Chapter VI: Appendix (1)

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NOTE 1, page 14.

“The free and unprejudiced mind dwells with delight on the image of the universal church or convocation of Christ, as it would naturally have grown ‘into the fulness of the body’ of its glorious founder * * * *

“And what (let me earnestly and solemnly ask) has hitherto turned this view into a mocking dream,—a dream that deludes by images which are the very reverse of the sad realities which surround us? ORTHODOXY;—the notion that the eternal happiness or misery of individuals is intimately connected with the acceptance or rejection of a most obscure system of metaphysics; a system perplexing in the extreme to those who are best acquainted with its former technical, now obsolete language, and perfectly unintelligible to the rest of the Christian world: a system which, to say the least, _seems_ to contradict the simplest and most primitive notions of the human mind concerning the unity, the justice, and the goodness of the Supreme Being; a system which, if it be contained in the Scriptures, has been laid under so thick and impenetrable a veil, that thousands who have sought to discover it, with the most eager desire of finding it, whose happiness in this world would have been greatly increased by that discovery, and who, at all events, would have escaped much misery had they been able to attest it, even on the grounds of probability sufficient to acquit themselves before their own conscience, have been compelled, by truth, to confess their want of success. Yet Orthodoxy declares this very system identical with Christianity—with that Gospel which was ‘preached to the poor,’ and ‘revealed unto babes;’ such a system, we are told, is that faith which, ‘_except every one keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly_.’”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy, by Rev. J. Blanco White._

NOTE 2, page 18.

“What do divines understand by _Christian Truth_? The answer, at first, appears obvious. ‘Christian truth (it will be said) is what Christ and his apostles knew and taught concerning Salvation under the Gospel.’ Thus far we find no difficulty; but (let me ask, again) where does this exist as an object _external_ to our minds? The answer appears no less obvious than the former: ‘In the Bible.’ Still I must ask, Is the MATERIAL Bible the Christian truth about which Christians dispute? No: it will be readily said not the MATERIAL Bible, but the SENSE of the Bible. Now (I beg to know) is the SENSE of the Bible an object _external_ to our minds? Does any _Sense_ of the Bible, accessible to man, exist anywhere but in the mind of each man who receives it from the words he reads? The Divine mind certainly knows in what sense those words were used; but as we cannot compare our mental impressions with that model and original of all truth, it is clear that by the SENSE of the Bible we must mean our own sense of its meaning. When therefore any man declares his intention to defend _Christian truth_, he only expresses his determination to defend his _own notions_, as produced by the words of the Bible. No other _Christian truth_ exists for us in our present state.”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy._

NOTE 3, page 22.

“If different men in carefully and conscientiously examining the Scriptures, should arrive at different conclusions, even on points of the last importance, we trust that God, who alone knows what every man is capable of, will be merciful to him that is in error. We trust that He will pardon the Unitarian, if he be in error, because he has fallen into it from the dread of becoming an idolater—of giving that glory to another which he conceives to be due to God alone. If the worshipper of Jesus Christ be in error, we trust that God will pardon his mistake, because he has fallen into it from the dread of disobeying what he conceives to be revealed concerning the nature of the Son, or commanded concerning the honor to be given him. Both are actuated by the same principle—the fear of God; and though that principle impels them into different roads, it is our hope and belief, that if they add to their faith _charity_, they will meet in Heaven.”—_Watson._

“We should learn to be cautious, lest we _charge God foolishly_, by ascribing that to him, or the Nature he has given us, which is owing wholly to our own abuse of it. Men may speak of the degeneracy and corruption of the world, according to the experience they have had of it; but human nature, considered as the divine workmanship, should, methinks, be treated as sacred: for _in the image of God made he man_.”—_Bishop Butler._

NOTE 4, page 24.

“But, if ORTHODOXY cannot be the principle of union among _Christians_, upon what are men to agree in order to belong to the CONVOCATION, or people of Christ? I believe that the Apostle Paul has said enough to answer this question. When by using the word _anathema_, he rejects from his spiritual society even an angel from Heaven, were it possible that such a being should “preach another gospel,” he lays down the only principle, without which there can be no communion among Christians. Unhappily the word GOSPEL, like the word FAITH, is constantly understood as expressing a certain number of dogmatical articles. Owing to this perversion of the original meaning, these very passages of Paul are conceived to support the long-established notion that Orthodoxy is the only condition of Christian communion; and want of it, a sufficient cause for _anathema_. I have, however, already proved, that Orthodoxy, without a supreme judge of religious opinions, is a phantom; and since it is demonstrable that no such judge has been appointed, it clearly follows that the Apostle Paul, by the name of _Gospel_, could not mean a string of dogmatic assertions. It is necessary, therefore, to ascend to the original signification of the word Gospel, if we are not to misunderstand the reason of the anathema pronounced by Paul. Let such as wish to rise above the clouds of theological prejudice, remember that the whole mystery of godliness is described by the expression ‘glad tidings.’ _Sad_, not glad tidings, indeed, would have been the Apostles’ preaching, if they had announced a salvation depending on _Orthodoxy_, for (as I have said before) it would have been a salvation depending on chance. But salvation promised on condition of a change of mind from the love of sin to the love of God (which is _repentance_); on a surrender of the individual will to the will of God, according to the view of that divine will which is obtained by trust in Christ’s example and teaching, which is _faith_; a pardon of sins independent of harassing religious practices, sacrifices, and ascetic privations—these were ‘glad tidings of great joy,’ indeed, to all who, caring for their souls, felt bewildered between atheism and superstition.”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy._

NOTE 5, page 27.

“Men want an object of worship like themselves, and the great secret of idolatry lies in this propensity. A God, clothed in our form, and feeling our wants and sorrows, speaks to our weak nature more strongly, than a Father in Heaven, a pure spirit, invisible and unapproachable, save by the reflecting and purified mind. We think, too, that the peculiar offices ascribed to Jesus by the popular theology, make him the most attractive person in the Godhead. The Father is the depositary of the justice, the vindicator of the rights, the avenger of the laws of the Divinity. On the other hand, the Son, the brightness of the divine mercy, stands between the incensed Deity and guilty humanity, exposes his meek head to the storms, and his compassionate breast to the sword of the divine justice, bears our whole load of punishment, and purchases with his blood every blessing which descends from Heaven. Need we state the effect of these representations, especially on common minds, for whom Christianity was chiefly designed, and whom it seeks to bring to the Father as the loveliest being? We do believe, that the worship of a bleeding, suffering God, tends strongly to absorb the mind, and to draw it from other objects, just as the human tenderness of the Virgin Mary has given her so conspicuous a place in the devotions of the Church of Rome. We believe, too, that this worship, though attractive, is not most fitted to spiritualize the mind, that it awakens human transports, rather than that deep veneration of the moral perfections of God, which is the essence of piety.

“We are told, also, that Christ is a more interesting object, that his love and mercy are more felt, when he is viewed as the Supreme God, who left his glory to take humanity and to suffer for men. That Trinitarians are strongly moved by this representation, we do not mean to deny; but we think their emotions altogether founded on a misapprehension of their own doctrines. They talk of the second person of the Trinity’s leaving his glory and his Father’s bosom to visit and save the world. But this second person being the unchangeable and infinite God, was evidently incapable of parting with the least degree of his perfection and felicity. At the moment of his taking flesh, he was as intimately present with his Father as before, and equally with his Father filled heaven, and earth, and immensity. This Trinitarians acknowledge; and still they profess to be touched and overwhelmed by the amazing humiliation of this immutable being! But not only does their doctrine, when fully explained, reduce Christ’s humiliation to a fiction, it almost wholly destroys the impressions with which his cross ought to be viewed. According to their doctrine, Christ was, comparatively, no sufferer at all. It is true his human mind suffered; but this, they tell us, was an infinitely small part of Jesus, bearing no more proportion to his whole nature, than a single hair of our heads to the whole body, or than a drop to the ocean. The divine mind of Christ, that which was more properly himself, was infinitely happy, at the very moment of the suffering of his humanity; whilst hanging on the cross, he was the happiest being in the universe, as happy as the infinite Father; so that his pains, compared with his felicity, were nothing. This Trinitarians do, and must acknowledge. It follows necessarily from the immutableness of the divine nature, which they ascribe to Christ; so that their system justly viewed, robs his death of interest, weakens our sympathy with his sufferings, and is, of all others, most unfavourable to a love of Christ, founded on a sense of his sacrifices for mankind. We esteem our own views to be vastly more affecting. It is our belief, that Christ’s humiliation was real and entire, that the whole Saviour and not a part of him suffered, that his crucifixion was a scene of deep and unmixed agony. As we stand round his cross, our minds are not distracted, nor our sensibility weakened by contemplating him as composed of incongruous and infinitely differing minds, and as having a balance of infinite felicity. We recognize in the dying Jesus but one mind. This, we think, renders his sufferings, and his patience, and love, in bearing them; incomparably more impressive and affecting, than the system we oppose.”—_Channing._

NOTE 6, Page 29.

“We believe, too, that this system is unfavourable to the character. It naturally leads men to think that Christ came to change God’s mind, rather than their own; that the highest object of his mission was to avert punishment rather than to communicate holiness; and that a large part of religion consists in disparaging good works and human virtue, for the purpose of magnifying the value of Christ’s vicarious sufferings. In this way, a sense of the infinite importance and indispensable necessity of personal improvement is weakened, and high sounding praises of Christ’s cross seem often to be substituted for obedience to his precepts. For ourselves, we have not so learned Jesus. Whilst we gratefully acknowledge that he came to rescue us from punishment, we believe that he was sent on a still nobler errand, namely, to deliver us from sin itself, and to form us to a sublime and heavenly virtue. We regard him as a Saviour, chiefly as he is the light, physician, and guide of the dark, diseased, and wandering mind. No influence in the universe seems to us so glorious as that over the character; and no redemption so worthy of thankfulness as the restoration of the soul to purity. Without this, pardon, if it were possible, would be of little value. Why pluck the sinner from hell, if a hell be left to burn in his own breast? Why raise him to heaven, if he remain a stranger to its sanctity and love? With these impressions, we are accustomed to value the gospel chiefly as it abounds in effectual aids, motives, excitements to a generous and divine virtue. In this virtue, as in a common centre, we see all its doctrines, precepts, promises meet; and we believe that faith in this religion is of no worth, and contributes nothing to salvation, any further than as it uses these doctrines, precepts, promises, and the whole life, character, sufferings and triumphs of Jesus, as the means of purifying the mind, of changing it into the likeness of his celestial excellence.”—_Channing._

NOTE 7, page 37.

“I can direct you to nothing in Christ more important than his tried, and victorious, and perfect goodness. Others may love Christ for his mysterious attributes; I love him for the rectitude of his soul and life. I love him for that benevolence which went through Judea, instructing the ignorant, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind. I love him for that universal charity which comprehended the despised publican, the hated Samaritan, the benighted heathen, and sought to bring a world to God and to happiness. I love him for that gentle, mild, forbearing spirit, which no insult, outrage, injury, could overpower; and which desired as earnestly the repentance and happiness of its foes as the happiness of its friends. I love him for the spirit of magnanimity, constancy, and fearless rectitude with which, amid peril and opposition, he devoted himself to the work which God gave him to do. I love him for the wise and enlightened zeal with which he espoused the true, the spiritual interests of mankind, and through which he lived and died to redeem them from every sin, to frame them after his own God-like virtue. I love him, I have said, for his moral excellence; I know nothing else to love. I know nothing so glorious in the Creator or his creatures. This is the greatest gift which God bestows, the greatest to be derived from his Son. You see why I call you to cherish the love of Christ. This love I do not recommend as a luxury of feeling, as an exstasy bringing immediate and overflowing joy. I view it in a nobler light; I call you to love Jesus, that you may bring yourselves into contact and communion with perfect virtue, and may become what you love. I know no sincere, enduring good, but the moral excellence that shines forth in Jesus Christ. Your health, your outward comforts and distinctions, are poor, mean, contemptible, compared with this; and to prefer them to this is self-debasement, self-destruction. May this great truth penetrate our souls; and may we bear witness in our common lives, and especially in trial, in sore temptation, that nothing is so dear to us as the virtue of Christ! * * *

“Thus Jesus lived with men; with the consciousness of unutterable majesty he joined a lowliness, gentleness, humanity, and sympathy, which have no example in human history. I ask you to contemplate this wonderful union. In proportion to the superiority of Jesus to all around him was the intimacy, the brotherly love, with which he bound himself to them. I maintain, that this is a character wholly remote from human conception. To imagine it to be the production of imposture or enthusiasm, shows a strange unsoundness of mind. I contemplate it with a veneration second only to the profound awe with which I look up to God. It bears no mark of human invention. It was real. It belonged to, and it manifested, the beloved Son of God.

“But I have not done. May I ask your attention a few moments more? We have not yet reached the depth of Christ’s character. We have not touched the great principle on which his wonderful sympathy was founded, and which endeared him to his office of universal Saviour. Do you ask what this deep principle was? I answer, it was his conviction of the greatness of the human soul. He saw in man the impress and image of the Divinity, and therefore thirsted for his redemption; and took the tenderest interest in him, whatever might be the rank, character, or condition in which he was found. This spiritual view of man pervades and distinguishes the teaching of Christ. Jesus looked on men with an eye which pierced beneath the material frame. The body vanished before him. The trappings of the rich, the rags of the poor, were nothing to him. He looked through them, as though they did not exist, to the soul; and there, amidst clouds of ignorance and plague-spots of sin, he recognized a spiritual and immortal nature, and the germs of power and perfection which might be unfolded for ever. In the most fallen and depraved man, he saw a being who might become an angel of light. Still more, he felt that there was nothing in himself to which men might not ascend. His own lofty consciousness did not sever him from the multitude; for he saw, in his own greatness, the model of what men might become. So deeply was he thus impressed, that again and again, in speaking of his future glories, he announced that in these his true followers were to share. They were to sit on his throne, and partake of his beneficent power. Here I pause; and I know not, indeed, what can be added to heighten the wonder, reverence, and love which are due to Jesus. When I consider him not only as possessed with the consciousness of an unexampled and unbounded majesty, but as recognizing a kindred nature in all human beings, and living and dying to raise them to an anticipation of his divine glories; and when I see him, under these views, allying himself to men by the tenderest ties, embracing them with a spirit of humanity, which no insult, injury, or pain could for a moment repel or overpower, I am filled with wonder, as well as reverence and love. I feel that this character is not of human invention, that it was not assumed through fraud, or struck out by enthusiasm; for it is infinitely above their reach. When I add this character of Jesus to the other evidences of his religion, it gives to what before seemed so strong a new and vast accession of strength; I feel as if I could not be deceived. The Gospels must be true; they were drawn from a living original; they were founded on reality. The character of Christ is not fiction; he was what he claimed to be, and what his followers attested. Nor is this all. Jesus not only _was_, he is still, the Son of God,—the Saviour of the world. He exists now; he has entered that Heaven to which he always looked forward on earth. There he lives and reigns. With a clear, calm faith, I see him in that state of glory; and I confidently expect, at no distant period, to see him face to face. We have, indeed, no absent friend whom we shall so surely meet. Let us then, by imitations of his virtues, and obedience to his word, prepare ourselves to join him in those pure mansions where he is surrounding himself with the good and pure of our race, and will communicate to them for ever his own spirit, power, and joy.”—_Channing._

NOTE 8, Page 38.

“At the present moment I would ask, whether it is a vice to doubt the truth of Christianity as it is manifested in Spain and Portugal. When a patriot in those benighted countries, who knows Christianity only as a bulwark of despotism, as a rearer of inquisitions, as a stern jailer immuring wretched women in the convent, as an executioner stained and reeking with the blood of the friends of freedom,—I say when the patriot, who sees in our religion the instruments of these crimes and woes, believes and affirms that it is not from God, are we authorized to charge his unbelief on dishonesty and corruption of mind, and to brand him as a culprit? May it not be that the spirit of Christianity in his heart emboldens him to protest with his lips against what bears the name? And if he thus protest, through a deep sympathy with the oppression and sufferings of his race, is he not nearer the kingdom of God than the priest and the inquisitor who boastingly and exclusively assume the Christian name? Jesus Christ has told us that ‘this is the condemnation’ of the unbelieving, ‘that they love darkness rather than light;’ and who does not see that this ground of condemnation is removed, just in proportion as the light is quenched, or Christian truth is buried in darkness and debasing error?”—_Channing._

* * * * *

“I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is True. It is true; and its truth is to break forth more and more gloriously. Of this I have not a doubt. I know that our religion has been questioned even by intelligent and good men; but this does not shake my faith in its divine original or in its ultimate triumphs. Such men have questioned it, because they have known it chiefly by its corruptions. In proportion as its original simplicity shall be restored, the doubts of the well-disposed will yield. I have no fears from infidelity; especially from that form of it which some are at this moment labouring to spread through our country (America). I mean, that insane, desperate unbelief, which strives to quench the light of nature as well as of revelation, and to leave us, not only without Christ, but without God. This I dread no more than I should fear the efforts of men to pluck the sun from his sphere; or to storm the skies with the artillery of the earth. We were made for religion; and unless the enemies of our faith can change our nature, they will leave the foundation of religion unshaken. The human soul was created to look above material nature. It wants a Deity for its love and trust, an Immortality for its hope. It wants consolations not found in philosophy, wants strength in temptation, sorrow, and death, which human wisdom cannot minister; and knowing, as I do, that Christianity meets these deep wants of men, I have no fear or doubts as to its triumphs. Men cannot long live without religion. In France there is a spreading dissatisfaction with the sceptical spirit of the past generation. A philosopher in that country would now blush to quote Voltaire as an authority in religion. Already atheism is dumb where once it seemed to bear sway. The greatest minds in France are working back their way to the light of truth. Many of them cannot indeed yet be called Christians; but their path, like that of the wise men of old, who came star-guided from the East, is towards Christ. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It has an immortal life, and will gather strength from the violence of its foes. It is equal to all the wants of men. The greatest minds have found in it the light which they most anxiously desired. The most sorrowful and broken spirits have found in it a healing balm for their woes. It has inspired the sublimest virtues and the loftiest hopes. For the corruptions of such a religion I weep, and I should blush to be their advocate; but of the Gospel itself I can never be ashamed.”—_Channing._

NOTE 9, page 39.

“Having found that _pride of reason is an aggression upon other men’s reason_, arising from an over-estimate of the worth of the aggressor’s own, we may now proceed in our inquiry, who are justly chargeable with pride of _reason_? Is it those who, having examined the Scriptures, propose their own collective sense of those books to the acceptance of others, but blame them not for rejecting it? or those who positively assert, that their own sense of the Scriptures is the only one which an honest man, not under diabolical delusion, can find there? The answer is so plain, that a child, who could understand the terms of the question, might give it. And yet experience has taught me that there is no chance of unravelling the confused ideas which prevent many a well-meaning Christian from perceiving that the charge of the pride of reason falls upon the Orthodox. Their own _sense_ of the Scripture (such is the dizzy whirl which their excited feelings produce) must be the _word of God_, because THEY cannot find another. _My sense_ of the Scripture must, (for instance,) on the contrary, be a damnable error, because it is the work of my _reason_, which opposes the word of God, _i.e._, THEIR sense of the Scriptures: hence the conclusion that I am guilty of _pride of reason_. ‘Renounce that _pride_, (they say,) and you will see in the Scriptures what we propose to you:’ which is to say, _surrender your reason to ours, and you will agree with us_. * * *

“It is remarkable that Christians are accused of _Pride of reason_ in proportion as their view of Christianity contains fewer _doctrines of inference_ than that of the accusers. Compare the creed of the Trinitarian with that of the Unitarian. The former may be true, and the latter erroneous, though I adhere to the latter; but unquestionably the _Trinitarian Creed_ is nearly made up of _inferences_, it is almost entirely a work of _reason_, though, in my eyes, sadly misapplied. Why, then, is the _Unitarian_ accused of _pride of reason_, when he only employs it to show that the Trinitarian has not any _sound reason_ to draw those inferences? which of the two is guilty of encroaching upon another man’s _rights of reason_? Is it not he who claims for his inferences—the work of his own _reason_—an authority above human _reason_?

“It is not, however, to _inferences_ alone (the work of logical reason) that the Trinitarian creed owes its existence, and, more than its existence, its popularity. My observation has shown me, and that of every competent judge will find, that the strongest hold which that creed has on the minds of its supporters, consists in _preconceived theories_ concerning the nature of God and of sin, and of some _necessity_ which places the Divine Nature in a state of difficulty in regard to the pardon of sin. The work of saving the race of man from a most horrible fate depends (according to this theory) not only on a very mysterious method of overcoming the difficulty which prevents pardon by an act of mercy, on repentance, but also on the acknowledgment of the _mystery_ by the sinner. The remedy prepared by the wisdom of God is (according to this theory) totally powerless, unless we believe a certain explanation of the _manner_ in which it acts.

“Now people who cordially embrace this view very naturally work themselves into a state of the most agonizing excitement: for if the whole world is to perish because it does not know how the saving remedy acts, or because its activity is explained in a wrong way, benevolent men, who think themselves in possession of that important secret, must burn with zeal to spread it, and with indignation against those who propagate an explanation which deprives the remedy of all its power. ‘Believing,’ says an orthodox writer, though a dissenter from the orthodoxy of the Church of England, ‘the doctrine (of the divinity of Christ) to comprehend within itself the hopes of a guilty and perishing world, while I would contend _meekly_, I must be pardoned if, at the same time, I contend earnestly.’ It is this preconceived theory (one of the strangest that was ever founded on reasonings _à priori_) that guides most Christians in the exposition of the New Testament, and even in that of many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures. The notion that sin _could not_ be pardoned unless a person _equal to God_ suffered for it, is the deeply-coloured glass through which the orthodox read the Scriptures. I do not _blame_ them for this extraordinary conception. What I earnestly wish is, that their religious fears may allow them to perceive that this theory of redemption is made up of _preconceived notions and inferences_. Even if that theory were true, it would unquestionably be a work of _reason_ working by inference. Can, then, the attempt to make it the very soul of the Gospel be acquitted of the charge which is constantly in the mouth of the orthodox? Are they not guilty of the _pride of reason_?”—_Heresy and Orthodoxy._

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_Comments on Rev. F. Ould’s Lecture on the practical
importance of the Controversy with Unitarians._

Page 5.—It is here argued that the error, if an error, of denying Unitarians to be Christians is as _innocent_, as the error, if one, of denying Jesus to be God. Certainly, if equally involuntary and the pure conclusion of a truthful mind. But, if an error, it involves two errors,—first, the mistake as to the nature and offices of Jesus, and second, the mistake of making essentials which Jesus did not make, and of passing judgments which Jesus did not pass. It is also essentially Anti-Protestant.

Page 6.—“But if it be a characteristic of true Christianity so to trust in Christ, as to commit the salvation of our souls into his hands, how can we conceive of those as true Christians who consider him only a fellow-creature, and consequently repose in him no such trust?” Trust is a _moral_ act of the mind. We trust Jesus spiritually. Our souls feel him to be the Image of God: and we confide ourselves with a perfect trust to the God of Love whom Jesus imaged. “Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.” Our hearts are not troubled because our faith rests upon the God whom Jesus has made known to us. This is the only intelligible meaning of TRUST as a spiritual act. We trust _him_ whom we believe God to have trusted and sent.

Page 8.—“We maintain that the Bible is alone safely interpreted by its Author and Inspirer, the Holy Ghost.” Do the Trinitarians mean that _their_ interpretations of the Bible are the interpretations of the Holy Spirit? If so, we can have no controversy with them. If they are inspired to interpret, what the Apostles were inspired to write, nothing is required but _that this should be proved_.

Pages 11, 12.—“The New Testament writers also assert their own inspiration in language equally strong. ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable,’ &c. St. Paul does _not_ here assert _his own_ inspiration, but the inspiration of the Jewish Prophets, the study of whom had made Timothy wise unto salvation through faith in Christ. The Christian Scriptures were not in existence when the words were written. It is also very doubtful whether the word translated, ‘given by inspiration of God,’ signifies ‘breathing _of_ God,’ or ‘breathed _from_ God.’

“‘No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation,’ &c. The inspiration of Prophecy is not denied. But can anything be more idle than to prove the inspiration of all the books of the Old Testament by such a quotation as this: ‘Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper’?”

Page 16.—“So then, it appears, that if these ‘rational and liberal’ critics are not allowed to Unitarianize the Bible, they are prepared to deny its divine authority, and to give it up to its enemies!” Dr. Channing _does not say so_. What he says is, that he cannot defend the Scriptures unless he is allowed to interpret them by the same principles which are applied to all other works. And this principle of interpretation we understood Dr. Tattershall freely to admit. The use that is made of the extract from Dr. Channing, exhibits the temptations of controversy. There is nothing in the extract that Trinitarians themselves would not say upon occasion. Why is it thought worthy of being marked in italics that the dispensation of Moses is imperfect when compared with that of Jesus? Is this denied? Why is the word _seems_ italicized, when the connected word is not rejects, but only _distrusts_? Yet the author praises the candour of Dr. Channing.

Pages 20, 21.—“The improved Version.” It is a curious fact that most of the Trinitarian objections to the Improved Version have been provided for them by an Unitarian Critic and Reviewer. Dr. Carpenter in his reply to Archbishop Magee states, “I furnished to the opponents of the Improved Version some of the most powerful weapons against it.” Again, “At my request a young friend undertook to draw up the table I wished. This led him to collate the two Versions, which he did with great patience and fidelity. He discovered some variations from the basis which were not noticed; and I thought it right to point them out. It is not too much to say that, but for this, neither Bishop Magee, nor any others who have censured the Improved Version, would have been aware of their existence.”—pp. 308, 309. Whatever becomes of the Improved Version, the Controversy between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism remains just where it was, to be settled upon independent principles, critical and exegetical. So far, the whole indictment against the Improved Version relates to the introductory chapters of Matthew and Luke. Suppose those chapters authentic and genuine, and what follows from them? The doctrine of the Miraculous Conception, which most Unitarians believe. Professor Norton, the ablest, perhaps, of American Unitarian Critics, defends this doctrine. The introductory chapters of Matthew he rejects, chiefly on account of their inconsistencies with those of Luke, the authenticity of which he does not doubt. Dr. Carpenter also critically dissents from the Notes in the Improved Version on the introductions of Matthew and Luke. Reply to Dr. Magee, p. 299. It is not then such a _new_ thing among Unitarians, to question the authority of the Improved Version. Will the Author inform us where he got his knowledge respecting Ebion, his existence and opinions?

Page 25.—In an introductory Lecture on the “_practical” tendencies_ of views, we labour under the disadvantage of being obliged to allow scriptural language to be quoted in a sense which we do not admit. It would be evidently quite out of place to enter here into the _textual_ controversy. This will be done abundantly in the course of these Lectures.

Page 37.—Does the Author deny that Free Inquiry generates a degree of scepticism—that is, not of unbelief, but of the examining and questioning spirit? Or does he mean to object to all free inquiry on account of this tendency? It is extraordinary reasoning to take Dr. Channing’s _caution against a sceptical spirit_, proceeding from the very constitution of mind, as a proof of the tendency of Unitarianism to infidelity. If Unitarianism leads to unbelief, it is strange that so many Unitarians should defend the Evidences of Christianity, and that one of them, Dr. Lardner, is the great authority from which Trinitarians themselves draw their knowledge of the external testimonies.

Page 39.—“Another leading principle, common to both systems, (Unitarianism and Infidelity,) is _the non-importance of principle itself to the enjoyment of the Divine favour_.” Let it be known, that by _principle_ here, the Author means _opinions_.

Page 41.—“Does the Deist reject the Bible because God is represented as a being who takes vengeance? So does the Unitarian for the very same reason reject the Gospel. Does the Deist reject the Bible because it contains the doctrine of atonement and of divine sovereignty? For the very same reason the Unitarian rejects the Gospel.” It is melancholy to have to remark upon this passage. The Unitarian _does not reject the Gospel_, unless the Gospel means Trinitarianism, a use of words which, in controversy, cannot be justified. The Unitarian does not deny that God takes vengeance, if by vengeance is meant the infliction of retribution. The Unitarian accepts the Gospel, but _does not find in it_ the doctrine of Atonement.

Page 46.—“How, on Unitarian principles, this reasoning can be answered, is more than I can tell.” Jesus _did_ refer to God both his words and his works. But Unitarians do not regard the mission of Jesus as similar to that of any of the Prophets. It was essentially different. He was himself the Revelation: a man in the image of God. By the Prophets, God taught the Jews certain lessons, and inspired certain expectations. By Jesus, in whom was the spirit without measure, God exhibited a perfect revelation both of human perfection and of human destinies. God’s word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us. The purposes of the Deity were impersonated. He was consequently the life, and the way, as well as the truth.

Page 59.—Does the Author mean to contend that Thomas was an INSPIRED MAN when he refused to believe in the risen Jesus? We had thought the Trinitarian view was, that the day of Pentecost dated the inspiration of the apostles. But it appears the Author believes Thomas to be inspired when refusing to believe in the resurrection of Christ.

Page 60.—Is not the Author aware of the doubtful authenticity of the second epistle of Peter, from which he quotes twice, contrary to the judgment of Lardner, who decides that the doubtful Epistles, so stated by Eusebius, should not be used as authority for doctrines?

There are other passages in this Lecture on which we might comment. But we refrain. We wished to remark upon those passages which affect the cause, and not more than was unavoidable upon those which affect only the advocate.

------------------------------------

Footnotes for Lecture I.

Footnote 22:

John iv. 23, 24.

Footnote 23:

Luke xvii. 20, 21.

Footnote 24:

John xiv. 21; xv. 8, 9, 10.

Footnote 25:

John xiii. 35.

Footnote 26:

John xiv. 28.

Footnote 27:

John xvii. 3.

Footnote 28:

1 John ii. 3, 5, 29; iii. 7.

Footnote 29:

John x. 16; xvii. 20, 21.

Footnote 30:

Ephes. iv.

Footnote 31:

1 Cor. xii.

Footnote 32:

Note 1.

Footnote 33:

The Oxford Tracts, No. 80, as quoted in “Dr. Hook’s ‘Call to Union,’
answered.”

Footnote 34:

Newman on Justification.

Footnote 35:

Newman.

Footnote 36:

Note 2.

Footnote 37:

It is absurd to say that a work becomes a standard authority, because
a Book Society admits it into its Catalogue, or thinks its objects of
sufficient importance to aid in its publication. Doubtless the
Unitarian Society thought the “Improved Version” valuable as a
Scriptural aid.

Footnote 38:

Note 3.

Footnote 39:

Note 4.

Footnote 40:

See Rev. F. Ould’s Lecture, page 35.

Footnote 41:

Rom. xiv. 17.

Footnote 42:

Note 5.

Footnote 43:

Gal. ii. 17.

Footnote 44:

Note 6.

Footnote 45:

Note 7.

Footnote 46:

Note 8.

Footnote 47:

Note 9.

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THE BIBLE:

WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT.

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LECTURE II.

THE BIBLE: WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT.

BY REV. JAMES MARTINEAU.

“AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (AND WE BEHELD HIS
GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER,) FULL OF
GRACE AND TRUTH.”—_John_ i. 14.

The Bible is the great autobiography of human nature, from its infancy to its perfection. Whatever man has seen and felt and done on the theatre of this earth, is expressed therein with the simplicity and vividness of personal consciousness. The first wondering impressions of the new-created being, just dropt upon a scene quite strange;—the hardened heart and daring crimes of the long-resident here, forgetting that he dwells in a hospice of the Lord, and not a property of his own;—the recalled and penitent spirit, awakened by the voice of Christ, when, to a world grown old and dead in custom, he brought back the living presence of God, and to the first reverence added the maturest love;—all this is recorded there, written down in the happiest moments of inspiration which have fallen upon our race during the lapse of sixteen centuries. The volume stations us on a spot, well selected as a watch-tower, from which we may overlook the history of the world;—an angle of coast between the ancient continents of Africa and Asia, subtended by the newer line of European civilization. Thence have we a neighbouring view of every form of human life, and every variety of human character. The solitary shepherd on the slopes of Chaldæa, watching the changing heavens till he worships them; the patriarch pitching his tent in the nearer plain of Mamre; the Arab, half merchant, half marauder, hurrying his fleet dromedaries across the sunny desert; the Phœnician commerce gladdening the Levant with its sails, or, on its way from India, spreading its wares in the streets of Jerusalem; the urban magnificence of Babylonia, and the sacerdotal grandeur of Egypt; all are spread beneath our eye, in colours vivid, but with passage swift. Even the echo of Grecian revolutions, and the tramp of Roman armies, and the incipient rush of Eastern nations, that will overwhelm them both, may be distinctly heard; brief agents, every one, on this stage of Providence, beckoned forward by the finger of Omnipotence, and waved off again by the signals of mercy ever new.

The interest of this wide and various scriptural scene, gradually gathers itself in towards a single point. There is One who stands at the place where its converging lines all meet; and we are led over the expanse of world-history, that we may rest at length beneath the eye of the Prophet of Nazareth. He is the central object, around whom all the ages and events of the Bible are but an outlying circumference; and when they have brought us to this place of repose, to return upon them again would be an idle wandering. They are all preliminaries, that accomplish their end in leading us hither.—“The law,” aye, and the prophets too, we esteem “our schoolmasters to bring us to Christ:”[48] and though, like grateful pupils, we may look back on them with true-hearted respect, and even think their labours not thrown away on such as may still be children in the Lord, we have no idea of acknowledging any more the authority of the task, the threat, the rod. To sit at the feet of Jesus we take to be the only proper position for the true disciple; to listen to his voice “the one thing needful;” and however much others, notwithstanding that he is come, may make themselves “anxious and troubled about many things” besides, and fret themselves still about the preparations for his entertainment, we choose to quit all else, and keep close to him, as that better “part, which shall not be taken from” us. Whatever holy influences of the Divine Word may be found in the old Scriptures, are all collected into one at length; “the Word hath been made Flesh,” and in a living form hath “dwelt among us;” and from its fulness of “grace and truth” we will not be torn away.

If the ultimate ends of Scripture are attained in Christ, that portion of the Bible which makes us most intimate with him, must be of paramount interest. Compelled then as I am, by my limits, to narrow our inquiry into the proper treatment of Scripture, I take up the New Testament exclusively, and especially the Gospels, for examination and comment to-night.

Suppose then that these books are put into our hands for the first time;—disinterred, if you please, from a chamber in Pompeii;—without title, name, date, or other external description; and that with unembarrassed mind and fresh heart, we go apart with these treasures to examine them.

It is not long before their extraordinary character becomes evident. All minds are known by their works,—the human quite as distinctly as the Divine: and if “the invisible things of God” “are clearly seen” “by the things that are made,” and on the material structures of the universe the moral attributes of his nature may be discerned,—with much greater certainty do the secret qualities of a man’s soul,—his honesty or cunning, his truthfulness or fraud,—impress themselves on his speech and writings. To a clear eye his moral nature will unerringly betray itself, even in a disquisition; more, in a fiction; more still, in a history; and most of all, in a biography of a personal companion and teacher, drawing forth in turns his friendship and grief, his pity and terror, his love and doubt and trust, his feelings to country, to duty, to God, to heaven. Accordingly in these Gospels, and in the Journal of travels and Collection of letters, which carry out and illustrate the development of a new religion, I find myself in the presence of honest and earnest men, who are plainly strangers to fiction and philosophy, and lead me through realities fairer and diviner than either. They take me to actual places, and tell the events of a known and definite time. They conduct me through villages, and streets, and markets; to frequented resorts of worship, and hostile halls of justice, and the tribunals of Roman rulers, and the theatres of Asiatic cities, and the concourse of Mars’ hill at Athens: so that there is no denying their appeal, these things were “not done in a corner.”[49] Yet their frank delineation of public life is less impressive, than their true and tender touches of private history. Following in the steps of the world’s domestic prophet, they entered, evening and morning, the homes of men,—especially of men in watching and in grief, the wasted in body or the sick in soul: and the unconsciousness with which the most genuine traits of nature gleam through the narrative, the infantile simplicity with which every one’s emotions, of sorrow, of repentance, of affection, give themselves to utterance, indicate that, with One who bare the key of hearts, the writers had been into the deep places of our humanity. The infants in his arms look up in the face of Jesus as we read; the Pharisee mutters in our ear his sceptic discontent at that loving “woman who was a sinner” kneeling at the Teacher’s feet; and the voice of the bereaved sisters of Lazarus trembles upon the page.

But, above all, these writings introduce me to a Being so unimaginable, except by the great Inventor of beauty and Architect of nature himself, that I embrace him at once, as having all the reality of man and the divinest inspiration of God. Gentle and unconstrained as he is, ever standing, even on the brink of the most stupendous miracles, in the easiest attitudes of our humanity, so that we are drawn to him as to one of like nature, we yet cannot enter his presence without feeling our souls transformed. Their greatness, first recognized by him, becomes manifest to ourselves: the death of conscience is broken by his tones; the sense of accountability takes life within the deep; new thoughts of duty, shed from his lips, shame us for the past, and kindle us for the future with hope and faith unknown before. His promise[50] fulfils itself, whilst he utters it; and whenever we truly love him, God comes, and “makes his abode with” us. He has this peculiarity: that he plunges us into the feeling, that God acts not _there_, but _here_; not _was once_, but _is now_; dwells, not _without us_, like a dreadful sentinel, but _within us_ as a heavenly spirit, befriending us in weakness, and bracing us for conflict. The inspiration of Christ is not any solitary, barren, incommunicable prodigy; but diffusive, creative, vivifying as the energy of God:—not gathered up and concentrated in himself, as an object of distant wonder; but reproducing itself, though in fainter forms, in the faithful hearts to which it spreads. While in him it had no human origin, but was spontaneous and primitive, flowing directly from the perception and affinity of God, it enters our souls as a gift from his nearer spirit, making us one with him, as he is one with the Eternal Father. Children of God indeed we all are: nor is there any mind without his image: but in this Man of Sorrows the divine lineaments are so distinct, the filial resemblance to the Parent-spirit is so full of grace and truth, that in its presence all other similitude fades away, and we behold his “glory as of the _only_ begotten of the Father.” It is the very spirit of Deity visible on the scale of humanity. The colours of his mind, projected on the surface of Infinitude, form there the all-perfect God. The mere fact of his consciousness of the alliance with the Creator, and his tranquil announcement of it, without the slightest inflation, and amid the exercise of the meekest sympathies, appears to me all-persuasive. From whom else could we hear such claims without disgust? In a moment they would turn respect into aversion, and we should pity them as insanity, or resent them as impiety. But to him they seem only level and natural; we hear them with assent and awe, prepared by such a transcendent veneration as only a being truly God-like could excite. This is one of those statements which refutes or proves itself. Whoever, calmly affirming himself the Son and express similitude of God, can thereby draw to him, instead of driving from him, the affections of the wise and good, proclaims a thing self-evident; requiring, however, to be stated, in order to be tested.

Of such _self-evidence_ as this, the gospels appear to me to be full. Whenever men shall learn to prefer a religious to a theological appreciation of Christ, and esteem his mind greater than his rank, much more of this kind of internal proof will present itself. It has the advantage of requiring no impracticable learning, and being open, on internal study of the books, to all men of pure mind and genuine heart; it is moral, not literary; addressing itself to the intuitions of conscience, not to the critical faculties. It makes us disciples, on the same principles with the first followers of Christ, who troubled themselves about no books, and forged no chains of scholastic logic to tie them to the faith; but watched the Prophet, beheld his deeds of power, felt his heavenly spirit, heard his word, found it glad tidings, and believed. In short, it is identical with the evidence to which our Lord was so fond of appealing when he said, “No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him;”[51] “every one that is of the truth heareth my voice;”[52] “if I do not the works of my Father, believe me not;”[53] “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;”[54] “if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”[55] This spiritual attraction to Christ, arising out of mere contemplation and study of the interior of his life, is enough to bring us reverently to his feet,—to accept him as the divinely-sent image of Deity, and the appointed representative of God. If this be not discipleship, allow me to ask, “_What is it?_”

I consider, then, _this internal or self-evidence_ of the New Testament, as incomparably the most powerful that can be adduced; as securing for Christianity an eternal seat in human nature, so as to throw ridicule on the idea of its subversion; and as the only evidence suitable, from its universality, to a religion intended for the majority of men, rather than for an oligarchy of literati.