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COMMENT.

Often have I heard it said by advocates for the Socinian scheme--True! we are all sinners; but even in the Old Testament God has promised forgiveness on repentance. One of the Fathers (I forget which) supplies the retort--True! God has promised pardon on penitence: but has he promised penitence on sin?--He that repenteth shall be forgiven: but where is it said. He that sinneth shall repent? But repentance, perhaps, the repentance required in Scripture, the passing into a new and contrary principle of action, this Metanoia**, is in the sinner's own power! at his own liking! He has but to open his eyes to the sin, and the tears are close at hand to wash it away! Verily, the exploded tenet of transubstantiation is scarcely at greater variance with the common sense and experience of mankind, or borders more closely on a contradiction in terms, than this volunteer transmentation, this self-change, as the easy† means of self-salvation! But the reflections of our evangelical author on this subject will appropriately commence the aphorisms relating to spiritual religion.


**Metanoia, the New Testament word, which we render by repentance, compounded of

trans, and
mens, the spirit, or practical reason.

†May I without offence be permitted to record the very appropriate title, with which a stem humorist lettered a collection of Unitarian tracts? "Salvation made easy; or, Every man his own Redeemer."

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