On this page
-
Text (1)
-
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
Tbe anchor ef " the Scripture Testimony" has very justly characterized some of Or- Watts ' s Hymns , with which , indeed , there is reason to believe , no one was , at length , less satisfied than the pious poet himself . Yet those hymns , connected with their repeated republication for -general (nse , even down to the present day , form a host in support of Mr . Belsham ' s representation of * the orthodox doctrine . " Nor should it be forgotten that the Psalms , a later composition of the pious author , and containing " , comparatively , few
passages offensive to any Christian , were , as is well known , slowly admitted to a competition with the Hymns , which in some orthodox congregations still maintain their ascendancy . But the principal , though a very lar ^ e use of those pious compositions , has not been , I apprehend , in public
worship . With a most laudable design of worthily occupying intervals of leisure , and forming a devout Christian temper , the Hymn-book of Watts , always re published in an uncastigated form , has been recommended , as a daily manual , to children and servants ,
m the most unqualified terms . At least , the exemplary Christians by whom I had the unspeakable happiness of being led into life , and who were by no means ultra-orthodox , never directed me to pass over a page or even a line in the whole volume , as
containing " language" calculated to " wound a thinking and pious mind , " or in the least opposed to the language of the Assembly Catechism , in which , like other infants , I had been taught to dogmatize on the nature of Deity , the supposed complex person of the Saviour , and the Divine decrees . No ; 1 was left , with the thousands of my contemporaries , by parents little inclined to neglect the highest interests of their children , either to hymn an i % infant of days"
" the mighty God Come to be suckled and ador'd ;" or escaping this Christianized Paganjsm , only worthy to be ^ compared with " < he old Heathens' song Of great Diana and of Jove , " {*> say in tne yvords of truth and soteniess ,
Untitled Article
" Jesus , we Wess tfey Father ' s name ; Thy £ [ od and ours are both tfae sawp . " In consistency with this method of early orthodox institution , when about 10 years of age , in a school-exercise for turning English into Latin , which . has escaped the accidents of half a century , I was taught , witk my classfellows , in the manner of Lord Bacon s Christian Paradoxes , to regard these among the " unparalleled opposites" in the person of the
Savi-(our : * The eternal God once an infant of an hour old ; " The immense God , once a child of a span long . "
My schoolmaster was a highly popular Calvinistic preacher , who riveted the attention of crowded congregations , as I have often witnessed . To his manners were attributed some
innocent eccentricities , but his orthodoxy was never questioned . Such , then , are the authorities which occur to me , and they may be easily multiplied , for believing that Mr . Belsham has been inaccurately charged " with misrepresenting and stigmatizing the orthodox doctrine . "
My friend ' s language is , as he designed it , highly disgusting . The disgust , however , is chargeable on a system , by which , according to the general understanding of its professors , whatever may be the guarded representations of its more learned
advocates , that language is authorized , and not on those who , regarding such a system as a misrepresentation of Christianity , will , if tlicy are conscientious and consistent , seize every fair occasion to dcvelope and to expose it . Such , I am persuaded , will be the conduct of the learned author of * ' the
Scripture Testimony / ' should he ever discover that the faith for which lie ably contends , is not " the faith once delivered to the saints . " I scarcely need to add , that
disapprobation of any system , and even contempt for some representations which it appears to authorize , are both perfectly consistent with a high resect for tiie virtues and talents of those , by whom that system i « maintained . Protestants , awiidst all their
differences , have agreed to assail , with unsparing ridicule , the hreaden deity of * he Romish Church . Vet they justly
Untitled Article
Mr . RuU on ike " Scripture Te ^ timm ^ J * 1 SJ
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 157, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/29/
-