On this page

• Text (2)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    OBJECTIONS TO THE UNITARIAN FUND CONSIDE-ItED . To the Editor of the Monthly Repository . Sir ,

    In your last Number , you have obligingly inserted the Rules of the New Society for the Encouragement of Popular Preaching on Unitarian Principles , an Institution which has , I understand , furnished matter for much conversation arid difference of opinion , even amongst Unitarians themselves . Many with

    myself avow their cordial approbation of the plan , and even wonder that it was not thought of before , and adopted sooner , and trust that the reproach so long and so plausibly cast upon Unitarians for their indifference , and want of zeal , will now in a great measure , be removed , and that eventually much good will be done . Others again object that the times are not favourable ^ and that therefore it is imprudent ; that Unitarianism is not a religion for the multitude , and that therefore it will do

    no good ; and that activity like this , will only alarm and excite the ill-will of the adverse party , if not of the government itself , to the great prejudice of the cause it intends to serve—objections these , as we conceive , not more trite and common place , than they are unworthy of the persons who-entertain them .-

    —Can there be any thing imprudent in Unitarians acting like men of principle , or in their endeavouring to disseminate what they believe to be the truth of God , or any thing alarming in their adopting those active measures which almost all other sects of Christians have wisely and successfully employed for centuries

    past ? It iskvithin the recollection of many , that objections of a similar nature were urged against the establisbiThent of a Society for th % circulation of Books , though from this ^ as experience has proved , no evil whatever has resulted . If nothing is to be done or attempted until no objection can be raised against it , there would be an end to all benevolent exertion , ibr

    no institutions , even those to which we are the most indebted , were ever established without opposition and objection . Whatever may be assigned as the cause of this perverseness of human ppinion , the fact itself is indisputable . We have r ^ eateclly heard our friends , though we think not very discreetly , declare , that Unitarianism was not a religion for the multitude , because

    it does not appeal to the passions , but to the understanding , because there is nothing in it mysterious or imposing , nothing to engage or bewilder the imagination , but it is plain , rational , and simple , if Unitarianism be the gospel , it must be fit and suitable for the whole world , and supremely worthy the acceptation of aJl men , and must , if it be truth , sooner or later universally

    Untitled Article

    ( 183 )

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1806, page 188, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1723/page/20/