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Untitled Article
Uevo the accounts given of their tenets by their orthodox oppo * ncnts : especially by those who are known to use falsehoodin their arguments against heretics . Mar . cion himself denies the charge ; and his testimony is surely of equal value with that of Epiphanius . Ip fact , his character was
never impeached for upwards of two hundred years , till Epiphanius propagated a base calumny to injure his reputation , of which Dr . Lardner reasonably suspects the holy bishop to have been him * self the inventor .
That the orthodox church stigmatized the Marcionites as heretics , and that their testimony therefore is not to be credited , is nn argument which might have
gone down pretty well in the dark ages . But those times are past . The question now is , not what is a man ' s faith , but what is his moral character , in order to ascertain the credit duc to his
testimony . The Marcionites were as good Christians as the orthodox . They believed ijx the divine mission of Christ , and they hoped for salvation by him * Upon this
foundation they might , lijce their orthodox brethren , erect an edijice < f wood and stubble . They might * and probably did , like most others , combine errors with the doctrine c : f Christ . But the
foundation was good ; ai ) d their character correspondent to . their profession . They wero perhaps too much addicted to nscetid notions and practices ; but they
were temperate , pious , benevolent an < J self-denying : many of them were confessors , and some of them suffered martyrdom "for Christian truth . And aie such characters « is these to be disparaged , and
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their testimony discredited , be * cause such miserable bigots as Kpiphanius ,, and his dfsciple , the Quarterly Reviewer , denounce them as heretics ? And why ? Because truly the nonsense which the Marcionites mixed with chris *
tianity , was not the same specific nonsense as that of the Alexandrian " or the Constantinopolitan school , which assumed to them * selves the tftle of orthodox , and arrogated an authority to impose
their own enormous creeds upon all who profess the Christian name . These are the arguments of the Editors of I . V " . against which our Reviewer ' s learning and logic are chiefly directed ; with what success tlie reader wi 11 determine .
Of other reasons he takes but slight notice . The editors of I . V . ohserve that it is improbable that no notice should h $ , ve been taken of these extraordinary events , by any con * temporary writer : to which the Reviewer replies , that it is no more renia rkable than that the miracles ,
sufferings and death of Jesus are equally unnoticed . But surely , the appearance of the star , the visit of the Magi , and the massacre of
the infants , are events ox greater notoriety , and more likely to ex * Cite public attention , " than the sufferings , or even the miracles of Jesus , Th ^ t all the miracles attend *
ing ovjr Lprd ' s birth and iniancy should hflve been forgotten , that no expectation should have been excited from a person who was born ipto the vvorlcj iq circum * stances so extraordinaty , and of such great public notoriety , that when Jesus . appeared in public , be should have been received as a perfect stranger , . $ ncLthftt no-
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4 f % 6 The Quarterly Review arid the Improved Version *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1809, page 426, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1739/page/12/
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