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REFUTATION

OF

UNITARIANISM.

No. I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.-Extracts from D'Oyly and Vince.

II. ON THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS of St. Matthew and
ST. LUKE.-Rennell.

III. ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.-Nares.

IV. ON JOHN i. 1. AND ROM. ix. 5.—Laurence and Nares.

V. ON THE WORD " AUтpov".-Nares.

VI. ON THE HOLY GHOST AND TRINITY.-Vince.

No. I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

"In the first place, those, whose enquiries on the subject of the Unitarian Controversy may have been confined within a narrow compass, should be made most fully aware, that the question on which we are at issue with the Unitarians, is by no means a new question in any of its parts or bearings. When, indeed, it is observed, with what confidence of expression, and in how imposing a tone, arguments are framed, and interpretations of Scriptural texts proposed, at the present day, against the doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement, it might reasonably be supposed, that something was advanced which had never been advanced before; that some reasonings were submitted to the judgment of the Christian world, on which that judgment had never before been taken. The real state of the question, however, very ill accords with any such supposition. Exactly the same arguments, which the Unitarian writers of the present day are producing, have been produced by the advocates of the same cause years and years ago. These arguments, at the time when they severally made their appearance, were fairly met, and regularly examined; and received that full confutation which set them completely at rest. At several subsequent periods, the discussions have been renewed; the old objections, again produced, have again sunk under confutation; and the foundations on which the received doctrines rest, have remained unshaken and unimpaired. Now, it is by no means matter of slight importance, that persons who are inexperienced in these matters,

should completely understand, that such is the advanced state of the controversy between the Orthodox Christian Church and the Unitarian Dissenters. They will then learn to be properly on their guard against the confident tone and imposing terms with which the Unitarian arguments are proposed; and by understanding the probability of their having been already produced and confuted in many former discussions of the subject, will, antecedently to all particular examination of their weight and value, at least divest them of that delusive importance, in which a false opinion of their novelty might be too apt to clothe them a.

"A second observation, eminently useful for those who encounter Unitarian arguments, is, that the great doctrines, against which they are directed, are not isolated, unconnected doctrines, or resting merely on single texts; but that they are intimately connected each with the other, receive and give mutual support, are established by various proofs more and less direct, and are interwoven with the whole body of Scriptural language. The important truth, that our Saviour is very and eternal God, does not rest merely on the single texts, in which he is eminently and distinctly styled God": it is spoken in the history of his birth, in the descriptions of his attributes and character, of his eternal existence, of his

"Let the reader turn, for example, to Leslie's Dialogues with a Socinian, published în confutation of some Unitarian productions of about the year 1690; he will there find a full, detailed, and specific answer to every main and important argument on which the Unitarians are resting with so much confidence at the present day; he will there find them met at every point, and pursued through all their windings; he will find the unsoundness of all their proposed interpretations fully exposed, and those which confirm the received doctrines, established by conclusive reasonings. He will there see, in fact, a complete confutation of every thing that can be called important in the late Improved Version,' composed more than a century before this version made its appearance. Some few discoveries, indeed, there are of modern Unitarians, to the credit of which their predecessors of less recent times are not entitled; and amongst these must eminently be reckoned the objections on which they now insist, with no small perseverance, to the authenticity of the narratives of the miraculous conception in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke; objections which, though resting on positions obviously weak and inconclusive, are framed and proposed in a spirit of hazardous adventure, to which it is only of late that the advocates of the Unitarian cause have had the hardihood to advance."

❝b John i. 1.; Acts xx. 28.; 1 John iii. 16, and v. 20.; Rev. i. 8. xix. 16, &c.” " Matt. i.; Luke i."

❝a John iii. 13.; Matt. xviii. 20. xxviii. 17. 20.; Col. ii. 3.; John xx. 28, &c." e John i. 1.; Phil. ii, 6.; Col. i. 17, &c."

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