to me the dictate equally of Philosophy and Religion, even as I
believe Redemption to be the antecedent of Sanctification, and not its
consequent. All spiritual predicates may be construed indifferently as
modes of Action or as states of Being, Thus Holiness and Blessedness
are the same idea, now seen in relation to act and now to existence.
The ready belief which has been yielded to the slander of my “potential
infidelity,” I attribute in part to the openness with which I have
avowed my doubts, whether the heavy interdict, under which the name of
Benedict Spinoza lies, is merited on the whole or to the whole extent.
Be this as it may, I wish, however, that I could find in the books of
philosophy, theoretical or moral, which are alone recommended to the
present students of theology in our established schools, a few passages
as thoroughly Pauline, as completely accordant with the doctrines of the
Established Church, as the following sentences in the concluding page
of Spinoza’s Ethics. Deinde quo mens hoc amore divino, seu beatitudine
magis gaudet, eo plus intelligit, hoc est, eo majorem in affectus habet
potentiam, et eo minus ab affectibus, qui mali sunt, patitur; atque adeo
ex eo, quod mens hoc amore divino, seu beatitudine gaudet, potestatem
habet libidines coercendi; et quia humana potentia ad coercendos
affectus in solo intellectu consistit; ergo nemo beatitudine gaudet,
quia affectus coercuit, sed contra potestas libidines coercendi ex ipsa
beatitudine oritur.
With regard to the Unitarians, it has been shamelessly asserted, that
I have denied them to be Christians. God forbid! For how should I know,
what the piety of the heart may be, or what quantum of error in the
understanding may consist with a saving faith in the intentions and
actual dispositions of the whole moral being in any one individual?
Never will God reject a soul that sincerely loves him: be his
speculative opinions what they may: and whether in any given instance
certain opinions, be they unbelief, or misbelief, are compatible with a
sincere love of God, God can only know.--But this I have said, and shall
continue to say: that if the doctrines, the sum of which I believe to
constitute the truth in Christ, be Christianity, then Unitarianism
is not, and vice versa: and that, in speaking theologically and
impersonally, i.e. of Psilanthropism and Theanthropism as schemes of
belief, without reference to individuals, who profess either the one or
the other, it will be absurd to use a different language as long as it
is the dictate of common sense, that two opposites cannot properly be
called by the same name. I should feel no offence if a Unitarian applied
the same to me, any more than if he were to say, that two and two being
four, four and four must be eight.
alla broton
ton men keneophrones auchai
ex agathon ebalon;
ton d’ au katamemphthent’ agan
ischun oikeion paresphalen kalon,
cheiros elkon opisso, thumos atolmos eon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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