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
sticklers at such a jargo ^ asu ^ se ^ mto exclai m to all fellow-christians not within the # oman Catholic pale , ^ O ^ vaMSvW ^ ur pious punctiliousness "! ' WeJJ # i } l !; pJe ^ ai ^ ^ tedious trara ^ e ^ ; whicft wo * f > c * ak ^ us to the feet of the CKrist aricl his apostles , arid te ^ pt ' us ^ a ^ tattife ftdtti ll ^ purer theology of the Fathers of our Church , the oracles of the Reformation . " Now , let me appeal to Clericus Cantabrigiensis himself , whether , won
terms so repudiating and iniquitous , all present and future concor 4 amongst the disciples of a common Saviour must not be absolutely impossible ? Whether , by such a substitution of alle giance , those who patronize it do not openly avow themselves a mere sect , and disclaim and interdict every hops and wish for unity to the Christian Church ? To apologize for such broad innuendoes against the orthodoxy of the Divine Founder of the religion which goes by his name , and of that of its only heralds who ever taught it in
person from his lips , by quoting their assumed creed against their recorded practice , what is it but , in the words of truth and soberness , to sport witii the feelings they have outraged , and , under the mask of fidelity , to taunt with treasoh > Shame on these libellous collides junctures I It matters not w } # t authority they may long have pleaded , by what reasoning they may have been excogitated . There are they not , where , who shall presume to ave ? r they should have been ; where , who that has a thoroughly honest heart will they should have been ; where , who that has a thoroughly honest heart will
lay his hand to it and say , he can doubt they would have been ; and that not owce or twice , but as often as the associations of ideas which have since given them birth occurred ^ if the inferences of the inventors had been the Kowat eiwotat of the Evangelists and Apostles ? But now , on the other hand , these fouler blots erased—these undesigned , but too obvious , wrongs to the memory of one who spake as never man before or since hath spolken , entirely done ^ way , —could the advocates of his religion be more worthily employed
than in renouncing on their side every thing that unnecessarily gave offence , to any of their fellow-christians , as averse as themselves to take . pnwarr ratable liberties with the phraseology of the Bible ? .., Need the most inger ntibus or straight-forward Christian ; ( or , if he like , the | e ^ pa ; better , Unitarian ) in existence , be scandalized at ;^ n address to Godjfchrpi « g ^( h $ &pn * our Lord Jesus Christ , for his holy spirit , though conscious of attaching a very
different meaning to the words from that ; suggested , &y them \ q anoth er worshiper in the same sanctuary ? Or could he ,, blameless of a higher regard for his own opinions than what in spits of them ^ might still be Christian truth ¦ , refuse to modify his own liturgy or extemporaneous prayer by the seeming tenor of a somewhat discrepant faith , as , his sacrifice in return for a " brother ' s" meritorious surrender of its more unseemly form and language ? Nay ; what if , lured still farther on by the good genius of
brotherly love , we were none of us so stiff and sweeping as some seem to think that right reasoning might require us to be , upon a point which , carried to its extreme , has certainly no very obvious tendency to assimilate our character as believers or worshipers to that of the first heralds of Christianity ? The Epistles of the Apostles are a perfect riddle , if we deny to their faith in the Son of God , a conviction of his presence with his church
in- their day . Need we be so afraid of stultif ying ourselves by erring with them in our own , that we must be more than forward to expunge from our latria every notiori of ; fyis privity to our prayer , all reliance on his jintercession for its increased ' efficacy or acceptableness ? What mutual horror of idolatry so pbvionsly ! forbids . that we confess him in any sense " Lord , " * if to the glory of God the Ffltthetf ? „ It i » this un-apostolic zeal against the * tJmier . whatever inodificati&ns jtfc atiQStks recognised tjit * Deity of jbtfttfc Christ ,
Untitled Article
their Theological P&tie-makmg . 793
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1827, page 793, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1802/page/9/
-