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    530 , ] has hit upon a vastly neat and compendious method of conciliating those whom he chooses to designate " enlightened unbelievers . " We are , it seems , to give up to them three out of the four Evangelists , with the exception of certain scattered facts and

    sayings , not specified , which they are to pick and choose for themselves . Whether the cutting off our brush will in reality improve the becomingness of our appearance in the eyes of these

    unbelieving llluminati , I have very strong doubts : certain I am , that the tribe of believers will scarcely be induced by this denuding metamorphosis to overcome their scruples in admitting us of their fraternity .

    But it is not easy to say where the curtailing knife is to stop . The next step to cutting off improbable incidents is the lopping of incredible ( sliall I say inconvenient ?) precepts : and , in fact ,

    the detector of spurious Christianity , from his aiguing on the uhfitness and incredibility of what he terms the pretended dialogue between our Lord and Nicodemus , illustrates the natural

    tendency of this rage of capricious excision . " Our Saviour Christ , " observes the writer , " says no such thing ; but , on the contrary , offers mankind very different terms for obtaining eternal life . " Luke x . 25—29 . So , because Christ at one time made a particular

    declaration in general terms , he could not be allowed , at any other time , to express himself in more particular terms ; he was to be tied down to the form of his original proposition . Every man , however loose in practice , will verbally assent to the propriety of

    • ' our loving God ? ' ( if he believe in a God ) " with all our heart , and our neighbour as . ourselves ; " but this he may explain according to his own latitude of interpretation , reserving a salvo for his particular darling sin . It may possibly recommend the gospel to philosophers , if we lower the standard of

    Christ ' s morality , and if we render the conditions of obtaining heaven more easy ; but it may be doubted how far this compliableness would have met with the approbation of that apostle ,

    who ejaculated ** woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel ! " And , indeed , the experiment is not very promising as respects the philosophers . The attempt to bring down Christ to the level of Seneca , and to resolve into

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    hyperbole all of gospel requirement that exceeds the measure of morals ascertainable by the light of nttture , has been met by a list of moral aphorisms from ancient sages , Greek , Roman and Chinese , and the question , <* Why the morality of Jesus should be matter of revelation at all ? " Some

    of them have no objection to speak of Christ as a moralist and reformer , and to allow him the sort and degree of inspiration shared by poets and astronomers . That this would content the assertor of Genuine Christianity , I am not prepared to say : certainly it will not satisfy those who have drunk into the spirit of the gospel and have felt

    its power . To prove that Christ * says no such thing , " it should be shewn that the one declaration is contradictory to the other ; but where is the contradiction ? The question is , whether a man , by his own natural powers , ( I do not allude to the foolish notions of

    transmitted sin and moral incapacity , ) can love God with his whole heart , and love his neighbours as himself * unless he be " born again / ' or " renewed in the spirit of his mind , " by the grace of the gospel . " The natural man , "

    says Paul , ( a phrase which Lindset / , from his dread of the doctrine of original sin , changes to animal , * and the Editors of the Improved Version to sensual , in my opinion mistakenly , ) " the natural man receiveth not the

    things of the spirit of God , " 1 C 6 r . ii . 14 . In the letters of this Apostle , which the assertor of Genuine Christianity admits , though warily , to have been " as little interpolated and altered as any books of the New

    Testament , " we find expressions full as string as those in the conversation with Ftficodemus : the €€ being a new creature , " a " new man created after God in righteousness , " 2 Cor . v . 17 , Eph . iv . 24 , is equivalent to being

    * . Carnal , which is the sense conveyed by animal and sensual 9 is by Paul expressed o-apvLLY , Q <; 1 Con iii . 1 ; - t / w % « t 0 £ seems ta designate the rational n&Uwe , as opposed to Trvef / M ^ trtvco ^ , the . spirituals .. *? the

    natural man" is , therefore , a much better translation than either «> f - t&e J ; wp . proposed , both of tfcem breaking the connexion of the apostle ' s reasoning ; wha is opposing the light of scripture to that of philosophy . Sfce Locke ad loc .

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    The Canonical Gospels the support of Unitarian Christianity . € 67

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1820, page 667, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2494/page/39/