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    v Review.—Carpenter 7 k Letters to Veysi...

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    Art. I. A Connected History Of The Life ...

    < jf a comment of our author ' s , which we apprehend , will be a -novelty to some of his readers . III defending the scriptural doctrine witlis regard to the person of Christ , Dr . Carpenter aims to confute the Semt-Arian as well as

    Trinitarian hypothesis , and his work challenges the attention of the advocates of the pre-existence of our Lord . After their silence upon Mr . Belsham ' s Letters , howover , it is scarcely to be hoped ,

    that < t ( iey will accept tbe challenge . Truth indeed is the same in itself , whether supported or neglected ; but there never surely was a time when Arianism more loudly called for the public exertions of its adherents , whether we consider how

    much the limits of its defence have been of late narrowed , or how pressing have been the attacks upon it , or how great has been the defection from the ranks of its believers . Dr . Carpenter has strongly stated ( he metaphysical difficulties of the notion of Christ ' s

    existence prior to his birth of Mary . «* I do not think it necessary to enter snto the question how far a being not hu-^ an , could become truly man , because our convictions respecting it must ultimately depend upon revelation . But if the Hartleyan doctrine of association be

    well-founded , and the whole system of internal feelings , whether intellectual ideas , or affectictns , arise from the relicts of sensations variously connected or blended together by that ever -active principle , and if , what is indisputably the fact , sensations do not affect and modify

    the internal system of a man as they affect and modif y that of an infant or a Jouth , then it follows , either i , that the pre-existent being possessed a human system of thought and affection before kia human birth , which is inconsistent

    with every supposition : or %% all the peculiarities of the pre-existent being , even to his very consciousness of pi * eexistence , must have been annihilated ) when he became susceptible of sensations b m « an * of a human body ; or 3 , he

    Art. I. A Connected History Of The Life ...

    could not , when that body came to maturity of growth , have possessed an internal system of ideas aad affections similar to that of man . No other case seems possible , and of these the last must , I should suppose , be preferred ; and if so , every passage of the N . Twhich represents our Saviour as acting , feeling , and thinking as a man , is te be regarded as a direct argument against the doctrine of pre-existence ; and though an express declaration of Jesus or an Apostle , would cf course outweigh this

    inference , yet , till such express declaration is produced , I must consider the doctrine of simple pre-existencc as destitute of adequate evidence / ' ( p . 333 , 4 v note . )

    Unitananism would seem to re * spect only the object of worship , but by asserting the exclusive divinity of one being , the Father , it supersedes the offices of the two other beings , real or imaginary , who are commonly associated with

    the Supreme God , and removes all pleas for the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the work of the Spirit . Ii \ a large sense , there - fore , Unitarianism may be considered as opposed to Calvinism as

    well asTrinitananism . Dr- Carpenter so vijews It ; and has devoted the last of his four Letters to the doctrine of the Scriptures " re * specting the redemption of man by Jesus Christ * " There is we

    think , less of originality and of labour manifest in this part of the work than in the preceding sheets ; probably the author felt the

    volume growing too rapidly under his hand , and was constrained to compress it . The reader will nevertheless find here , as elsewhere , just argument , sound criticism and acute animadversion . The

    references to other writers on this branch of divinity , give variety and relief to the argument ; and we are confident that he wl ? o follows the author patiently through his proofs of * ' me scriptural doc . trine , " will arrive at the conclu-

    V Review.—Carpenter 7 K Letters To Veysi...

    v Review . —Carpenter 7 k Letters to Veysie . 953

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1810, page 255, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02051810/page/39/