On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
retaliating misstatements , invectives and calumnies , ov crudely asserting an unquctr tified right of private judgment , but by reference to primitive antiquity" and the Holy Scriptures . ( Pp . 17 , L 8 . ) We know not whether his Lordship means to concede that the Protestant ground of " the right of private judgment" caunot be maintained by the Church of England in controversy with the Church of Rome . Some of the Romanists have
fought with signal success on this arena , and almost driven the Cburch-of-England men to occupy for a moment the Unitarian position . We muse , however , give the Right Rev . author the benefit of his qualifying epithet " crudely , " which in some degree saves his Protestautism . Against the pretensions of the
Church of Rome , he maintains for himself and clergy a " mission from Christ " ( p . 19 ) ; but the Nonconformist would remind the Bishop that he can prove his " mission" only through the Church of Rome , which stoutly denies that she has parted with the least drop of her holy unction to the apostate Church of England .
Of the Dissenters , his Lordship says , pp . 19 , 20 , that " the great body" ( a bishop would not have used such a phrase in such a connexion in former times !) " shew no symptoms at present of particular acrimony against the church —that many are unsound in the faith , indisposed towards spiritual authority , and actuated by passionate zeal for their own tenets - but many there are who differ little from" the clergy " in
doctrine ^ entertain a respect for the church , and have too much of real piety to thwart the views of the clergy , when they tend to the public good . " We are glad to see this tenderness towards the soi-disant " orthodox" Dissenters ; but even they , as fctr as they are Dissenters , must be unsound in the Bishop ' s faith , and . opposed to all episcopal authority ; though certainly neither they nor the " . heterodox" Diswenters would aa a
body thwart the clergy in any houest scheme for the public good . Their complaint is , that the clergy give them so few opportunities of co-operation in such schemes . We were a little alarmed when we
found the Bishop recommending , p . 20 , that the " motions" of infidels " should be jealously watched , " fearing that he was about to appeal to the vigilance of the Attorney General , or the justice of peace or the constable ; but our appreheusions were relieved by the explaim *
Untitled Article
tion that infidel motions should be " repressed in their commencement by sound reason . " By nothing else assuredly can unbelief be put down . The Bishop indulges in the conclusion of his Charge , p . 39 , in an anticipation
of the ultimate triumph of his church over superstition , enthusiasm ,, and infidelity , and , as the consequence or the means , we suppose * of such triumph ,, of her " gradually throwing off the dross which is generated by human corruption in her own bosom" - —to all which we , Dissenters as we are , cordially say , So Be It .
Untitled Article
Art . VII . —An Essay on the Perpetuity of Baptism * , with an Appendix on Infant Dedication . By R . Wright . 12 mo . pp . 62 . Liverpool , printed and sold by F . B . Wri g ht ; sold by D . Eaton , and Teuton and Fox , London . 1 $ .
Mr . Wright has been employing the leisure which he has obtained by his retirement from Missionary labours in scriptural investigations . Amongst other subjects he has examined the question of the Perpetuity of Baptism , lately raised with so much zeal and even
eagerness by some of our Antipaedobaptist brethren . He commenced his inquiries a Baptist ; he has concluded them with the conviction that baptism is not a Christian institution . The following is the author ' s own " Summary View" of the argument :
" 1 . Baptism was not a new institution , first brought into practice , when John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea , Matt . iii . \ r mtfch less during the ministry of Jesus and his apostles ; for Proselyte baptism already existed among the Jews , who received converts to their religion from among the Heathen by baptizing them . " 2 . What John administered was
Proselyte baptism ; it was not a Christian ordinance , and was only intended , like the whole of John ' s ministry , to prepare the way for the ministry of Christ , and th » introduction of the gospel dispensation : consequently , John ' s ministry and baptism Were alike in their duration , both temporary .
" 3 . No proof can be produced from the New Testament that baptism was instituted by Jesus Christ , during his personal ministry . It was evidently Proselyte baptism , such as previously existed among the Jews , that was admiuis-
Untitled Article
686 Critical Notices .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 686, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/54/
-