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    larly on the controversy respecting free communion ., by which is fneantthe propriety of admitting psedo-baptists to joint participation in the Lord ' s Supper with the upholders of adult baptism , broad principles of charity are laid down with which we were surprised and delighted . It indicates , certainly , no very capacious mind to see that so trifling a difference as that which subsists between infant ^ ba ^ tfsln ~~ linT d ^ TO

    portion of candour may concede that , at this distance of time , conscientious difference of opinion respecting the apostolic usage may subsist ; that the main features of Christianity may be preserved by each denomination ; and that outward ordinances are but as the fringe and selvage by which the web is kept from falling to pieces ; but he seemed so thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of charity ,, and defended its rules with so total an absence of reservation , against the bigots of his own denomination , that we

    could not have imagined he would have stopped short in pursuing them to their legitimate results . Believing himself that adult baptism was an apostolic institution , that none in primitive times were admitted into the Christian church without submitting to this rite , he would still hold but the hand of fellowship to those who think differently upon these points ; he would concede to them the name of a true church ; and when pressed with the objection that the apostles wouldnot have admitted those ' who refused to

    comply with their requisitions , he replies ., that non-observance of an outward ordinance , in the first times , implied wilful disobedience , because so long as the promulgators of the law were alive , no controversy could exist about the intention of the laws ; but , as there exists at the present day no infallible test of the truth of the matter , we only lean to the safe side in bearing with our opponents , and shall be much more likely to win them over by showing the love we bear towards them . Why should a man that could make such concessions as these condemn Unitarians as not

    mistating , but contradicting , the testimony of the Scriptures , in denying that Jesus came in tfre character of a substitute for sinners' ? Is it not a breach of that charity which he so earnestly pleads for , and defends on the authority of Paul ' s precept that the strong ought to bear with the weak or those that are in error , to liken the * tergiversation of the Jews , and their sophistry in rejecting Christ , ' to ' the sophistry , equally important , of some at the

    present day , who bear the Christian name , ' ( vol . i . p , 4 Q 8 , ) and to ascribe the peculiarities of our interpretation , notto any ' ... obscurity in revelation , but to a want of submission to its authority ? ' The difference between the two classes of Baptists mentioned is , we allow , narrow in comparison with that which subsists

    between Orthodoxy ( falsely so called ) and Unitarian ism ; yet it is a difference in degree and not in kind . The very same grounds that justify his secession from doctrines extensively maintained ; warrant us in receding still further from prevailing sentiments .

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    260 . . ON THE CHARACTER AND

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 1, 1833, page 260, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2621/page/4/