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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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with a divine nature , to know and have thei feeling of what is divine . The Unitarian , in denying the divinfty of Christ , drives me farther thanfl should be ( if believing it ) froih ttfe idea that all men nuay have , from their nature , a participation in Deity . His simplification of worship seems to me a severation of God from the world .
I cannot fee ] a love for a Deity tfcfot creates and then keeps himself , as it were , at a distance from his works . I can only love him as thinking that he is in his own works , governing his own nature , through the weakness and infirmity it has from its
subdivision ; leading it to a reunion of parts , and feeling it not inconsistent with his dignity to ' declare , that even such a frail , humble thing as man , could be one and the same with himself , when the wisdom , the benevolence and the
will were the same in both . The Unitarian throws me farther off from the hope of a future state , than the Trinitarian who blends the Deity with the nature of man . The Unitarian
tells you there will be a future state , because he finds it promised in the gospel ; but he considers resurrection as a miracle , contrary to the Vriown laws of nature . Now if ipan can be led to believe that God himself is
iiitimately connected with their nature , he is himself the saving principle which must prevent the whole from perishing . If the Deity can be believed to have been individual in
Christ , the individuality of every man may be believed in common consistency to be immortal , and this , without any miracle or contradiction of fixed laws , but in the natural progress of the scheme of creation . "
Thus , Sir , does my Correspondent " , as it appears to me , admit that Christ is of the same nature with us , but then it is by making us all divinities ; and why I am to he " more warmed " by worshiping derived D $ ity ,
connected with ¦• ' what it is possible to conceive of perfection united with humanity , " thari by worshiping urtderived Deity , does not , 1 confess ^ € come home to my understanding /* I shall Subscribe myself , as on a former occasion A STEADY UNITARrAN . ' t , . ¦¦ ¦ . ' ¦ ¦ ¦' » . ¦ .. .: „ ¦¦ ¦ '¦
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Extract from a Letter on the Trinity . 353
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ceived the following * letter from him , with permission to offer it to you without his rtaiiie , for insertion in your Repository , if you approve of giving it a chance of a reply : « I have found a great deal of ingenuity in the arguments with which the Trinitarians are attacked , and I am not sorry to see them roughly handled , for there has been a too
great mixture of pride and arrogance in the manner of oar orthodox explainers of the gospel ; but I must confess , that my feelings of religion incline me to think that the doctrine
of Unitarianism leads farther from truth than that of a Deity dividing himself into different characters for the carrying on the design of the
creation . There is something captivating in the idea of Unity , but I cannot apply it , in my mind , to any thing but to a state of absolute repose or harmony throughout all space . I can
cousider God as one single being , concentrating in himself all power and intelligence $ but he can only exist as such , in my contemplation of him , before he determined to manifest his
attributes in a system of worlds ; a system , in which power , life and intelligence were to be distributed in a variety of degrees and characters . The Deity in his creation is not the same as to mode 0 $ being , th ^ t he was antecedent to it . If what was his
property exclusively before the creation ( namel y * power and wisdom and life ) is in the creation , God is a component part of his creation . He is wherever there is either power or intelligence or life . I cannot separate my idea of him from the world ; and the Unitarian who tells me that I
must not connect my worship of the Deity , with what it is possible to conceive of perfection united with human life , gives me a kind of barren religion , that neither warms my heart ner comes home to my understanding . I cannot believe or not believe as I
please 5 I can adopt no faith from a principle of fear , interest or duty ; and in dictating belief , the Unitarian is fully as unphilosophical as his opponent . My faith must be given nae
*> y a higher authority than that of a preacher of any sect ; and my human nature must have some intercourse with , in other words , some similitude VOL . XIV . X 3 K
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1819, page 353, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1773/page/9/
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