On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
less ia their dominions , by laying claim to a divine origin , did but proclaim that they were ignorant whence they first sprang . Their fame is imperishable in the annals of history , but it rises on a monument , the foundation of which is buried in fable . *
In like manner the Athenians , who first among the Grecian states -gave themselves to the study of science , seem to have been acquainted with almost every thing bat their own descent ; and on this point they did
not choose to acknowledge their ignorance . They laid claim to a primeval antiquity : and through a disdain of being indebted to foreign nations for their birth , rather chose to say that , like grasshoppers , they sprung out of their own soil , t
These examples will , I hope , shew , how what is ancient very frequently sinks into shade ; that some matters of fact in history are often , like others in philosophy , more visible in their effects than in their causes ; and that it is unnecessary , as well as suspicious , to trace them to foreign , super-human
causes . That would appear to me a most strange objection to Adult Baptism , which should arise from the consideration of its not being received in national churches , and as strange an
* Datur , says Livy , speaking of the origin of the Romans , hasc venia aritiquitatij ut miicendo kumana dwini £ f primordta urbiam augustiora faciat . Preefat . And the author of the " Romance His to rite Breviarium , " thus makes out the fable :
Romanum Imperinm , quo neque ab exordio iillnm fere minus , neque increment is toto orht ampliuft human a potest meinori £ . recordariy a Romulo exordium habet : qui Vestal is Virginis fillets , et ( quantum putatns est ) Martis , cum Remo Fiat re , uno pavtu editns est .
f Hence Tliucydides , in the famous funeral oration , makes Pericles say , T ^ v yap % « ipav a € * ^ ' ctvrct OiKovprtfr & < aSo % fl ttov £ TriyiyvQfA . evccv /* £%£ * tovie £ Xfiv&g p < zv oV apeT ^ i / Tr aptSoarai / . 2 to yp : J 5 ; XS . In Plato ' s E-arm *« jMo $ Aoyo $ f they are described as At > T O % 0 oj / 0 fcs , —rp £ ^ K >/ Atyoi >{ , owe into f % rjpuja fr coq aXKot , aXX * tJiro / uwjx ^ os Tfjq % w $ ot <; bv rj aivc&y . Menexenus . And in reference to this notion of their
antiquity 9 some of the nobler Athenians , as Thucydides tells us , used to wear golden grasshoppers in their hairs , infect * which , as ww suppos J ^ spru ng out of fte ground . ..
Untitled Article
Again ? what shall we say of the doctrine of the Trinity > Those who are professedly Trinitarians , finding , &s they conceive , this doctrine in the Old or New Testament , or in both ,
have something of firm footing on which to rest—some fixed point , at which their reasonings can commence . But what will Unitarians say ? They deny that the doctrine has any foundation either in the Old or New
Testament . Where , then , will they trace the origin of this doctrine ? It will not do to derive it from General Councils ; for General Councils did but find and establish the doctrine ; they did not invent it . We find a something at least
very like it in the writings of all the earliest Fathers , the Patres Apostolieit IreB 8 eus , Tertu ) Iian and Justin Martyr . Plato had his Bonum , his Boni Filius andAnima Mundi ; Orpheus his
Phanes , Uranus and Chronus , hisT ^/ xop x > v @ € 6 *—the Magi among the Persians , their Orimasdes , their Mithras , and their Arimanes , their Oromasdes Tpi * arXfiWioc * *
TLayrt yap ev Y . o < r [ A < p XafAisrsi T $ taqf oj < Mqvok ; &g %£ i + Where , then , will an Unitarian , on his hypothesis , begin the history of a Trinity ? They are , and they must continue out at sea . Yet the doctrine has
been ( like that of Infant Baptism ) professed with great piety ; it is of very remote antiquity , it has been defended by learned men of great authority * , it has been made the key-stone of most Christian establishments ; and , on the
principles of our Unitarians , the origin of this most popular , this widely-extended doctrine , must be involved in the thickest mists , in the most impenetrable clouds of darkness .
Objects of equal magnitude and extent in human affairs , have been in similar or greater obscurity . People , who fill the page of history with their celebrity , have been small in their beginning , though of prodigious size
in their maturity ; gradual in their growth , but uncertain , and even mistaken , as to their origin . The Roman nation , so illustrious through many sges for their love of liberty , and their examples of public virtue , so extensive in their conquests , so
bound-* Inquiry into the Nature of Subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles . 2 nd Bd . pv 29 S .
Untitled Article
34 On Mr . BeUlmnCt ** Plea for Infant Baptism *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1819, page 34, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1768/page/34/
-