14 - Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV.

Consequences of the doctrine which teaches that Jesus Christ is not truly God, and truly man.

WHILE we state the logical result of the Unitarian in system, we hope that our deductions may be fairly made. We aim to have them just, and we trust he reader will be convinced that this is our intention. But how dark is the picture before us!

1. If Jesus Christ is not truly God, he was not the promised Messiah. The promised Messiah was one “whose goings forth were from old, even from everlasting.” Micah 5:2. “His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6. If He was not God, in his Divine nature, how could his “ goings forth” have been from everlasting? and how could he have been the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father?[1] He

[1]The reader is referred to a note on the words, “ Everlasting Father” in chapter xvii. of this work. We hope Trinitarians will be careful never to confound the personality of the Father with that of [he Son. Great injury is done to the cause of truth by taking this course. Some of the hymns of Trinitarians are to be repudiated on this ground. We will mention one or two.

“Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glory in, When God the mighty Maker died, For man the creature’s sin.”

Christ, in his divine nature, created the worlds, but in his human nature he Buffered, to atone for our Bins, The essence of God can neither bleed nor die, It would be better to sing, “ When Christ the mighty Savior died.”

We will copy another verse of the same kind.

“O love divine, what hast thou done, The immortal God has died for me, The Father’s co-eternal Son Bore all my sins upon the tree; The immortal God for me hath died, My Lord, my Love, is crucified.”

Now, the sentiment of this verse is not only incorrect, but it is absurd.. Immortal, means undying; and to say immortal life ceased that that which could not die, did die, la absurd. The dullest intellect can see this. could not have been thus described. Then the prophecies respecting him are not fulfilled, and consequently he is not the promised Messiah.

2. The Mosaic dispensation is not abrogated, but is iii full force and virtue. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” Genesis 49:10.

3. The Jews were not to blame for putting him to death for blasphemy. “ Art thou the Christ? Tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe, and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the POWER of God. Then said they all, Art thou the Son of God? And he said unto them, ye say that I am. And they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.” Luke 22:67-71. For this they crucified him. “ Because he being man rnaketh himself God,” for he said “ I am the Son of God.” If he was in no sense God, then his execution, was just and according to their law, for he made himself God, which would have been blasphemy. ’

4. No atonement for sin is made. If he was a creature, he could only, do his own duty, and consequently could have done nothing to set to our account, nor restore that which he took not away.

5. Christ was a vile deceiver and impostor. He told Philip that he that had seen him^ had seen his Father also. He also stated to Nicodemus that while he talked with him, he was at that moment “in heaven.”

6. The New Testament is a cunningly devised fable. If Jesus Christ was “ all divine,” he had no blood to shed, nor could divinity die and rise from the grave. So our faith in Jesus Christ is vain, and the holy apostles are false witnesses, for they testified he rose from the dead.

7. The Christian religion is a deception, for God was not manifested in the flesh, in the person of the blessed Savior. ’

8. The most pious Christians on earth are gross idolaters. They have always “called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and worshiped him, as the Supreme Deity.

9. All who worship Jesus Christ as God, will unavoidably be lost, for we are commanded to worship none but God.

10. The true Messiah is yet to come.

11. Judaism is true.

12. Deism is correct.

13. Mohammedanism is preferable to Christianity.

Mohammed charged the Christians with idolatry because they worshiped Jesus Christ, which he considered the unpardonable sin. Says he, “Surely God will not pardon the giving him an equal. Verily God will not pardon the giving him a companion, but he will pardon any crime besides that.” Kor. Vol. ii. p. 104. Again he says, “When ye encounter unbelievers, strike off their heads... kill idolaters wherever you find them.” Voltaire, Mohammed, and all the infidel world, have tried to destroy the worship, rendered to Jesus Christ. Voltaire’s most blasphemous watchword was, “ecrasez l’ infame;” that is, “crush the wretch,” meaning Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is not God, his worship is idolatry, and the Koran is true instead of the Bible. Mohammedans, Atheists, and Deists, all ridicule the doctrine of the Trinity, and are all in sentiment Unitarians. We grant that a person may be a Unitarian and not be a Deist, but he cannot be a Deist unless he is a Unitarian. And we heartily believe that there are some misguided Christians that embrace this deadly doctrine, but we can see no middle ground between- Trinitarianism and naked Deism. “

We now ask the reader:. Are not the above inferences purely logical? If they are, the doctrine of Unitarianism is death to Christianity.

Dark indeed is the system, and its tendency is to sap the very foundation of every true believer’s hopes of Walking the paradise of God. It is a blow at the root of all revealed religion.

14;. The tendency of Unitarianism is, to the disbelief of the sacred word of God. In proof on this point we will copy a report of a sermon, delivered in Boston at the recent ordination of the Rev. Charles C. Shackford, by the Rev. Theodore Parker of Spring Street, Roxbury. It was reported by J. II. Fairchild, pastor of Philips church, Thos. Driver, pastor of South Bap. church, and Z. B. C. Dunham, pastor of 5th M. E. church, Boston, May 28, 1841.

We copy, the caption prefixed by the editor of the Morning Star.

“UNITARIANISM. Christians will read the following with feelings of regret and pain. It shows the downward tendency of Unitarianism, and the importance of maintaining sound doctrine and wholesome discipline.”

SERMON. Text Heaven and earth shall past away, but my words shall not pass away.

“It has been assumed that every word of the Scriptures was inspired, with all their vulgarities, absurdities, and impieties* Men have appealed Jo the Old Testament, as authority, and condemned some of the most pious and devoted, as infidels, because they could not believe all’ which is written in it as inspired, where there is much, never, perhaps, designed to be taken as truth. Thus questions have been settled by the authority of the Old Testament. It has been assumed that the Old Testament, in all its parts was inspired, and men have been stigmatized as heretics and infidels, who would not give up their reason and humanity to the belief of the story of Abraham and his son, as of divine origin, a story which is revolting to justice and humanity. The same has been assumed of the New Testament, the obvious contradictions and absurdities of- which are everywhere, apparent; and which contains stories the most incredible arid sometimes shocking to decency. And yet this book is declared to be the word of God and given by divine inspiration! What apostle ever pretended that this book was divinely inspired? Did Jesus Christ ever assume that he spoke by divine inspiration? The great body of Christian professors make their doctrines rest on the authority of Jesus Christ, and not on pure Christianity.

Real Christianity life was out of the church, and in the world, for the first four centuries.

Doctrines have nothing to do with a man’s Christianity. ’

Christianity would have lost nothing by the perishing of the Old Testament or the New. And if different individuals should arrive at different results, and even opposite results, still, this will not affect their Christianity, or authorize the withholding of Christian fellowship.

Christianity is true, but all systems of Christians are, false..

Because some pious Christians have cut off the end of John’s gospel, and the beginning of Matthew’s, they have been branded as infidels.

Christianity does not rest on the opinions of a few pious fishermen, or on the New Testament.

Christianity was the same nineteen centuries before Christ, as nineteen centuries after Christ. The Bible is not our master or despot. We may take the Prophets as our teachers, but we must not bow down to their idol notions. The Bible does not tell us that God exhausted his capabilities in creating Jesus Christ. We may yet expect men, as gifted and elevated, or, even mote so, as Christianity is hereafter unfolded. ’

We are not saved by Christ who lived nineteen centuries ago, but by the Christ that we find in our own hearts. If it could be proved that Christ never lived, or that he was an impostor, still Christianity would not be affected by it! So. if the apostles had never lived, or were impostors, Christianity would still be the same. It was, taught by nature.

Christianity has no creed, or, if it has a creed y it is a creed of only one- article^ viz. that there is a God.

Christianity must be tried by the oracle in the human heart.

We want no one to stand between Us and God, If we would have the full benefits of a spiritual Christianity, we must worship the Father as Jesus did, with no intervening mediator and then we shall be like Christ.”

Here we have Infidelity—daring, bloated, unvarnished Infidelity, preached at an ordination, by a professed minister of the gospel, under the curtains and coverings of Unitarianism. Such men in the sacred desk! Wolves in sheep’s clothing!! Now we ask the candid reader, Does not trinitarianism tend to the disbelief of God*s holy word? and were we incorrect when we stated that there was no middle ground in our view, between Trinitarianism and Deism? Satan, the old red dragon, when the church was in its infancy, clad himself in his crimson garb; and dyed it deeper still in the Martyr’s blood. But when the church became more numerous, he laid aside his blood-stained dress, and clothed himself in white, or.” transformed himself into an angel of light,” and we need not marvel that his ministers should do the same.