On this page

• Text (1)

  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

• 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

    terms , an undue love of ease and worldly enjoyment , the paragraph which inculcates the salutary caution I have already noticed , says ,- * We believe , however , and Tfae are glad in believing , that there are numbers ' who act upon sounder principles than these ; who knowing , as saith the apostle , that * the fashion of this world passeth away , ' are really desirous of using

    this world as not abusing it . These \ v % would encourage to hold on in the way cast up before them , trusting in the- Lord , who hath declared that all things necessary will be given to those who seek first His kingdom /' The declaration of Christ , here alluded to , is not truly stated . Both the evangelists who have recorded it , Mat . vi . 33 , and Luke xii . 31 , say the promise related to those who seek first the kingdom of God ? Whereas the Epistle represents it as referring to those who seek first the kingdom of Christ * which is no less

    than to substitute one person for another : the Son for God the Father . If such liberties as these may be taken with texts of scripture , it may be made apparently to countenance any set of notions , however contradictory they may be to the genuine sense of the passages which are imagined to sup * port them , and to the general tenor of scripture doctrine .

    It may perhaps be said , that the variation in this instance is rather verbal than real , that the sense of the passage is preserved , although the terms in which it is expressed are changed ; that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Christ are substantially the same . In a certain qualified sense I admit they are , but not entirely

    Untitled Article

    permanentl y * For when the end cometh , Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to God , even the Father . 1 Cor . xiii . 24 . In like manner c < the Gospel of God , " although it came originally from the Father , as the apostle Paul asserts / Horn . i . 1 , 2 . is nevertheless called" in the' l' 6 th verse of the same chapter , and elsewhere , in an inferior sense u the Gospel of Christ *' The apostle even calls it his Gospel ^ according to the received text in the next chap * ter , v . 16 . and again in the xvi . chapter of thesame Epistle , v . 25 ,

    But in both places he emphatically asserts the unrivalled power of God , whether he speaks of it , as acting by the agency of Jesus Christ , or otherwise .

    To return to the Epistle . Immediately after the above extract , which , without any authority from the Text , substitutes Christ in the place of God the Father , it goes on in the following manner :

    c * Thus trusting , and endeavouring to apply to him , " Christ , u in secret supplication ^ in the difficulties that must in a state of probation be the lot of all , we may humbly hope that in our several proportions , we shall grow in the truth . " In reflecting on so palpable a perversion of a declaration of the lip of truth , and on the

    unscriptural injunction which seems to have been founded thereon , I cannot but feel strongly persuaded , that a more assiduous study of the New Testament , would more effectually promote a real growth in Christian truth , than aiiy

    endeavours to apply to Christ m secret or open supplication , both of which are in direct opposition to his uniform command * to his followers , to look up to his

    Untitled Article

    4 ^ 2 Remarks on the Quakers' Yearly Epistle .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1810, page 492, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2409/page/20/