On this page

• Text (3)

  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

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    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

    trie Son , * ' or it may not . The substitution of an equivalent phrase is a very different thintj from obeying a command , iu the institution of a ceremony , to use a certain prescribed form of words . That the apostles did employ the verba ipsissima of Christ , and that the historian

    uniformly substituted an equivalent phrase , ( supposing it to be so , ) is a wholly gratuitous assumption , a very bold one , and not particularly creditable to the accuracy of- the historian . Are Registers kept thus at Worship Street ? Do they baptize converts there in the name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Spirit , " and then write down in the books that they were bap - tued " iu the name of the Lord Jesus" ?

    Your Correspondent attempts to prove that the apostles understood Matt , xxviii . 19 , as the institution of a ceremony-, by the fact that they baptized afterwards . What , then , does he say to the fact that they baptized previously ? See John tr . 2 . If they baptfzed inconsequence of Christ's

    having instituted such a ceremony , the institution must have been , not after his resurrection , but at an early period of his ministry . Where is the record ? Until it is produced , I am entitled ^ to assume that baptism , as practised by Christ ' s disciples , was an affair of custom and not of cHviue institution .

    Baptism might have been a Jewish practice and yet not " one of those traditionary practices of which Christ spoke wit ? h awch reprobation ; " and , if so , there could not be the inconsistency which Mr . Means supposes in our Lord ' s alluding to it . Some such cases there were , for Chrrst attended synagogueworship , which does not appear to have been of divine i-nstitution .

    1 cannot perceive the pertinence of your Correspondent ' s concluding question , "How is it we have no record or trace of any discontent on the part of the Jews ., fchat baptism was enjoined on them ; as we should expect , if they had previously known H' as an ordinance applicable only to converts from heathen * - ism / " The Critical Notice on which

    your Correspondent animadverts , contains no such view of baptism as is here intimated ; and as it does not appear to njfe to be a correct ode , I fchall leave those to auswer it whom it m&y concern . To the Author of the Pamphlet I beg tq explain myself a » follows :

    Christ commiBsioned his apostles to teach all nations , and specified three topics in particular with : which they Were to make their disciples fully acquainted , viz . the Divine paternity , his own mis-

    Untitled Article

    sion , and the miraculous powers by which his kingdom was adtniuistered ( the Father , ( he Son , and the Holy Ghost ) ; into these they were ( figuratively ) to baptize them ; an allusion to which there are many analogous ones not uncomiuon amongst ourselves , as

    when we talk of plunging into a subject , being immersed iu it , &c , &c . Tt waa the mind which was to be plunged , immersed , or baptized , not the body ; and truth , ( on those great topics , ) not water , was the element ; and the mental process was described in terms boiv

    rowed from a physical one to which they were accustomed . Christ gave a figurative command to teach , and the practice of baptism ( about which he commanded nothing ) supplied him with the figure . No very harsh one , for tike enlightenment of the mind is the true circuincteiou as well as the true baptism .

    Untitled Article

    Unitarianism the True Orthodowy . To the Editor . Birmingham , Sir , Oct . 15 , 1829 . I request the favour of your insertion of the following extract , stfd of the remarks which it has called forth : * ' Uwtabmm Devotional Exercises , as used at the Old Meeting-Howe , Birmingham .

    < c On few subjects are the mass of mankind less informed than on that of the Unitarian faith : by many it is confounded with Sociniauism , from which it differs as essentially as light from darkness . Evans , in his ' Sketch of the De * - nominations of the Christian World , ' was one of the first to identify Unitarianism with Sociniauism . A calm and

    dispassionate perusal of the volume before us ought to satisfy every rational being as to the real tenets of th « Unitalians . We have given the Work this perusal , and find that , so far from their worship being contrary to the Christian faith , as some persons have said , it approaches most near to what once was the orthodoxy of the Established Church . These ' Devotional Exercises' are

    selected from the Prayer-book of th « Church of Euglund , with » slight revision . The Litany , the Supplications , the Thanksgivings , are all from the same source ; and so far from a denial or a rejection of the Saviour , these prajtef * initially" etfd with a supplication to God through hinv . So much then for a sect whose doctrine * all rational Christians will prefer to * the canting Puritanism which , of late > ha »

    Untitled Article

    Miscellaneous Correspondence * 881

    Untitled Article

    VOL . III . 3 P

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1829, page 881, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2579/page/65/