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
versy , partl y theological , for a newspaper , I shall not trespass at any great length upon your columns . €€ It is amusing to find your correspondent ; complaining of * personal reflections : * he who volunteered a personal attack upon individuals now in India , and who in the very letter that is introduced with this complaint
brings forward a yet more serious , but unsubstantiated charge against one of them ! Of the comparative temper , as well as arguments , of our letters , your readers will judge dispassionately .
" I have nothing further to say on the epithet Socinian . ' By your correspondent ' s own shewing , it is improperly applied to Unitarians . Whether they be nearer to or further from
scriptural truth , than the real followers of Socinus , Mr . Ivimey is at liberty to determine for himself , but ( absit invidia I ) they cannot allow him to determine for them .
" The sense which he represents the Unitarians as putting upon their own name , is not correct . By the term * Unitarian , * they do not intend merely the worshiper of one God , as by the term ' Trinitarian , * they certainly do not understand the worshiper of three Gods : they use the former
term to denote the worshiper of one God in one Person , One God the Father ; ' and the latter to signify the worshiper of one God in three Persons , one God the Father , Son and Holy Ghost . Unitarian is never confounded by their approved writers with Monotheist , nor Trinitarian with Tritlieist .
Their sense of the two appellations is borne out , I humbly conceive , both by etymology and by historic usage . In describing them , therefore , a candid opponent has no occasion to take up the offensive epithet ' Socinian / ( offensive because it contains a misrepresentation , ) in order to avoid '
circumlocution j although much as your correspondent may dislike this figure of sp . eeeh , allow me to say that a style , circumlocutory even to tediousness , is far i ) referable to the most concise and
convenient phraseology that violates truth and charity . * ' * Allowing , however , according to your correspondent ' s objection ( but for argument ' s sake alone ) that the term Unitarian seems to assume the
Untitled Article
principle iu d-ebatjs between those that take upon tfaexn the name and their opponents , it only stands in the same predicament as se ^ egral other ; words chosen to distinguish religious sects $ amongst which I may point out Mr . Jvinbey ' s own denomination , that ot
Baptist . This appellation w adopted by such Christians as practise baptism by immersion , on the personal profession of faith of the candidate ; but the majority of the Christian world , who baptize infants by affusion , or sprinkling , might object that for
Anti-Paedo : Baptists to call themselves Baptists is to beg the question ; that this term implies that theirs is the only baptism , and that Paedobaptists are in truth as much Baptists as they . This is the same argument as Mr . lvimey ' s against the propriety of the name Unitarian * and whatever answer he
would give in the one case , I should probably be willing to appropriate in the other . " The greater part of what Mr . Iviiney says relating to Ram Mohun Roy is mere € beating the air / He understands me to state positively that which I state hypothetically . I claim for the Indian Reformer the character
and name of Christian , but I add , that were these not ? proved to belong to him , a Christian Minister ought , notwithstanding , to rejoice in seeing an idolater reclaimed to pure Theism .
Confounding the assertion with the supposition , Mr . Ivimey puts his ingenuity to the stretch , in framing questions on the fitness of admitting ^ heists to be Christians .
" It is a new thing for a Member and Director of a Missionary Society to be an anti-proselytist : yet your correspondent will-not-allow Ham Mohun Roy to be a convert to the Christian faith . To his assertions , I might
content myself with opposing the quotations before giveu from the Calcutta Journal ; but I have other and better evidence- Mr . Ivimey says , that it will be difficult , if nrot impossible to produce any proof that this Hindoo Reformer is willing- to be considered by his countrymen , or by Europeans , under the Christian character . Now ,
Sir , there is lying before me a Majefa zine published by the Baptist Missionaries in Bengal , and printed at the Mission Press , Serafnpore ; viz . The
Untitled Article
688 Frete Press and Unitariqnism i * India
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1822, page 688, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2518/page/32/
-