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STATEMENT OF REASONS

FOR NOT BELIEVING

THE DOCTRINES OF TRINITARIANS,

CONCERNING

THE NATURE of God, AND THE PERSON OF CHRIST.

BY ANDREWS NORTON.

LONDON:

J. CHAPMAN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. BARKER, WORTLEY, NEAR LEEDS:

MDCCCXLVI.

BODLEIAN

28.3 1900

LIBRARY

PREFACE.

In the year 1819, I published an article in a periodical work, of which a number of copies were struck off separately under the title that I have given to this volume. I have since been requested to reprint it, and some years ago undertook to revise and make some additions to it for that purpose. Being, however, interrupted, I laid by my papers, and had given up the intention, at least for an indefinite time. But having lately received an application from a highly esteemed friend, strongly urging its republication, I resumed the task; and the result has been, that I have written a new work, preserving indeed the title of the former, and embodying a great part of its contents, but extending to three times its size.

I have said, 'I resumed the task;' and the expression is appropriate, for the discussion is one in which no scholar or intellectual man can, at the present day, engage with alacrity. To the great body of enlightened individuals in all countries, to the generality of those who, on every subject but theology, are the guides of public opinion, it would be as incongruous to address an argument against the Trinity, as an argument against transubstantiation, or the imputation of Adam's sin, or the supremacy of the Pope, or the divine right of kings, These doctrines, once subjects of fierce contention, are all, in their view, equally obsolete. To disprove the Trinity will appear to many of whom I speak, a labor, as idle and unprofitable, as the confutation of any other of those antiquated errors; and to engage in the task may seem to imply a theologian's ignorance of the opinions of the world, and the preposterous and untimely zeal of a recluse student, believing that the dogmas of his books still rule the minds of men. It would be difficult to find a recognition of the existence of this doctrine in any work of the present day of established reputation, not professedly theological. All mention of it is by common consent excluded from the departments of polite literature,

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