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    € C born again : " and it is singular that in these acknowledgedly authentic epistles there should occur the phrase c < he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost , " Tit . iii . 5 . Now as Paul was

    " an apostle , not of men nor by men , but by Jesus Christy and God the Father , who raised him from the dead , " as lie * ' neither received the gospel of men , neither was taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ , " Gal . i . 1 ,

    12 ; and as the words in the epistle to Titus are almost a paraphrase of those used by Christ to Nicodemus , we have an irresistible testimony to the genuineness of the latter . As Paul received the gospel by revelation from Jesus Christy the words of Paul are the

    words of Christ ; Christy therefore , did not " offer to mankind very different terms for obtaining eternal life . " But , it seems , " the mysterious rite of baptism , in the orthodox church , ** is founded on this dialogue , and

    therefore it is " " Dretended * " " or sduHous . fore it is pretended , or spurious . That is to say , the words have been perverted to the purposes of superstition , and , therefore , Christ could not have spoken them : it is not the superstition that is to be blamed , but the

    passage that afforded a ground or colour for it ; it is not the " false prophet" who is wrong , but Christ who gave occasion for his error : so that if any Spanish Jesuit or Bampton Lecturer twists out a false doctrine from

    any passage of Scripture , to save the credit of Christ the passage must be given up- What the writer means by € C the mysterious rite in the orthodox church , " which , by directly after specifying " our own church , " he appears

    to extend beyond its particular pale , I do not exactly apprehend ; for the magical property of baptism , its supposed effect in instantly regenerating or renewing the moral nature of the person baptized , is as much a Popish doctrine as transubstantiation , and is , I believe , retained exclusively by the Church of England ; and even in that

    established sect , the more zealous and spiritually intelligent members , stigmatized by the name of evangelical , regard the baptismal sprinkling as a symbol only . The writer all along proceeds upon the assumption , that the spurious doctrines of the Christian Churches are the natural suggestions of the Scrip-

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    ture itself ; that they are legitimate conclusions from the premises : in other words , that so long as the canon of scripture stands , the opinions grounded or grafted upon it are not only warrantable , but inevitable . * The

    most striking corruptions have been established and are supported from Matthew and John : " the remedy suggested is the rejection of Matthew and John . The writer hopes that " he shall excite other talents to labour in the

    same cause of purifying the Christian Scriptures , by exposing and expunging the spurious books and corrupt doctrines ; ' * he here begs the question , that " the corrupt doctrines" are really contained in the books : and this ,

    notwithstanding his sneer at the Unitarian method of biblical exposition , which he charges with < € dexterous management , " " change of arrangement , " " transposing of figurative language into plain and plain into figurative , " and * ' the endeavour to explain away strong passages" can only be made b the Scri

    out y bringing pture to the creed , instead of the creed to the Scripture , running counter to the general tenor and testimony of prophets , evangelists and apostles , disregarding the lights of sound learning , and contradicting the fairest principles of criticism ; and this has been shewn repeatedly and triumphantly by Unitarian

    expositors . With what propr iety the writer can contend that the passages in John , on which the " monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation and the kindred Church-of-England doctrine of consubstantiation" are founded , must needs

    be spurious , will appear on a bare inspection of the chapter in which they occur ; where it is expressl y stated , with the fairness of a sincere historian , that " many of the disciples said , this is a hard saying , who can hear it ?" and that many * ' went back and walked

    no more with him /* vi . 60—66 ; but as the doctrines above-mentioned might equally have been founded on the text of his exclusive favourite Luke , xxii .

    19 , and on the passage in Paul ' s authentic Epistle to the Corinthians , xi . 24 , 25 , the writer will perhaps inform us whether these passages also are to be submitted to the purifying process . The Gospel of Matthew , though containing that imperishable monument of tne wisdom that is from above .

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    668 The Canonical Gospels the support of Unitarian Christianity

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1820, page 668, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2494/page/40/