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very bold in his warnings to the Episcopal bench on the fatal consequences of such innovations as Bishop Marsh ' s : " But we warn his Lordship , we warn our Archbishops and Bishops , we warn the Legislature , we warn every person great and small who has at stake any
thing valuable either in Church or State , or who approves ( to use his Lordship ' s words ) c the religion of their fathers' and tiie constitution of their country , to put a speedy stop to such unauthorized , such unchurchman-like , such destructive innovations . If the Bishop of Peterborough ' s
measures are pursued , if his conduct be imitated , if our genuine articles are to be laid aside as antiquated things , if our sons are to be shut out of the Church , by new tests of religious faith , if Incumbents are to be deprived of their assistants , and Curates dismissed from their Cures , if the people are to be robbed of their
spiritual treasures , and an iron yoke of bondage placed on the neck of ' them that are quiet ia the land , ' and all this , for no crime , no cause , but because the Bishop or Bishops will have it so , —there needs no prophet to predict the result ;—the Mitre and the Crown will fall together J /"•—Advert , pp . iv . v .
We apprehend that the Bishop ' s cc Evangelical" antagonist suspects the " Questions" of a tendency to " Socinianism ; " for there are several passages ( we have marked about half-adozen ) in which this heresy is brought in as a bugbear to terrify the reader .
Good'Richard Baxter , in his Life , we remember , holds up a certain Roman Catholic to abhorrence , and to make him appear more abominable , calls him a " Socinian Jesuit . " But it may give rise to speculation , that Dr . Marsh , who so well understands the bearing of
every question , should have thought it necessary to shut out Calvinism from the Church by a multitude of searching inquiries , and should have left the doctrine of the Trinity to be guarded by the Articles and the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds .
This writer against Episcopal Innovation" an unlimited admirer of the Church of England as by Law established , and moreover , an eulogist of the Evangelical" party on account of
their being adorned in a higher degree than others , with the graces of humility and tenderness ; but he does not think himself called upon to keep any terms with one of the Heads of bis own church . He thus characterizes the Bishop of Peterborough ' s scheme :
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< First . —It subverts the foundation and destroys the source of genuine morality * * Secondly . —It admits of baseless and spurious morals . And yet makes such f
morals a condition of salvation / 1 In other words , the true character of his Lordship ' s * Questions' is this , * salvation by good works without holiness ! ' * ' Pp . 70 , 71 .
Again , he draws this inference from the defectiveness of the chapter on " the Holy Trinity : " "It affords an alarming proof how far the reception of what is called an * Orthodox * Creed , and how far the professed faith of a dignified Clergyman
yea , of a Bishop , may consist , with the most determined hostility to every vital , every heart-cheering , and every saving doctrine and principle of divine truth , as they are found recorded in the Bible , and in the ' Articles of the Church of England J * We say determined hostility . For without this , a step so bold , so
dangerous , so arbitrary , so even hy ^ & papistical , would never have been taken as that of forming ( Questions * like those we have been considering ; and then of making a peremptory demand of the belief and signature of the Candidates in a * full , clear , and unequivocal * manner to every one of them ! !"—P . 103 .
He asserts in the following passage , that the Bishop is only pursuing a long and deep-laid design : i £ We know very well , and every body who is at all acquainted with the history of the business , and the determination with which his Lordship left Cambridge ,
knows very well , that these ' Questions were intended as a Trap in which to catch evangelical Candidates ,- or , as his Lordship prefers to call them , Calvinists —But why catch evangelical Candidates ? Would not the Articles and the Prayer-Book of the Established Church' catch
them ? Would not that legitimate test shut them out ? What ! will not that * safeguard' keep the door against evangelical Candidates ? How then can his Lordship ' s * Questions' do that ? Here is a dilemma which we would wish his Lordship well out of . "—P . 110 .
But a still more biting passage remains to be quoted . We have no pleasure in extracting it , but it may be of some use to shew to dur readers that the polemic spirit is always the same , and that if Churchmen' do sometimes fall upon Unitarians without mercy , they do not hesitate , when passion , or the supposed influence of the
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544 Review ^^ Peterborough Questions .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1821, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2504/page/40/
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