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Jation ; how then can they be Deists ? Answer , Extremes often meet ; ergo , Unitarians and Infidels meet , and are , though at extremes , the same in spirit and the same in object . Such are the proofs ; and the man that is not content with them must , alas ! be under the perverting sway of ' * carnal reason , " and irretrievably lost . It is not our intention to reply to this
outrageous tirade in detail . Two or three considerations only are all that we propose to advance . But we are stopped at the very outset . If we reply , we only increase the evidence of our guilt . Already , Unitarians have proved themselves Infidels by denying the charge . If so , one thing is clear , that Unitarians have earned for themselves again and again " a name , " to use the words of Locke , " so abhorred that it finds no room in civil
conversation ; "" for though they are Infidels , and ipso facto proved so , they have often denied the charge . How it comes to pass that the writer knows what we are better than we ourselves , we wot not . How he could be so rude and calumnious as to fix the charge of falsehood on thousands of his fellow-creatures , surpasses our comprehension : but let that pass . Aforetime we had thought , in agreement with an old proverb , that under certain circumstances silence gave consent . The new light , however , declares , that he who pleads not guilty convicts himself by the very plea he titters . In this dilemma what are Unitarians to do ? They are accused—if silent , they are therefore guilty ; if they deny the charge , they are therefore guilty . It will be best , perhaps , to try the force of the argument against
the fabricator of it . Did Jesus prove himself guilty when he relied upon and averred his innocence ? Did the apostles convict him of sin when they declared that he was holy , harmless , and undefiled ? Did the early Christians establish the charges brought against them of Atheism , of destroying their own children , of practising in secret the worst of wickedness , and of causing all the natural and political calamities that fell on the Roman state , by the apologies which , from time to time , they presented to the senate and Emperor of Rome ? Did Luther and Calvin and other Reformers convict themselves , and add falsehood to misconduct , ^ when they rebutted the numerous calumnies which were heaped upon them by their Catholic opponents ? Did the Puritans , in the various books and pamphlets which they set forth to relieve themselves from the many accusations levelled at them , publish in reality , and by the act of publishing , their own condemnation ? In a similar manner we may despatch the spiteful charge of Unitarians
not being able to do without mutilating the Scriptures . The writer may be ignorant of the fact , but we can inform him , that scarcely is there one of the portions of the New Testament which Unitarians either doubt the authenticity of , reject , or translale differently from the common version , in which they have not been preceded , and are not still supported , by writers of the orthodox school . Is orthodoxy , therefore , to be branded as not being able to do without these things ? If Dr . Pye Smith rejects ( as is the fact ) the Song of Solomon , are we hence to infer that on this rejection the safety of Calvinism rests ? If Dr . Middleton obscures the doctrine of the Greek article in order
to fabricate proofs of the Trinity , are we therefore to conclude that orthodoxy must fall but for his perverted ingenuity ? If the Congregational Magazine itself * speaks of the Authorized Version as " false , " as containing " manifold 11 " errors , ' " ignorant mistakes , " " verbal contradictions '—* i even its conductors should exclude as " spurious" whole verses of the
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* Xuihber for February , p . So . ji ^ VOL . IV . U
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Inconsistency of the Congregational Magazine * 177
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1830, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2582/page/33/
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