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the hearts and bosoms of all who seriously and impartially seek after truth , will be little affected by cuvious disquisitions of learned men upon the niceties of
grammatical construction , and the force of the Greek particles . He will never be persuaded that it can be necessary for him to study the bulky volumes of Hoogveen , or the more modern subtleties of Dr . Middleton , in order to learn the essential doctrines of the
Christian religion ; which he would naturally and justly expect to find upon the front and surface , and in the general strain and tenour of the New Testament . Let him , for instance , take the text referred to by the bishop , p . 25 , Tit . ii . 13 , and in
opposition to the common version , and to the judgment of Dr . Clarke , and other learned men , let him admit , upon the learned prelate ' s authority , that the true and only proper translation of the passage according to its exact grammatical construction is our crreat God and Saviour Jesus Christ .
Would he from that expression conclude that the apostle was an assertor of the supreme divinity of his crucified master ? Surely not . He would naturally avgue that , if Paul belie red that Jesus Christ was the Supreme God , his mind would have been so full of the amazing doctrine that it must have shone forth in every page of his
writings , in every sentence of his discourses . His delight and his duty would have been to insist continually upon this new , unheardof and astonishing * theme , and to have explained the necessity and importance of it in all its bearings in the scheme of
redemption . Could he under these impressions have coldly taught the Athenians that ' God would judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he had ordained , of which he had gfiven assurance to all men in that he had raised him from the dead ? ' Could he
have written to the Corinthians , what indeed would hardly be reconcilable to the simplicity of truth , that * as by man came death , by man came also the resurrection of the dead ? " *—How then , it may be asked , is this declaration of the apostle to Titus , to be reconciled to his not acknowledging the divinity of Christ?—Upon various
suppositions . It may have been a slip of the apostle ' s tongue in dictating ; or a mistake of his amanuensis ; or an error of some early transcriber ; or there may be a various reading *; or the words might be intended in a different sense } or the apostle might
not study perfect correctness of language ; or there might be some other reason which cannot now be discovered . I will give up the text as altogether inexplicable , sooner than I will believe that the apostle intended in this casual incidental manner to teach a
doctrine so new , so incredible , and of such hi « jli importance , and which is so little countenanced by the general strain of his discourses and epistles , and so repugnant to the whole tenour of the Christian Scripture * . " Pp . 72—83 .
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The learned prelate flourishes a good deal upon the celebrated passage of Tertullian , with regard to the prevalence of the Unitarian doctrine anion ^ the lower classes of believers in his own age , the idiots ( id ' wtse ) as Bishon
Horsley unluckily translated the Latin father : but all his learning and ingenuity are insufficient to deprive the Unitarians of this powerful testimony to the antiquity of their faith . In one particular , Mr . B . allows that the
bishop ' s version of the passage is truer than his own * , but this does not affect the sense of it or the argument in the slightest degree . We recommend this part of the review especially to the attention of the reader , as . a specimen of sound criticism and successful
reasoning . In the Calm Inquiry , Mr . B . had expressed his disbelief in the popular theory of . angel ' s ; this'" heresy is therefore charged by the bishop upon the whole bod v of Unitarians ; but his
opponent very properly explains this to be his individual opinion for which liis brethren are not responsible . Unitariauism , certainly , is not involved in the reception or rejection of either a celestial or an infernal hierarchy . In section vi . of Ch . v . Mr B .
enters largely into the character of Marcion , as connected with the question of the genuineness of the introduction to Luke ' s Gospel , and ably defends this calumniated " heretic , " whilst at
the same time he freely exposes his crude notions and censures his probable omissions , in his copy of the New Testament , of passages which did not accord with his opinions .
Justin Martyr ' s important concession to the Unitarians is the subject of the next section , in which Mr . B . points out a . palpable misrepresentation of the Martyr ' s language in the bishop ' s pamphlet , and we think
clearly shews that Justin ' s reasoning implies that his doctrines of the preexistence and divinity of Christ were novelties . It is utterly impossible to account for Justin ' s language , if ne held the present orthodox faith . not
Judging very truly that there is such a superabundance of evidence od behalf of the divinity of Christ that any can be spared , Bishop Burgess will not part with the notorious ft ** of the three heavenly witnesses , 1 Join * v . 7 , 8 . His judgment upon this «^ longer disputed passage , is a betw proof of his orthodoxy than of nw
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5 14 Review , — -Belsham ' s Reply to Burgess .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1815, page 514, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1763/page/50/
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