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
opinion epterlain ^ d , a& ^ c asserts ,,. ? % the Ckirtmps , j ^ r the Jew * , and t > y those p hilosophers who had inspected the sacred writings of the J ^ w ^ and Christians , that the Word was understood as the personified princirie of
reason in God , and consequently as God himself , acting by his intelligent principle ; « the word of Jehovah' being used to describe the facility wherewith the Divine Wisdom wills and effects its operations . ' The term Logos , or the Word , he remarks , ( p . 12 , ) imports " the presence of God ' s word m spiritual operation ; and , as where Goers attribute is and operates , there God must
be , the presence therefore of God himself . * The word that was wijh God was God . ' " We have here followed as closely as possible Mr . Elton ' s own representation , in order that our readers may gather his faith from his own words . For ourselves , we frankly confess , that after frequent and anxious efforts , we have abandoned in despair the attempt to comprehend his meaning . The author intends this language , of course , to denote something different from what he understands by Unitarianism . We see nothing in his terms which
an Unitarian may not , and which some Unitarians have not , used upon the same subject * When divested of all mysticism , and interpreted according to their plain and obvious signification , the . words , in our apprehension of them , express no fact which they would not recognize as a part of their own system . On the subject of original sin , Mr . Elton ( p . 30 ) puts in his disclaimer against the doctrine of those who hold " that all mankind sinned in Adam
as their representative , and were amenable to punishment for his individual transgression . " The proper Calvinistic doctrine he designates , ( p ., 31 , ) " the overstrained if not mischievous notion of utter depravity , founded on texts of a particular application to individuals , or to some period in the history of the Jewish people . " " The sin that came upon all men , ' or , as he is pleased to call it , " original sin , " is , according to his present system , a « natural inability to fulfil all righteousness . " ( P . 28 . )
" If it be said / ' he observes , ( p . 30 , ) " that death must be derived from a mortal progenitor by a necessity of nature , where is the want of philosophy in admitting , ; what the every-day experience of the transmission of parental qualities of mind ,, as well as of body , justifies , that a moral as well as physical defectjs inherited J > y . the same natural necessity ? ^ All moral defect ( which it may be as well to state at once must originally arise out of the abuse of the powers entrusted to the creature , and not out of the primary design , or absolute decre offjjhe Creator ) mustin the of Being of perfect puritybe
*^ , eyes a , suifii ] , and thus the alleged want of equity in imputing sin , where sin has not been actually committed , is a charge raised on Imaginary grounds ; for if there be moral defect or insufficiency in answering- the claims of a complete righteousness , that is itself a state comparatively of sin ; and that state * i * contradistinguished from actual sin by the term original sm . 'V- 'Fhe author speaks ( p . 35 ) of " the wrath which in the Divine equity abides on the state of moraj de fect which the progenitor of the human race , who fca < i been 4 created upright / transmitted to all his posterity , together with thejr mortal nature /* * ,-rn
From these and other passages of a similar import , it will he perceived that whatever ideas the writer may attach to his words and phrases , which are not always obvious , he is very far from eymboliiing in his * ^ Second Thoughts" with the commonly-m * iVed or Celvinistk faith on the cu ^ ect of original sin and hereditary depravity . The J jeen uye of orthodoxy # iwdd e » py " heresy ? lurking in the midst of all his representations . ' JVext follows Mr . Elton ' s view of the remedy provided for the moral im-
Untitled Article
¦¦ - ¦« , / - Review . —Secessions from Unitarianism . 589
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 589, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/37/
-