TITUS. TITUS ii. 11. The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to This is a text often referred to by the Quakers, as conveying in the clearest manner their belief in the quality, the universality, and the effects of divine grace. (See Note on Rom. ii. 14.) TITUS ii. 13. (UNITARIANISM.) "Gladly entertaining the happy expectation of the glorious manifestation of the great God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ:" Wakefield's Translation. "Earnestly expecting that blessed hope, even the manifestation of the glory of the great God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ." Belsham's Translation. "From this expression some have inferred, that Jesus Christ and the great God were the same per "The doctrines to which the Apostle allude were undoubtedly those of the Gnostics. He d not live long enough to see the rise of other a greater corruptions of Christianity, though they w in some respects of a similar nature. Had the A tle lived to have seen the rise and progress of doctrines, as the Trinity, original sin, predestina and atonement, his indignation would have much higher than it did against any doctrines by the Gnostics, because they were much f removed from the genuine principles of Chris Compared with these doctrines, which infring the great article of the unity of God, and w rogate from the equitable principles of hi government, the notions of the Gnostics w idle fables." Priestley. son; but a saying of our Saviour himself will clearly explain this; he says, that he shall return in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels. The appearance of the great God, therefore, signifies nothing more than that glorious presence of God which will accompany Jesus Christ when he shall return to raise the dead and judge the world." Priestley. TITUS ii, 14. "Redeem us from all iniquity.” (UNITARIANISM.) "Here we see the true meaning of Christian redemption; it is a deliverance from iniquity and all the effects of it, by making us virtuous and good, and by no means a deliverance from the wrath of God by the death of Christ." "A decree was obtained in the fourth Council of Lateran, that all heretics should be delivered over to the civil magistrates to be burnt.” Neal. Such was the spirit of the times, that some foreign heretics being found in England in 1160, and being condemned by the bishops, they were beaten with sticks, scourged, burnt in the face, and turned adrift; and no person being permitted to harbour them, they all perished with cold and hunger. Fleury, quoted by Jortin. No. 2. (THE INQUISITION.) At the commencement of the thirteenth century, Innocent III. sent legates extraordinary into the southern provinces of France, to perform what the bishops had left undone, and to extirpate heresy, in all its forms and modifications, without being at all scrupulous in using such methods as might be necessary to effect this salutary purpose. The persons charged with this commission were Rainier, a Cistertian monk, and Pierre de Castelnau, archdeacon of Magdelone, who became also afterwards a Cistertian friar. These eminent missionaries were followed by several others, among whom was the famous Spaniard, Dominic, who, returning from Rome, in the year 1206, fell in with these delegates, embarked in their cause, and laboured both by his exhortations and actions for the extirpation of heresy. These spiritual champions, who engaged in this expedition upon the sole authority of the pope, without either asking the advice or demanding the assistance of the bishops, and who inflicted capital punishment upon such of the heretics as they could not convict by reason and argument, were distinguished in common discourse by the title of the Inquisitors, and from them the formidable and odious tribunal called the Inquisition, derived its origin. |