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Untitled Article
simple unity , asserted that , with many in the present day , the supremacy of the Father was maintained together with the divinity ; . subordinate of course—the subordinate divinity of the Son ~ no few champions of orthodoxy would , we doubt not , have charged him with misrepresentation . Yet Dr . Channing is assailed for having given the Athanasian view of the Trinity as the prevalent one ; and the misrepresented Trinity , as we have supposed in the last sentence , is asserted to be the true and Catholic doctrine . Thus speaks the last number of the British Critic in an article on ** Channing's Works : "
" " His great objection to the Trinitarian doctrine is , that it makes Christ the Supreme God , one Being , one Person , with the Father , or else that it makes him another God , to whom , on account of his closer connexion with us , all our religious affections are almost exclusively directed . All this is gross misrepresentation , so gross that we can hardly help saying it is wilful . We know not from what sources he has derived his notions of the
Trinitarian doctrine , but this we know , that if there be one point on which Trinitarians are agreed , it is in their acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Father as God . " Again , " the Son is subordinate to the Father as to his origin and beginning ; " again , . " the Father as God is
supreme , being the root and fountain of the Godhead , and the Son , as such , is subordinate to the Father , according to his own express acknowledgment , My Father is greater than I . ' " It seems , then , if the British Critic ' s authority is to be the standard , that these last words refer to the inferiority of Jesus , not as man , but as God—are spoken in reference not to his human but his divine nature—and that true orthodoxy is only distinguished from Unitarianism by an infusion of mystical language . We say Unitarianism , for in our opinion every one is a Unitarian who holds the Supremacy and sole
Deity of the Father . Now , what we object to in the above statement is , that orthodoxy is misstated ; and we appeal from the authority of the Critic to the most approved and long-established standards . Difficult , indeed , it is to say what orthodoxy in all points is , but the Critic would find himself voted into the class of heretics , were his views put to the satisfactory and
orthodox test of truth , an appeal to numbers . We speak now of creedmongers , councils , and polemics ; for there are many simple-minded Christians who , led by the force of scriptural language , hold , in spite of the teachings of the pulpit and the creed , that God the Father is supreme over all , and are quoad hoc Unitarian Christians .
The day was , we are sure , when it was orthodox to assert that the Son placated the Father . After this it was orthodox to assert that the Son satisfied the divine law , divine justice—enabled God tp be merciful . But according to the Critic we do wrpng to represent either of these views as orthodox doctrine . They are not , they never were , says the Reviewer . If his authority in reference to the present is not greater than in reference to the past , it is of small value . Put believing it to contain a scriptural
Untitled Article
762 Dr . Channing- < % nd the British Critic .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 762, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/38/
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