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doctrine and the evidence of the doctrine , asserting bis conviction of the stability and certainty of the first , while duty obliged him to detect flaws in the second . We go farther . Language occurs in the treatise on the *? Two notable Corruptions of Scripture , " which implies , in the clearest manner , Newton ' s disbelief of the doctrine in question . Page 8 , he says , speaking of the baptismal form , the place from which they tried at first to derive
the Trinity . " This phrase even Horsley found to be " very extraordinary . " And extraordinary , nay , unaccountable , it is , if Sir Isaac Newton was , as Horsley intimates , " no Socinian , " or , as we should choose to term it , not an Antitrinitarian . In the following , the reasons assigned of the Sonship of Christ fall far below the height of orthodoxy . P . 59 , " ' Who is he that overcometh the world , but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God ;' that Son spoken of in the Psalms , when he saith , * Thou art my son ; this
day have I begotten thee . ' This is he that , after the Jews had long expected him , came , first in a mortal body by baptism of water , and then in an immortal one by shedding his blood upon the cross , and rising again from the dead , not by water only , but by water and blood ; being the Son of God , as well by his resurrection from the dead , ( Acts xiii . 33 , ) as by his supernatural birth of the virgin ( Luke i . 35 ) . ' * A Trinitarian would have gone much farther , and spoken of his being begotten from eternity , and
even an Arian would have spoken of his creation as taking place before all worlds . No one but a Humanitarian could with propriety have referred the Sonship of Christ merely to his supernatural birth and resurrection . Let the tenor of the next passage , page 61 , be considered . Speaking of the want of congruity there is in it , with the Apostle ' s drift , he says of the text of the three heavenly witnesses , ** How does its witnessing make to the design of St . John ' s discourse ? Let them make good sense of it who are able . For my part , I can make none . If it be said that we are not to
determine what is Scripture , and what not , by our private judgments ; I confess it , in places not controverted ; but in disputable places , I love to take up with what I can best understand . It is the temper of the hot and superstitious part of mankind , in matters of religion , ever to be fond of mysteries , and for that reason to like best what they understand least . Such men may use the Apostle John as they please , but I have that honour for him as to believe that he wrote good sense , and therefore take that sense to be his which is the best . " Is this the tone of a Trinitarian ? Was he , who was
not •* fond of mysteries , " likely to be enamoured with the mystery of mysteries , the Trinity , at which , we learn , on authority , ** reason stands aghast , and faith itself is half confounded" ? Sir Isaac Newton had studied in a different school . Had he believed in the Trinity , would he not , after this passage , have precluded misconstruction , by asserting , as we find so often done , that there were mysteries in Christianity , mysteries to be believed , mysteries to prove the believer ' s faith , to exercise his trnst , to humble his " reasoning pride , " and , above all , proudly eminent , the mystery of the
Trinity ? Again , in p . 65 , we read , ** In all the times of the hot and lasting Arian controversy , it ( 1 Tim . iii . 16 ) never came into play ; though now these disputes are over , they that read , * God manifested in the flesh , * think it one of the most obvious and pertinent texts for the business . ' * Let Sir Isaac Newton ' s piety and gentleness be considered , and then say if he could have used language such as this of a fundamental doctrine of revelation , of any thing but what he believed a gross and injurious corruption of the gospel . It is quite clear that the mind of the writer was , to say no more , in a state of alienation both from the evidence and the doctrine which that
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Sir Isaac Newton an Anlitriniturmn . 155
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 155, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/11/
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