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" We cannot , I should think , be far wrong in believing that the simplest and most obvious meaning of the words , when not inconsistent w £ t& the general scope of the context , is the real meaning of any passage of the
Gospels or Epistles ; for , under the guidance of the Holy Spirit , the writers were commissioned to instruct the simple and ignorant * Now , this * would have been very imperfectly done , had matters important to our faith been left by them to be only deduced , by ingenious processes of reasoning , from their words , by the Christian teachers who should follow them in succeeding ages , and teachers , too , not guided by divine inspiration . If , to avoid this difficulty , we suppose the Holy Spirit to have guided also the successive fathers of the church , who in many points differed from one another materially , how shall we get out of the labyrinth ? One teacher , of honest character , i » as well entitled to call himself inspired as another , and we should then be forced to take refuge from confusion- and discord in an infallible earthly guide ^ which , to the great misfortune , of Christendom , was at last actually done . Nay , we must own , that something near akin to it was also done by the leaders of the Protestant Church , enlightened as they comparatively were , when they asserted that such and such of their own explanations of Scripture must necessarily be believed . "—Pp . 9 , 10 .
The selection of texts bears every mark of having been made with exemplary diligence and impartiality . We are quite satisfied with it as sufficient to decide the controversy . At the same time it is incumbent on us to remark , that in two particulars it fails of doing full justice to the strength of the scriptural argument for Unitarianism . One deficiency is inseparable from the plan . It does not and could not impress the reader with the argument from omission . The Trinity is not taught , is not mentioned , where , by believers in that doctrine , it would , to a moral certainty , have been inculcated . From how many pages would it have been absent , in four gospels , written eacb by a Trinitarian evangelist ? Probably not from half a score altogether . Deduct a corresponding quantity from the gospels of Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John , and the remainder presents the evidence
from omission . Every page is a testimony against the doctrine . We do not meet it there , and yet there it would have been had the evangelists believed it . The same reasoning applies to the Epistles . Let them be compared with a similar number of doctrinal letters , written by Trinitarian ministers or missionaries to the Christian world , and observe the unceasing introduction of the doctrine in the one case , and its marked absence in the other . So strong is this ground , that Unitarians were accustomed to argue
the question on it exclusively . They considered the adducing of positive proof as needless . Mr . Belsham ' fe Calm Inquiry proceeds on this principle : " The sole concern of the Unitarian is to shew that those arguments are inconclusive ; that the passages in question are either of doubtful
authenticity , or misunderstood , of misapplied . This is the precise state of the question , h is admitted by all parties * It must be continually kept irj view , *' In our opinion , here is a great mistake , and a mistake which not oftly en-
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Joanna Baillie on the Nature and Dignity of Christ . 507
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1831, page 507, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2600/page/3/
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