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life . I hope , " he adds , " J shall not give offence by requesting your highly respected friend to point out the path in which he has recently trodden in order to attain his present view of things . " And further , he requests that he would favour the readers of
your interesting Miscellany with an illustration of certain passages of scripture which he particularity mentions . The circumstances of the case , I admit , sufficiently warrant such a request . I have appeared in the above mentioned volume as the advocate of
the doctrine alluded to by your correspondent , and it was natural for one who" candidly acknowledges that he felt the force of my reasoning , " to wish to be informed of the means by which I was led to renounce a
sentiment which I had so strenuously laboured to defend ; and it is but right that I should endeavour to shew , that I have not adopted my present views without such reasons as were fully sufficient to carry conviction to my mind . I cannot , however , admit that
I have been either recently or instantaneously converted to the Unitarian faith j because I have been * an Unitarian , ( in the proper sense of that term , as much so as I am at present ) more
than fifty years , nor have my views undergone any material alteration either respecting the unity of God , or the nature of the person of Christ during that period . My recent change of sentiment has no relation to the
nature of Jesus Christ , but simply to the time when he began to exist : whether that existence commenced when he came in the flesh , or whether he existed from the foundation of the world .
As to the ** almost instantaneous " nature of my conversion , your correspondent should recollect that it is now seven years-since my replies to Mr . Belshami appeared in the Repository . - There is a certain process which takes place in the mind in order to a
conviction of the truth or falsehood of any doctrine 5 that process may be long or short ; it may be attended "with many difficulties and struggles arising from a variety of causes ; ' but
a change of sentiment , the result of 'that process by which the mind is * Dade up upon the subject , is probably almost always instantaneous . But what adds to the surprise of your orrespondent is , that such a change
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should have taken place " so late in life . " I reply that 1 never made any pretensions to infallibility ; I have often changed my opinions , and I dare not say that I am now in possession of all truth , or that I shall not undergo some future change of mind with respect to religious truth : I hope I shall never he too old to learn , or unwilling to attend to any evidence that shall be presented to me . Before I proceed to give an account of the steps that led to my recent change of sentiment it may- be proper to state what were mv former views .
In defendingthe pre-existence of Jesus Christ I never supposed that in his pre-existent state , or in any stage of his existence he was any more than a man . That lie was a divine
person truly and properly God , and became man ; that he was a superangelic being and took upon him human nature 5 or that he pre-existed as a human soul or spirit which in the fulness of time assumed a human body in the womb of the virgin , and so became a proper man - neither of these ideas formed any part of my creed ; I considered them all as unscriptural and indefensible . Tn my letters in reply to Mr . Belsham I have not , in any instance , adverted to the nature of Christ ' s pre-existence , to what he was in that state , or to the nature of the change which took place in him in his humiliation ; but have confined myself to the plain matter of ^ facf , whether or not the pre-existence of Jesus Christ is a doctrine contained
in the scriptures . Those who wish to see what my views were on those subjects may see them fully stated in the third volume of the Protestant Dissenters' Magazine for 1796 , pp . ISO—135 , and 172—177 . With respect to the steps that have led to my present views , I observe ,
Tirst , that Mr . Belsham ' s arguments , in his Letters to Mr . Carpenter , on my first perusal , appeared to me to possess considerable weight * and for some time made u . deep
impression on my mind , which led me to re-consider them with close attention : upon doing so , I discovered ( at least I thought I discovered ) that in some instances he had made use of declamation instead of argument 5 that irt other instances his arguments wer $ inconclusive ; that he had laid himseh open to considerable animadversion ^
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Mr . Marsorn on the Pre ' -existence of Jesus Christ . * 75
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1816, page 75, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2449/page/11/
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