On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
disciple to his Master . The question , upon this hypothesis , is , in what sense did he recognize him as his Lord and his God ? Now it will be remembered that another incredulous disciple had , only a few days before , in his own name and in that of his brethren ,
challenged our Saviour to " shew them the Father , " as a condition of their assured , unhesitating * faith in him as the Son of God . The reply of Jesus is very remarkable . " Have / been so long with you , and yet hast thou not known me > Philip ? " &c . 8 zc . He was
asking to see , he is told , what he had already seen . " The Father' * wa $ at the very moment of the demand present to their eyes in the person of the Sou . The indwelling Deity could not be an object of sight : he could be manifested to sense only by Ms operations . Of that inexistence , the words
which Christ spake , the works which Christ did , were sensible evidence . Of himself , as he had told them before , he ( Jesus ) could do nothing . But thus identified , thus " one with" the Father ,
as the Son palpably was , in the Son they might be said to see the Father . Their Jehovah , their Lord and God stood , literally speaking , as it were ,
before their eyes , face to face . Now it is more than probable that Thomas was present upon the occasion of these remarks being made : and might not , must not the recollection have revived
the impression , and suggested and prompted , as it well authorized , the apostrophe ? CLERICUS .
Untitled Article
290 On the " Nonconformist ' s" Attack on the Clergy
Untitled Article
Sir , April 25 , 1821 . OBSERVING that neither Philalethes ( XV . 657 ) nor any other friend of common candour and justice , has taken any notice of the strange
and unmanly attack of your Correspondent " Nonconformist > " upon the national clergy , in your last Vol .- ( XV . 731 ) , I would beg your permission to ask him whether he can seriously give credence from his heart , as an honest
and sincere Christian , to all the virulent invectives in which he has in that letter indulged himself ? Is it to be supposed , speaking of the political feeling of the clergy , that a body who have as large a stake as any set-of men ( even as private individuals ) in the land of their birth , would blindly pursue a line of conduct , as . here altegea against
Untitled Article
them , * calculated to ' destroy that very liberty and independence upon which the preservation and security of their rights and property depend ? As a consistent and conscientious Nonconformist , your correspondent is justified , and has an undoubted right
freely to entertain and act upon his own scruples to the constitution and principles of a church establishment from which he openly and avowedl y secedes ; but it can upon no grounds be admitted , either that the honourable
scruples of conscience will , that the spirit of Christian feeling will , and , especially , that the existing facts do justify such personal calumnies on a body of men whose independence of situation , whose confessedly superior education , whose very influence and connexions in society , and the manner in which ( generally speaking f ) they actually conduit their sacred trust , place them far beyond either the temptation or the wish to act in the manner
so wantonly ascribed to them . How far the peculiar denunciations of Christ quoted by this writer , and which , in a moment ( it is in charity to be hoped ) of unreflecting irritation , he would insinuate as descriptive of the 9
character of " these men / do in reality portray their likeness , and if so , must , to verify the Saviour ' s predicted sentence , be their tremendous allotment , must , I think , be left to that Master onl y to apply , before whom both he and they must finally " stand or fall . " V . M . H .
P . S . The respected Editor of the Monthly Repository may possibly , in the spirit of the invectives repelled in the foregoing letter , ( and which many persons , friendly to his work , and all the candid and liberal-minded advocates
of all parties , will regret to see so often mixed up with that free inquiry * Vide second and third sentences of " Nonconformist ' s" letter . + Exceptions there may be , and instances of individual misconduct or occasional ill-judgwg violence of party feeling
may occur in so extended a clasa of society ; tyut " Nonconformist" should remember , and mi ^ ht have had the candour to have * admitted , that individual error 1 $ no . basis oya whicji . found \*> jjy * ( h . * especially eo broad and landissriimnfl-ting an indictment against a itohote body .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1821, page 290, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2500/page/34/
-