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Untitled Article
Mosaic law , and of the exemption of Christian ? from its obligations , and that without ever limiting or qualifying the assertion —without even hinting at a distinction between one part which is abrogated , and another which remains in force . Nor did the apostle , he contends , refer to the ceremonial law alone , for the allusions which he makes to sin shew that he had the moral
law in his mind . •* The law was added because of transgressions . " " By the law was the knowledge of sm . " " Shall we sin that grace may abound ?" ^ Shall we sin because we are not under the law ? " But the natural distinctions of right and wrong , not having been introduced by the Mosaic law , cannot be overthrown by its removal , any more than the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem implied the destruction of Mount Sion , whereon it was built . What , therefore , was right or wrong before the law existed , was
right or wrong after it was abolished . Christians in consequence are not at liberty to disregard moral duties , because the Jewish law is not binding on them . These they are to observe , not because they formed originally a part of the Mosaic law , but because of their own intrinsic obligation . The lEssay on the abrogation of the Mosaic law is written with a view to shew that Paul gives no countenance to the errors of Antinomianism , and that the gospel by no means exempts men from moral obligation . Believing that the institutions of Moses have entirely come to an end , Dr . W . disapproves of the conduct of those who , < c from views of expediency , for fear of unsettling the
minds of the people , " or from whatever cause , " think it right to inculcate or connive at the belief , '' that the saactily of the Christian sabbath depends on the fourth commandment . The most important Essay , perhaps , in the whole book is that in which the writer impeaches the prevalent doctrine of " imputed sin" and "
imputed righteousness . " This doctrine is set forth by the majority of Christian teachers as the essence of the atonement , and the very key-stone of the Christian system . Dr . W . 's own communion , the church , labours assiduously to propagate it . A tract , published by the Religious Tract Society , thus teaches : " Sickness and death will make no change in you for the better ; they have no power at all to do this ; nothing but the blood and righteousness and spirit of Christ can prepare us for or entitle us to a place
in his kingdom . " And another , " This law or the first covenant has been broken by us all in our first father , Adam . " *« Christ having ta ^ en our nature , not only fulfilled for us the law or first covenant in every point , but he also suffered in our stead the punishment which we have justly deserved for our disobedience . Thus , it may be said that every true believer , in Christ and by Christ , has fulfilled , and will be accounted to have fulfilled , the law . " " The righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ is imputed and applied to the believer as if it were his own righteousness . " So the eleventh article ,
" We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ , by faith , and not for our own works or deservings . " Put on this point at least Dr . W . is a Dissenter- That the doctrine " is paradoxical , remote from all we should naturally , have expected , and startling to our untutored feelings , cannot be questioned . " It may , nevertheless , he says , be true ; but then we should expect full and precise revelation gn such a point . " Any doctrine , " he adds , which , like that now in question , is wholly at variance with every notion we should naturally be led to form , we may be sure will be revealed , if revealed at all , in the fullest and most decisive language . " This passage might have been penned by a Unitarian . It recognizes the goodness of our natural feelings , so shamefully cried down in the present day . It establishes the propriety of the
Untitled Article
( H 4 Whalely * s Essays on the Writings of St . Paid .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1829, page 614, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2576/page/14/
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