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ally he is spoken of from a sense of decency . If the three persons in the Trinity be coequal in themselves , their glory from the mouths and hearts of their devotees is not coequal . They may be equal in creeds , they are not equal in the human soul . In fact the Son
engrosses the supreme attention to the diminution of the Father ' s honour , and almost exclusion of the Holy Ghost . The Deity of the Holy Ghost is all but given up in reality , and soon will be in profession also . Things change firstthen names .
The writer treats also of the terms " offering , " " sacrifice , " " propitiation , " and with some effect . It seems to us , however , that the best way of viewing these words in their application to the death of Christ , is to regard them as
relics of a gross anthropomorphitism . The Jews , in at least the early period of their civil polity , believed that God was really propitiated . So they placed the essence of piety in fear , " the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom . " Such views were suited to their infant state . It is not
surprising that their language became permanently tinctured with these gross notions , nor , consequently , that when Jews had to develop a more refined system , they should retain phraseology to which they were habituated , and still speak of God occasionally , not as he was in himself , but as their ancestors had conceived of him . But the real
character of the system they developed is to be determined not by one or two phrases , the relics of a semi-barbarous age , but by the leading facts and principles which the system sets forth . We do not think the writer ' s conclusion sufficiently ample when he says , that " Christ died for men by dying in attestation of the truth of his doctrine . "
There is surely a difference , and a wide difference , between the evidence of his doctrine and the objects of his death . Mr . Hamilton here errs in a large and good company . Nevertheless we think he does err , and greatly too . We may recur to this subject on a future opportunity . The orthodox will have that their pet doctrines are the essentials of
Christianity . Let them read Mr . Hamilton ' s concluding paragraph . " If it be certain that every person of common under * standing can , by the help of the Scripture alone , obtain a knowledge of the first truths , the essential principles of the Christian religion , it is not less certain that the doctrine of the Trinity and other distinguishing doctrines of ortho-
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doxy are not among those first truths and essential principles , for there are thousands of serious inquirers after truth who search the Scripture in vain for those doctrines . Many , not common readers of the Bible only , but many of the most sagacious critics and most profound reasoners who have regarded the Bible as the rule of faith , and been
sincere believers in the Christian religion , and its most able defenders against the assaults of infidelity ; many whose names shine brightest among those which have been rendered immortal by intellectual power and moral worth ; many such minds have not been able to discover that the Scriptures teach the doctrine of the Trinity , or the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism . If it cannot be inferred from
this fact with certainty , that the Bible does not contain those doctrines , it can be inferred with certainty that it does not teach them plaiuly , and therefore , that they are not among the leading truths—the first or essential principles of the Gospel of Christ . But while it is not certain that the above-mentioned doctrines are contained in the Bible , it is certain and obvious to every reader of
the Sacred Volume , that it teaches the leading principles of the Unitarian belief . The doctrines of orthodoxy I regard as corrupt additions to these principles , and not additions merely , but contradictions of them , contradictions which have done more to retard the general triumph of truth and pure religion , than all the writings of infidels from the first age of Christianity to the present hour . "
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Art . III . —The Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge , This work , consisting of a series of cheap publications designed to diffuse religious information of such a nature as may strengthen the cause of dissent and of misnamed orthodoxy , is conducted by some leading men of the Independent denomination . We know well what fate a series of Unitarian publications would meet with in the hands of one of their
Reviewers , for of all the opponents of Unitarianism , the Independents are the most constant and bitter . We do not propose to do unto them as they , in similar circumstances , would do unto us . On the contrary , we commence our notice by recommending this series of tracts to the managers of our chapel - libraries . Though unequal in point of execution they offer much useful infor-
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702 Critkai Notices . — Theological .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1830, page 702, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2589/page/46/
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