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    reason will begin to work free from all the prejudices of the heart , and they will be free to think , and free to dissemble what they think ; for this one lesson thiey will have been taught effectually- Their reason may suggest

    to them , that if what they were suffered to think was true , is not so that other points may be false also . Perhaps you will confer that as a blessing on them , which you regarded as a blessing conferred on you , and give them Evanson as a guide : he will

    teach them that the Sabbath ought to be abolished : where will they stop ? You might as well say to the rolling stone , So far shalt thou go and no farther , as say to the thus unsettled mind—Here thou shalt pause / " I do not know that I can add any

    thing to these remarks . You say that a Unitarian is not of necessity a Dissenter : then is language of no use as a symbol of our ideas . The Independent , the Presbyterian acknowledges himself a Dissenter , and yet the Independent and the Presbyterian could of service

    join in a greater part our , nay , ( I believe , ) in the spirit , if not the form of all of it ; and shall the Humanitarian deny himself to be a Dissenter ?—The Protestant might with equfcl , nay , with more justice , say that he is not a Dissenter from the Church of Rome , —I need not

    treat such an assertion seriously . * ' You say that a profession of * thotfe doctrines which are common to all Christians , admits to our communion . I will not ask what these doctrines are , but most certainly they are not those of the Unitarian . You

    say that the symbol called the Apostles * Creed admits to Baptism , Confirmation and Communion . This is not correct ; but I need not enlarge upon this poin t ; for the Apostles ' Creed is not that of the Unitarian . One of its chief articles he does not admit .

    If a Unitarian ( or Humanist more properly ) is not a Dissenter , as you assert , but a consistent member of the Church , then have all the scruples of conscience which keep the various

    sectarians from intermingling in communion been idle and vain ; then are those feelings of conscience which separate tfye Protestant and the Roman Catholic , ridiculous ; then have all the common principles of integrity ,

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    which have brought numbers , even of your sect , ' to resign tie greatest eathly advantages , and to wear the crown of martyrdom vXyour otorti words ) been absurd , mid deserving contempt rather than honour ; then

    does conscience cease to be a guide ; truth to be any thing more than a name j and language and actions , as tests of what a man is , to be of any use . In the moral and religious world chaos is come again . It is your opinion c that the doctrine of the real

    presence in the sacramental elements does not appear to present greater difficulties than that of the real deity of one who was confessedly a man ;' and yet you call the Unitarian a consistent member of our Church , of whose Communion Service the Nicene

    Creed is a part . He may be , by your own shewing , equally a consistent member of the Church of Rome , and may , according to another principle of yours , if he live in a Catholic

    country , where tithes are paid ,. and if he possesses landed property , conscientiously claim her services . Nothing can to my mind present a more heterogeneous mass of principles and ideas .

    * Far be it from me not to listen to your plea for candour towards Unitarians . I hope that I have used no expression which i 3 inconsistent with candour ; but I am bound to exhibit what I deem their errors , and your peculiar inconsistencies . Whea you assert that the Unitarian is ' not of

    necessity a Dissenter from our Church , * can candour expect me to use a milder term of such a sentiment than to say that it is absurd ? What would you say of a medical man , who called himself not a Dissenter from the

    College of Physicians , while he denied that medicine was useful in disease , or that the blood circulated ? And would you expect to be admitted into consultation , while avowing * these principles ?

    "The Unitarian ( whether I interpret his meaning of the divinity of Christ rightly or not ) disbelieves what our Church means by that term , and this he cannot deny ; and according

    to the meaning which is commonly attached to words , he is aot * . injuriously accused * if he is styled a Dissenter from our Church" Religious consistency connected

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    Mr . Le Grice ' s Thoughts oh Religious Consistency . 403

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1824, page 403, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2526/page/19/