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    have a right to the title of Unitarians , it is evident , from-the " very , constitution of this Society , that Arians of every description are excluded from it . Not that the Society ever

    intended to cast the sh a dow of an imputation upon the character of their Ariari brethren 5 but the main object of the Association being to hold forth the simple'humanity of Jesus Christ as the true doctrine of the New

    Testament , and all their publications being calculated and intended to establish and promulgate this primary truth , no Arian , not even one of the lowest degree , could , consistently

    with his principles , become a member of the Society . And upon this ground many learned and intelligent Arians , whose names would have been an honour to any society , declined to become members . And I

    freely acknowledge that had I been an Arian , even of the lowest form , I should have done so too . Others saw the case in a different light , and joined the Society , though they did not approve the preamble . Dr . Price , in particular , said he could not suffer an Unitarian Society to exist without giving his name to it . And this

    unforeseen and unexpected junction of Arians has in some measure disturbed the harmony of the Society , as they have been continually pushing to alter the preamble , and in some cases , among the affiliated societies , with

    too much success , hereby actually subverting the original object of the Society , the public profession of the simple humanity of Jesus Christ . Happily the late attempt to introduce this alteration into the preamble of the Western Unitarian Society was

    defeated , chiefly , as I have been informed , through the manly eloquence of a reverend and learned associate , who was one . of the original founders of that highly respectable Society , and

    whose good sense and solid arguments made a deep impression upon all who < heard him , and induced those members who had inadvertently proposed a change , voluntarily to withdraw the intended motion . And , indeed , had

    a motion to that effect passed at the Meeting , it would , however unintentionally on the part pf its advisers , have ; , conveyed an oblique and . unkind reflection upon the memory of one to whom the Society is in a great mea-

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    sure indebted for its . existence , and who , by his zeal and firmness ; in its original establishment , exposed himself to no small portion of obloquy and persecution , from which he might

    easily have escaped had the Society been founded upon modern Jatitudinarian principles . The late reverend and learned Timothy Kenrick would not have been denied the use of his

    own pulpit , for the Unitarian Society , had it not been the prominent and avowed object of that Society to promulgate the simple humanity of Jesus Christ .

    I believe , however , that in no society in which the preamble has been altered , has any change been made in the spirit of the publications which are distributed by the Society . These uniformly teach and defend the

    simple humanity of Jesus Christ , and I trust they will continue so to do , as long as Unitarian societies exist . ' It would , indeed , be a sad disgrace that the same , fountain should send forth both sweet water and bitter .

    I wish I could believe the same of all the sermons which are annually preached before the societies . But I fear that , instead of the good old original practice of preaching the truth boldly , as it is in Jesus , the modern principle of these reformed societies is , not to give offence to their new

    friends ; and that some elegant discourse upon candour , benevolence , or the like , is substituted in the room of a plain energetic declaration of the absolute Unity of God , and the simple humanity of Jesus Christ , as the great fundamental articles of the Christian faith . Or if at any time the hearers are warned not to be ashamed of

    Christ and of his words , they are told that the meaning is not to be ashamed of avowing themselves Christians : a duty , in these times , of no very difficult performance . While nothing is said to enforce the obligation of an open profession that Jesus , the servant and the njessenger of God , is a

    man , in all respects like to his brethren , though that is a fundamental truth which it is the main design of the Society to promulgate , and the profession of which , at the titnc when the Society was instituted , exposed a man to the pains ami penalties of law 5 and which even now is often followed by contempt , reproach , the desertion

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    Mr . Belsham on the Original Principle of the Unitarian Society * 650

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1819, page 659, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1778/page/7/