On this page

• Text (2)

  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

  • 

    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

    aided the progress of doctrinal corruption . There you find neither the Trinity , nor the deity of the Holy Spirit , nor the . deity of the Son . No , this creed , which ascends , in point of time ,, to the first ages of the Church , sets forth the unity and supremacy of God , and the manhood and divine functions of Jesus Christ . Under the names of Ebionites and Nazarenes

    was included the whole body of the Jewish converts . This portion of the early Church held their Saviour to be , in the words of Peter , a man approved of God . And let it be observed that this Church was founded by the Apostles themselves , and presided over by men succeeding the Apostles in a direct line . It is also a matter of history , that the early Gentile Church believed in the simple humanity of our Lord . Several of the most eminent Orthodox Fathers admit that the earliest

    writers of the New Testament did not , any more than Jesus himself , set forth the deity of Christ , for fear of exciting opposition in the minds of those whom they wished to convert . The dis-r closure , which Matthew , Mark , and Luke prudently avoided , was made , they assert , near the end of the first century , by the Apostle John .

    For nearly one hundred years , then , by the admission of the opponent , the Church knew nothing of the now alleged deity of its founder , but was left to the impression respecting his nature which not only the most express declarations of his manhood , but also the whole course of his life and death , was fitted to convey . Most of the writings of the ancient Unitarians , those who deemed themselves orthodox destroyed , in order , if possible , to hinder the world from knowing how late was the origin of their cor *

    ruptness in doctrine . But enough remains even in their own works to assure us that the doctrine of Christ ' s humanity was the earliest faith of Christians . This we find the early Unitarians strenuously maintained . Those who opposed them are able to refer to no higher an authority in point of time than Justin Martyr , who flourished in the 2 nd century—a plain proof that down to his time the humanity of the Saviour was the prevalent belief . The manner in which they oppose the doctrine of

    primitive Unitarianism shews that fewness in number , and novelty in doctrine were with themselves , and the contraries with those whose tenets they laboured to supplant . Whenever what is termed orthodoxy has been the prevailing doctrine , its advocates have always been intolerant of Unitarians . In the times of

    which we now treat , the assumed orthodox spoke with mildness of the Unitarian sentiments , and in the tone of apology of their own . More than this—they have incidentally left passages in their works which establish beyond a doubt the Unitarianism of the great body of Christians during at least two hundred years after the death of Christ . " The many—the greater part of believers were , according to their unwilling testimony , Unitarian

    Untitled Article

    . Rise and Progress of the Doctrine of the JTrinifif . Vf

    Untitled Article

    JNo . 6 U c

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/17/