Christian Sects in the Nineteenth CenturyCornwallis, Caroline Frances
Religion
Christian Sects in the Nineteenth Century
Cornwallis, Caroline Frances
Christian sects -- History -- 19th century
There are serious objections to the distinctive tenets of this sect, yet,
in justice to them, it must be allowed that the unguarded language of
some preachers does so split up the Deity into separate individuals as to
make the doctrine so taught a complete tritheism, and that a serious mind
returning to the express declaration of the Scripture, that God is One,
may be so far shocked by such unmeasured expressions, as to run into the
extreme which I have condemned. Unitarianism on the one hand, and the
doctrine of Swedenborg on the other, have equally sprung from a want of
proper caution when speaking of the different manifestations of the
Deity, and an unmeasured itch for the definition of things too far beyond
the reach of our finite faculties to admit of any precision of terms.
_Words_ were formed for the things pertaining to earth; how then can they
ever exactly express the nature of the Deity?
Notwithstanding the faith professed by this sect, their teaching,
nevertheless, returns to the doctrine of the Gospel. In a tract “on the
true meaning of the intercession of Jesus Christ,” published at
Manchester by their own religious tract society, we have the following
passage: “The Humanity named Jesus is the medium whereby man may come to
God, because the Father, _heretofore invisible_, is manifested and made
_visible_ and _approachable_ in him. This is meant by _our coming unto
God by him_;” and elsewhere, as we cannot obtain this “light of life”
without following the Lord, and doing his will, as he did the will of the
Father, agreeably to his own saying, “If ye keep my commandments, even as
I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love;” so neither
can we obtain that divine food by which our spiritual life is to be
sustained, unless we labour for it, as the Lord himself instructed us
when he said “Labour for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life”;
and is it not of the greatest importance clearly to understand what this
labour implies? Let the reader be assured that he must labour in that
spiritual vineyard which the Lord desires to plant in his soul, in order
that it may bear abundant fruits of righteousness to the glory of his
heavenly father.” {84} Thus we see again that the fundamental doctrines
of Christianity _will_ find their way, however men may speculatively
disclaim them. Why then do we differ outwardly, when at heart we agree?
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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