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Untitled Article
one can feel inclined to deliberate about them . Who will refuse his assent to such maxims as these : that it is objectionable in politics to have a spirit of rapacity , of hypocrisy , of capriciousness , of rashness , of partiality , of illiberality , of inhumanity ? These topics are enlarged upon and illustrated in emphatic terms throughout thirty pages ! Neither will almost any one of the present day refuse nis assent to the principle , that " a perfect and universal coincidence in sentiment is a mere chimera , and
essential neither to the unity nor the harmony of the church /' ( p . 196 ) . In the time of Charles the 1 st , such a sentiment would have b £ en meritorious . But those principles which we should designate as pernicious , because so very liable to be construed into a suppression of all free inquiry , are such as the following : " that reason must not presume to preside at the tribunal of inspiration , " ( p . 25 ) ; in which cause me would fall back to the state in which Jesus Christ described them , as
c having eyes and seeing not , ears and hearing not , hearts and understandings closed ; * another dangerous principle , because leading directly to fanaticism and insanity , is contained in a passage which encourages the belief that the assistance of God ' s grace by a particular and especial inspiration , will be given to those who seek it , ( p . 183 ) ; another , in the declaration that the New Testament legislates for all cases and details of human
life at all periods ; from which , among others , the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance is necessarily deduced by the author , though he qualifies , or rather nullifies it by an ingenious quibble ; another , in what may be called his theory of social intercourse , which , he says , should always " be
regulated by a wish to improve ourselves and others , * ' ( p . 152 ) ; by which we should at once transform ourselves into a set of pupils and teachers ; nullify sympathy , and certainly kill all enjoyment . But we might go on usque ad nauseam , with these examples of orthodox trash and twaddle .
The style of the book is very singular . It is for the most part broken into periods of a few words ; as thus in the denunciation of vice : —" The law is her enemy . The magistrate is her foe . Infamy is her portion . Destruction is her end / ' ( p . 62 . )
It is occasionally offensively illiberal , and abusive in its epithets ; and at times it is startling from its irreverence , as when after describing certain conduct on the part of men , the author goes on to say , " God regards such conduct as an intolerable insult
offered to himself ! " ( p . 1 ( 53 . ) There spoke the offended egotism of the scribe . In his Dedication , he avows the " universal circulation and permanent use" for which his work is intended , and confesses his obligations by declaring himself " eternally indebted to his Creator and Redeemer' * —for inspiring him , we suppose ? He concludes by " solemnly subscribing his name , to tne visible pledge of his intention to aim at the full aocom *
Untitled Article
S& 6 Critical Notices *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1836, page 386, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2658/page/58/
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