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evidence was adduced to support . Much of the same character is the oblique thrust in the following passage , page 62 : " When they had got the Trinity into his ( Erasmus' ) edition , ( they ) threw by their manuscript , if they had one , as an almanac out of date . And can such shuffling dealings satisfy considering men ? " It would be easy to add many passages implying Newton ' s disbelief in the Trinity , taken from his published writings . We shall ,
however , content ourselves at present with the following , extracted from his piece on the Apocalypse : " The beasts and the elders represent the primitive Christians of all nations , and the worship of these Christians in their churches is here represented under the form of worshiping God and the Lamb in the temple : God for his benefaction in creating all things , and the Lamb for his benefaction in redeeming us with his blood : God as sitting upon the throne and living for ever , and the Lamb as exalted above all by the merits of his death . This was the worship of the primitive Christians . "
Vol . V . p . 455 , Horsley ' s edition . Let this passage be read again . Its evidence appears to us decisive . The Holy Ghost is omitted , the Trinity is omitted . The grounds of the worship assigned ascribe to God supremacy , * ' sitting on the throne ; " eternity , " living for ever ; " the peculiarly divine function of creation , " creating all things . " The grounds assigned take from Christ all pretensions to equality or identity with God . Why is he worshiped ? For creating us ? No ; that is ascribed to God : but for redeeming us with his bloody and as having been exalted by the merits of his
death . A clear and studied distinction is kept up between God and Christ ; and while the essential attributes of Deity are ascribed to the first , the functions of a creature , highly honoured it is true , but of a creature , are asserted of the second . It may be urged , " they are both worshiped . " Yes , and so were " God and the King . " Worship has been paid to myriads of creatures , as the Old and the New Testament declares . Socinus , though a Humanitarian , worshiped Christ . And doubtless there is a homage due from
all Christians to their Saviour , which , if you will , you may designate by the ambiguous term worship . And that the term worship did not , in the mind of Newton , intend the same when applied to the homage paid to God and that to Christ , is very clear from the careful distinction which he makes throughout the passage . He that was worshiped , because the Creator and Supreme and Eternal Ruler of all , received a very different service from that offered to him who had been faithful unto death in man ' s cause , and for his
fidelity was honoured and exalted of the Deity . The strongest evidence yet remains . Hopton Haynes , the intimate friend of Newton , asserted that " Sir Isaac Newton did not believe our Saviour's pre-existence , being a Socinian ( as we call it ) in that article ; that Sir Isaac much lamented Dr . Clarke ' s embracing Arianism , which opinion he feared had been and still would be , if maintained by learned men , a great obstruction to the progress of
Christianity . " On the same authority , we know that Sir Isaac predicted that *« the time will come when the doctrine of the Incarnation , as commonly received , shall be exploded as an absurdity equal to transubstantiation . " From Hopton Haynes we turn to Whiston , who succeeded Newton in the professorship
at Cambridge . In two passages Whiston declares that Newton was an Antitrinitarian . Page 206 , Memoirs of the Life of Mr . William Whiston , the autobiographer says , " I found that Sir Isaac Newton was so hearty for the Baptists , as well as for the Eusebians or Arians , that he sometimes suspected these two were the two witnesses in the Revelation " Again , p . 477 , * ' And so far I know concerning you , my brethren , of the Baptists , that the greatest
Untitled Article
166 Sir Isaac Newton an Antitrinitarian .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 156, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/12/
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