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€ 1 Hi ^ c Letters * * ' that we do read this , as p * rfiealed of Jesus Christ * Our comwm version ( 1 John v . 2 G > Is , ' This Is ebe ti * ae ISod and eterual-Uie * ' and the proQOUn * This , ' refers not to the nearest , but to a remoter antecedent , * Him that
Is true-: ' ¦ just as iu 2 nd Ep . 7 , * This is a deceiver / refers not to Jesus Christ , the last antecedent , but to one of the * many deceivers , at the beginning of of the verse . The true God , is not Jesus Christ , but that Being whom he hath gi ¥ en his disciples understanding to know . * John xvii . 3 . —Pp . 13 a , 131 .
With the same perspicuity of method and expression , in the same happy strain of the soundest interpretatiou , Mr . Welibelofced compares together certain verses in the chapter to which he has just referred—John
xviL 11 , 24 , ( 5 , ) 21 , &c . no Jess than the transaction and latiguage recorded in John v . 17 , 18 , explains Heb . i . 8 , John x . 18 , and suc ) i passages as Gal . vi . 18 , Eph . vi 23 * &c , and then with reason asks ,
. u Are these the , numerous and decisive texts , by which the cause of Trinitariauism is to be finnly established ?—As a counterbalance to these , you tell your clergy ^ who , if they were at all acquainted with the Works * of Unitarian writers , must ; have heard you with some degree
of astonishment , that a few passages are brought forward where Christ is represented as commissioned by the Father , as praying to him , arid as acknowledging his superiority . A few passages ! No , Sir , not a few passages : even those to which you immediately refer are many , and besides those , we produce whole
books—the general strain and tenor of the Scriptures , from Genesis to the Apocalypse . We say , and we think that we can prove it , and that we do prove it , that'it is uniformly and plainly the language of the Old Testament , that there is but one Gbd > Jehovah , the same who , in the New Testament , is-called the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ :
and that the same -doctrine is that of every book of the New Testament ; maintained and taught by Jesus himself , and , in the most , express ternis , by his apostles . We affirm that the doctrine of the Trinity is not taught in any single passage ,, that it is inferred only from very
few ; and that the doctrine of ' the deity of the founder of Christianity , depends also upon a few scattered texts , separated froia their connexion , and interpreted without a just regard to idioms of speech , and the circumstances of the primitive church . "—Pp . 136 , 137 .
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The author of the " Three Letters /' then exposes with uncommon forte the gratuitous but convenient hypothesis of ' * two natures ' in Jesus Christ , arid sets in array against it the simplicity and clearness of the Unitarian faith ; Nor does he pass unnoticed his . antagonist ' s appeal to the Aute-Nicene Fathers . Of these the Archdeacon of Cleveland produces no meagre catalogue : among these he assures the unlearned reader , that there is a most entire concurrence , as to the point referred to ,, the Divinity [ the Deity ] . of
Christ . '' They are meant , however /' adds the dignitary , € t not to establish that pointy for" —and here Mr . Wellbeloved most cordially agrees with him , — te better foundation can no man lay than what is already laid in scripture ; but to shew , " ( the Archdeacon , continues , ) " in opposition to vague and illiterate assertions , that the Ante-Nicene Fathers were not Unitarians . "
Here the author of the " Three Let . ters" takes occasion to make some pertinent observations . " Such assertions you may indeed well call vague and illiterate ; but who has made them ? So far from considering these Fathers as Unitarians , we charge them , ( with the exception of those denominated apostolic ) with being' the " comipters of the Unitarian doctrine . All that we
contend for is , that they did not hold the doctrine of the Trinity as it is now professed , that they had no notion of three co-eternal and co-equal persons forming one God ; but that , although they spoke of the divinity of the Sop and of the Holy Spirit , they spoke of it uniformly as an inferior and subordinate divinity , derived from the Father , who was the supreme and only true God arid to whom alone , the highest degree of worship is to be paid . "—Pp . 142 , 143 . From this statemant we cannot *
withhold our humble praise : it is perfectly accurate and luminous , Mr . Wellbeloved goes , on to offer some remarks on the second epistle of Cleinent of Rome , on the alleged epistle of Barnabas , on certain writings ascribed to Ignatius , on the supposed
doxo-logy of Polycarp , &c . &c ., which evince his own well-digested learning , and are excellently calculated to place before his readers a fair and equitable view of this part of the controversy . Within the compass of a few pages , he affords to students in Theology
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lte » iew * r-- fF eUh < eloi * e < Ps Letters to Archdeacon Wrangham . 99 ^
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 99, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/35/
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