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Untitled Article
essetiee ef the cause '—( p . 119 *) The author proceeds to exa - * miiifc whether these events * were themselves the essence of the religion ; ' whether ' if the apostles did not believe these events , there was nothing else left them to believe or support . ' Now , here is a needless confusing of ideas . Because it is averred that the doctrines of the resurrection and ascension are essential to the Gospel , it does not follow that they are the whole Gospel , and that there is nothing else left to believe if thev are disbelieved .
The question is gratuitously confused by the turn here given * Certain it is , that the apostles , in the whole of their preaching , did announce the resurrection xmd ascension of Jesus as an essential and main point of the religion they preached . If they preached this doctrine , knowing it to be false , they so far were guilty , not , as the author says-, of attesting what they knew to be false in aid of a religion which they believed to be true , but of interpolating a religion which they believed in other respects
true , with a doctrine which they knew to be false . This is certainly admitting a greater degree of fraud into their mixed characters than the writer before us professes to lay to their charge ; and the question of their fraud or sincerity in the profession of the essential doctrines they preached , has been discussed over and over again . This new writer is welcome to resume it , but let him not take credit for novelty in doing so * The apostolical imposture , relative to the resurrection and
ascension , he expounds as follows : ' When Jesus entered Jerusalem before the Passovet * , the shouts of the people proclaimed that he was still popular to a high degree * and that they expected the establishment of his worldly kingdom . ' As for the apostles , * faith in their Master had sunk deep into their hearts ; and though for a moment it might waver at a conjuncture so distressing as . his public execution , would yet again find sufficient food and support in the recollection of his character , his miracles ' ( or rather his self-delusions and the impostures practised on him ,
and shared by them ) , * his dominion over the minds of the people / One would be enough , and that one was found in Peter , to concentrate their energies again on their purpose of spreading the belief that Jesus should redeem Israel . The history of Joanna Sottthcote , and that of the Jew , Sabbathai Sevi , are quoted as proof , that delusion may go on after the most untoward events have thwarted it . f Notwithstanding the death of Jesufe , Peter and the other Apostles might remain steadfast in
faifcti that he was the Christ , that lie had ascended to heaven , but would appear again after a season to establish his kingdom ; and that it was their paramount duty on earth to propagate this belief . And when , with the view of making a deeper impression upon the minds of the people , they had g iven out , like the followers of Sabbathai Sevi , that their Lord had ascended bodily into heaven in their sight , their words , in like manner ^ gained
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Orthodoxy and Unbelief . $ 3 $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 835, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/43/
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