On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    rights and expediency with questions simply theological . Yet , whatever the season or the occasion of his expressing his judgment of those who impugn the received doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement , it was perfectly competent to him to introduce such a theme ; and we sincerely respect his motives , while truth and duty call on us to weigh his statements . " The controversies arising from this heresy ( the bishop adds ) would , we might have hoped , have long since been exhausted by the refutations which have emanated from time to time from various quarters , and especially from our own church . " *

    Thus , in his lordship ' s judgment , the religious belief of Unitarian Christians is a heresy . Let him not be displeased if , with his own phraseology , . and his own sentiment concerning us , we compare part of a well-known apologetic address . ^ Bishop Ryder will recollect v \ ho it was that said , ** After the way which they call heresy 9 so worship I the God of my fathers . " Here we might safely leave the accusation , though we may be further permitted to remind the accuser that , agreeably to the scriptural definition and illustrations of the terms , J Unitarian Christianity is not , cannot be , heresy , nor are Unitarian Christians heretics *

    The bishop ' s manner of accounting for the obvious fact , that the controversies of which he now speaks have not long since been exhausted , is the following : ** But pride of reason and self-righteousness , and a generally inadequate sense of the requirements of the divine law , of our own transgressions of

    that law , and or our moral inability to fulfil it , with our consequent ignorance of pur need of a perfect vicarious sacrifice , are sufficient to maintain , even in minds fully accessible on other subjects to the light of evidence and sound learning , this deplorable blindness to the clearest * most prominent , and most influential truths of Holy Writ . "

    Previously to our examination of the clauses of this sentence in detail , we will suppose ( the supposition is perfectly just and natural ) , that some amiable and estimable prelate of the Catholic church , some Fenelon of his country , age , and district , lays before his assembled clergy his own solution of the difficulty , that a truth so " clear , " so " prominent , " so " influential , " as transubstantiation , fails of being embraced by several men , whose

    minds are fully accessible on other subjects to the light of evidence and sound learning . He is astonished that the controversies arising from this branch of Protestant heresy have not long since been " exhausted , " &c . The cause , he thinks , is " pride of reason , " and a certain unhappy state of the will and judgment , which indisposes some men to acquiesce in God ' s revelation , and in the doctrines of his holy church . the

    Dr . Ryder would hardly be satisfied with such an attempt to solve problem . He would not admit this to be quite a pertinent , a fair and equitable proceeding , on the part of any Catholic prelate or writer . It would be natural for him to say , " The controversy respecting transubstantiation should be determined by evidence , and by evidence alone : the appeal must be made exclusively to the Scriptures . " He would even censure , firmly , however mildly , the substitution of a reference to motives ,

    * Pp . 12 , 13 . f Acts xxiv . 14 . X The word heresy y or heresies ^ will be found in only nine passages of the New Testament [ Greek ] ; aud in these , with three exceptions , it bears no unfavourable sense . There is but a single text , ( Tit . III . 10 , ) where we read of a heretic .- the verses which follow clearly shew how little the name has been understood , and how indiscriminately applied .

    Untitled Article

    8 Bishop of Liehfield ' 8 Charge .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/8/