On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    Ghost ; the Nicene Creed makes the Holy Ghost anterior to the Son j while the Athanasian Creed declares , that , of the three divine persons , * none is afore or after another . ' How then could the Fa-

    ther precede the Son ? as the Apostles Creed says . How could Jesus proceed from the Holy Ghost ? as the same Creed asserts ; or , the Holy Ghost proceed from Jesus , as the Niceoe Creed declares ? The contradictory credenda , which are brought together in these three Creeds ,

    are a disgrace to the Establishment ; for it is self evident that they cannot all be believed by the sarae person \ and , therefore , it is equally certain that those who profess to believe thean all must profess to believe a self-evident impossibility . "— - Pp . 16 , 17 .

    The Author conceives that it would tend , not only to increase the lustre of the Establishment , but to exalt the character of its ministers , and consequently to add greatly to the usefulness of both , in a moral as well as in

    a political point of view , if , instead of the complex and contradictory creeds of the National Church , the legislature would substitute a creed of that simple and intelligible" kind , which Jesus Christ has himself

    authoritatively delivered , on a most solemn occasion : " This is life eternal , to know ihee , the only true God , and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent . " John xvii . 3 . " This creed , ' the

    writer observes , " ought to be inscribed in characters of gold over every pulpit and every altar in the kingdom ; that those who come to worship the Father of Spirits in the sanctuary of the Establishment may be impressed by the reverence which

    ia paid to this solemn declaration of Jesus Christ ; and may be convinced that the object of the church is not , as Mr . J . Berttharn has asserted , to prostrate the understanding before a colossal fabric of ancient absurdity and mysticism /'—P . < 20 .

    The writer having remarked that the devotional affections , which it ought to be the particular object of a national liturgy to excite , must be chilled and weakened in proportion as that liturgy exhibits a low or degrading representation of the Deity , produces a revolting example of such irreverent language :

    u Where thfe mind is deeply impressed with awful reverence tat the great Spirit who r * gtiltft& lite nation * <* f the fcihfreYte ,

    Untitled Article

    and glows with love for Jiis paternal attributes , how must its tone of seriousness be relaxed , and an earthly grossness be thrown over its spiritual contemplations , when the worship of the National Church presumes to talk of the nativity of God the circumcision of the invisible Jehovah * of the agony and sweat of him whom no infirmity can approach , and no hostility overcome !

    "' How can religion be served , how can piety be promoted , by thus lowering" the character of God ? And without at present considering the expressions as apply , ing" to God himself , they , at least , represent his regard as influenced by considerations of that gross kind which can never operate

    upon a spiritual mind . For , can we believe that that Being who is at once infinite in wisdom and in goodness , can be at all impelled to shew favour to his worshipers , to deliver them from evil , or to elevate them to good , because in their

    supplications they invoke his regard by c the nativity and circumcision , by the baptism , fasting and temptation , by tlie agony and sweat , ' of a mortal man ? If , in any ritual of Pagan worship , we were to meet with petitions of this kind , a < f »

    dressed to Jupiter or to Juno , should we not treat the expressions with ridicule or with scorn ? Should we not spurn tile idea that any celestial being could be reconciled to a transgressor , because some other individual bad suffered the excision

    of a particular membrane , or had experienced a violent exudation from the corporeal pores ? Is a liturgy , which contains pollution of this kind , worthy to be preserved inviolate in this enlightened age ? Is it sacrilege to touch the ark of tins devotional formulary , in order to remove all that peccant matter which contaminates the good , and tends to bring the whole into contempt ? ' * *—Pp . -24—26 .

    * When \ he Unitarian undertakes to sbew the impiety of using such profanely familiar language in reference to the Deity , an orthodox writer in the Evangelical Magazine turns round upon him , and presumes to deprecate the discussion , which the irreverent phraseology of his system has provoked and rendered

    necessary " . Conscious of our own .. ignorance , " says this Calvinistic writer , " we think it becomes us to contemplate so exalted a fheme as the manner of the Divine existence , not only with modesty and humility ,

    but with the most profound reverence and godly fear ; nor can we well imagine a more daring tfet of impiety , than for a puny worm of the earth to indulge in unhallowed speculations on this sublime subject , and rashly to intrude into those

    Untitled Article

    436 Review . —The Essentials of a National Church briefly explained .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1819, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1774/page/36/