On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    posed to do so ; he endeavours , however , to soften this fact in favour of hi& main argument , by calling these persons philosophical Unitarians ; and often intimates , that the common people , who were the majority of believers , were simple Unitarians , holding the pure truth , undisguised by the

    prevailing philosophy of the age . I would just remark here , that the writers he has quoted make no such distinction : they do not inform us that the unlearned Unitarians differed in

    doctrinal notions from their learned leaders . The Doctor ' s distinction I consider as mere hypothesis , unsupported by facts , and indeed opposed by them . Some persons may , perhaps , be surprised that I should venture to make such a declaration ; thev may

    be ready to ask , ' * Has he not adduced plain proof , in two or three quotations at least , that the common people , or majority of believers , in the times referred to , were really simple Unitarians V * I answer , No ; those authors are of too late a date for the purpose .

    I know of only three to whom he appeals for direct proof , and two of them , if not all , ( besides being too late , ) although they do 3 peak of the common people , yet say not a word which implies simple Unitarianism . I will give

    their words as quoted in the History of Early Opinions , in Vol . III . p . 265 , is the following passage from Tertullian : " The simple , the ignorant and the unlearned , who are always the greater part of the body of Christians , since the rule of faith transfers the

    worship of many gods to the true God ^ not understanding that the unity of God is not to be maintained except with the oeconomy , dread this oeconomy , imagining that this number and disposition of a trinity , is a division of the Unity .

    They , therefore , will have that we are worshipers of two and even three Gods ; but that they are the worshipers of one God only . We say they hold the monarchy . Even the Latins have learned to bawl out for the monarchy ; and the Greeks themselves will not

    understand the oeconomy . " P . 268 , Athanasius is quoted as saying , * ' It grieves those who stand up for the holy faith , " that the multitude , and especially persons of low understanding , should be infected with those blasphemies . Things that are sublime and difficult are not to be apprehended

    Untitled Article

    except by ^ faith , and ignorant people must fall if they cannot be persuaded to rest in faith and avoid curious questions . * ' In these quotations I cannot see any thing but what may be as properly referred to Sabellians as to simple Unitarians . That the " multitude , ' called by Athanasius , persons of

    low understanding , and by 1 ertullian , " simple , ignorant and unlearned /* must , because thus named , be simple Unitarians , is mere gratuitous inference , and nothing like a fact expressed by those authors . Sabellians might with propriety distinguish themselves from Trinitarians , as " worshipers of

    one God only , " and < c bawl out" ( as Tertullian says ) " for the monarchy . * And also the common people might prefer Sabellianism , as more easily understood and less liable to objections than the Trinitarian doctrine .

    In pages 263 and 264 , are the following passages from Origen : € < Some are adorned with the Logos itself , others with a Logos which is akin to it , seeming to them to be the true Logos , who know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified , who look

    only at the word made flesh . " " There are who partake of Logos which was from the beginning , which was with God , and which was God , &c , that speak of him as the Logos of God , and the Logos that was ivith him ; hut there are others who know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified , the

    Logos that was inadu flesh ; such is the multitude of those who are called Christiana /* To * ' know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified , the Logos that was made flesh : " to

    " acknowledge Christ ** only " according to the flesh , ' may be thought to imply a denial of his divinity , and a belief , that in his person he was no more than man : but it is not evident

    to me , that Origen meant more than that the people he mentions knew nothing of the Logos as distinct from the Father , except in its humble state of incarnation , or of prolation from the Father , they being ignorant of its personal pre-existence with the Father before the world was . It is

    remarkable that Origen says , " Some are adorned with the Logos itself , others with a Logos that is akin to itj" for the Logos of the SabeMSans mig ht truly be considered as akin to that of the orthodox , both believing the Logos

    Untitled Article

    522 Difficulties on the Unitarian Hypothesis .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1821, page 522, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2504/page/18/