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CORRESPONDENCE

ON THE

TRINITARIAN AND UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY

AT

LIVERPOO L.

To all who call themselves Unitarians in the town and neighbourhood

Liverpool.

of

"And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, PERSUADING THEM CON CERNING JESUS, both out of the law of Moses and out of the Prophets, from morning till evening."Acts xxviii, 23.

Men and Brethren,-I am aware that the term

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Religious

Contro

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that, in

versy," is a phrase peculiarly revolting to many minds; that it presents to them nothing in its aspect but that which has been sarcastically called the "Acetum Theologicum," a something bitter and distasteful, offensiveness and asperity. It is for this reason proposing a course of lectures on the subjects in controversy between the Church of England and those who call themselves UNITARIANS, and who, by that very term, seem to impute to the great majority of pro

than common

fessing Christians, of almost all denominations, a polytheistic creed, and in requesting your attendance on these lectures, and inviting your

most solemn attention to those subjects, I wish, antecedently, to remove

(B)

from myself every suspicion of unkindness towards you, and to take away any supposition of unchristian asperity in my feelings, or of a desire to inflict upon the humblest individual amongst you unnecessary pain. That no mere political difference of opinion, much less that any apprehension of danger to the Established Church, have originated this movement, will be sufficiently evident from the fact, that while we are surrounded by many other classes of dissenters, equally opposed to the principle of our establishment, and much more likely to draw away the members of our flocks to their communion, I and my reverend brethren, who are associated with me, on the present occasion, have limited ourselves exclusively to an inquiry into, and an endeavour to expose, the false philosophy and dangerous unsoundness of the UNITARIAN SYSTEM. Now, what is the cause of this distinction? It is simply this, that while we believe the other dissenting bodies to have arranged an ecclesiastical system, in our judgment not clearly Scriptural, and deficient in those particulars which constitute the perfection, though they may not affect the essence of a church, we do at the same time acknowledge that they generally hold, as articles of faith, those great fundamental Gospel truths which are the substance of the safety of souls; truths which, while so held, give them a part in that gracious covenant in Christ, within which God has revealed a way of salvation for all and out of which he has not revealed a way of mercy to any. These fundamental truths are the very doctrines which are controverted between us and those whom we call in courtesy, but not as of right, UNITARIANS: viz., the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the atoning sacrifice, the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, the fall of our nature, and the gracious renovation of the human soul, through his supernatural operation. Assured as I am that these truths (which, without a desperate mutilation, or an awful tampering with the plain language of the Word of God, it seems impossible to exclude from that divine record) are of the essence of our souls' safety, I ask you, men and brethren, I put it to your consciences, is it not of the nature of the tenderest charity, of the purest love, of the most affectionate sympathy with those in the extreme of peril, and that an eternal peril, to supplicate to these doctrines the attention of such as have not yet received them, to pray them to come and "search with us the Scriptures, whether these things be so ?"-Acts xvii, 11. Shall he who, unwittingly, totters blindfold on the edge of a precipice, deem it a rude or an uncharitable violence which would snatch him with a strong and a venturous hand, or even it may be with a painful grasp, from the fearful ruin over which he impends? Is it not to your own judgment a strong antecedent ground of presumption, that you are alarmingly and perilously mistaken in this matter, when you see such numbers of highly-gifted and intellectual men, men of study-of general information and of holy men, men who "Count not their lives dear unto them," so that they may honour God and preach this gospel, and that not in one particular place, but over the whole surface of the church; who yet account these truths, which you reject, as the essential truths of salvation; truths built, you will remember, in their minds, not on the traditions or authority of men, but on the lively oracles of God?

prayer,

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