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Untitled Article
them , leave on the minds of a great mass of the flock of Christ . Indications these of the decline of Trinitarianism , which , by reason of their number , may well alarm the sturdy defender of doctrinal error . The sturdy defender is alarmed , and in that alarm we see a proof that his cause is in jeopard y * The sturdy defender
-is"alarmedirr"and- ~ many ~ an-effor-t--hasJieJ 3 iade , janiLisJhe in various places making , to bring back the reign of darkness in theological doctrine . The old cure for heretical pravity is tried again . The freedom of the mind they endeavour to restrain , and the power of the mind to repress , by the bonds of creeds . But the bonds have lost their force by ageT Like Samson , the mind will break these withes as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire . ' No ,
we hope , we believe , it is not possible to arrest the mind in its present , progress onward . Rather do we anticipate a yet niore extensive , a universal renunciation of the Trinitarian error . The period just now passed has been not so much the harvest as the , seed time of religious . reformation . The declared effects we view only as the first ripe grain . Such , too , in considerable extent , is the character of the same period in jurisprudence and legislation .. Long did the light of truth shine on the political world , and shine on in the midst of darkness . Even some of the best friends of humanity doubted if the good cause was advancing
or re ^ edirfg—when , lo ! at the very moment that worthTes were hoping and doubting , but still labouring- —the openings of the new day became visible , and scarcely now shall you find one but expects , and with reason , that it will grow brighter and brighter till its meridian splendour . We are not , we thinly in error , when we look on the triumphs of Unitarian ism now recorded , but as the first sheaf offered before the Lord . What analogy suggests reason approves . Long had the human mind been held in bondage to corruption by the dread of change $ if a thing was new it was to the many utterly offensive . But this day of mental servitude is past— -great changes have come' —the Blind is familiarized to them—perhaps even a bias has With many ; , been created in their favour—at all events , a sound argument can be no longer
rendered pointless by childish yet mighty fears . Nor is it unlikely , that men having seen abuses exposed on every hand , may expect to find abuses in the Church ; nay , they know the Church in its economy is grossly corrupt ; how natural for them to suspect corruption also in its doctrine . It is not in the nature of things , that the renovation of one part of the ^ gqcrarcdnsfitution should not lead on to a gradual regeneration in all . On which side , the Trinitarian or the Antitrinitarian , is ranged
the power which models the future generation ? Are the sympathies of the well-educated , the intelligent , the philosophic , with the friends of the Trinity ? No : the intellectual power of the civilized world is , to a great extent , most clearly Antitrinitarian . On which side are the youth of the present generation marr
Untitled Article
358 THE TRUTH TELLER .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 1, 1833, page 358, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2627/page/6/
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