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    from Mr . Belsham ' siHCompetency to decide correctly on a common matter of fact , which I will submit to you , 1 shall be able to shew , that his judgment is not to be trusted , when he undertakes to inform you , what was , or what

    was not , the faith of the primitive church . I would by no means say of him , as he does of the established clergy , that " truth must

    necessarily be the object of his aversion and abhorrence" ( see the note \ in next page ) ; but , considering the Scriptures as the only standard of religious truth , and the Primitive Crurch as

    the surest guide in the interpretation of them ^ I maintain that the religious liberty which he contends for , is more likely to lead him from the truth than to it , by

    promoting unsteadfastness in religion , and disinclining him from established truth ^ because it is established *— But to return to our

    Saviour ' s discourse with the Phari - sees . ** When the Pharisees were gathered together , Jesus asked them , sa 3 ing , What think ye of Christ ? whose Son is he ? They

    say unto him , The Son of David . He saith unto them , How then doth David inspirit call him Lord ? —If David then call him Lord , how is he his son ? And no man

    was able to answer him a word / ' * The question which our Saviour asked , is the great subject at issue between the believers in Christ ' s Divinity , and the Unitarians * And

    you perceive by the silence of the Pharisees , that the subject is not that plain matter of fact , which Mr . Belsham would persuade you to think it . You will see in some wi ^^^ , ^^^ ,, ^ ..

    * Matt . xxii . 41—46 ,

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    measure , why it is not so , by another ^ discourse of our Saviour ' s , in which he says , No man knoweth who the Son is , but the Father ; and who the Father is , but the son , and he to whom the Son will reveal him . "f As the Father is revealed by the Son , so the Son is revealed by the Father ; as we learn from another passage . When St . Peter said , " Thou art the Christ , the son of the living God : » ' our Saviour said , ' * Bles - sed art thou , Simon Bar- Jona ;

    for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee , but my Father , which is in heaven . ' * It is clear from these passages that the knowledge of the Father and the

    Son is equally undiscoverable by mere human reason . And is not this an indisputable proof of Christ ' s Divinity and Equality with the Father ? i will endeavour , in another address , to explain the difficulties which embarrassed the

    unbelieving Pharisees , and will collect from the passages before quoted , and from others in our Saviour ' s discourses concerning himself , an answer to his question .

    Tire inquiry will shew you that a doctrine may be easy to believe , and yet may require some" scholarship and criticism' * to vindicate it from objection , and may

    exceed all Ci scholarship and criticism" to explain or to understand . It will shew also that the question at issue is any thing but a plain

    matter of fact . I will now submit to your consideration the fact to which I before alluded , as a criterion of Mr . Belsham s competency to direct your judgment in so momentous a concern as your faith in Christ .

    f L * uke x . J 22 «

    Untitled Article

    Bp . Burgess ' s Address to Unitarians . 603

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1814, page 603, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2445/page/15/