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tp discover the few ritual observations which are annexed to the Christian religion , from the practice of the a postolical and universal church . It would Iiave been as easy for Jesus Christ to
have said , Remember the Lord ' s day : Baptize your infuit offspring : Celebrate the LoreTs Supper : and Worship God , as it was for Moses to have laid down the law of the sabbath and of circumcision .: but he has not chosen to
do it ; lie has left us to infer the expedience and the obligation of these institutions from early , universal and apostolical practice . T . G . will easily see , tjjiW though the evidence for one institution , the Eucharist for example , is more obvious than that of another .
it is , nevertheless , wholly indirect and incidental , and very different from the peremptory mandate for the observation of the sabbath and the passover : nevertheless , this indirect mode of enjoining positive institutions may , perhaps , be a safer guide to the mind and will of Christ , than an explicit precept unattended with collateral evidence ,
For the genuineness of a single solitary rule is liable to be called in question ; as for example , that text in Matthew so often referred to , 44 Go and teach all nations , baptizing them into the name of the Father , and of the Son ,
and of the Holy Spirit , " the authenticity of which may reasonably be doubted , since it is evident that the apostles and primitive teachers of the
church baptized into the name of Jesus only , which surely they would not have done , had they known that a formula so different had been prescribed bv Christ himself . And Mark *
who commonly follows Matthew , only relates the order to baptize , without specifying the particular formula . But the consent of the universal church is a public act , notorious , which cannot be called in question without absurdity , and cannot possibly be accounted for , but u 1 Km the supposition
of apostolical example and authority ; and this authority , it is presumed , would be considered as obligatory by the gre tt body of professed Christians , wtio mj ^ rd the apotles as the
mes-• enger > of 'hrisr , and the authorized expounders of his doctrine . If , indeed , there *» re any v * ho set up their own judgment ;« ho ' v <* that of the apostles , who think that they were mistaken in the law * and ordinances which
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they delivered to the church , and that instead of obedience , they deserve rebuke ; to such , I confess that rny argument does not apply : but as this sect is of very late origin , and of very limited extent , it mav fairlv be over-¦ B 1 V
• . looked as an evanescent quantity * which forms no objection to the universality of the conclusion . To BELSHAM ,
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$ 44 Mr , M * r $ om m m Deity of the Holy Spirit Letter IV .
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Letters by Mr . Marsom in Reply to Mr . Wardlaw ' s Arguments for the Deity of the Holy Spirit . Letter IV *
Sir , April 10 , 1813 * THE next passage . * cited by Mr . Wardlaw in support of the personality of the Spirit , is 1 Cor , xii . 11 : ' But all these worketh that one and
selfsame Spirit , dividing to every man severally as he will . " ** The Holy Spirit , " he says , 4 < is represented as possessing will , and as distributing the various miraculous gifts , as that sovereign will directed . The possession of
will necessarily implies personality ; and that sovereign manner in which that will operates in the distribution of supernatural powers , clearly shews it to be nothing less than a divine will . " But how can the possession of will necessarily imply personality , when
he himself admits , f that the same thing is applied to the wind ? John iii . 8 « But waving this , we observe , that if the pronoun he be of the masculine gender , it does not agr ^ e with the
noun spirit , and cannot have that noun for its antecedent ; and therefore another noun , with which it agrees as being of the same gender , must be sought for in the connexion as its antecedent . Now this we have in the 6 th verse , where it is said , " There
are diversities of operations /* which the apostle goes on to enumerate ; " But , says he , ** it is the same God which worketh all in all ; " and aft er describing a variety of spiritual gifls , he adds , " But all these worked that one and
self-same Spirit , dividing to every man severally as he will" that is , as Goo will 9 who is said- to have given thosG spiritual gifts , according to whose will they were divided and exercised , and * P . 284 . f P . 390 .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1818, page 244, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2475/page/20/
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