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

    of leaving his cause to be tried on its scriptural merits , tie should still think it prudent to prejudice his readers against Unitarians , by charging some of us , for we are bv no means agreed

    on the subject , with violating what he esteems " a sacred obligation /* he will , I trust , make over John Calvin to us , for the single occasion of our defence , and we will promise not to detain him . DOMINICUS .

    Untitled Article

    contrasted , and perhaps as exhibiting human folly and inconsistency in as superlative a degree as can vyell be produced , I take them as the basis of farther illustration . > A Birmingham printer , of the name

    of Russell , has been convicted at the late Warwick assizes of publishing a parody on part of the Church Litany . His sentence stands over till next term , when he will most probably be punished by imprisonment arid fine ; and should these , or either of them be

    the case , his circumstances are so humble , that his ruin will be inevitable . Hone was the first publisher of the article in London , and a jury of his countrymen acquitted him of culpability , and of course their verdict would fairly establish the right to sell what was thus declared on the best

    possible authority , to be undeserving of censure or-punishment . Deny this principle , and we throw down the boundary of right and wrong , and leave the distinction between virtue and vice to be perfectly nugatory and undefinable . This was a public act ,

    and surely might be considered as a public security against any farther prosecution . The science of morals has made but a lamentable progress , if , in the enlightened nineteenth century , it is to be graduated on the scale of north and south latitude , and

    innocence in London be deemed guilt in Warwickshire . Fixing a sun-dial on a weather-cock is perfectly rational compared with this new light , and what Swift meant as a burlesque , may , as we advance in improvement , soon be pronounced sound philosophy .

    Russell , however , immmediately on hearing of Hone ' s prosecution , declined selling any copies , but was allured by the treachery of apparent friendship and by absolute importunity to dispose of one , and for this he is indicted as having been instigated by malicious intentions .. This

    diabolical inveiglement had the sanction of authority . The defendant is put to all the trouble and expense which the chicanery of the law will authorize . The plaintiffs put off the trial * thus renewing the , aggravated evil s they return to the cruel attack , a « 4 now he lies at the mercy of a vindictive and implacable authority . And what is -this glaring and unatoneable crime > Has it tended to

    Untitled Article

    Sir , August 25 , 1819 . HAVE rambled an hour or two I this morning on the sea-shore , and

    indulged my mind and heart in those musings which ally me to the Deity ; which compel me to admit that his most interesting attribute to the human race is benevolence . I am unable to

    trace any being equaj in intelligence to man ; and as the faintest spark of mind appears to me to be infinitely superior in importance to any extent of matter , animate or inanimate , and however adorned by the hand of its Maker , I infer that a leading motive

    in the formation of the world , ( if presumption be not attached to any supposition on the subject , ) was the happiness of mankind . If there are superior intelligencies who share the beneficence , as they are unknown to me , 1 cannot include them in the scale

    of divine appointment , and am still more strongly impressed with the feeling , that , as far as relates to the earth we inhabit , man is the peculiar favourite of heaven ; and the conclusion I draw as a necessary result , is , that we are acting most in conformity

    with the dictates of reason , in the way best calculated to promote our present happiness , and secure the approbation of our Maker , when we devote every capability in our power in endeavouring to add to the sum of public and private welfare . Compared with this

    warm and expanding sentiment , how puny and insignificant are the efforts that would ' place our chief merits it ) the adoption of creeds and formularies , or in the unproductive self-applause that satisfies itself with idle wishes

    and imaginary benevolence ! Returning home to enjoy the benefit of the shade , and taking up a provincial paper to diversify the train of reflection , I met with the two following reports . Considering them as highly

    Untitled Article

    558 Mr . Luckcock on some late Public Proceedings .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1819, page 558, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1776/page/34/