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    be aware , that scarcely one is to be found of any eminence among them who has not committed blunders , which , following his example , we might call gross and stupid , —errors which we might denounce as wilful and perverse ? But where would be the use of this species of warfare , this crimination and recrimination , this interchange of calumnious language , this bandying to and fro of harsh and reproachful epithets ? Could it tend to any other purpose than that of exciting and inflaming the bad passions of our nature , and so be

    the means of throwing additional hindrances in the way of arriving at truth , or of escaping from error ? That party alone will be guilty of such conduct , whose object it is to blind the judgment , to weaken and impair the powers of spiritual discernment . The man of honest purpose , of real singleness of intention , of pure and ingenuous mind , will disdain the use of such aids . He has too much confidence in the power of truth , to desire any other weapons than those which can be furnished from her own armoury . With these he contends , and upon these he relies .

    I have made these observations because there is no doubt that Dr . Priestley , in his controversy with Dr . Horsley , and in other parts of his numerous publications , has been proved to have committed some errors and mistakes . Would he not have been more than human if he had not ? Of these errors and mistakes , ungenerous , unjust advantage has been frequently taken , not only to cast aspersions upon the character and fame of this illustrious man , but to perplex and mislead the understandings of inquirers , as to the true

    nature and real merits of the proofs and reasonings adduced by him . It is on this latter account chiefly that Dr . P . ' s mistakes are to be lamented . It is because , in connexion with some of the arts of controversy in which his opponents were far better skilled than himself , they have served to hoodwink the judgment of many , who would otherwise have seen clearly enough that his assertions respecting the general prevalence of Unitariariism in the first periods of the Christian church were completely and solidly established , and that there was scarcely a single argument , of any force or weight , advanced

    against it by his able and learned antagonist , that was not entirely overthrown and utterly demolished . I do not stand up the assertor of Dr . Priestley ' s infallibility , but of his honour and integrity . I do not say that his references are always exact , or that his translations and constructions of passages are uniformly correct , or that his inferences are in every case unexceptionable and just ; but I say that few men could have written so much , upon such a subject , and with the commission of so few errors as he has done . In his main position he was impregnable . Whatever trifling defeats he may have suffered on the less important and inferior stations that he occupied , here , on this capital point , his victory was decisive and

    triumphant . * The Reviewer observes , ( p . 288 , ) " that in every dispute concerning the * " With great tranquillity and satisfaction , therefore , " says Dr . P ., in the preface to his History of Early Opinions , " I now commit this History to my friends , and to my enemies ; sufficiently aware that it is not without its defects to exercise the candour of the former , and the captiousness of the latter . But no work of this extent ,

    and of this nature , can be expected to be perfect . I have myself discovered great mistakes and oversights in those who have gone before me ; and notwithstanding all my care , I shall not be surprised if those who come after me , should find some things to correct in me . To make this as easy as possible , I have printed my authorities at full length . But I am confident that all my oversights will not invalidate any position of consequence in tfre whole work , and this is all that the real inquirer after truth will be solicitous about /'

    Untitled Article

    92 Opinions of the Early Fathers on the Person of Christ .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 92, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/20/