On this page

• 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

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    conceived opinions , however incredible and extravagant this doctrine may appear when considered in the abstract , yet as I do not perceive that it involves a contradiction , it is capable of beinsr proved bv competent testimony *

    Now therefore I ask , Where is this cle&r , distinct , unequivocal testimony to be found , which alone can warrant assent to a proposition , antecedently so improbable ? My worthy friend instead of coming to the point at once , refers us to some remote analogies , and states some disputable facts , which he thinks favourable to his disputable conclusions . We are told ,

    and it is a fact which I readily admit , and which my friend has illustrated in a very pleasing manner , pp . 129 , —131 . i € that creatures are made to be the instruments of divine bounty to each other , man to domestic animals , the rich to the poor , 8 cc . From these facts we are led to infer that superior beings called ange / s may be benefactors to mankind , and that a still higher

    being called the Lord of angels , though himself a creature may have been delegated to create and govern the world ; and lastly , that this delegated creator is Jesus of Nazareth . A bold conclusion surely from such slender premises ! If others are satisfied with these refined and distant analogies it is very well . I can only say for myself that they do not operate conviction

    upon me . Another argument which my friend advances is , that the grand doctrines of the providence of God and of a future state of retribution" are not " of themselves sufficient to render men pious and virtuous / ' p . 135 , something more therefore was necessary for this purpose : and as under the Mosaic

    dispensation sacrifices wereappointed , and the Shekinah rested visibly upon the ark , so under the New Testament God has sent his Son as the best representation of himself , p . 140 , being the image of the invisible God , of his holiness and goodness , and that his sufferings and death are more efficacious " in

    pulljjp g down the strong holds ' of sin , than all the strength of human reasoning / ' Also , that Christ is appointed an intercessor in our behalf , " which impresses us with 3 sense of our guilt / ' &c \ see . p . *! 43 . But not now to enter into the inquiry what foundation there is in fact for these assertions , I would ask how does this statement prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the

    creator and governor of the world ? If this reasoning bears at all upon the subject it assumes , it does not establish the fact in question . My friend lays much stress upon what he calls , p . 144 , " that great and final act of mediation which Christ is to perform as

    Untitled Article

    M r * Bels / tam ' s Strtcturei on Carpenter's lectures * 461

    Untitled Article

    Vol . 11 . 3 P

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1807, page 461, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2384/page/9/