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Unitarians to the scriptural objections of their opponents were no answers , but mere evasions of the truth by means of false translations , false quotations , interpolations and the like : on which the author before us observes ,
<* Are Acts ii . 22 , and x . 38 , and iv ., 27 , and xvii . 24 , or are John viii . 40 , and xiv . 1 , 10 , and xvii . 3 , ' false translations ' , or ' interpolations' ? " Are the false readings pointed out by Mr . Lindsey , as retained in the authorized Bible version , proved to be such by reference to the oldest MS . and to the
original Greek , or are they not ? " Do not the Church of England Clergy retain and defend the text of the three heavenly witnesses , 1 John v . 7 , though it was proved to be spurious by Sir Isaac Newton , and though it is rejected by Michaelis ?
* Have not the Unitarians , whenever they have proposed a revised reading , stated their authorities ? " Was not an edition of the Greek Testament published in 1809 , by Dr . Da / rins and dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury ' , which , professing to "be
founded on the text of Griesbach , the . most diligent and accurate collator of ancient copies , yet retained such readings as were marked in that edition as spurious , whenever they appeared to countenance the system of orthodox theology ?" —Pp . 27 , 28 .
The author describes , with a glowing . pencil , the different effects on the devotional feelings of the reputed orthodox and the scriptural schemes of theology :
' If we must believe that God exists in three , who are only one from bearing a common name and sharing a common nature , and who possess distinct attributes , and have therefore claims , differing iu condition and degree , on the fear and love of human creatures ; and if in
addition to this perplexing theory , involving ? all the consequences of open polytheism , we construe , by the letter , the personal figures of Jewish allegorists , and erect a Semi-God of evil , and a mythology of demoniacal agents , having
power in the moral , and , as some say , even in the physical-creation of the blessed God , opposing his laws , interfering with his government , and aupernaturally operating on the minds of his rational creatures for the suggestion of crime , then to exclude from the circle of belief the
virgin queen of heaven , and the hierarchy ° f mcdiatoral saints , and the broaden godhead transmuted and devoured , and the sacraments of sorcery , and the spells
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and transformations of witchcraft , were an unreasonable scepticism , and an iuconsequent scruple- It Is this ' ¦ wood , hay , stubble , built on the foundation of Jesus Christ , which presses , like a mountain of adamant , on his pure and simple gospel : which makes our babes
and sucklings , out of whose mouths their Father ordained praise , shrink at the name of the God from whom they are told that Christ has saved them , and tremble at God's malignant and omnipresent rival in the solitude of darkness : which lias driven the reflecting adult to seek rest for his foot in the baseless
vacuity of Deism , or to shrowd himself in the blind blackness of Atheism from the aspect of a maleficent Creator . To hini who , in this painful and mutable scene of existence , feels his heart sink within him , and his intellect reel at the tenebrous intcrpretings and jarring dogmas
or the credulous in creeds , to him I would reiterate the injunction of the au thor of the Oracles of God / and commend the study of the word ; ' the Lord that created the heavens , God himself , that formed the earth and created man
upon it , ' that same Lord and God , who will not give his glory to another / 6 who ruleth over all , and whose tender mercies are over all his works / will at once speak peace to him in the consoling assurance that he is one ; there is no other
God the Saviour ; no other God the Sane * tifier ; but one and the same God is the Father , and Sanctifier , and Redeemer ; * there is no God else beside me ; a just God and a Saviour / there is none beside me ; ' Isaiah xlv . 21 . c To whom then will ye liken me , or shall 1 be equal , saith the holy one ?' x 1 . 25 . —Pp . 66 , 67 ,
The " Word at parting" is in every page and every sentence ad rem . In reply to a ludicrous creed put into the lips of the Unitarian by Mr . Manley , the author gives the true Unitarian creed , of which we can only spare room for one article , the 9 th ,
< c I believe in the Son of God , but not that this title implies an eternal filiation of nature . If the miraculous conception be adduced , it is still a human soiiship , and ' this day 1 have begotten thee , ' if referring to this , and not to the * election' of Christ , or to his being ' born
from the dead / cannot relate to an eternal generation , but to one in time . The miraculous birth of Jesus by the overshadowing of God ' s spirit or power can no more prove his pre-existence , than the miraculous birth of Isaac , or John the ISaptist can prove theirs . They who think the narrative irreconcilcable with the rent of the gospels , in which Jeans
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Review .- —A Brief Account of the Unitarians * 173
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1825, page 173, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2534/page/45/
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