Unitarianism Defended: A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of LiverpoolMartineau, James
Religion
Unitarianism Defended: A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of Liverpool
Martineau, James
Unitarianism
Where is there to be found here aught of _arrogance_, or
_uncharitableness_, or “_assumed infallibility_”? Where is there aught
of unfairness, or “any rejection on our parts of the acknowledged
principles of argumentative justice?” It is true we refuse to advise our
respective congregations to attend at Unitarian chapels, to hear such
answers as your ministers may think it right to offer in refutation of
our reasonings. Our principles and our consciences alike forbid our
concurrence in such a proposal. We cannot go ourselves, nor recommend
our people to go and have their ears wounded, their hearts pained, and
their Christian sensibilities shocked, by the iteration of such, in our
view, blasphemous statements, as we find spread in painful profusion
over the pages of Unitarian theology. And why, then, it is asked, do we
invite or expect your attendance upon what are called “the painfully
revolting” services of our church? For this reason, that, as appears
from the works of all their principal writers, Unitarians do not attach
the same importance to religious doctrines and opinion that we do. It
seems to be with them a matter of comparative indifference what dogmas a
man holds, provided he be _sincere_ in his profession; while with us
sincerity is no criterion of truth, being persuaded that as a man’s
_religious opinions_ are, so will his _conduct_ be in time, and his
_destiny_ through eternity. Being of opinion, then, that our people
would suffer by being brought into contact with error, in the same way
that the human body would be endangered by accepting an invitation to
feed at a table where poison was mingled with bread, we feel obliged to
decline recommending the proposed arrangement to their adoption. But,
feeling that there would be neither danger nor risk to those who are
represented as having a moral appetite for poison as well as bread, and
as looking upon all theological opinions if not as equally harmless in
their bearing on their eternal interests, we ventured to invite you to
come, that we might “persuade you concerning Jesus.” If there be any of
you whose conscience revolts against a participation in Trinitarian
worship, we invite not his attendance: we would be not intentionally
accessory to the wounding of the weakest conscience among you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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