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    opinion epterlain ^ d , a& ^ c asserts ,,. ? % the Ckirtmps , j ^ r the Jew * , and t > y those p hilosophers who had inspected the sacred writings of the J ^ w ^ and Christians , that the Word was understood as the personified princirie of

    reason in God , and consequently as God himself , acting by his intelligent principle ; « the word of Jehovah' being used to describe the facility wherewith the Divine Wisdom wills and effects its operations . ' The term Logos , or the Word , he remarks , ( p . 12 , ) imports " the presence of God ' s word m spiritual operation ; and , as where Goers attribute is and operates , there God must

    be , the presence therefore of God himself . * The word that was wijh God was God . ' " We have here followed as closely as possible Mr . Elton ' s own representation , in order that our readers may gather his faith from his own words . For ourselves , we frankly confess , that after frequent and anxious efforts , we have abandoned in despair the attempt to comprehend his meaning . The author intends this language , of course , to denote something different from what he understands by Unitarianism . We see nothing in his terms which

    an Unitarian may not , and which some Unitarians have not , used upon the same subject * When divested of all mysticism , and interpreted according to their plain and obvious signification , the . words , in our apprehension of them , express no fact which they would not recognize as a part of their own system . On the subject of original sin , Mr . Elton ( p . 30 ) puts in his disclaimer against the doctrine of those who hold " that all mankind sinned in Adam

    as their representative , and were amenable to punishment for his individual transgression . " The proper Calvinistic doctrine he designates , ( p ., 31 , ) " the overstrained if not mischievous notion of utter depravity , founded on texts of a particular application to individuals , or to some period in the history of the Jewish people . " " The sin that came upon all men , ' or , as he is pleased to call it , " original sin , " is , according to his present system , a « natural inability to fulfil all righteousness . " ( P . 28 . )

    " If it be said / ' he observes , ( p . 30 , ) " that death must be derived from a mortal progenitor by a necessity of nature , where is the want of philosophy in admitting , ; what the every-day experience of the transmission of parental qualities of mind ,, as well as of body , justifies , that a moral as well as physical defectjs inherited J > y . the same natural necessity ? ^ All moral defect ( which it may be as well to state at once must originally arise out of the abuse of the powers entrusted to the creature , and not out of the primary design , or absolute decre offjjhe Creator ) mustin the of Being of perfect puritybe

    *^ , eyes a , suifii ] , and thus the alleged want of equity in imputing sin , where sin has not been actually committed , is a charge raised on Imaginary grounds ; for if there be moral defect or insufficiency in answering- the claims of a complete righteousness , that is itself a state comparatively of sin ; and that state * i * contradistinguished from actual sin by the term original sm . 'V- 'Fhe author speaks ( p . 35 ) of " the wrath which in the Divine equity abides on the state of moraj de fect which the progenitor of the human race , who fca < i been 4 created upright / transmitted to all his posterity , together with thejr mortal nature /* * ,-rn

    From these and other passages of a similar import , it will he perceived that whatever ideas the writer may attach to his words and phrases , which are not always obvious , he is very far from eymboliiing in his * ^ Second Thoughts" with the commonly-m * iVed or Celvinistk faith on the cu ^ ect of original sin and hereditary depravity . The J jeen uye of orthodoxy # iwdd e » py " heresy ? lurking in the midst of all his representations . ' JVext follows Mr . Elton ' s view of the remedy provided for the moral im-

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    ¦¦ - ¦« , / - Review . —Secessions from Unitarianism . 589

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 589, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/37/