairly before the theological students , and observing that the question concerning the simple humanity of Christ , which was now become the great controversy
of the age , was scarcely glanced at in Dr . Doddridge ' Lectures , which were the text-book of the Institution , he determined to draw up a new course of lectures upon the subject . And to this he was impelled by an additional motive , namely , the hope of putting a speedy termination to this newly revived controversy ; since , whatever respect he entertained for the abilities , the learning , and the character of the great champions of the Unitarian faith , he felt a perfect confidence that their arguments would be found capable of an easy and satisfactory reply ; and whatever might be the errors of his own education , he had been happily instructed and firmly fixed in the grand principle , that freedom of investigation must ultimately be favourable to truth .
The method which he pursued in instituting this inquiry he has detailed at large in another place . It is , therefore , sufficient at present to mention , that he first selected all the texts of the New Testament upon which the controversy is allowed to depend ; most certainly not omitting any which appeared to him favourable to the pre-existence and divinity of Jesus Christ . These be arranged under distinct heads ; and under each text he introduced the explanations of the most approved commentators of the Trinitarian , Arian , Socinian , and Unitarian hypothesis , very rarely introducing any theological comments of his own , choosing rather to leave the remarks of the different
expositors to make their own impression upon the minds of his pupils . The labour was considerable : but it was not thought burdensome either by the teacher or the learner ; the consciousness of honest , unbiassed inquiry , and the gradual opening of light , was ample compensation for all . But the result was widely different from what had beea expected . First , the pupils , whose ingenuous minds , not so firmly bound by prejudice , were more open to conviction , began to discard the errors of education ; and some of them , much to the regret of their worthy friends , and not least to tbat of their tutor , became decided Unitarians . The tutor ' s habits of thinking were more firmly riveted ; and though from the beginning of the inquiry he was a little surprised at discovering so few direct , and , as he thought , unequivocal , assertions of his favourite doctrine , and though in the process of his labours he found himself obliged to abandon one text because it was spurious , another because it admitted of a different and more probable interpretation , and so on , and was thus driven by degrees out of his strong holds ; yet such was the ascendancy which the associations of education had obtained over his mind , that he does not
believe it would have been in the power of argument to have subdued it , had not the nature of his office , which made it necessary for him to repeat the lectures to successive classes , and which thereby compelled his attention again and again to the subject , eventually , and almost imperceptibly , overruled his ori g inal prepossessions , and brought him over to the faith to which he had certainly no previous partiality , to the profession of which he had nd interest to induce him , and which he had fondly flattered himself that he should without much difficulty have overthrown . Those who have never
changed their opinions , who are not much in the habits of inquiry , or who have not watched the vacillations of the mind when it is deliberating upon subjects of high importance , when it is anxious to form a correct judgment , when much depends upon the decision , and when it onoe begins to suspect as erroneous what it has long regarded as sacred and essential truth , may wonder that the teacher should be so long in making up his own mind , and that he should not be able to mark the day and the hour of his conversion . The fact is , that he was not himself aware of it till upon the repetition of a sermon which he had preached a few years before , and in which the pre-
Untitled Article
76 On the Character and Writings of the Rev . T . Belsham .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 76, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/4/
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