Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

with (miraculous) power-and God was with him. The Jews slew him, and hanged him on a tree; but God raised him from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify, that it is he who was ordained of God, to be the Judge of the liv ing and dead-to him all the prophets bear testimony that through his name, whosoever believeth on him shall have remission of sins."

The preaching of Paul, after his conversion, was to the same effect. "He proved to the Jews, that Jesus was the very Christ, or Messiah-and preached to them that he was the Son of God"-" Of this man's (David) seed, God has, according to his promise, raised up unto Israel, a Saviour, even Jesus.—And we declare unto you glad tidings, that the promise, which was made to the fathers, God has fulfilled the same to us, their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again; as it is written in the second psalm,

Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee'Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." His language in the epistles is in substance the same. He teaches, "that we are justified freely by the grace of God, through the redemption which there is in Christ Jesus; whom God has appointed a propitiation through faith for the remission of sins."

Many of his expressions are to be considered with reference to the strange, absurd and dangerous tenets of the Jewish teachers, that if they conformed to the ritual of Moses and observed the traditions of the rabbis, they would be saved, whatever might be their moral character. This, Paul laboured to shew was a most erroneous and a most dangerous doctrine. And that faith in Christ, as the Messiah, and repentance towards God for all sin, with future holiness of life, were essentially necessary to salvation. His first great object was to prove, that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised and long expected Messiah; and that he was to be received and obeyed as a messenger

from heaven And that without acknowledging and receiving him, we should be essentially defective both in faith and practice. But this same apostle insists, that we must walk in newness of life; must crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts; must die to sin and live to holiness, and that we must all be judged "according to the deeds done in the body." He also teaches that Christ, though a propitiation, is made such by God, and "that unto us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things that there is one God, and Father of all, and one Lord, one faith, one baptism."

[ocr errors]

The apostle John declares the same doctrine. "This we testify," he says, "that God sent his Son to be the saviour of the world."

Here is no doctrine of a "Triune God," of " three persons in the Godhead"-of "infinite satisfaction" made to God, by the sufferings and death of an infinite Being. It is simply this, that God in his great and unmerited grace provided a redeemer for ignorant, guilty men; and that through and by him, his doctrines, mediation, sufferings, death and resurrection, we are offered pardon and salvation, on sincere penitence and new obedience; and thus the hope of eternal life is confirmed to mankind. We are therefore indifferent to the praise of orthodoxy. Yet we trust, we are evangelical and apostolical. Christ is acknowledged as the Messiah promised to the Jews; by appointment and qualification of God, the saviour of the world, the divine instructer and judge of mankind.

Dr. W. observes, that "the learned Dr. S. Clark believed in the essential divinity of Christ ;" and still pronounces "his opinion to be erroneous, and of dangerous tendency." It is well known to all theological students, that Dr. Clark was not a Trinitarian, would not subscribe the Athanasian creed; and was considered by his contemporaries as decidedly Unitarian. His ideas were similar, in many respects, on this subject to those of the ingenious author of "Bible

News." He believed Christ in some sense a divine person, though entirely distinct from the Father, on whom he was dependent, and from whom he received his miraculous and exalted powers to be the Saviour of men. He supposed him possessed of a nature and qualities far above human or angelic. And such is the opinion of many Unitarians at present in New England.

But it would seem, from Dr. W's. remark respecting the opinion of the celebrated divine above named, that it is not assenting to the essential divinity of Christ, but to a PARTICULAR AND HUMAN EXPLANATION of the doctrine, which will entitle us to the saving name of orthodox. Dr. W. says, if we believe Christ to be a creature, it makes no difference (in his judgment) whether we admit that he was superangelic, or merely a man. Dr. Clark, the author of Bible News, and all of their sentiment, then, are as great heretics as Priestley or Belsham. In fact, this is the ground taken by him, and the editor of the Panoplist, though they deny having confounded the various classes of Unitarians. And this it is, of which we have reason to complain. We complain, that it is both uncandid and unjust. It is uncandid to attempt to fasten unpopular opinions upon those who do not hold to them, though less hostile to them than others may be. It is uncandid to endeavour to make Unitarians of the higher class, who believe in Christ as the Son of God, in some peculiar sense, and as the mediator and redeemer of men, answerable for the opinions of those who consider him merely as a good man inspired by God to reveal his will, and die a martyr to the truth.

It is even unjust-For Dr. W. must know that Dr. Price and others of his character and sentiments have opposed and do oppose Socinianism; and consider Christ as having suffered and died for the sins of the world; yet by the appointment and grace of God, who was pleased to ordain this method for the recoyery of sinful men.

*

Dr. W. will perhaps claim Dr. Doddridge as a Trinitarian. We admit that he was generally classed with them; yet he explicitly declined using many phrases introduced by Trinitarians, as unscriptural; and had christian charity for those who he knew de nied the doctrine of the Trinity. When one of his church was accused of being an Arian, and anti-calvinistic, with a design to censure and excommunicate him, Dr. Doddridge declared," he fully believed the person accused a sincere, pious christian; and sooner than have him censured for his peculiar faith, he would give up his place and living."

If Dr. W. means any thing, by contending, that those who do not believe in a Trinity, in the essentially infinite perfections of Christ, and his entire equality with the Father, do not receive the doctrine of atonement and reconciliation for sin by the mediation and sufferings of the Saviour, then he must admit and believe that God suffered, that the infinite Deity died on the cross. This, we think, he will not-But will tell us, that, in consequence of the union of the divine and human nature in the person of Christ, though the man or human nature only suffered, yet there was an infinite atonement made for sin. Indeed, he has said this and so have Athanasians and Trinitarians for many centuries. This is not new. But we ask for the ground and proof of this notion in scripture? and we ask further, how any Trinitarian can show, that there was greater merit or value in the sufferings of the man Christ Jesus, because the Deity had resided in him, and had been united to him, than in the sufferings of a super-angelic Being, of great dignity and power, as the Arian Unitarians represent Christ to be?

The passage quoted by Dr. W. and repeated, from Philippians, "that Christ thought it no robbery to be equal with God," it should be remembered, admits a very different translation from the one in our common version; and that the argument and meaning of the apostle rather requires it. Christ, who was in the form or image of God; that is, full of grace and

truth, of divine wisdom and power, did not vainly claim, or pretend, or boast to be equal with God, (always ascribing his great ability, his doctrines and miraculous power to the Father) but humbled himself for our sakes and became subject to death, &c.

Dr. W. says much of persecution; and pretends there is as great evidence of a persecuting spirit among Unitarians, as Trinitarians or the orthodox. He ought to know, and, we think, cannot but recollect, that all the difficulty and obstacles to a free intercourse and communion are with his religious friends. Unitarians do not refuse to hold communion with Trinitarians. They often assist to ordain them: and they have never called upon the people to withdraw from them and be separate. This is the very jet of the late dispute. The editor of the Panoplist openly and expressly denounced the liberal, or Unitarian clergy, as so grossly heretical that good people ought to withdraw from them; and the people were called upon to do so accordingly. And this is the bigotry and persecution, of which we complain. It is the same spirit, which, in other times, has lighted the fagot around the body of the supposed heretic. Not only the liberal clergy, but those of the laity, who are real protestants, who call no man master, except Christ, and who prefer the word of God to the words and tenets of men, enter their protest against such spiritual tyranny; against this claim to infallibility, this assumption of the prerogative of heaven.

We think the Trintarians and the high Calvinists to be in error, to have mistaken the sense of scripture ; to be unduly governed by human creeds and confessions of faith. We lament this; but believe it consistent with piety and goodness, and wish not to censure or disturb those who are of this opinion. But, it cannot be denied, that there has long been a plan among the highly orthodox, to render those odious who do not subscribe to their creed. They would not hang or burn. But they do excite prejudices against, and

« FöregåendeFortsätt »