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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

• Citation
  • 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/