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conduct of his offending creatures , found his mercy so resisted by justice that he could not forgive them at all , through mercy , unless he satisfied his justice by inflicting punishment upon these guilty men ; but the Son , the second person
of tjie Godhead , though displeased at the sins of his offending creatures , suffered his mercy to . overcome justice , aud by offering his own blood as an atonement for their sins , he has obtained for them pardon without punishment ; and bv means of vicarious sacrifice ,
reconciled them to the Father and satisfied his justice and vengeance . If the justice of the Father did not permit his pardoning sinful creatures , and reconciling them to himself in compliance with his mercy , unless a vicarious sacrifice was made to him for their sins ; how was
the justice of the Son prevailed upon by his mercy to admit their pardon , and their reconciliation to himself , without . any sacrifice , offered to him as an atonement for their sins ? It is then evident , that according to the system of
Trinitarians , the Son had a greater portion of mercy than the Father to oppose to his justice , in having his sinful creatures pardoned , without suffering them to experience individual punishment . Are these the doctrines on which genuine Christianity is founded ? God forbid !
" If the first person be acknowledged to be possessed of mercy equally with the second , and that he , through his infinite mercy towards his creatures , sent the second to offer his blood as an atonement for their sins , we must then confess that the mode of the operation
and manifestation of mercy by the first is strange and directly opposite to that adopted by the second , who manifested his mercy even by the sacrifice of life , while the first person displayed his mercy only at the death of the second , without subjecting himself to any humiliation or pain /'— Ibid . pp . 240—242 .
The fanciful hypothesis of two natures in Christ 13 laid bare in the following remarks of Rarntnohun Roy : " The Editor says that the expression of Jesus to Mary , John xx . 17 , * Go to my brethren and say unto them , I ascend uuto my Father and your Father , and to my God and your God , ' was
merely in his human nature . 1 wish the Editor had furnished us with a list , enumerating those expressions that Jesus ^ hr ^ t made in his human capacity , and another shewing such declarations as he ^ ade iti his divine nature , with authorities for the distinction . I might have 111 that case attentively , examined * them
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as- Well as their authorities / From * his general , mode of reasoning « I am Induced to think , that he will sometimes ' * . foe obliged , in explaining a single sentence in the Scriptures , to ascribe a part > of . it to Jesus as a man , and another part to
him . in his divine natiire . As for ex * ample , John v . 22 , 23 , * For the Father judgeth no man , but hath committed all judgment unto the Son ; that all men should honour the Son , even as they honour the Father . He that honoufeth not the Son , honoureth not the Father
who sent me / The nrst part of this sentence * hath committed all judgment unto the Son , ' must have been ( accords ing to the Editor ) spoken in the human nature of Jesus Christ , since the Almighty in exercising his power does not
stand in need of another ' s vesting him with that power . The second part of the same sentence , ' all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father , ' must be ascribed by the Editor to Jesus as God , he having been worthy to be honoured as the Father is—and the last
part * who hath sent me , ' relates again to Christ ' s human capacity , since it implies his subjection to the disposal of another . Is £ his the internal evidence of Christianity on which the orthodox divines lay stress ? Surely not . "—IbioL pp . 289 , 2 * 90 .
We have room for only one further extract from these able defences of Christian Unitarianism : it relates to the identity of Christian and Heathen Polytheism : " The Editor denies positively the charge of admitting three Gods , though
he is in the practice of worshiping God the Father , God the Son , and God the Holy Ghost . 1 could wish to know what he would say when a Hindoo also would deny Polytheism on the same principle , that if three separate persons be admitted
to make one God , and those that adore them be esteemed as worshipers of one God , what objection could be advanced justly to the oneness of three hundred and thirty-three million of persons in the Deity , and to their worship in different emblems ? For , oneness of three or of
thirty millions of separate persons is equally impossible , according to human experience , and equally supportable by mystery alone /'—rlbid . pp . 301 , 302 . In perusing these volumes we have
experienced great pleaaure at feeing this l ^ indoo scholar famil iar with our best biblical critics . £$ e frequently quotes by name , Cpppe , JNfewcome , MacknigUt , liofldridge , Whitby a&d
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Revi&w . *— Unitarian Contrimm ^ at OalciUlk . 5 & 3
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1823, page 543, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1788/page/47/
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