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
mixed tone of sorrow and of anger , has poured forth his lamentation over the alarming defection of the reformed churches of France and Germany from what he considers the peculiar doctrines of revelation . It is curious to
observe in a work , which has not been backward to unite in the assertion before referred to , that Unitariartism was not only decaying , " but ready to yanish away , " the acknowledgment of the fact that at Geneva , more especially , whose ** church was once the 1
glory of the Reformation , * even there it is , " that during eighty years , A nanism and Socinianism have been gaining ground . ' " The fact to which we have adverted , " says the Reviewer , p . 4 , stands , unhappily , in no need
of verification , and it is one in which no Protestant , by whatever ordination he may hold , ought to feel himself otherwise than personally concerned , that there has taken place , to a most alarming extent , a tacit or more open abandonment of the doctrines of the
Reformation , among the reformed churches of France and Germany . The poison of infidelity has , indeed , tainted the sources of instruction , and has thus insinuated itself through every vein of society . Deism , either in
the garb of infidel philosophy , or disguised under the specious form of Soci * nianized Christianity , is found serving at the altar 9 presiding in the college , and lecturing from the professor s chair !!"
A charge is afterwards alleged against the pastors of Geneva , that for a long * time they endeavoured to evade the accusation of their supposed sentiments being at variance with their public formularies , and prudently refrained " from the open promulgation of op-1
posite doctrines . * This new Gcnevese Catechism , however , ( it proceeds , ) "is a proof , that the lamentable period has arrived , when it is found no longer expedient to conceal the deterioration of religious sentiment , or to submit to the restraints of the antiquated phraseology of orthodox ?/ . * In the New
Genevese Catechism , ' remark our English Sociuians , * there is not only no exposition or defence of the doctrine of the Trinity , but not even an allusion to it . The Genevese pastors , ' itisadded , 4 on the high road of reformation , and their next Catechism may not merely omit , but openly expose pre-
Untitled Article
tended orthodoxy . ' * Such is the language of triumph held by the illuminte of our own country , in reference to the very circumstances , the anticipation of which gave so much satisfaction to the patriarch of Ferney , and his worthy compeers . "
A few quotations from the Catechism are then given , and its difference in some points from that of Ostervald briefly noticed ; and finally , it is represented as an ' * extremely curious publication , if they may describe as a literary curiosity so lamentable a specimen of the perverted ingenuity of human wisdom . The best idea of it
will be given says the writer ) by presenting a summary of its contents in a negative form , from which it will be fully seen , that Unitarianism consists in not believing . " P . 9 * The following is the negative summary of the Reviewer : u It does not
teach the necessity of revelation ; it does not teach the fall of man , or the depraved condition of his nature ; it does not teach the necessity of a propitiatory sacrifice for sin , or the love of the Father in sending his
onlybegotten Son into the world to become that sacrifice for us ; it does not teach the eternity and Deity of that Word who became flesh , by whom all things were made , arid who upholdeth them by his power ; it does not teach that we are washed from oiir sins in his
blood , justified by his righteousness alone , and accepted through his advocacy with the Father ; it does not teach us supreme love to Jesus Christ ; it does not teach the proper Deity of the Holy Spirit ; it does not teach that a spiritual change must take place in the
human soul , in order to turn the heart to the love of God , nor that divine influence is alone adequate to effect that change , nor that the sanctification of the soul is by the operation of the
Holy Spirit , nor that all our spiritual strength and sufficiency are to be derived , through faith , from Christ alone : it omits , in fact , every doctrine peculiar to revelation ; every doctrine by which the faith of the Reformers -was
characterized ; every doctrine which gives to Christian morality its superiority in point of adequate motive and spirituality of requirement ; and every doc-* Mon . Renos . April , 1816 , p . 236 .
Untitled Article
17 B On the Eclectic Reviewer s Account of Unitarianism at Geneva
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1818, page 178, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2474/page/26/
-