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    in malted or in mind , it is still a miracle . Yet man , inheriting such a nature , by the first act of disobedience , incurs infinite guilt , and falls under the sentence of condemnation

    to infinite misery . It may be replied , that , because the inability is a moral inability , the sentence is not unjust ; and if the moral impotence "were acquired there would be reason

    in the reply ; but it is hereditary and not acquired , and we must subvert our notions of justice altogether before we can acknowledge responsibility to be the samd in both cases . Still 1 am told that the sentence is

    just , because I have lost the pure nature which I received frum my Maker : but this is an assertion contrary to fact ; I cannot have lost what I never possessed , Adam may have possessed a different nature before his fall : but because it was his nature

    it is not therefore mine , unless we are identical , especially as it ceased to be his before he became my progenitor . My nature is that constitution of mind and body which 1 received from my Maker , and which gives the sole measure of my responsibility .

    Sdly . It is essential to punitive justice that the measure of punishment be in proportion to the degree of guilt . No considerations whether of philosophy or policy can

    sophisticate our moral feelings into a persuasion , that it is just to punish all offences equally by making the punishment of every offence extreme . The laws of Draco were written in blood ,

    but they have never been cited as a in 6 > del of justice . It is right that there be a gradation in punishment as well as in guilt * The only mode in which a creature can be made to suffer infinitely is by protracting his suffering without end ; and the only case in which this can be just is that

    in which in finite guilt has been contracted y and if this can be shewn to be an impossible case , it will follow that infinite punishment can never be just . It is admitted , that there is a degree of mental imbecility , which sinks below moral responsibility ; thjat the same criminal action incurs

    different degrees of guilt before and after the maturity of mental powers ; and that suppose two men , accomplices in a crime , with an iodentity of all circumstances , the difference of mental power forming the Only difter ^ ime between them , one having a feeble

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    indnd of confined view's , the other posseting a powerful intellect which commands a wide extent of prospect into the past and future , it would be universally felt and acknowledged , that the guilt of the one as much

    exceeds that of the other , as his mind is more powerful , and his view more comprehensive than his companion s . This feeling put in the terms of a general proposition , may be thus expressed ; the action being the same the degrees of guilt in the

    agents are in the direct ratio of their powers of mind ; if greater , greater j and if less , less ; if finite , finite ; and if infinite , infinite . But since there exists but one infuiite mind , and every created mind is finite , the highest degree of guilt which can be incurred

    by the highest intellect must fall short , and infinitely short , of infinite guilt . Infinite punishment * therefore , or punishment infinitely prolonged , cannot be just , unless it be no injustice to make the measure of punishment to exceed infinitely that of the

    guilt- The Calvinistic system of doctrines is built upon the supposition of infinite guilt , whence it infers the justice of eternal punishment , and the necessity of an infinite satisfaction . To me therefore it appears , that the

    foundation is sand , and that the system which stands upon it , though it has stood for centuries , must fall at last ; a ruin which shall be contemplated in distant ages with fear and wonder . m ~ - J . M-

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    £ 4 Partintfton Chapel .

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    Partington , near Warringtontt 14 Dec . Sir , 1814 . 1 UNDERSTAND you are in the habit of inserting in your Repository every increase to the cause of Unitarianism . I think you should be an particular in relating every loss which tl * e Unitarians experience . But from your known impartiality I conceive the fault is not in you , but in your over zealous Unitarian Correspondents who wishing to make their cause appear more flourihing than it really is , send you an account of the gains only and not of the losses of their party . In your last month ' s Repository [ ix . 7 19-720 . ] you mention a new Unitarian chapel , being opened at Altringfaam , ok Thursday , September 8 . It appears that soon after this * event a great and blessed change must - have been wrought in the minds of some of the principal persons concerned in the

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 24, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/24/