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    together unacquainted with the doctrine , and unconnected with its professors . Our first subject was God ' s Universal Love—to us a most delightful theme . The gracious declarations with which the

    Scriptures abound on this subject , became familiar to us ; on this subject we delighted to dwell ; it excited in . our hearts sentiments of the purest gratitude , and furnished us with the most powerful motives to love and fear God , and walk in his way .

    Amoug other arguments to prove the universality of God ' s love to mankind , we laid no small stress upon what we had been taught to believe as the doctrine of atonement , that the justice of God had been satisfied for the sins of mankind

    by the sufferings and death of Christ , that he had not only paid a debt , but had also purchased salvation for us . Such were the ideas which pervaded every part of our religious services , to which we had been accustomed for years ; we had been taught to sing repeatedly ,

    " Lord , I believe were sinners more Thau sands upon the ocean shore , Thou hast for all a ransom paid , For all a full atonement made . " " For all my Lord was crucified , For all , for all , my Saviour died , His blood atoned for all our race , And sprinkles now the throne of grace . "

    " Behold the Lamb of God who bears The sins of all the world away , " &c . The reiteration of the doctrine of Eternal Punishment , ( commonly a more harsh expression , ) which sounded in our ears in almost every sermon , appeared to us so inconsistent with our hymns , and so contradictory to the positive declaration of the Almighty , " I will not

    contend for ever , neither will I be always wroth ; for the spirit should fail before me , and the souls which I have made , " Isaiah lvii . 16 , that it excited our astonishment , and led us to a more particular consideration of the subject , than , perhapb , we otherwise should have given it , until we came at length to perceive that the doctrine of Atonement , as we

    had been taught , was not only inconsistent with eternal punishment , but incompatible with any punishment at all ; for it now appeared to us , that if full satisfaction has been made to Divine Justice for the sins of mankind , and if the whole world be included in that satisfaction as stated above , then in that case , it struck us forcibly , there could be no future pu-

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    nishment for sin . We wero not prepared for this conclusion . We were , I may say , alarmed at the result of our discussions on this subject ; we saw clearly that the salvation which the gospel reveals is conditional ; that repentance , faith , and good works , are essentially necessary to our final acceptance with God ; and that our state and condition in a future world depends upon our conduct in this . We now believed that God

    sent his Son not to satisfy his justice by paying the sinner ' s debt , but to bless mankind by turning them from their iniquities ; that obedience to his precepts and conformity to his example is the be ^ t proof we can give of our love to Christ , and we determined accordingly .

    About this time , reading m " Evans s Sketch , " we found a reference to a book called the " Antisatisfactionist ; " this we immediately procured ; it was to us a most valuable acquisition , and confirmed us in our change of opiuion on the doctrine of Atonement . We next ventured to discuss what we had been

    taught to believe as the divinity of Christ , that it was essential to the satisfaction required for the sins of mankind , that Christ should be God as well as man , otherwise it could not be an infinite satisfaction . The following is the language of our hymns in reference to this subject .

    ' * Equal with God most high , He laid his glory by , He , the Eternal God was born /" " God , in this dark vale of tears , A man of griefs was seen ; Here , for three and thirty years , He dwelt with siuful ineu . " Then he dies .

    " Come see , ye worms , your Maker die And say was ever grief like his . " And again , " The Immortal God hath died for me . " We now perceived the impropriety of such language , and having given up the doctrine of satisfaction , the argument fur

    the Deity of Christ , arising from the supposed necessity of an infinite satisfaction , lost all its force , and we soon came to the conclusion , that as there is but one God , and that one God is so clearly distinguished in scripture as a distinct being from Jesus Christ , as having sent him , anointed him , raised him from the dead , &c , &c , that Jesus Christ could uot be Ood in the strict and proper sense of the word . Our friends now began to feel disca-

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    214 . Intelligence . — Unitarianism in Guernsey .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 214, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/70/