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Untitled Article
this gentleman fcad dotibtlesS remarked that the extraordinary anitnatioa he h&d witnessed , was the strong effort of a powerful mind , over an enfeebled bodily frame , alid that it was not probable it should thus triumph any more . But perhaps , Mr . Editor , I # ught to have 2 tempted a further sketch of t ! ie character © f
this eminent person , before I adverted to the sorrowful event which has removed him from us ; let it however be remembered ,
that those impressions which are most vivid press first upon the mind , and that it is only two short weeks since these last events , so mournful and tmexpected , have taken place . Mr . Wood was educated by his parents in strict Calvinktic principles , and there is reason to believe that he entered on his studies
for the minis try ^ under the full influence of those sentiments . It would be interesting to inquire by what gradual steps and peculiar process his mind disengaged itself from a system by whicfh many are held in bondage through life , and which he afterwards considered as extremely erroneous , send highly unfavourable to human
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happiness * We know indeed that the change in his opinions took place ,, in consequence of a dili - * gent study of tna scriptures irt thia original languages , carefully compared with the works of God , of which he was an accurate
observer and warm adniirery and which every where anfbld the jii- * finite goodness as well as wisdom of the supreme Architect : and we know also that his mind could
not be biassed by any views of worldly ambition or interest , for with his talents to what celebrity and affluence plight he not have attained , even without tbe pate of a lucrative establishment * could he
have gone with the tidet > f popular opinion ? His first change of senti * ment was to low . Arianism ^ but be * - fore his appointment t < i Mill Hill chapel he had become an Unitarian in the strictest sense of that term t
he always maintained however that Ariaaswere entitled to that denomination , and regretted that the matter should ever have been warmly contested , as tending to
excite unnecessary alienation from each other in Christians , who are certainly agreed in every thing essential to piety and virtue * . He devoted much time fer mariy
tion of God * Both parties regard him as a creature deriving his being from thq infinite source of all excellence : in this main point they exactly agree ; and the divine authority of the gospel appears to stand on precisely the same foundation whether we consider him as a suftrar ^ gelic spirit , possessed of inconceivably extensive brut atifl subbrdiriatc powers , or as a man in the common sense of the term , raited ap By tlhe Universal Patent , to answer extraordinary purposes in tlxe administration of his government , and for that end furnished by him with every requisite endowment Whjch opinion is embarrassed with the fewest difficult *** . and is best supported by the general tenor , of scripture . i& a different question . * '
* I shall here insert a note of Mr . Wood ' s on this subject , affixed to a sermon preached J ^ f him in the year * 8 oo . < s The propriety of this name ( viz . Unitarian , ^ as exclusively belonging to those who do not hold the pro-existence of Christ has been called hi question , no less by the followers of Athanasius . than by thwe of Anus . I confess I see no reason why it should not be applied in its strictest sense fco ^ tfec fatter . They acknowledge the proper unity of the divine nature , undistinguished by difference of persons as well as vadivided into a multitude of parts . All the difference between them and other Unitarians relates to the rank which the head of the Christian church sustains in the general crea-
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MemtfrofXhe-latc && . ff r . WtiodjofLeetkibyMw . Coppe . 55 l
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1808, page 231, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2392/page/3/
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