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it . But this is quite contrary to the doctrine of the Scriptures , and to that of the Creed ; and it is altogether a great theoretical error . Must we then deny , that any who are in this theoretical error can be saved ? Since , if they are pious Christians , they will be saved even in this error , so will those who maintain other wide views and forms of expression respecting the same doctrine , provided they sincerely believe in Christ , and do what he has commanded , and make a saving use of the blessing 3 which we owe to
Father , Son , and Holy Ghost . No man is saved by theological formularies , or holding fast any forms of words . We must conclude , that the hypotheses and definitions of the schools have nothing to do with the instruction of the people and of the young , since they cannot be made intelligible to them , but rather occasion great confusion and perplexity of thought . So judged once the Emperor Constantine ( E p ist . ad Arium , ap . Socr . I . 7 ) : * Such questions must not be commanded by any legal necessity ; they are not even to be trusted to the hearing of all . ' It would be well , " adds the Lecturer , * ' if he had continued ever after faithful to this rule . ' *
The history of theology forms a very interesting and instructive part of the work . In pursuing this way the student often discovers abundant sources of thought in regions where all appeared steril and desert at a distance . I extract the first part of an historico-theological passage , under the 9 th article , ** On Sin , and the Punishment of Sin , " from a section which is headed , " Views of Human Depravity by the early Teachers of the Church , and in what Manner the Phraseology and Doctrinal Formulas of the Church have been constructed out of them by degrees : "
" The first Christian teachers of the church agree , generally , that death is a consequence of Adam ' s sin ; but the entire biblical view of innate depravity is wanting in most of the Greek fathers , or at least it is not stated by many of them in a sufficiently plain and definite manner . Since no controversy on the subject had taken place hitherto , there was no ecclesiastical determination of it in general authority : yet it was the common persuasion , that a predominance of the sensual nature , or human depravity , had existed since the fall of Adam , and had spread as a universal disease through the
race of man ; but that this is to be considered as an actual sin , and that it will be punished as such , they never taught , but rather the contrary . ( See Justin Mart . Apol . I . 54 sq . ; Iren . adv . User . IV . 17 sq . ; Athanagoras Legat . c . xxii . ; Clemens Alex . Strom . III . contra Encratitas . ) He says , * No man is indeed pure from sin ; yet a child which has itself never transgressed , cannot be subject to the curse ( the punishment ) of Adam ; but all men who have the use of reason , through their natural pravity are led into actual sin , and are therefore subject to punishment . ' Also ( in Paedag . III . 12 , ) the Logos alone is without sin ; for to sin is innate , and common to all . Cyrillus of
Alexandria , in the Commentary on Isaias , declares that evil is not natural in men ; and against Antbropomorph ., Ch . viii . he says , Adam ' s descendants are not punished as such , not having transgressed the commandment of God with him . ' So Origen , and those who followed him , as Basilius , Theodorus , who , according to Photius , wrote against those who taught that men sinned by nature , and not < yva >/*•>) . There were among the Greek fathers some who derived evil desires , and the sins consequent upon them , from the mortality of the body , as Chrysostom and Theodoret . This hypothesis was resumed \ and brought forwards by Whitby , de Imputatione , " &c .
" In the earliest Latin Church , even in Africa , many of the fathers declared that death ia the consequence of Adam ' s sin ; but that the evil result is not a sin in itself considered , and is not punished as such . Cyprian says , ' A
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100 Letters from Germany .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1831, page 100, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2594/page/28/
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