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
tion , oblige me again to insist not only upon my right but upon my duty , to hear and to understand whatever it has pleased the Almighty to declare respecting his designs . Say
what you will , a duty it is , and like all other duties , its performance is attended with God ' 3 blessing . He has challenged us to judge of the equity of his dealings with the children of men ; and it is at our peril that we refuse to exercise our best endeavours to obtain such clear views of the wisdom and goodness of his conduct as may fill our minds with love , adoration and unbounded confidence . An appeal to one ' s own consciousness , I am well aware , proves
nothing to others ; but I will nevertheless affirm that the very exercises which you condemn as fraught with danger , have proved unspeakably salutary to my mind , and have kept me from sinking into despair under afflictive dispensations of long continuance . I doubt not that you too have derived consolation from the views
you entertain : but I venture to say , that , be the degree what it may , it has always corresponded precisely with the degree of your confidence in the mercy and goodness of God . Having thus attempted to clear away those stumbling blocks from the threshold of discussion which have
impeded our progress , I now proceed to answer a question which you have put to me more than once , though in somewhat different words . la your paper of October 4 th , you say , " Our Lord Jesus Christ said
that such persons ( those who sinned against the Holy Ghost ) would not be forgiven in the world to come . Had you been present , would you have told them they would , and that they would be blessed in heaven to all eternity ?"
Again , October 5 , " I cannot believe that you would tell a known sinner against the Holy Ghost that he would be blessed in heaven to all eternity . " I hesitate not to answer that I would not , feeling as I do at present , have said one word in contradiction
to our Lord ' s declaration . I believe that the sinners to whom he directed his discourse were not forgiven y and yet I believe that they will , eventually , be created anew , be brought to bow
Untitled Article
to the sceptre of Christ , to swear in his name , and be blessed to all eternity . A man who suffers the punishment adjudged for his crime is not forgiven . The characters in question having died without repentance and without
forgiveness , must necessarily be beaten with whatever number of stripes the Lord , the righteous Judge , shall see fit to inflict upon them . But still they are God ' s creatures , and however they may have denied him and his Christ , he cannot deny himself . He has declared that he will not
contend for ever , nor be always wroth , lest the spirits should fail before him and the souls which he has made ; that he does not gneve willingly , nor afflict the children of men ; and we know that Abraham acknowledged Dives as his child in a future state
therefore , in the future state , as well as now , the term children of men will apply to the evil and the good of Adam ' s descendants . Moreover , we are expressly told that the work of judgment has been committed to the Son , and that the apostles and other saints shall share with him in the
discharge of that office . Now , if there be any thing plainly taught in the Scriptures , it is that God will reward every man according to his works , without partiality or respect of persons—that there will be various
degrees of punishment — many stripes and few stripes , as there are various degrees of guilt , and that Jesus Christ died for all men , and is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world ; that , therefore , the Father hath given all things into his hands , and that of all the things ( tl fortiori , all men ) thus
given to him he shall lose nothing , but raise it up at the last day . A learned writer , whose religious opinions are considered as orthodox , and who , at any rate , has not taken my side of the question in dispute , observes that the same method and
the same principles of interpretation are common both to the sacred volumes and to the productions of uninspired men ; and that , consequently , the signification of words in the Bible
must be sought precisely in the same way in which the meaning of words ill other works usually is , or ou # ht to be sought . That is to say , we must first ascertain the notion affixed
Untitled Article
39 (> A Friendly Correspondence between an Unitarian and aCalvinisi .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1824, page 396, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2526/page/12/
-