A COURSE OF LECTURES, ENTITLED "UNITARIANISM
CONFUTED," BY THIRTEEN CLERGYMEN OF
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

"Would to Heaven that Christians had their own 'vail' of orthodox words taken away from
their minds; that limiting Orthodoxy to the acceptance of the Christ as the SPIRIT
('the Lord is that Spirit,' says St. Paul), 1. e., the meaning, the end of all revelation,
they would not allow a new letter, consisting of abstract doctrines, to involve their minds
in a 'vail' which obstructs the view of the Gospel, even more than the old letter, which
kept the Jews in bondage."-Heresy and Orthodoxy, by Rev. J. Blanco White, p. 53,
2nd edition.

LIVERPOOL:

WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.

LONDON:

JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

:

BX 9843

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PREFACE.

THE length of the following Discourse rendered it necessary to omit large portions of it in the delivery; the remainder has undergone no alteration in preparing the Lecture for the press.

It is one of the duties of the controversialist to drop each subject of debate so soon as every thing materially affecting it has been advanced; and to seize the time for silence, as promptly as the time for speech. This consideration would have led me to abstain from any further remarks respecting the Improved Version, did it not appear that it is considered disrespectful to pass without notice any argument adduced by our opponents. In briefly adverting to Mr. Byrth's strictures on my former Lecture, contained in the Preface to his own, I am more anxious to avert from myself the imputation of discourtesy to him than to disprove his charge of "PITIFUL EVASION;" which even the accuser himself, I imagine, cannot permanently esteem just.

Notwithstanding the criticisms of my respected opponent, I still maintain that a Subscriber to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association is no more responsible for the alleged delinquencies of the Improved Version, than is a Subscriber to the British and Foreign Bible Society for the known departures from the true standard of the text which its funds are employed to circulate. Mr. Byrth appears to enumerate three particulars, in which he thinks that the parallelism between these two cases fails:

First; "The Authorized Version does not profess to be a systematic Interpretation. It is not, in one word, a Creed and an Exposition. It is only a literal translation, without note or comment." So much the worse, must we not say? Whatever deception a false text can produce, is thus wholly concealed and undiscoverable; the counterfeit passes into circulation, undistinguished from the pure gold of the Divine Word, bearing on its front the very same image and superscription. Did this version "profess to be a systematic Interpretation," readers would be on their guard; but while professing to be "without note or comment," it inserts "a note" or gloss (in the case of the Heavenly Witnesses) into the text itself. The doctr

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