nor in the spirit of Christianity, the spirit of love and of a sound mind. EDITOR. ans. The from these men an appellation which assumes the question at issue, and which cannot be be. stowed without being converted "Dr. Gregory throughout de- into an occasion of insult and trinominates the abettors of the umph over their opponents. There simple humanity of Christ, So- was a time when the learning and cinians, instead of employing their moderation of Lardner, and the favourite appellation of Unitari- fame and science of Priestley, We rejoice that he has done combined to throw a transitory so, and hope his example will be splendour over their system, and generally followed. To accede to to procure from the Christian the appellation of Unitarians is to world a forbearance and complai yield up the very point in debate: sance to which they were ill enfor ask them what they mean by titled. That time is passed. Such Unitarian, and they will feel no rational Christians as they are, scruple in replying, that it denotes should have discernment to pera believer in one God, in oppo- ceive, that it is not with them sition to a Tritheist. That this as in months past, when the candle is not asserted at random, is evident, of their leader shone around them: as well from many other facts, as it becomes them to bow their from the following very remark spirit to the humbled state of their able one, that, when a noted aca- fortunes. They should learn at demic was, some years since, ex- last to know themselves. pelled from the University of Cam world is perfectly aware, whether bridge, amidst various points which they perceive it or not, that Sohe insisted on in his defenceone was cinianism is now a headless trunk, this, that it was quite absurd to bleeding at every vein, and excensure him for avowing Unitarian hibiting no other symptoms of life, principles, since he never heard but its frightful convulsions. Can but of one person who publicly a greater humiliation befal a party, declared himself not an Unitarian. than instead of a Priestley, to Now what did he mean by this have a # for its leader? singular assertion? Did he mean The poets were once satirically to say, that he never heard of painted in the shape of dogs, lapmore than one person who pub. ping a pure and copious stream licly affirmed his belief in a plu issuing from the mouth of Homer. rality of persons in the Godhead? In the instance before us, in deThis is impossible. What could fault of the pure stream, this mishe mean, then, but that he never erable reformer is reduced to the knew but of one person who af- necessity of swallowing and disfirmed himself not to be a believer gorging the half-digested notions in one God?-which is neither and nauseous crudities of his more nor less than to identify the term Unitarian with a believer in "But why should they be offend one God, and the term Trinitarian cd at being styleri Socinians, when with a believer in three. Let the it is undeniable that they agree intelligent public judge, whether with Socinus in his fundamental it is not high time to withhold position, the simple humanity of master. Reflections on the Fast Day, 1812. Christ which is all the agree them assume any denomination ment that subsists betwixt the they please, providing it be such followers of Calvin, and of Armi- as will fairly represent their senti. nus, and those eminent persons? ments. Let them be styled AntiThe Calvinists are far from con- scripturalists, Humanitarians, Semicurring in every particular with Deists, Priestleians, or Socinians. Calvin, the Arminians with Ar- But let them not be designated by minius, yet neither of them a term which is merely coveted by have violently disclaimed these them for the purposes of chicane appellations, or considered them and imposture."-Eclectic Review, as terms of reproach. Why are February, 1812. ART. V. Gregthe Socinians only offended at ory's Letters. being denominated after Socinus? Is it because they differ in the na. ture of Christ's person from that celebrated Heresiarch? This they "One murder makes a villain,” will not pretend. But they differ, and arouses the alarm, indignation from him in many respects! In and horror of a whole community. what respects? Is it in those re. Yet a murder differs from an ordispects in which his sentiments nary death, which excites no sengave most offence to the Christian sation beyond a very small circle, world? Is it that they have re- inasmuch only as it is life taken ceded from him in that direction away by the hand of man, wilfully, which brings them nearer to the for some immoral end. Will generally received doctrine of the not this definition embrace much Church? Just the reverse. In the of the blood-shed occasioned by esteem of all but themselves they war? The end of war may not be have descended many degrees private revenge or robbery; but lower in the scale of error, have for every deed doue by man, some plunged many fathoms deeper in man must be morally accountable; the gulph of impiety; yet with and any life needlessly taken away, an assurance, of which they have no matter under what "pomp and furnished the only example, they circumstance," is a murder; and affect to consider themselves in as many lives as there are needjured by being styled Socinians, lessly taken away, so many mur. when they know, in their own ders are there: by needless shedconsciences, that they differ from ding of blood is understood the Socinus only in pushing the de- sacrifice of life in any case where gradation of the Saviour to a the saving of it would not occasion much greater length-and that, a worse evil than its destruction. in the views of the Christian world, In the rivers of human blood that their religious delinquencies differ have been poured out during the from his, only as treason differs last twenty years, how much of from sedition, or sacrilege from the guilt of murder must have theft. The appellation of Socinian, been incurred! How much caras applied to them, is a term of nage amongst the defenceless and forbearance, calculated, if they innocent! How much slaughter would suffer it, not to expose but merely for the purpose of rapine! to hide a part of their shame. Let Even in a just war, there will, in It is not meant that this coun try alone is criminal; patriotism does not require us to stifle the wish that she were! but it is for ourselves that we have to treat with heaven; and will any man of reflection maintain that our late wars have been all right in their origin, all right in their conduct? Yet the moral wrong of war is an amazing complication of evil, demanding manifold retribution. all probability, be a large sum of tured. They are beginning to be wickedness, for which responsibi- feared-the people express their lity attaches somewhere:-but a apprehensions in their devotionswar can never be perfectly just on but is there nothing to reform a both sides, and what an amount mongst us, and should we not carry of crime does that nation run up our penitence as well as our supthat wages unjust war, especially plications to the throne of the if such war be long protracted, Divine Majesty ! and more especially if it be withal very sanguinary!-A war, however, that is just in its origin becomes unjust, whenever extended beyond the limits, or continued beyond the moment pre. scribed by dire necessity. Wars ravaging all Europe, all the known world, and filling up nearly the third part of the space of man's life, import peculiar malignancy, in one, or some, or perhaps all, of the belligerents. But every party justifies its own quarrel, and ap- Individuals, it may be pleadpeals to posterity to pronounce ed, can do but little whether toupon the justice of its cause, and wards national good or national confidently looks to heaven for evil; but the community is comsuccess. We are all thus déceiving posed of individuals; and in the ourselves we fast for strife, and, order of providence, individuals with feet swift to shed blood, we at are responsible for the acts of a once tread and pollute the Chris. nation,-they suffer in its advertian sanctuary. sity or enjoy its prosperity. The Long-continued, widely-extend- pretended insignificance of indivi ed and sanguinary war brings home duals is only a cloak for indolence, to a people, how secure soever or something worse: in a free from the immediate, manual vio- state, the declared opinion and lence of hostility, some portion of feeling of individuals, when for its evils. Great Britain, for in- tified by reason and humanity, stance, after fighting for nearly 20 must act powerfully upon the years, now finds herself as far as Government: but where, for these ever from any one of the objects many years, have any individuals she proposed to herself by war; lifted up the voice of reason and while at the same time she sees her humanity against the continuance commerce gone, and with it the or even the extension of war? source of revenue to the govern- Our silence has been a virtual ment and of subsistence to the peo- concurrence with our government, ple. The evil has not yet got to its whose measures, therefore, in all head; for taxation will go on in- their merit or demerit, we have creasing in the same proportion made our own. In truth, we that trade is decreasing; and the have breathed in impure air, till sad consequences to individuals and the vital sentiments of morality the public cannot be even conjec. (of public justice and charity,) are nearly extinguished within us: there any thing in our religion, WE HAVE LOST THE WISH FOR upon which our hopes may safely PEACE: WE SEEM TO HAVE AC- feed? Or rather, must not solemu QUIRED A LOVE OF WAR, AND self-examination, on such a day FOR ITS OWN SAKE! as this, convict us of a disregard of the royal law of love, and of disaffection to the Prince of Peace? At the present moment, in the midst of unexampled difficulties and dangers, we are about to These reflections, springing from plunge into a new war,-with the a heart that is touched with the people whose amity is most im- wretched state of the world, are portant to us, the only free peo- humbly addressed to conscientious ple in the world besides ourselves, Christians: men of the world will the people who sprung from us, not take their measure of duty and are related to us by language, from the man of Nazareth, or manners and religion: this new square their hopes and their fears war will be, in all probability, by the rule of gospel charity;ruinous to one or other, or both though by what standard of right of the parties, but though the they can justify our country, or consequences of hostility may be from what source they can draw dreadful, the causes are compara- any consolatory expectations, it is tively trivial or unintelligible: and for them to explain: but let Chrisyet no sentiment of disapprobation tians remember that they cannot or of apprehension is expressed, identify themselves with such men, in any part of the kingdom; no in all their sentiments and purpetition is preferred even for delay suits, without abdicating their own or caution. Thus uninstructed, proper character, and that if while unchecked by the people, an in- they are in the world they be also considerate and warlike adminis- of it, to the world they must look tration will soon, it is to be feared, for their reward. commence a contest, which, whatever may be the final issue of it, will certainly aggravate the horrors, widen the calamities and prolong the reign of the war, to the miseries of which the nation and a great part of the world have been subjected, during the whole period that the infant from the cradle has grown to manhood. The writer is not called upon or disposed to decide between the rival parties in the state; he believes that they are right and wrong by turns; his sole wish is to see a new party spring up, a Christian party, that shall temper the bitterness of animosity at home, as well as allay the fierce spirit of war that is raging abroad. In expressing this wish, he is at the same time aware that he subjects himself to the imputation of sinister and even malignant designs; for it is one of the unhappy fruits of the martial temper, that neutrality of heart is not allowed to individuals, in the midst of national contentions, and that a love of peace is accounted want of patri Is this apathy and inertness compatible with the duty of a Christian people? With so culpable a silence before the altar of Humanity, can we expect to be heard before the shrine of Religion? Have we any reason, without a change of temper and conduct, to reckon upon the protection of Providence, the benedic tion of the Father of mercies? Is otism. A. "Abraham saw his day," verse As my ideas respecting the proper translation and interpretation of John viii. 58, laid before the public in a periodical work, between 20 and 30 years ago, appear now to me to have been erroneous, I hold it to be right publicly also to acknowledge what I 4. That the Jews, however, at present regard as an error, and supposed or pretended to suppose,. to give what, upon a re-examina- that Jesus had said what was tantion of this celebrated passage, I tamount with declaring that Abrahave been recently led to consider ham had seen him himself, the as its genuine sense and design. very identical person standing be No one, I imagine, can be justly fore them in the form and figure of censured for owning and correct. a man, and accordingly inferred, ing a misapprehension, into which that, if that had been the case, he he conceives himself to have fallen, must also have seen Abraham and I, therefore, beg leave to offer for been alive at the same time with insertion in your Repository him, which the uncontradicted D's. Second Thoughts on John observation they had just made viii. 58. shows they could not admit. I am not aware, that any well. founded objections can be made to the following positions-viz. 5. That Jesus perceived, and could not but perceive and grant, that he could not have been living, as a son of Mary, or an inhabitant of Nazareth, in or before the days of Abraham, and, therefore, could not intend to assert the one or the other to have been a fact. 1. That Jesus meant the same kind of being and the same identical being by the word (ɛyw) I, in the 58th verse, as by (uɛ) me, with which (avopunov) a man, stands in apposition in the 40th verse of ch. 6. That if therefore Jesus really viii. in John's gospel. Both occur meant by his words, verse 58, that in the same discourse; and there there was a sense, in which he is not the slightest intimation of was before Abraham, he must have their being used in different senses. intended to assert, that he (Jesus 2. That by (avopunov) a man, of Nazareth) existed or was before Jesus meant that individual visible Abraham in the contemplation, apbeing, whom the Jews saw stand- pointment or decree of the Deity. ing, and heard conversing with them. 3. That when Jesus said, VOE. VII. 7. That all events whatsoever having been known to the Infinite Mind from all eternity, and there. |