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My'letter . Sir , would swell into a pamphlet ^ if I animad ^ verted on every strange or obnoxious passage , even in the catechetical introduction ; otherwise I should bring the Bishop before you to prove that hy a heretic the apostle Paul meant a Dissenter , &c . ; that none but such as are in " the Catholic
church' * ' can be saved ; and that Dissenters are not in the Catholic church , and are therefore sure of damnation ; and to entertain you with his reasons for belonging to the church of England , which are , " First , beeange the church of England
is a true church ; and because the law enjoins an uniformity , ike . Secondly y because it is established by law" &c fee . But not being able to do justice to the passages here referred to , I shall pass over them to notice a ridiculous inconsistency , into which the bishop , in his zeal for the church , has been betrayed * His book is an evidence of the number of the real Dissenters , and of his apprehension of their increase ; and yet r in answer to the question— " Who deny the Church ' s power to decree rites and ceremonies , and her authority in controversies of faith } " he answers— 4 C A . few Dissenters from the church of
England . " " He affects to despise those whom be appears to dread . His anger exalts those whom his ridicule would vilify , and on those whom at one moment he derides as- too contemptible for resentment ^ he at another confers a criminal eminence as too audacious for contempt . Their voice is now the importunate chink of the meagre , shrivelled insects of the hour , now the hollow ihurmur , ominous of convulsions and earthquakes , that are to lay the fabric of society in ruins * . ' * The three creeds ^ the Apostle ' s , the Nicene , and the
Athanasiaiij " may be proved /* says the eighth article of the church of England , " by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture . ' * So thinks our Bishop , who musters a host of texts to exemplify and prove" every tittle of the orthodox Catholic faith ; with what degree of wisdom let the reader judge .
The Nicene creed calls the son of Mary , in the true tumid style of the East , " God of God , Light of Light , very God of very God . ' Now to prove that he is God and very God * * ( as if he could be God , without being truly God ) , this chani * pion of the church quotes John i . I . and says , that it " contains a direct declaration of Christ's divinity , for it was so understood by Julian the Apostate , a much better judge of its meaning than our modern Socinians . " Not content , however , with making the Pagan emperor give law to the Christian
* Mackintosh ' s " Vindiciae Galhcie , ' p . 297 . It ought , in justice to Sir James Mackintosh , to be mentioned that he has been convinced of the errors of th ^ Vlndiciaj GaJT'Cae , by the argument which wa ^ so potent in Hudibras ' s days . 1 \ V hat makes all doctrines plain and clear , &c . &c .
Untitled Article
63-8 Bp . Burgess ' s " Principles * "
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 638, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/22/
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