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    Sketch of the Life of 2)r. Caleb Rotherh...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    To The Editor Of The Monthly Repository ...

    with short biographical notices , ( to which some of your correspondents will probably be able to make additions , ) will sufficiently convince your readers . I shall take the

    liberty , as I stated above , of prefacing it with a short Sketch of the Life of their worthy Tutor , drawn up from the Notes contained in Mr . Daye ' s Funeral Sermon , and in Mr . Lowthion ' s very excellent discourse on the

    Reasonableness and Advantages of allowing Ministers to spe & k their Sentiments with Freedom , " preached at the ordination of the late- Mr . Caleb Rotherham , who succeeded his father at Kendal .

    Dr . Caleb Rotherham was born March 7 , 1694 , at the pleasant village of Great Salkeld , situated on the banks of the river Eden , which had also the honour of being the birth-place , a few years after , of the venerable Benson . He was instructed in

    classical learning by Mr . Anthony Ireland , at that time master of the Free Grammar School , at Blencowe and went through his academical studies , preparatory to

    the exercise of the sacred ministry , under the Rev . Dr . Dixon , at Whitehaven . In the year 1716 * lie accepted an invitation from the Protestant dissenting congregation At Kendal , and became their

    stated pastor . In 1733 , he began an academy , in compliance with the request of many of the most eminent among the dissenters , both ministers and lai ty ^ for the instruction of youth in various

    To The Editor Of The Monthly Repository ...

    branches of useful literature ; but principally with a view to qualify them for the ministerial office *

    In the management of this institution , while his health continued , he was indefatigably diligent . He was solicitously and affectionately concerned for the improvement and usefulness of those under his

    care especially that they might be inspired with a spirit of liberty j and might clearly understand the genuine principles of Christianity - and , in order to % hisy permitted , encouraged , and assisted them , to think freely upon every subject of natural and revealed religion .

    He took his degree of doctor in divinity , in the college of Edinburgh , oh the 27 th of May , 1743 ; on which occasion he published , and in the usual forms of academical disputation defended , *

    a Latin inaugural dissertation , JDe Religionis Christiana Evidentid ; in which he clearly refuted the notion , admitted by Locke , ( Hum * Und . iv .-c . 16 . § 10 5 ) strongly insisted on byTindal , ( Christianity as Old as the Creation , p . 163 , )

    and more lately revived by Evanson , ( Letter to Hurd , p . 9 . ) " that the probability of facts depend * ing on human testimony , must gradually lessen in proportion to the distance of the time when they happened , and at last become entirely evanescent / 1

    In the latter end of the year 1751 , his health , which had received a severe shock from some very heavy family afflictions , began rapidly to decline . In the

    m this disputation ( as I have often heard his son relate ) the following curious circumstance occurred . In the % & § , it is maintained , " digmatum summa , in f * dewit ^ ' novi Uhris patefacta * turn si & i , turn recta rationi , cinstat . " To whichr one of the impngners objected , that the New Testament * asserted ( 1 J ohn v . 80 that Three are O » e . ! On which old Principal Wishart leaned ovcir towards the « an * *< NtC | aad whispered " Deny the authority of the tcxu '

    Sketch Of The Life Of 2)R. Caleb Rotherh...

    Sketch of the Life of 2 ) r . Caleb Rotherham . % iS

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1810, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02051810/page/3/