104

THE CORRUPTION OF MAN'S NATURAL STATE.

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part of it at all"!!!-This, it must be admitted, is an excellent expedient for adding to the numbers of the sect. perfect indifference about doctrines, and a strong persuasion that the divine favour is secured, whilst the fancy of each individual is counted to him for faith,-are such recommendations of any form of religion, as can scarcely be resisted. But what can be more mischievous than all this? What more destructive of true religion? The sound principles of Christian doctrine disparaged, as of no value to the believer and the serious feelings of Christian piety caricatured, and thereby brought into general disrepute : whilst the sober and regulated teaching of the national clergy is treated with contumely and contempt; and separation from the national church deemed a decisive criterion of godly sincerity! In the contemplation of such a state of things, it seems as if one were surveying the completion of the following prospective description given to us by Sir Walter Raleigh. "When," says he, "all order, discipline, and church government shall be left to newness of opinion and men's fancies; soon after, as many kinds of religion will spring up as there are parish churches within England: every contentious and ignorant person clothing his fancy with the Spirit of God, and his imagination with the gift of revelation: insomuch as when the truth, which is but one, shall appear to the simple multitude, no less variable than contrary to itself, For when reason is no longer employed to distinguish right from wrong opinions, religion has no further connexion with it. But reason once separated from religion, must not piety degenerate either into nonsense or madness? And for the fruits of grace, what can remain but the froth and dregs of enthusiasm and superstition? In the first ages of Christianity, the glory of the gospel consisted in its being a reasonable service. By this it was distinguished from the several modes of Gentile religion, the essence of which consisted in fanatic raptures, and superstitious ceremonies; without any articles of belief, or formula of faith: right opinion being, on the principles of the Pagan priesthood, at best, but a very slender part of religion, if any part of it at all. But Christianity arose on different principles. St. Paul considers right opinion as one full third part of religion, where speaking of the three great fundamental principles on which the Christian church is erected, he makes truth to be one of them. The fruit of the Spirit is in all GOODNESS, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and TRUTH.-So different was St. Paul's idea, from that entertained of Christianity by Mr. Wesley, who comprizes all in the new birth, and makes believing to consist entirely in feeling. On the whole, therefore, we may fairly conclude, (with Warburton) that that wisdom which devests Christianity of truth and reason, and resolves its essence rather into mental and spiritual sensations, than tries it by moral demonstration, can never be the wisdom which is from above, whose first characteristic attribute is purity. The same writer truly adds, that if Mr. Wesley's position be well founded, the first Reformers of religion from the errors of popery have much to answer for: who, for the sake of right opinion, at best a slender part of religion, if any part of it at all, occasioned so much turmoil, and so many revolutions in civil, as well as in religious systems. See Warburton's Principles of Nat. and Rev. Religion, vol. i. p. 263

the faith of men will soon after die away by degrees, and all religion be held in scorn and contempt."-Hist. of the World, B. II. ch. v. sect. 1.

No. XIII. ON THE

MISREPRESENTATION OF THE DOC

TRINE OF ATONEMENT BY UNITARIANS.

PAGE 25. (n)-On this subject Dr. Priestley, (Hist. of Cor. vol. i. p. 153.) thus represents the arguments of the Orthodox. "Sin being an offence against an infinite Being, requires an infinite satisfaction, which can only be made by an infinite person; that is, one who is no less than God himself. Christ, therefore, in order to make this infinite satisfaction for the sins of men, must himself be God, equal to God the Father."-With what candour this has been selected, as a specimen of the mode of reasoning, by which the doctrine of atonement as connected with that of the divinity of Christ, is maintained by the established church, it is needless to remark. That some few indeed have thus argued, is certainly to be admitted and lamented. But how poorly such men have reasoned, it needed not the acuteness of Dr. Priestley to discover. On their own principle, the reply is obvious, that sin being committed by a finite creature, requires only a finite satisfaction, for which purpose a finite person might be an adequate victim. But the insinuation that our belief in the divinity of Christ, has been the offspring of this strange conceit, is much more becoming the determined advocate of a favourite cause, than the sober inquirer after truth. Our mode of reasoning is directly the reverse. scriptures proclaim the divinity of Christ; and so far are we from inferring this attribute of our Lord from the necessity of an infinite satisfaction, that we infer from it, both the great love of our Almighty Father, who has "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;" and the great heinousness of human guilt, for the expiation of which, it was deemed fit that so great a being should suffer. The decent manner in which Mr. Belsham has thought proper to represent the orthodox notion of the atonement is, that man could "not have been saved, unless one God had died, to satisfy the justice, and appease the wrath of another." (Review, &c. p. 221.) This is language with which I should not have disgraced my page, but that it may serve to show how dangerous a thing it is, to open a door to opinions that san admit of treating subjects the most sacred with a levity which seems so nearly allied to impiety.

N

The

No. XIV.-ON THE DISRESPECT OF SCRIPTURE MANIFEST ED BY UNITARIAN WRITERS.

PAGE 25. (0)-Perhaps I may be charged with having made a distinction in this place, which gives an unfair representation of Unitarians, inasmuch as they also profess to derive their arguments from scripture. But whether that profession be not intended in mockery, one might be almost tempted to question; when it is found, that in every instance, the doctrine of scripture is tried by their abstract notion of right, and rejected if not accordant-when by means of figure and allusion, it is every where made to speak a language the most repugnant to all fair, critical interpretation; until emptied of its true meaning, it is converted into a vehicle for every fantastic theory, which under the name of rational, they may think proper to adopt :-when in such parts as propound gospel truths of a contexture too solid to admit of an escape in figure and allusion, the sacred writers are charged as bunglers, producing "lame accounts, improper quotations, and inconclusive reasonings," (Dr. Priestley's 12th Letter to Mr. Burn) and philosophy is consequently called in to rectify their errors-when one writer of this class (Steinbart) tells us, that "the narrations," (in the New Testament)" true or false, are only suited for ignorant, uncultivated minds, who cannot enter into the evidence of natural religion;" and again, that "Moses, according to the childish conceptions of the Jews in his days, paints God as agitated by violent affections, partial to one people, and hating all other nations :" when another, (Semler) remarking on St. Peter's declaration, that prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, says, that "Peter speaks here according to the conception of the Jews," and that "the prophets may have delivered the offspring of their own brains as divine revelations:" (Dr. Erskine's Sketches and Hints of Ch. Hist. No. 3. pp. 66, 71.)-when a third (Engedin) speaks of St. John's portion of the New Testament, as written with "concise and abrupt obscurity, inconsistent with itself, and made up of allegories ;" and Gagneius glories in having given “a little light to St. Paul's darkness, a darkness, as some think, industriously affected:"-when we find Mr. Evanson, one of those able commentators referred to by Mr. Belsham in his Review, &c. p. 206, assert, (Dissonance, &c. p. i.) that "the evangelical histories contain gross and irreconcileable contra. dictions," and consequently discard three out of the four, retaining the gospel of St. Luke only, at the same time draw

ing his pen over as much of this, as either from its infelicity of style, or other such causes happens not to meet his approbation-when we find Dr. Priestley, besides his charge against the writers of the New Testament before recited, represent in his letter to Dr. Price, the narration of Moses concerning the creation and the fall of man, as a lame account; and thereby meriting the praise of magnanimity bestowed on him by theologians, equally enlightened :-when finally, not to accumulate instances where so many challenge attention, we find the gospel openly described by Mr. Belsham, (Review, &c. p. 217.) as containing nothing more than the deism of the French Theo-Philanthrope, save only the fact of the resurrection of a human being; (see Appendix) and when, for the purpose of establishing this, he engages that the Unitarian writers shall prune down the scriptures to this moral system and this single fact, by showing that whatever supports any thing else is either" interpolation, omission, false reading, mistranslation, or erroneous interpretation," (Review, pp. 206, 217, 272.)-when, I say, all these things are considered, and when we find the Bible thus contemned and rejected by the gentlemen of this new light, and a new and more convenient gospel carved out for themselves, can the occasional profession of reverence* for scripture, as the word of God, be treated in any other light than as a convenient mask, or an insulting sneer?

The fathers of the Socinian school are as widely distinguished from their followers of the present day, by their modesty and moderation, as by their learning and their talents. Yet, that it may be the more plainly discerned how remote the spirit of Socinianism. has been at all times from the reverence due to the authority of scripture, I here subjoin, in the words of two of their early writers, specimens of the treatment which the sacred volume commonly receives at their hand-Faustus Socinus, after pronouncing with sufficient decision against the received doctrine of the Atonement, proceeds to say, "Ego quidem, etiamsi non semel, sed sæpe id in sacris monimentis scriptum extaret; non idcirco tamen ita rem prorsus se habere crederem." Socin. Opera, tom. ii. p. 204—And with like determination, Smalcius affirms of the Incarnation; "Credimus, etiamsi non semel atque iterum, sed satis crebro et disertissime scriptum extaret Deum esse hominem factum, multo satius esse, quia hæc res sit absurda, et sanæ rationi plane contraria, et in Deum blasphema, modum aliquem dicendi comminisci, quo is a de Deo dici possint, quam ista simpliciter ita ut verba sonant intelligere." (Homil. viii. ad cap. 1. Joh.)-Thus it appears from these instances, joined to those which have been adduced above, to those which have been noticed at the end of Number I. and to others of the like nature which might be multiplied from writers of the Socinian school without end; that the most explicit, and precise, and emphatical language, announcing the doctrines which the philosophy of that school condemns, would, to his disciples, be words of no meaning; and the scripture which adopted such language, but an idle fable. Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris, is the true motto of the Unitarian. And the reader, I trust, will not think that I have drawn too strong conclusions upon this subject in the three last pages of the first number, when he finds the proof of what is there advanced strengthening se powerfully as we proceed.

It might be a matter of more than curious speculation, to frame a Bible according to the modifications of the Unitarian commentators. The world would then see, after all the due amputations and amendments, to what their respect for the sacred text amounts. Indeed it is somewhat strange, that men so zealous to enlighten and improve the world, have not, long before this, blessed it with so vast a treasure. Can it be that they think the execution of such a work would impair their claim to the name of Christians? Or is it rather, that even the Bible so formed, must soon yield to another more perfect, as the still increasing flood of light poured in new knowledge? That the latter is perhaps the true cause, may be inferred, as well from the known magnanimity of those writers, which cannot be supposed to have stooped to the former consideration, as from Dr. Priestley's own declarations. In his Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, (Part 2. p. 33 -35.) he informs us, that he was once "a Calvinist, and that of the straitest sect." Afterwards, he adds, he "became an high Arian, next a low Arian, and then a Socinian, and in a little time a Socinian of the lowest kind, in which Christ is considered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and naturally as fallible and peccable as Moses or any other Prophet." And after all, he tells us, (Def. of Unit. for 1787, p. 111.) that he "does not know when his creed will be fixed." Mr. Belsham having set out and ended at the same point with Dr. Priestley; it is not improbable that he has gone through the same revolution: and that he, and others who have enjoyed the same progressive illumination, would equally with Doctor Priestley still contend for the freedom of an unsettled creed, is not perhaps too violent a presumption. Now, as every step, in such an indefinite progress, must induce a corresponding change of canon, it is not wonderful that they whose creed is in a perpetual state of variation, and whose Bible must be, like their almanac, suited only to a particular season, should not have attempted any fixed standard * of the Sacred Word.

No. XV. ON THE HEATHEN NOTIONS OF MERIT ENTERTAINED BY UNITARIAN WRITERS.

PAGE 26. (p)-A writer, whom I cannot name but with respect, to the beauties of whose composition, no one that

Since the date of the above observation in the last edition of this work, a Testament has been published by the Unitarians, under the title of An Improved Version of the New Testament. Of this Improved Version, some notice has been already taken in the preceding pages, and more shall be said hereafter.