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Christ as * ' a mere creature' * ( p . 42 ) . As we are sure that Mr . Murch did not mean to imply that Christ was the Creator ; and either Creator or a * mere creature * ' he must be ; we are totally at a loss to divine what he did mean . The description of Unitarian notions of the Messiah which immediately follows , is
perfectly consistent not only with his feeing a " mere creature , ' * as all of us believe , but with his being a " mere man , " as most of us believe ; a mere man , that is , by the simple humanity of his uature ; but endowed with knowledge and power from on high , and exalted of God to be a Prince and a Saviour ,
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Critical Notices . —Theological . 327
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Art . II . — Unitarianism . not Christianity : a Letter addressed to Mr . Jerom Murch , Minister of the Unitarian Congregation , Diss , Norfolk , By a Trinitarian . Rivingtons . Wilkin , Norwich .
It has seldom fallen to our lot to read a less able and ruore vulgar defence of Trinitarianism than this . The author , whoever he may be , seems unacquainted to a degree we should hardly have imagined possible in this age , with even the most usual terms of controversy ; he abuses the Reverend gentleman for not perceiving that the phrase " Son of God" is designed to teach us , not what every simple-minded reader would sup . pose , the subordination of Jesus to the Father , but that the Son himself is the supreme God ; he kindly asks if his opponent ' s " peace and pleasure rises high in consequence of the Saviour ' s dignity sinking low > even to the level of his sinful
fellow-man ; " he more than insinuates that his adversary " glories in the hope of proving our Redeemer unworthy of our love and adoration ; " and politely concludes by affirming that " Unitarianism is not Christianity . " We will give one short specimen of his powers of argumentation :
*• Your judgment may recoil at the idea of beholding * the Creator of the world suspended on the cross , when by one word he could have annihilated the nnrrerse and tftcwretches who had dared to sit in Judgment upon him . But the fuct is not loss tiu « > because your judgment revoke at the'contemplation of the awful scene , so powerfully described by the Evangelists . Wly Judgment recoils at the idea of the'torture of the African
Blave wtofcn writhing tinder the lash of his merciless feIk ) w creatures ; my heart sickens at the thought of the Gentoo
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widow immolating herself upon the funeral pile of her departed husband ! But in spite of the abhorrence I feel , aud the revulsion of my judgment at the bare contemplation of these enormities , practised in this enlightened age , and , as it were , under the eye and by the sanction of Christianity—yet , Sir , the fact
remains unshaken !" So , then , the enormous , the appalling , the blasphemous notion of the actual death of the Deity > is held to be a matter of no greater difficulty than belief in the miseries of an African slave , or the immolation of a Gentoo widow ! When will Trinitarians perceive aud fairly meet the real question at issue ? They tell us that the Atonement was valueless if
offered by a creature ; that the Creator alone could redeem by the sacrifice of himself . The Divine Nature , then , according to this view , was the real sacrifice . We canuot descend to recrimination j but yet , if this doctrine be seriously maintained , we can scarcely
forbear asking the Calvinist who it is that approaches nearest to Atheism ; the Unitarian , who nevor for one moment can admit the non-existence of the Deity , or he who believes that there was an instant when death was the triumphant power ? There are contradictions which nothing
cau reconcile . Not even Omnipotence , with reverence be it spoken , can cause the same essence to be and not to be in the same moment of time ; bat if the Divine Nature or Essence cau not without the most dreadful impiety be allowed ever to have beeu extinguished for an instant in death , what then becomes of the argument for the Atonement founded
on the necessity of a Divine sacrifice ? If , on the other hand , the human nature only suffered aud died , where ia the offering of the Iufinite , on which so much stress is laid ? The Trinitarian , after quoting the well-known passage in Acts xx . 28 , " Feed the church of God , which he hath purchased with his own blood /* adds , " Some , indeed , have pretended that * the church of the JLord' is the true
reading , but in the wonds of an ablecjivine , I reply , that the 'phraac * church of the Lord never once occurs in | he Netv Testament , but the words , f tfjwnch of Qa&' occur continually /* What this aastrrtjioit ha& to do with the question ,, we
cannot perceive ; passages of Scripture are to be read as they were first writyen , and no manuscript of note or value reads *< the cburch of God . " The yrord " Lord 11 i * , on the contrary , supported by all the most ancient and valuable MSS ., and by citations from the most
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1830, page 327, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2584/page/39/
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