On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    /«> u. — --3SBESC^k ' ¥>T» ^ i w-rwl'V ^WL O PRINTED BY G. 8MALIFIEU) , IIACKNRY. lilfrTMivrB

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    8 ^ 11 interesting f & ct ; but "beiug at piesei &^ liardly knowa /* aad one of which « f lifiie or nothing is said in the New Testament , " ( whence then did the Doctor learn it ?) it will be quite time enough to consider it when songe proof or authority is brought in its support . The Doctor is welcome , in the mean time , to all such benefit as his analogical allusion to circumcision can afford him .

    Let me point out to such of your readers as may be curious on the subject of rhetorical figures the perfect specimen of a climax , exhibited in the paraphrased account of the Eunuch ' s baptism by Philip , in which the Doctor , disdaining evidence , or any such extraneous aids , skilfully attains the height of his desired

    conclusion by breaking the ascent into a succession of little easy steps of gradual assumption . Who can be so unkind as to refuse the Doctor his first step ( ce n * est que le premier pas qui coiete ) from " disuser" to 6 i discouragement ; " or to stick at the trifling transition from ( C no design" to " some disinclination" ?

    After making good these , his previous advances , by giving them the character of established facts , through means of the phrase " this being the case , " he masters the remaining ascent with ease ; and nothing can surpass the clearness of the prospect and of the ultimate conclusion which he finds at the summit . For

    " the Evangelist clearly considered baptism in the Ethiopian ' s case as not necessary , yet , as-the wish of the Eunuch was innocent and even laudable , because he attached some moral importance to it , Philip cd in plied with it , and baptized him on the assurance that he believed

    Jesus to be the Son of God from his heart . ' * A sufficiently accommodating Evangelist , truly , Dr . Jones represents Philip to have been , thus to " sink out of sight" the real nature of the ordinance , and comply with " the puerile practice of plunging persons overhead in water , "

    and perpetuate " the worn-out rags of Judaism / ' instead of enlarging the Eunuch's " narrow views , " and Ci enlightening * ' his ignorance and superstition . " From Philip ' s declaration , "If thou

    believest with all thine heart , thou mayest , " and the fact of Philip ' s immediately baptizing his convert upon the simple avowal , " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God , " an unenlightened Baptist would rather have inferred , that as the want of belief would have been

    the only hinderance to baptism , so the existence and profession of that belief in die Eunuch was the only ground on which Philip administered the rite to him .

    Untitled Article

    That a man so familiar as Dr . Jones must be with the idiomatic style of the Scriptures , should quote Paul's expression , that he Ci was not sent to baptize , but to preach the gospel , " with the object for which the Doctor adduces it , might have astonished me , had not the

    previous criticisms in his paper rendered me proof against any such feeling . The Doctor has surely heard of such a thing as an idiomatic comparative ; or must 1 refer him to the note to the third lecture in which Mr . Gilchrist has " approached" the passage ?

    The vituperations and witticisms contained in Dr . Jones ' s second paper on the subject , I leave to the castigating hand of Mr . Gilchvist , although I much fear that Mr . G ., in applying the requisite correction not only to the good Doctor , but to his other Antibaptist opponents , will find himself much in the same situation as the Irish drummer ;

    who , after successively complying with the mtreaties of a culprit under flagellation , first to apply the lash higher , and then lower , at length exclaimed in despair , " Strike where I will , there ' s no pleasing you . " From the known candour , however , and amiable feelings of Dr . Jones , I am convinced that upon calm reflexion his reprehensible

    expressions will be regretted by none more than by himself . The detection and exposure of the fallacy of this mighty metaphorical theory has proved a comparatively easy task . But there is still an inquiry unresolved and which transcends my feeble powers ; and that is , how such a man as Dr . Jones could ever have been betrayed

    into the adoption of such a fallacy 1 His well-known industry forbids the supposition of his having been misled by too easy a reliance on the mistranslations of our common version , instead of having

    recourse to the original . His high character for learning forbids the supposition that he did not know , or knowing , overlooked the distinction by which his theory is so entirely subverted . And , lastly , his unimpeachable integrity forbids the supposition , even for an instant , that he could wilfully suppress the distinction alluded to , in order , by his name and authority , to impose , and on so grave a subject too , a known fallacy on the judgment of others . Any other man than Dr . Jones might have been invited to say which of the horns of this triple dilemma he would choose to take u |> with-To what fourth alternative , however , D *\ Jones can have recourse , I am absolutely unable to _ coujeeture , A BAPTIST .

    Untitled Article

    8

    /«≫ U. — --3sbesc^K ' ¥≫T» ^ I W-Rwl'v ^Wl O Printed By G. 8malifieu) , Iiacknry. Lilfrtmivrb

    /«> u . — --3 SBESC ^ k ' ¥ > T » ^ i w-rwl ' V ^ WL O PRINTED BY G . 8 MALIFIEU ) , IIACKNRY . lilfrTMivrB

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1826, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1716/page/8/