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permitted , judging him by his own rule , to say that he is against the Gospels because the Gospels are against him . The cry has been , says Dr . Whately , even among Christians— " Not Paul , but Jesus . " By him the cry is reversed — « Not Jesus , but Paul . ' The true friend of revelation will , it seems to
us , declare , " Paul and Jesns . " Certainly he will bear in mind , that " the disciple is not above his Master /* For ourselves , we hold that each book of the New Testament contains whatever is necessary to be known in order to constitute a saving faith—each , we say , contains all that is essential , either by direct assertion or obvious implication . We are aware that so general an assertion may expose us to some difficulty . What ! it may be asked , is your position true of the Epistles of John ? It is eminently so of the First Epistle , wherein the marks of a true Christian , both in faith and practice , are expressly set forth with great fulness and perspicuity . In the Second Epistle the elements of the Christian verity abound ; and our position will not be endangered if we except the Third entirely , though no inconsiderable degree of information maybe gathered from it . Of the Epistle to Philemon we sav
adopting the words of Benson , " Whoever looks narrowly in it will find it worthy of an inspired author , and that several of the great doctrines and precepts of Christianity are either asserted or insinuated . " And to us it appears probable that every book , whether gospel or letter , ( except , indeed , it be of a private nature , ) issuing from persons on the subject of Christianity , inspired and commissioned to teach Christianity , with their minds full and their hearts burning with the sacred subject , would contain all the essentials of the new faith . To estimate this consideration we must call to mind the
circumstances of the writers . They were men just liberated into the glorious liberty of the sons of God , writing to persons wholly ignorant or partially instructed , or at least to those who needed to be put in remembrance of the great truths of the new religion , and thus to be built up and established ; and aware , as they could not fail to be , that they were leaving , to use the words of Thucydides , umifjui e <; a . iti > a work to descend to posterity—a work which , both in the present and in the future , would have to assert and support the faith , instruct the ignorant , and convince the gainsayer . From persons so circumstanced it is natural to expect , in regard to fundamentals , the truth ,
the whole truth , and nothing but the truth . Each document was written for the instruction and confirmation of some part of the Christian church , and that , too , without the aid of other writings ; for we are not to suppose that the New Testament was composed by concert , and sent as a whole to each community . Nor , though it be contended that the churches had been instructed by the preaching of the apostles , will our argument be invalidated ; for if each respective writing was intended merely to remind and confirm a church , how could these objects be effected without a detail of the truths in
which they were to be built up ? If four persons who had been the chief agents in effecting the Revolution of 1688 , should undertake to write a history thereof , each independent of the other , and that , too , after the whole affair was completed , would it not be passing strange if any one of them , and vastly more strange if all of them united , should omit some of the most essential facts and principles connected
with the event ? From private letters written by them to their friends we . do not say that no information would be derived ; probably , if they were numerous , a history of the times , as from the letters of Cicero , might be gathered . This we do not deny ; but we do maintain that all the fundamental principles and facts of the Revolution would be found , not implied * but detailed , in the histories written for the express object of giving mfor-
Untitled Article
ffhntetys Essays on the Writings * of St . Pdul . 533
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 533, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/13/
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