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
Antichristian power , and so familiar with its pretensions , that they Were content to vindicate their Self-deliverance from its usurpations rather upon the exigency thari upon the reason of the case .
Of this sort of timidity we perceive many marks in the writings of the Reformers , especially of our own country : we see them anxiously making the appeal to ecclesiastical antiquity ; and hence , probably , they are chargeable with carrying to an undue extent their
notions and practices in relation to church discipline , order and authority . For the same reason and from ah inordinate desire of uniformity of belief , they were solicitous to friime , Subscribe and enforce articles of faith .
Their enemies accused them ( it is the vulgar cry of ignorance , bi g * otry and craft against all religious reformers ) of abandoning the most essential points of Christian doctrine . To silence the accusation , which it would havfe been more
magnanimous to have overlooked arid wiser to have repelled in a very different manner , they were intent upon composing creeds and forms , which might convey , as they imagined , their sentiments
upon important tenets . But the experiment was unsuccessful : it did not stop the clamours of their adversaries , nor did it even serve td define their own theological
opinions ; there being , at this very day , almost as much controversy about the meaning of the articles itv question , as there is about the interpretation of the most difficult passages of the scriptures .
? 'It was another defect in the reformers that they did not confine their arguments in behalf of Chris-
Untitled Article
tian truth to the Bible , but pined disproportionate weight oh tfei writings of persons destitute of inspiration .
This was an ill-judged deference to the authority of men , which , in one memorable case , they had signally renounced . It was also an improper concession to their opponents , who have ever been more fond of quoting fathers and
councils than the pure testimony of Scripture . That the concession was in fact made , appears from the following account of the nature of the conference between Ridley and Cranmer , on the one side , and the tribunal which sentenced them
to the names , on the other : " The Papists , ' * says my author , * * ' drew their chief proofs in favour of transubstantiation from the fathers ; many of whom , and some of the most esteemed writers
among them , speak on this subject in language by no means evangelical . The two bishops , accoidingly , being thus pressed by an authority which they durst not reject , were not a little embarrassed . ' *
Still more grossly did the Reformers err in exhibiting , on some occasions , the spirit of intolerance and persecution * Not to go be * yond our native country , Henry > the Eighth consigned Lambert to the stake , for denying the real
presence : and Cranmer , wise and amiable as he generally was , prevailed on Edward the Sixth , to give orders for the execution of Joan Bocher and George Paris , accused , though at different times , the one , of denying the humanity of Christ , the other of denying his divinity . Persons who could so far mistake the precepts and genius of the
. i . ¦ - ' — + * Gilpin ' t -Life of JLatimcr , 197-
Untitled Article
5 OS E * p * g on the Defect $ of tit Reformation . *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1813, page 508, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2431/page/20/
-