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looked a truth of- such importance . That the apostles preached no such doctrine is apparent from the epistles left fry J ^ na , winch were first ^ frititep , and whic ^ , notwithstandi ng the attempt to wrest passage ' s giummatdcally ambiguous , wherever they aire plain in the letter , contain express testimony , to the sole deity of ^ the God of our Lord Jesus Christ /* John would
therefore contradict not merely the preceding evangelical historians , but the pastoral letters of the apostles , including his own . But , notwithstand ing the Gnostic or Platonic glosses put upon the text of the proem to his gospel , there is , in fact , no such con ? , tradiction . So far fro n > agreeing th ^ t we should have all that we could €€ wish
or want" in the meagre aad mutilated gospel offered to us by the deteqter , pf Spurious Christianity , we , as Unitarians , neither want nor wish to be deprived of an argument which , though of a negative kind , is equivalent to a demonstration of what was not the faith of the primitive Christians .
If revelation is to be brought to the standard of every man ' s private reason as to what is probable or congruous with his abstract notions of the possible or desirable attributes of the Deity , it may as well be given up . A writer who rejects facts because opposed to
common experience , may reject books that he might not want and that he might not wish . But the question is one of testimony . The books , now esteemed canonical , were acknowledged as such by the eiders and the churches of the
second century , and had been so acknowledged by the elders and churches of the century preceding . € < This €€
canon , " says Lardner , was not determined by the authority of councils 5 but the books , of whicn it consists , were known to be the genuine writings of the apostles and evangelists , in the same way and manner that we know
the , works pf Caesar , Cicero , Virgil , Horace , Tacitus , to be theirs , Apd the canon has been formed upon the ground of mi unanimous or generallyconcurring Jtestimony qn& tVawioB . " As the Uuitarians are accused , as a tjwng <> f course , with graining or wu-% «« , W ^ B ^ e to Ijtefr purpose , and F United with t ^ e a ^ n > oiution , that tte context of ^ criptur ^ is against W ^ - tf . Qfiv # fa , CtoM * r anjty has kindly came fomwa to bwp
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them by allowing the charge 4 nd proposing to expunge at once < 3 > e imprac ticable gospels : ' ¦ » ^ ^/ o-ciJ » 'f < <•"'*• ¦ Non tali anxilio nee defensonbuB istis . J - > r > sv > . / ' i ' V-. * 1 ' -fit U * JffOi . i * . "' . We 4 $ yv the chaise $ me < &claim the ? i ^ Bi ^^ nce . * - ., - i . -. i ^ iurl .-n :. But ; , i % seems the ; "; enlightened Unbeliever ^ cannot assent to revela tion in tno present state of the written
gospeL This , as has been already shewn , is begging the question , that whatever he chooses to charge upon the received Scriptures is really contained in them . As to the enlightened Unbeliever , a man is not the more
enlightened for being Wise in his own eyes . He may be an enlightened politician , an enlightened historian , an enlightened natural philosopher , but this does not make him an enlightened Unbeliever . Aversion from lair
iriquiry , and dogmatism accompanied with superficial knowledge , do not entitle a man to bethought enlight ened ; yet this is very commom * y tile character of those who take unon them
to expose the impostures of Moses and Jesus . Gibbon ' s cold and sneering evasion of Dr . Priestley ' s challenge of discussion is well known . . The reasoning which the vvriter has put into the mouth of his enlightened
Unbeliever is completely itieonsequent . It may be allowed to be characteristic " Doctrines contrary to the EH vine per * fections , as discovered by the light of nature /* ( in other wordfe > as approved by his individual judgment , ) are ' *
embraced and professed by act the churched in Christendom , and said by them to be contained in , and capable of ptoof from , the New Testament . Now on such evidence I cannot believe in Christianity . ''—The objector' assumes what is false in fact , that such
doctrines are embraced by all the churches ; the Unitarian church , as is well known , disclaiming those to which the allusion is particularly made . He then adds , that these doctrines are said to be con
tained in the gospel ; and , without further inquiry , rejects Christianity . But the only justifying reason for his incre dulity would be , not that the doctrines wcv said to be contained in the beioks o £ the New Testament , hut thati ^ the bookado actually coixtaih them : and > 111 reply to Mr . Oobbett , whotattcsdf God the Father , God the Soil , and God the Holy Ghost , who * are not three
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The Canonical Gospels the support uf Unitarian ChrittiaMty . Tfl
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1820, page 711, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2495/page/23/
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