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of a Christian . Indeed , if we suppose it to have been framed by a believer in Jesus Christ , we must ask ou rsel ves , Why its allusions to the evangelical history and doctrines are not at once
more numerous and more direct ? Nor trill it be easy to return a satisfactory answer to the question . There will also be equal difficulty in assigning a solid reason for the person of a Jewish writer being borrowed by a member of the new dispensation .
We can scarcely err if we place the date of the Book of Wisdom somewhere in the interval between the Babylonian captivity and the birth of Christ—not long perhaps before the latter of those events . It would seem , however , that we have no means of ascertaining the author .
A highly valuable critic * has remarked , that the book divides itself into two parts ; one comprehending ch . i . —xi . % the other , the remaining chapters . And these appear to be distinct fragments , in which the careful reader will perceive some considerable variations , both of style and thought .
The Wisdom , it is most probable , was written originally in Greek . Three ancient translations of this treatise are fxtant—the Syriac , the Arabic and the Latin . The last will be found in the Vylyate , and is older than the age of Jerom , by whom however it was not
revised and improved : so that it is disgraced by numerous obscurities and barbarisms of expression . Athanasius , Cyril of Jerusalem , GregoryNazianzen , Epiphanius and Jerom speak of this book as apocryphal . Many ecclesiastical councils have stamped it with canonical authority . N .
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following reasons for uniformly ex tending the name in question to all Christians who , in opposition to the prevailing doctrine of three co-equal
and co-eternal persons in the Godhead , maintain that the Father is the Only True God , and consequently that our Lord Jesus Christ is a created , subordinate and dependant being .
L In the first place , the term was so understood by those to whom it was originally applied . In my Sermon on the Grounds of Unitarian Dissent , ( p . 13 , note , ) I referred in proof of this fact to Mosheim ' s Ecclesiastical History , cent . 16 , sec . 3 , part 2 . Since publishing that Sermon ,
I have paid some attention to the use of the title among the theological writers who preceded Lardner . I have found that its original and proper acceptation is exactly what I had stated . All these writers , so far as I have observed , employ the name Unitarian Rsat / en € 7 icterm including under itajl Christians , whether Arians or
Socinians , who believe that there is onl y one person in the Godhead . The term was intended to distinguish them from Trinitarians , who assert that there are three persons in the Godhead . It was consequently viewed as synonymous withAnti-trinitariaiu It was not .
conceived to denote a disbelief of tjhe preexistence of Christ , or of his agency , as a subordinate instrument , in creating the material world . Nevertheless we find the names Unitarian and Socinian sometimes used
as sy n ony mou s * M an y of y our readers will recollect an example in the titlepage of the " Brief History of the Unitarians , called also Socinian 3 . " The occurrence of such expressions probably arose from the following cause . The greater part of the
Unitarians being Socinians , the common people , who are not accurate etymol ogists , used the title Socinian , which properly belonged to most Unitarians , in so great latitude as to apply it to all . A circumstance which supports this conjecture , is , that the specific term Arian was also used with a similar
freedom . Thus we find in Sandius ' s BibliothecaAnti-trimtariorum ( p . 17 $ ) the title , of a book which may be contrasted with that above quoted : "A Brief History of the Unitarians , commonly called Arians . " Other examples might be produced of the extensive application of the name Arian
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Mr . J . Yates on the Term Unitarian . 4 / 5
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Mr . J . Yates on the Term Unitarian . S , Glasgow , July 6 , 1815 . A LTHOUGH I hold in high esti--TV matiou the intellectual and moral attainments of Mr . Belsham , and consider him as a great ornament to the cause of evangelical truth , yet I am decidedl y adverse to his confined application of the term Unitarian linking the subject of much importance towards the promotion of ^ m objects which he , in common ptn all zealous Unitarians , is pursu-JJ *» l ^ leave to offer to him and 0 the readers of your Repository the
* Eichhorn . 90—162 .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1815, page 475, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1763/page/11/
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