Let me be once convinced that St. Paul, with the elders of
an Apostolic Church, knowingly and intentionally appended a palsy or a
consumption to the sentence of excommunication, and I shall be obliged
to reconsider my old opinion as to the anti-Christian principle of the
Romish Inquisition.
Ib. p. 114.
'A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition,
reject; knowing that he that is such, is subverted, and sinneth, being
condemned of himself'.--Tit. iii. 10, 11.
This text would be among my minor arguments for doubting the Paulinity
of the Epistle to Titus. It seems to me to breathe the spirit of a later
age, and a more established Church power.
Ib.
Not every one that mistakes in judgment, though in matters of great
importance, in points fundamental, but he that openly espouses such
fundamental error. * * Dr. Whitby adds to the definition, the
espousing it out of disgust, pride, envy, or some worldly principle,
and against his conscience.
Whitby went too far; Waterland not far enough. Every schismatic is not
necessarily a heretic; but every heretic is virtually a schismatic. As
to the meaning of [Greek: autokatakritos], Waterland surely makes too
much of a very plain matter. What was the sentence passed on a heretic?
A public declaration that he was no longer a member of--that is, of one
faith with--the Church. This the man himself, after two public notices,
admits and involves in the very act of persisting.
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