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532 Mr . Cogan on Bishop Burgess ' s Uneharilableness .
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severity , p . 409 . When I read the passage I said , This is in course , and gives me no concern . But I am sorry to find that a learned and estimable man , the Bishop of St . David ' s , should have chosen to pronounce in tfie House of Lords that Unitarians are not Christians . . Whether the Bishop means that they are unbelievers in disguise , or ttat , though they fancy themselves Christians , they are not really such , I neither know nor wish to be informed .
But as I would willingly suppose that the Bishop does not profess to search the secrets of the heart , I shall consider his declaration as meaning " , that though Unitarians believe what they profess to believe , still they are not entitled to the appellation of Christians . What then is the definition of
the term Christian ? I should propose the following ; a Christian is one who admits the divine mission of Christ , and consequently acknowledges his religion as the rule of faith and practice . And I should add , that he who successfully endeavours to act up to the moral precepts of this religion , in the
expectation of a life to come , is a real and a good Christian . This definition would not satisfy the Bishop of St . David ' s . Nor , I presume , would the Bishop ' s definition satisfy the Catholic . But the Bishop , no doubt , would say that the Unitarian rejects the essential doctrines of Christianity . But who is authorized to determine what
are and what are not its essential doctrines ? Until this question is settled , it may seem reasonable to conclude that those doctrines constitute the essence of Christianity which are inculcated in the New Testament with
such perspicuity and force , that they have been admitted , in every age , though with various combinations of error , by all who have borne the Christian name . The doctrines for which the Bishop is so zealous are doubtless essential to the system which
he considers as Christianity , but I should marvel if his Lordship , with the aid of all who think with him , could prove them to be essential to the great practical object of the
Christian faith , that is to living soberly , righteously and godly in this present world , in the expectation of " that blessed hope , and the glorious appearing of the great God , and of our Saviour Jesus Christ . " Not awed by
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the Bishop ' s skill in Greek , I repeat the words , " and of our Saviour Jesus Christ ; " which version is not inconsistent with the terms of the original , as the Greeks not unfrequently pass from one subject to another without repeating the article before the second .
Of this some curious examples may be found in Thucydide $ . I know the canon by which it has has been attempted to prove the divinity of Christ from the passage now cited . But in the application of the canon it is as-€
sumed , that the expression , < the great God , " can be an attributive of the subject , Jesus Christ . But if this can be , how comes it to pass that we never meet with the simple expression our God Jesus Christ in the New
Testament ? an expression which was used when the divinity of our Lord was at length believed . Jesus Christ is sometimes called our Saviour , but his usual designation is that of " our Lord ; " a designation which occurs about 100 times in the epistolary part of the New Testament . But in no
one instance is he simply called our God . But , perhaps some one may say , is not the passage in question rendered ambiguous by the omission of the article ? Ambiguous to whom ?
I will venture to say that it was ambiguous to no one who read the epistle in the age in which it was penned . But granting it to be ambiguous , which version has a just right to be preferred , that which makes Jesus Christ the
same with the great Supreme , or that which distinguishes him from his Father and our Father , his God and our God ; that which makes the passage speak a language consistent with the tenor of the sacred volume from
beginning to end , or that which imports into it an inexplicable mystery which has no support whatever except from two or three passages of dubious construction ? Yet for explaining these passages in such a manner as to render them conformable to innumerable
clear and express declarations of scripture > Unitarians are reproached as unlearned , and pronounced not to be Christians ! I believe the Bishop of St . David ' s to be a Christian , and though in uiy judgment a mistaken , yet a conscientious Christian . But allow me to define the essentials of the Christian faith , and let me imbibe a little of his
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1824, page 532, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2528/page/20/
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