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The Jews * at the lime when Jesus Christ appeared , had perverted many of the - commandments delivered to their forefathers , but they adhered strictly to that which is the great line of distinction between a true and a
false system of religion—the belief in the Divine Unity . They were free from the pollution of idolatry and polytheism : < c This was not the sin of the Jews 5 and it would have been better for the church
if it had never been that of Christians . But the piety of individual saints , and the orthodoxy of general councils , could not be satisfied without man ing- the first coinman dine nt by their metaphysical disquisitions . With barefaced effrontery they rushed into that sanctuary where an ire Is
hide their faces with their win ^ sl They made a tripartite image of the invisibleGodhead , and then menaced those who would not do homage to sycli a profanation , with an exclusion from some of the best interests in this worlcj , and with eternal damnation in the next !!!"—Pp . 31 , 32 .
This writer justly remarks , that Jesus Christ always insists with more force on the facienda than on the credenda of the gospel ; on what his disciples were to do than on what they were to believe . Though the faith of the Sadducees was not so just as that of the Pharisees , yet Jesus always condemns the immorality of the Jatter
with more severity than the infidelity of the former . While he reprobates , in the strongest terms , the counterfeit piety of the Pharisaic sect , he says
to the Sadducees , ' * Ye err , not knowing the Scriptures * nor the power of God . ' * The Author then proceeds to ask : u When the following important question was once put to Jesus , * What good thing- shall I do , that I may have eternal
life ? ' what was his reply ? Was it— -Be deeply impressed with the innate corruption of thy nature : think thyself ulcerated with sin , and infected with depravity to the very core ? Then rely for acceptance , not on any merits of thy own , but on those which will be imputed to the believer from that store of righteousness which has been
thing's respecting- the Deity , which he has not thought proper to reveal . " We may safely leave it to the reader of the passage just quoted from the tract ujider Review 3 to determine which party is obnoxious to » this censure , the justice of which we readily admit .
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accumulated by the . sufferings of Christ ; which righteousness will be made thine by the appropriation of faith through the infusion of grace . But Jesus , instead © f bewildering his inquirer with this jargpon , which forms the saving nostrum of the
modern theological school , simply says , 4 If tbou wilt enter into life , keep the commandments . ' If Ibis question were put , by any serious inquirer , to the Archbishop of Canterbury , * What shall I do to be saved V the orthodoxy of his Grace would certainly reply——The possibilities of salvation are circumscribed within the
ringfence of the Thirty-nine Articles , the parkpaling * of the Three Creeds , and the old , patched , ivy-crested mansion of the Liturgy . But , instead of confining salvation to a belief in such a chequered medley of contradictory and heterogeneous elements , how simple is the answer of Christ ,- * - ' If thou wilt enter into life , keep the commandments' I "—Pp . 33 , 34 .
We do not expect that the justice of the following remarks on the * ' Lord ' prayer * ' will be admitted by those advocates of mvsticisin , who will not allow that this beautiful form reaches the perfect standard of evangelical peculiarity ' :
" That no obscure , mysterious and polemical doctrines ought to be incorporated in a National Liturgy , we may infer from that pattern of prayer which Jesus delivered to his disciples , when they requested him to teach them how to pray . This prayer , therefore , merits particular
attention , not merely from its comprehensive excellence , but because it was expressly designed as a model which his disciples and their followers were to copy in their devotional addresses to the Father of
Spirits . But this prayer inculcates no am higuous or uncertain tenets , with respect : to the person of the Deity ; nor does ii give the least countenance to any of those doctrines which have been productive af so much strife in the Christian church . In
this prayer , God is not addressed as a triune Deity , but simply as the universal Father of mankind . Every sentiment of reverence and affection is combined in tlve
denomination of Father , by which Cbrtst directs us to invoke the Deity . But the unity of the divine nature is expressly implied in the teim ; for , as we can have but one . Father , so we cannot supplicate more than one God under thai tender appellation .
" The prayer which our Lord delivered , as a pattern for the imitation of his disciples , is . a breviary of comprehensive principles . It is not the production of & mind which bounded its views within the narrow pale of sectarian jealousy or exclusive privilege , which confined its sen-
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Review . *—The Essential * of a National Church briefly explained . 437
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1819, page 437, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1774/page/37/
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