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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.
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tholic understands the management of mystery too well to assert that the outward form of the bread is changed . At the result of the analysis he would remain perfectly undisturbed . In vain would the chemist display before him the several dements of the substance analyzed ; he tvould ask the analyst if he knew the nature and essence of these elements , and would speedily triumph in the wise man ' s confession of his ignorance . But
however this may be , the Critic must allow that we know as much of man as we do of bread ; the qualities of each are open to our inspection ; and on the ground on which the Protestant avers that the bread cannot be converted iiito God , we affirm that finite and infinite cannot co-exist in the same individual . If , however , there is a difference between the two cases , the difference is so small that we cannot give the Protestant credit for prudence in affording his readers an occasion to observe the narrow and almost
imperceptible boundary by which the Church of England is separated from that naughty old lady , its mother of Rome . But , in reality , we think that the Catholic has the best cause , and without much skill may , by the force of apparent Scripture evidence , far superior to any thing that can be cited in favour of the Trinity , obtain a complete victory over his heretical brother . In the course of his remarks the Critic complains that the bishop had " tacitly assumed that the doctrine of
Transubstantiation is sufficiently revealed ; " yet into this very error the complainant himself falls , when he asserts that " the incarnation of Christ , and his propeT Godhead and Atonement , are clearly revealed in Scripture , and the truth of which is unequivocally corroborated by the universal , uninterrupted tradition of the apostolic church . '' Again we must be permitted to assert , that these doctrines are not revealed . Even supposing that they may be inferred from Scripture , which we deny , they are not therefore revealed .
To reveal , is to declare on divine authority , to make known , in clear and express terms ; not to intimate , not to allude to , not to furnish materials from which human fancy , right or wrong , may deduce certain inferences . If this be revelation , a hundred things may be gathered from Scripture , and called the revealed will of God , which may be true or false ^ -a hundred conclusions have been drawn by ill-regulated minds , which experience and common sense have long since exploded . Nothing can merit the name of revelation which is not stated so that all who read can forthwith understand
the teaching . If a process of reasoning be necessary to discover the tem \ b if a long induction of particulars , if it be gathered from a multiplicity of real or supposed intimations , such a tenet is a doctrine of inference , and not a doctrine of revelation—a doctrine riot learnt from the simple declaration of God , but made up by the mind of man , striving to interpret the hidden or fancied meanings of the language of Scripture . To such deductions the term revelation can be applied only in a loose and inaccurate manner ; and equally , if not with more propriety , may the Theist and the moralist
contend that they have the authority of revelation for the inferences which they draw from the works and ways of God . Let our orthodox brethren , then , be reminded , that in admitting their doctrines to be doctrines of inference , they resign for them all rightful claim to be doctrines of revelation . Inferences from revelation they may , if they will , designate them ; no higher title can they merit ; but there is an essential difference between the revealed doctrines of the Testament ^ and the deductions which men think may be drawn from certain language there found . The first partakes *© f the certainty of divine declarations ; the second , of the uncertainty of human judgment , and
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394 Thv Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/26/
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