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Untitled Article
ducted , more purely Christian , and obstructs their becoming exclusive and sectarian . It is a barrier against that narrowness of feeling and thought at which a knot of people holding the same notions , even on minute and unimportant topics , are so apt to arrive . But there is a wide difference between agreement not being necessary in all points of faith , and not being necessary in any . Some coincidence of faith is essential to the harmony
and unity of worship . Some belief is implied in the very act of assembling for worship . " He that cometh to God must believe that he is , and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him . " And if there be any point in which agreement is necessary , surely it must be necessary as to the Object of that worship which we assemble to offer . However harmoniously the hearts and voices may unite of those who differ very widely in very
many doctrines , they cannot raise the psalm of thanksgiving , or respond to the accents of supplication , without a previous understanding as to who it is whose bounties they celebrate , and whose mercies they implore . They ought surely to have determined whether they were about to worship one person , or three , an incorporeal being , or an incarnate one . Whether our author would join in , or object to , a modified and subordinate worship of Christ does not appear 3 nor does it matter to the argument . Those who hold her particular opinion on the nature of Christ are divided , though very unequally , on that point . Either way , the ascription to him of supreme , divine honours , is quite out of the question . Either way , it is impossible for her or them to join in the worship of three divine persons , and in that of the Son as co-equal with the Father . Either way , the liturgy of the Established Church is a form of worship which contemplates generally a different object , and very frequently makes that difference apparent and offensively prominent .
If this difference render it not a duty to raise a separate altar , it is difficult to say what should . Would the writer unite in public worship where the Virgin Mary was adored as equal with the Deity ? Would it be sufficient to reconcile her to identifying herself with a church that adored the Virgin Mary , that it allowed the right of private judgment , and had a Hturgy , of which some portions were addressed to God the Father ? And if not , why not ? The argument goes this length or it fails . It is true that <* all Protestant doctrines rest professedly on Scripture alone , and the
fight of private judgment in the understanding of that Scripture ; " and that " the Church of England herself acknowledges this : " but then the Church of England has precluded the exercise of this right , and forbidden that appeal in the present casei by the incorporation of the doctrine of the Trinity in her liturgy , by making the Trinity the object of her worship . She iias even incorporated -with her devotions , to be repeated at set and solemn times , the formal declaration of the eternal destruction of those who shall not hold " whole and undefined , " not merely the tenet itself ,
Untitled Article
& \ 4 Joanna Baillie on the Nature and Dignity of Christ .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1831, page 514, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2600/page/10/
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