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Untitled Article
exhibition of their extreme absurdities * A Bible Society has been just formed , with a Trinitarian test of membership . The attempt to destroy the Catholic constitution of the original Bible Society had been signally defeated at the anniversary meeting of its subscribers . Month after month the returns from the various
branch societies had shewn that throughout the country the decision of the parent institution , to uphold the principle on which it was founded , was approved by an immense majority . But the pertinacity of the exclusionists , t 6 unknowing how to yield , " seems only to have been the more strongly moved thereby to rear their rival standard . A fitting chairman was found , one who
seems expressly fashioned for the purpose , in Mr . Spencer Perceval ; and the select body which agrees with him in regarding liberalism as the great diabolical temptation of these evil days , has accordingly organized itself for the purpose of circulating the Book of freedom , peace , and love , in the spirit of intolerance , sectarianism , and animosity . The rickety bantling cannot long survive . Its impotent cries shewed even in its birth the symptoms
of impending dissolution . But it may testify to its founders that they know not what spirit they are of , and thus lead them and others to approximate towards that of Him whom they call Master and Lord . Its language may thus be more intelligible than any which the modern gift of tongues has bestowed upon the disciples of Mr . Irving , in the Pentecost of the Caledonian ChapeU
The assumption of the power of miracles , to which allusion has just been made , appears at first sight to be the very climax of absurdity ; but it is not , in fact , more unreasonable than that of pretending to decide on men ' s spiritual condition and eternal prospects by means of their professed faith on such a point as the doctrine of the Trinity , The one ought to imply the other : and
those who try the spirits should have evident demonstrations that they possess the Spirit , The error of both classes of pretenders is substantially the same . They take language referring peculiarly to the first age of the Gospel , and apply it to all times and circumstances . If the proposition , 6 i He that believeth shall be { saved" is to be taken without limitation , by what authority or on what principle can we limit the proposition which stands by its side , " These signs shall follow them that believe ? " If those
who appropriate the salvation rest on the letter of [ Scripture , so do those who claim the " signs . " If the latter defy reason and outrage fact , so do the former . If the one class aspire to be the instruments , the other has always arrogated to be the subjects , of supernatural agency and interposition . In both may be traced the existence of self-delusion and the danger of hypocrisy . The one makes what is called religion ridiculous , the other mischievous . The creedmongers have little right to cry down the miraclemongers . The one species of tare , as well as the other , may
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B State and Prospects of the Country .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/8/
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