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
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
Untitled Article
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 .
Untitled Article
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/
-