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    -mmammm—Art . III . —An Answer to the Lord Cluiticellor ' s Question , * ' jyiiat is a Unitarian ? " By J . G . Robberds . Dyo . pp . 24 .

    rf ^ IIIS is a singular title for a Ser-JL tnon , but it is very appropriate . The discourse was preached to the authorV own congregation at Manchester , June 19 , and again at Hull , before an Unitarian Association , July

    5 , ( see our last Number , p . 424 , ) and is now published in compliance with wishes expressed on both those occasions . It is a just , temperate and pleasing delineation of the religion of the . Unitarian Christian . Whether it

    will be seen by the Chancellor , much more whether it will be read by liiiu , and , above all , whether on the supposition of his condescending to read a discourse , however able and excellent , whicli has not the imprimatur of authority , he will gain the knowledge

    which he affects to want , and learn Christian charity and renounce intolerance , though it be convenient and profitable , may be matter of doubt ; but we can have no doubt whatever that it

    will satisfy every candid reader , of any denomination , that the Unitarian is entitled to he regarded as a fellow-chrisjiau and to be on a level with his brethren in respect of political rights and civil immunities . The following rt

    «* me introductory paragraphs of the Sermon , the text " of which is Acta * vu . VJ , 20 : 1 C * 1 should be gUid to be inforniLcl *»* a Unitarian is '—said the Lord ii * nci : llur , on a lca . occasio | T ,

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    is certainly some resemblance in the language , whatever there may have been in the spirit of the speaker , to the somewhat contemptuous questions of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers recorded in the text . But one object of the modern legislator ' s inquiry does not appear to have

    had any counterpart in the minds of the Athenian sages . Whether they spoke from the mere curiosity of idleness , and the desire * to hear some new thing / or from that love oi wisdom to which they pretended , they did nor , it would seem , want to ascertain whether Paul was

    liable to punishment for the doctrines which he professed . In the instance , on the other hand , to which I have alluded , the declared object of the wish to be informed 4 what a Unitarian is / was to know whether , as such , he be entitled to the same

    protection of the laws with his fellowsubjects—whether , instead of asking for any farther indulgence to the scruples ot his conscience , ho ought not to ask permission to avow with impunity the opinions on which his scruples are founded .

    ** It may seem strange that a grave and learned and conscientious man , one too wiio thinks so much 'dependent upon the answer which he shall receive to his question , should call upon others for information , with which he must have had as good opportunities of providing himself as they . The philosophers of the

    Epicureans aud Stoics , who asked of Paul , * May we know what this new doctrine , whereof thou speakest , is ? ' had at least the merit of addressing themselves to ) the proper person . Whatever might be the character of their curiosity , they went with it to the best-source of

    information . The doctrine too about which they inquired was literally new . It did not as yet , probably , exist in books ; at least , the very few writings which can be supposed to have been in circulation at that early period , were not likely to have fallen into the hands of anv but

    believers . But , in the twcnty-nfih year of the nineteenth century , in a Christian and Protestant country , and after successive generations of far-famed disputants on the same great subject of controversy—the doctrine of the Unitarians

    cannot be so new , or the books which state and defend it so rare , or the lives and characters of its preachers and professors all so utterly obscure , as to leave our legislators in any unavoidable uncertainty on the question , * What is a Unitarian ?'"~ Pp- 5—7 ,

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    Review *— -Robber ds * a Answer to the Lord Chancellor . 491

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    with heretics , should be either omitted or new-modelled . The Preface states that before liis decease Mr . Butcher " had selected from a large store of sermons a sufficient number to form a fourth volume

    of the same size as the three which have been already published : " may we express a wish that these may be published in the same unexpciisiv-e tvay as these «* Discourses" ? This we think would insure their wide circulation .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1825, page 491, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2539/page/37/