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55 & Review . —An Address fa Zte&fe .
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A&t , lh ^^ Om the recent Prtoecutiatts of Per softs vending Books against CIrtisttanitt / . An Address to Deists . Svo . pp . 34 . Offoi . 1 * . WE regret that this judicious and valuable tract should have
escaped our * notice so long . The friends of genuine Christianity have always lamented , that coercion should ever have been employed in its defence , and we are extremely happy to meet with so able a writer who , however he may differ from us respecting
particular tenets * has on this very important subject , the same views arid feelings as ourselves . We deem the subject highly important , because we regard it as essential to true religion that its profession should be perfectly voluntary : that the mind should be under no bias whatever from external
circumstances , but should be induced to make an avowal of it * belief , if disposed to avow , solely from a conviction of the truth and importance of what is m ain tain ed .
The anonymous author of this pamphlet , while he readily acknowledges his persuasion that the writings of unbelievers have a tendency to effect incalculable mischief , clearly shews bv a number of references to
the Christian Scriptures , that those Sacred Writings altogether discountenance such a mode of defence as that of inflicting paifls , penalties and imprisonment , for opposition to their authority . He shews that the support of the civil power , in any manner whatever , is inconsistent with the
spirit and principles of the Christian religion 5 # that it requires no adventitious aid , and admits of no defence bat reft-son aad argument ; that any other assistance or protection is only calculated to injure its causa , to
strengthen the hands of its adversaries , tfr multiply their converts , to increase and confirm the prejudices which the Unreflecting may nave imbibed against revealed religion , arid to diminish the tfbrce of the strongest evidence which can be adduced of its truth .
We would earnestly recommend this pamphlet to the serious attention of every description of readers , whether believers in Christian it y or uttbelievers ; whether advocf ^ i for unlimited frefcdbm in reK ^ idiiis aisctxssion , ot for the occasional interference of the civil magistrate . AIliVHl fihd in it
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sage I beg attention to / the following re * marks : —1 . This paragraph , it is allowed * refers to Jesus Christ : but She Apostle cannot mean to hold him forth as a god > because in the context , and in all his epistles , he writes against men who taught
his divinity , 2 . His language implies that Christ was flesh , that is , he was a mortal being , or a being subject to death and comiptian . ^—3 * The Apostle asserts not the nature * but the resurrection of Christ : ' God was made manifest ia the
flesh—was justified by the spirit , attested by angels ; that is , augels declared his resurrection to the women , and his own angels or heralds attested fiis resurrection to maukind—was preafched to the Gentiles , believed on in the world , received in glory . *—4 , That , as the writer alludes to the resurrection of Christ , he
must mean to aftirm the immortality of Christ ; and this is what his language , agreeably to the strictest rules of criticism , implies . There is , says Sophocles , a great God in the laws of Jupiter : —and what does the poet mean ? He means that the laws of Jupiter are incorruptible and eternal . ' A God , ' says Paul , * made himself manifest in the flesh / And what
again , I ask , does the Apostle mean ? He means that Christ , who was a mortal being , by his resurrection proved himself immortal : and hence he brings to light the mystery contained in the language of Moses , that man , who is mortal , will prove immortal ; that in Christ , beings
who are corruptible , shall put on mcorruption , and those that are mortal shall clothe themselves with immortality . In this passage , then , there is nothing said of Christ , but what will be verified in all mankind , when Christ shall return to raise the dead . Nor should it be omitted ,
that the Greek philosophers , alluding , it appears to me , to the enigmatical representation of Moses , or , as others naay thfrik it more probable , to the immortal nature of the soul , call man , by way of enigma , or mystery , o ® £ 6 q ^ vnr 6 q a mortal God .
This Ikriguage is used by Haraclitus of Potttus , known for his affected obscurity or paradoxes , and after him by Hierocles ; see Clement of Alexandria , Poe < L Lib . in . G , L , and the Goid ^ n Verses imputed to Pythagoras , vevs . 63 , 70 . "—Pp ;
155—157 . We have now brought the reader to i ! he end of the First Part of fifeiiy David ' s work , and . are obliged to defer to the next number the examination of Part II ., which consists of a more direct reply to the soi-disant Gamaliel Smith ; " v , ti
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1824, page 558, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2528/page/46/
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