“I think I may safely say, that no great change, of any kind, has taken place in my sentiments since I knew you. You must know, surely, that I did not use to be an _Athanasian_, or even a _Waterlandian_. Such views of the Deity always appeared to me too _Tritheistical_. I have been used to think, and do so still, that there is a particular meaning in such words as these of the Apostle’s, ‘To us there is but one God, the Father;’ but I never could say, or think, with the Socinians, that Jesus Christ is no more than _a man_, like ourselves. I believe, indeed, that He is a Man; but I, also, believe that He is ‘Emmanuel, God with us’—that he is ‘the form of God’—‘the image of the invisible God’—an object of Divine worship, so that we should ‘honour the Son as we honour the Father’—‘that all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily,’ or substantially. In short, I believe everything of the dignity, and glory of Christ’s character, that does not _divide_ the Deity, or land in _Tritheism_.”
Again, to another correspondent: “I believe, also, in the doctrine of the atonement, or sacrifice, of Christ, in the virtue of His blood, and in the prevalence of His mediation.”
Something of the same order of man, so far as sentiment, and knowledge are indications, but possessed of more wit, imagination, and emotion, was DAVIES, of CASTELL HYWEL, the first pastor of Christmas Evans, and of Daniel Davies, of Swansea. He was, in his day, a man of many-sided reputation, but of suspicious doctrinal relations. He was so eminent a classical scholar, and so many of the Welsh clergy had received their education from him, that when Dr. Horsley was appointed Bishop of St. David’s, he expressed, in his usual passionate manner, his irritation that the most distinguished tutor in South Wales was a Nonconformist, and gave out that he would not ordain any of Mr. Davies’ pupils. Davies was a great bard; and Welshmen who know both languages, say that his translation of Gray’s “Elegy” is, in force, and pathos, superior to the original. This will scarcely seem strange, if the deep pathos of the Welsh language be taken into account. His epitaph on Dr. Priestley—satirizing, of course, the materialism of Priestley—illustrates, at once, his humour, and versification: