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Horace in one of his odes is led to apeak of the attributes of Deity , and , in utter contradiction to the general tenor of his writings , bursts forth upon us with this sublime stanza .
Unite nil majus generatur ipso ; Nee viget quicquam simile , ant secundum ; Proximos illi tamen occupayit Pallas honores . Nothing exists greater than himself , neither has he a similitude in any thing , nor does he admit of a second . Next
to his throne , and most highly honoured , stands Pallas . My readers will recollect , that in the vain mythology of the ancients , Pallas is represented as the Goddess of Wisdom , but
so far from being superior to their other abominations * their Jupiter admitted even of a partner on his throne in Juno . How Horace made this slip in his theology may thus , I think , be accounted for .
I can conceive from the character of Horace , that he might have been bantering his friend Fuscus Aristius , on what he would call the Jewish superstitions , when the latter , with that seriousness which the subject would uggest , might have thus addressed
him and his friends . Ye worship ye know not what . " Ye split ypur Deity into numberless persons , and fell prostrate before the vain idols of your own imaginations . But we are better taught . We know that the true God is and can be only one , and our
scriptures abominate the idea of any likeness being formed of him , or any person being supposed to be equal or second to him . His unity is not to be compared with the unity of any created being . When we are speaking of the unity of any thing created , as of
the sun , moon , earth , man , tree and the like , another of the same kind cither does or may be conceived to exist . But it is not so with God : he m one , one only person , and when we think aright of him , we feel that his unity excludes the possibility of
conceiving a seeond God to exist . This is the great tenet of our faith . W this our scriptures are full ; and , wherever this truth is adopted , all P ^ abominations , under which you ^ p resent your Gods , fill the mind with horror . ** In corroboration of his
• entiment he would probably produce * o them many sublime passages of jj ^ pture , and among them not un-H Mly those in which wwjdoip Iq » o
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beautifully described in the book of Proverbs . A momentary conviction was produced on the mind of Horace ; he penned his stanza ; could not , or would not , divest himself of his vain
mythology ; exchanged wisdom for Pallas ; and then relapsed into all the idle tales which were familiar to and congenial with the reigning religion . The passage I have quoted was not
we may presume entirely without effect , and many may have been prepared by it to think better of the Deity . It is a pleasing satisfaction to find these traces of divine truth in
profane writers ; and as our holy apostle PauL has not disdained to make use of similar passages , my readers will , I am persuaded , not be displeased with this apparent digression from the general tenor of the work . But when we are dilating on the works
of nature , how can we forbear from looking continually up to the author of it . To him the King eternal , immortal , invisible , the only true God , be all our adorations paid , and may we never , like Horace , pollute our imaginations by the prostration of our intellect to any vain superstition .
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Mr . Aspland ' s final Reply to Pastor on the Term Unitarian . 743
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Mr . AsplancTs final Reply to Pastor Hackney Road , Dec . % 1815 . AS the dispute between Pastor and me will naturally drop with the present volume of the Monthly Repository , I shall make but a very short answer to his last letter [ p . 710 ] and shall avoid introducing any thing to which he might wish to reply . 1
What" reflections against * Pastor I have dropt , I know not . His own tone appeared to nxe to be growing angry , I rebuked ^ him gently , and ho recovered his temper . If , however * I have fallen into the fault which I
censured in him , of which I am not aware , 1 beg that every expression of mine that is offensive to him per ^ sonally may be considered as cancelled- * Pastor cannot see how the term Unitarian which denotes my agreement with other Christians should
also mark the peculiarity of my faitiK But I must again assert that the peculiarity of it consists in that agreement . All Christians hold the divine unity , but most of them hold with it opinions that appear to me to subvert it \ I agree with them in their first principle , but I agree with them no fur-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1815, page 743, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1767/page/15/
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