On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
much cause far grateful complacency , in the state of thing's among them * selves , they must Ieai * n to make great allowances ( and greater perhaps than they sometimes feel easy to make ) for the influences of the widely different
circumstances in which the English Unitarians have been placed , and to appreciate more highly those persevering efforts of our older advocates , to which , in all probability , they nminly owe their present great advantages . They enjoy the peaceful fruits
of the war-of controversy in the mother country . While they profit by our errors , as well as by our exertions , may they never lose sight of that firm attachment to truth , which , while it sees , and values , and embraces all , in the midst of opposing errors , which
accords with the spirit and teachings of the gospel , will never yield from the straight-for ward course in order to court the favour of men , or spare their prejudices , nor allow the specious
name of candour ( noble as the genuine virtue is ) to divert it , whenever Providence opens the way , from the faithful statement of unpopular doctrine , of the earnest refutation of popular errors .
what we conceive to be the peculiar duty of Unitarians at the present * period of the controversy , is , to connect , in their writings and discourses , as much as possible , those views of Christian hopes and privileges which bind the gospel to the heart , and
afford it its best supports and consolations under the consciousness of sin and spiritual imperfection , and in the prospect of death ,- —and those elevated and refining principles of Christian dutv ( in constant union with its
awful sanctions ) which guide and invigorate as they are faithfully imbibed and carried into active efficacy , —with those great truths respecting the character and worship of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , which are the essential points of Unitarianism , and the main value of which consists in their intimate alliance with those
ws and principles to which we have just referred , and in their mutual dependence on each other . In our judgment , those opinions respecting the Mediato r between God and man , which represent him as being in ull respects , as to nature , like hia brethren , hest harmonize with the facts and vol
Untitled Article
representations of the Scriptures , and give the greatest influence to his example , and to his resurrection ; and , in all probability , when the Christian world in general have advanced so far as to receive his God and Father as
" the only True God / ' they will learn to regard Christ Jesus , according' to his own simple representation , as " a Alan who declared the truths which he
heard from God ; " while , at the same time , they love him as their Saviour , and reverence him as their Judge : but we cannot hesitate in yielding the honourable appellation of Unitarians to those who do not entertain these
sentiments respecting the person of Christ : if they keep close to those views of the Proper Unity , and Unrivalled Supremacy , and Essential Mercy , and Exclusive Worship of Jehovah , which it is our privilege to ' possess , we feel we are united by the strongest bonds , and minor differences ' should not be allowed to weaken them .
Indeed , if we will limit the appellation , we must refuse it , not only to Dr . Channing and the greater part of our American brethren , but to Mr . Adam in Hindoostan , and even to Rammohun Roy himself , wlio seems raised up by Divine Providence , effectually to commence the Christianizing of our
eastern possessions . The doctrine of " One God even the Father , " says Dr . Channing , ( at the closfc of the paragraph in which he has expressed opinions so erroneous respecting Dr . Priestley , ) seems
to me " to attract to itself , naturally and powerfully , all those doctrines of Christianity which are most suited to touch , move , exalt and sanctify the soul ; and , however mixed at present with imperfect views , it will , I
doubt not . throuerh the affinity which doubt not , through the affinity which subsists between all the truths of God ' s word , unite with itself , more and more , whatever of genuine Christianity is scattered through the various denominations of Christians . " And it
should be our aim ( as many of our English Unitarians have made it ) to shew the connexion between whatever is spiritualizing in the Christian doctrine , and holy in its requirements ,
and adapted in its hopes to the wants of the fraif , erring children of mortality , and those points of belief which we maintain in opposition to the great body of the Christian world , because
Untitled Article
Occasional Notices of American Publications . 105
Untitled Article
. xx . r
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 105, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/41/
-