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originated in this p ublic intercourse and harmony , friendship aMke honourable and happy , useful and enduring . The alarm , the opposition , the enmity , the abhorrence , in which Unitarianism and Unitarians are so often held , require of them union and mutual support , unless they are content that , of many of their number , insult and injury should be trve portion . Nor can it be expected that proselyting should be carried on to any extent without a system of co-operation .
Towards these objects , however , comparatively little was done , directly , by the Unitarian Society . In its consequences it did much . Not only was its plan imitated in the country ; by the Western Unitarian Society , the Southern , and various others ; but in the metropolis general societies were formed for the promotion of objects excluded from its plan ; as the Unitarian Fund , for the employment of popular preaching , and the Association for protecting the Civil Rights of Unitarians ; both of which , together with the parent Institution , are now- united in the British and Foreign Unitarian Association .
With the exception of the Western , all these Institutions differed in one particular from the original Unitarian Society . They employed the term Unitarian in its widest acceptation , as denoting merely a believer in the one God the father . Mr . Belsham has adverted , in the passage just quoted , to the objection which was made at the time to his introducing the doctrine of
the simple humanity of Christ into the preamble of the Rules of the Society . The objection gathered strength by time , and at intervals occasioned much discussion , and in the later years of his life Mr . Belsham found but few who agreed with him in this restriction . It is one which ill accords with the comprehensive spirit of Unitarian Christianity . The less there is amongst us of sectarian division and subdivision the better . We cannot afford
towaste our strength , nor would we narrow our minds , by petty distinctions . Enough is done when we have distinguished ourselves from the enemies and the corrupters of the gospel . For the sake of truth , of union , of charity , and of individual freedom of opinion , there ought to be no party lines of demarcation between those who can assemble around the same altar to worship the same paternal God . .
This restriction of the term Unitarian was probably endeared to Mr . Belsham by the example of Priestley and Lindsey ; by the conduct of some Arians of the last generation in reference to the Trinitarian controversy ; and , above all , by the circumstances of his own conversion . The change of opinion on the person of Christ was the great change to him . It was the crisis of his life . He found that different views of the other controverted
points followed by a logical necessity , in rapid succession , and with comparative facility . The doctrine of the superhumanity of Christ seemed to him the one neck which supported the hydra-heads of corrupt doctrine , all of which might thus be struck off at a single blow . But several starting points might be selected from which the road is equally open , easy , sure , and speedy , to the same result . In fact , it matters but little which link be first broken
from the chain of corruption . Original Sin , Total Depravity , Vicarious Suffering , Eternal Torments ; any one of these * will , if the inquirer persist in his course , be aa sure to drag all the rest after it a& the doctrine of the Godhead of Cforisfe . There is no reason why it , any more than the rest , should' h % raised to the same decree of importance , apparently at least , as the fundamental truth of all rational Theology , the proper Unity of God . That tenet , like the * Being to whom it relates , should remain alone . Or if the occasion calls fo * some addition , there is one other doctrine , though even
Untitled Article
246 On the Character and Writings of the Ftev * t \ Bekhfim .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1830, page 246, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2583/page/30/
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