TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
The parties which are separated from, and opposed to, the Church, may be arranged into three classes. 1. Those who reject the Truth. 2. Those who receive and teach a part, but not the whole, of the Truth. 3. Those who teach more than the Truth.
I.—Those who reject the Truth.
Under this head are included all who deny that Jesus "is the Christ, the Son of the living God[1]," and that salvation is through His blood. Such are
1. Socinians (so called from Socinus, a chief teacher of their error), who profess to receive the Old and New Testament, but reject these fundamental doctrines as there set forth, and reject also the doctrine of the Personality and operations of the Holy Ghost[2]. These men commonly call themselves Unitarians.
2. Jews, who profess to receive the Old Testament, but denounce our Lord as an Impostor. These contradict the Prophets of the Old Testament, to whose evidence our Lord appealed while fulfilling their prophecies [3]: and they forget the living witness they themselves afford to our Saviour's truth, who foretold concerning their Church and nation, the evils which have since happened, and under which they are now suffering[4].
3. Deists (so called from professing to acknowledge merely a Deity), who reject both the Testaments, denying that God has ever revealed His will to men. Thus they contradict reason, which suggests that He would not leave the beings whom He created capable of happiness, without instruction how to attain that happiness: they contradict also the unanswerable evidence of history, miracles, and fulfilment of prophecy, which prove that
- ↑ Matt. xvi. 16.
- ↑ On these points see "Churchman's Manual." Oxford, 1834. pp. 20–23.
- ↑ John v. 39. 46.
- ↑ See Leslie's Short and Easy Method with the Jews.
