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REVIEW. li Still pleased to praise, jet not afraid to blame/*—Pope.
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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.
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Review. Li Still Pleased To Praise, Jet Not Afraid To Blame/*—Pope.
REVIEW . li Still pleased to praise , jet not afraid to blame /*—Pope .
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Art . T . —Unitartanism the Essence of Vital Christianity : A . Sermon , preached at George ' s Meeting , Exeter ¦ , July 10 , 1817 , before the Members of the Western Unitarian Society and of the Devon and Cornwall Association . By John Kehrick , M . A . 8 vo . and 12 mo . pp . 48 . Hunter and Eaton .
OF the superior ability and taste which characterize this sermon , of the union which it exhibits of a mind at once zealous and enlightened , philosophical and elegant , our readers will judge from the extracts which we shall lay before them . Mr . Kenrick professes briefly to review " those doctrines of
Christianity which make it deserve the title of the doctrine according to godliness " He discourses from 1 Tim . vi . 2—4 , and endeavours to ascertain whether the marks of truth are inscribed on the prevailing or on the Unitarian creed .
An appeal is made to facts ( 9 , 10 ) in testimony of the connexion subsisting between the Christian doctrine of the unity of God and practical godliness : tc Need I ( says this preacher ) undertake
to prove that Christianity , in teaching- the unity of God and exterminating- polytheism , has shewn itself pre-eminently c a doctrine according- to godliness ? ' Rather , let those who would maintain the contrary shew me the nation of ancient or modern times .
which has worshiped a multitude of g'ods , without debasing- itself by the puerilities , and defiling- itself with the horrors and pollutions of superstition . The mythology ° f the Greeks and Romans may be called elegant by him who contemplates it only i'i the breathing * marbles which embodied the forms of their divinities , or in the
poetry to which their agency g-ives majesty and animation ; but he would revoke the strange epithet could he see it as it was , inflaming- the brutal appetites of the vulgar , exercising- no moral influence over the minds of the majority , and secretly
desptsed by the lettered and reflecting- few . And could the dark grottos of Hindoo idolatry utter forth their sepulchral voice to teli us what rites honour and what sacrifices propitiate the demons whose monstrous images are carved upon their walls , we
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should see what a doctrine of ung-odliues » polytheism still continues to be . " On the Calvinistic tenet of atonement Mr . Kenrick animadverts in the following manner ( 25 , 26 ) : " The heathen superstitions degraded the Creator by assimilating- him to the
creature ; but this theology inflicts on his character a deeper degradation ;—formau , fallen and ^ corrupt as he is , is not so malignant as to exact an eternity of torment for the smallest of sins , and refuse to remit this sentence though the offender manifested the most sincere contrition for his
fault , and the most earnest desire to return to the way of obedience } or for the imputed transg-ression of some distant ancestor . Were I compelled to think thus of the Being * in whose hands my present and everlasting- destiny were placed , I would indeed throw myself prostrate before the throne of his power ; I would endeavour
if haply I mig"ht yet move his pity by pouring- out the ag-ony of my soul under his condemning" sentence ; I would inflict on myself every species of bodily mortification for the chance that he mig-ht be induced to accept the extremity of my present misery as a commutation for the pains
of hell for ever : —but to call upon him as my Father who is in heaven , what would this be hut the bitterness of a spirit that mocked its own wretchedness , —or the insolent irony with which a slave reveng-es himself on the author of his oppression , — or a libel on his memory who first taught me what are the tenderness and
loner-suffering- of a parent ' s heart ? " " Nor does a modified representation of the doctrine escape his stricture ?* . With particular reference to the statement that the death of Christ was " a public declaration of God ' s hoJy displeasure against sin , " he remarks ( S 2 , 33 ) ,
" Gospel truth g-ains nothing , either in distinctness or in force , by the additions which this system makes to it , but , on the contrary , this and every other scheme of atonement takes something- from its simplicity , its consistency and its practical
efficacy . Some of them may intercept more and some less of the rays of the divine benig-nity and mercy , or tinge what they transmit with a deeper or a fainter hue of blood y but they all spread a veil before our heavenly Father ' s character ; their operation resembles the optical experiment
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1817, page 733, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2471/page/37/
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