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    he is said to have exhibited considerable resources as a scholar , and unequalled promptness and adroitness in managing the debate . As a controversial writer he evinces

    courage , self-command , a good share of logical acumen , and a playful and biting sarcasm , . blemished with occasional coarseness ; at "times ¦ reminding us , in his most felicitous turns , of Robert Robinson . In one of the

    numbers of the * Harbinger , ' he recounts the changes which his mind and heart have undergone on the subject of religion ; from which it appears that he was brought up a

    strict Caivnrist , and went through , when young , a Calvinistic conversion , reading and devouring the devotional works most popular among the evangelicals , and studying their learned and doctrinal treatises ' he

    studied geometry / And yet , he goes on , *¦ I solemnly say , that , although I was considered , at the age of twenty-four , a muchf more systematic preacher and text-expositor , than I am ncnv considered , and more accustomed to strew my sermons with scores of texts in proof of every point

    I am conscious that I did not understand the New Testament ; not a single book of it . s "Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott were my favourite commentators . I read the whole of Thomas Scott ' s Commentary in family worship , section by section .

    I began to read the Scriptures critically . Works of criticism , from MTchaelis down to Sharp on the Greek article , were resorted to . While these threw light on many passages , still the book as a whole , the religion of Jesus Christ as a whole , was hid from me . I took the

    naked text , and followed common sense ; I read it , subject to the ordinary rules of interpretation , and thus it was it became to me a new book . Then I was called a natural man ; because I took the natvral rules of interpretation . Till then I was a spiritual man , and a regenerated interpreter . But alas ! as I

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    learned my Bible I lost my orthodoxy » and from being one of the most evangelical , in the estimation of many , I became the most heretical . I can only say for the spirit which actuated me , that it was a most vehement desire to understand the truth . I did most certainly put the

    world out of my sight , I cared no more for popularity , than I did for the shadow which followed my body when the sun shone . I valued truth more than the gold of O f hir , and I sought her with my whole heart , as for hidden treasure . My eye was single , as King James ' s Translators said . I paid no court to the prejudices of the world , and did sacrifice

    every worldly object to the Bible . Experience has taug ht me , that to get a victory over the world , over the love of fame , and to hold in perfect contempt human honour , adulation , and popularity , will do more to make the New Testament intelligible , than all the commentators that' ever wrote . '—Millennial Harbinger , vol . i . p . 138 .

    Mr . Campbell went to America as a Presbyterian minister , and officiated for sometime in that capacity , until , being convinced of the invalidity of infant baptism , he was himself immersed , and joined the regular

    Baptists . In this connexion he soon afterwards began the publication of 1 Christian Baptist , * a monthly journal , and continued it until the completion of the seventh volume , in 1829 . The strictly orthodox among his brethren became more and more

    uneasy under the freedom and fearlessness of his ' developements' and ' proclamations , ' as editor of this work ; but . they were slow . openly to impeach or denounce one , whose influence and popularity in the country were so extensive and so well

    established . The credit or responsibility of being the first to preach the Ancient Gospel and the Ancient Order of Things , does not , it seems , belong * to him , but to Mr . Scott , who * made tjie experiment , ' as he expresses it ,

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    40 UNITAKIAN CHRONICLE *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1833, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2607/page/8/