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THE

ESSENTIAL FAITH

OF

THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH;

DEDUCED FROM

THE SACRED RECORDS.

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

'Nulli praeclusa religio est; omnibus patet, omnes admittit, omnes
invitat; non elegit domum nec censum; nudo homine contenta est.'

BOSTON,
LEONARD C. BOWLES.
1833.

_Minot Pratt,----Printer._




ADVERTISEMENT.


In March 1830 the Committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian
Association offered 'a premium for three tracts, to be approved by them,
the object of which should be the introduction and promotion of
Christian Unitarianism among the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and the
Mahommedans respectively.' Each of the Essays was to be sent to the
Committee with the name of the writer in a sealed note, which would be
opened only after the decision in favor of the successful candidate.
Miss Martineau obtained the three prizes. The celebrity which she has
acquired in this country by those of her works which have been reprinted
here has induced the belief that these Essays would be read with
interest, although if they had come from an unknown author the nature of
the subjects might prevent their general circulation. The ability, the
tact, and the fine spirit which they display must increase the
admiration of Miss Martineau's talents which already prevails among us.
For grasp and vigor of thought, for a rich and felicitous style of
expression, and for general power of argument, without the slightest
mixture of asperity or unfairness, they will bear comparison with almost
any writings of the same class. The author has judiciously adopted a
different method of treating each subject, and may therefore expect that
opinions will be various about the comparative merits of the three
Essays, according to the intellectual habits or tastes of readers. But
no one can fail to pronounce them all remarkable productions.

The Essay addressed to the Catholics was first published. It is
therefore now first reprinted, and will be followed immediately by those
written for the Jews and the Mahommedans.

E. S. G.

BOSTON, May 1st, 1833.




PRELIMINARY ADDRESS.


As Christians addressing Christians, we, whose faith is called
Unitarianism, invite you, our Roman Catholic brethren, to join with us
in investigating the origin and true nature of that Gospel which we
agree in believing worthy of the deepest study, the most unremitting
interest, and the highest regard. We agree in believing every Christian
to be bound to promote the welfare of his race to the utmost of his
ability; and that that welfare is best promoted by the extensive spread
and firm establishment of Divine truth. We agree in believing that all
other gifts which the Father of men has showered on human kind are
insignificant in comparison with the dispensation of grace: or rather,
that their value is unrecognised till interpreted by it. We alike feel
that the material frame of the universe, fair as it is, is but as a
silent picture till a living beauty is breathed into it, and a divine
harmony evolved from it by its being made the exponent of God's purposes
of grace. We alike feel that the round of life is dull and tame, and its
vicissitudes wearisome and irritating, till it becomes clear that they
are preparative to a higher state. We alike feel that worldly pursuits,
and even intellectual employments, are objectless and uninteresting,
till they can be referred to purposes whose complete fulfilment must
take place beyond the grave. We alike feel how pervading, how perpetual
is the influence of Gospel principles in ennobling every incident, in
hallowing every vicissitude of life; in equalizing human emotions; in
animating the sympathies, in vivifying the enjoyments, and blunting the
sorrows, of all who adopt those principles in full conviction of the
understanding, and in perfect sincerity of heart. We agree in feeling
how the whole aspect of existence changes, as the power and beauty of
the Gospel become more influential;--as we learn where to deposit our
cares, where to fix our hope, what to prize as a real possession, and
what to regard as but loss in comparison of our inestimable gain. We
feel in common how endurance may become a privilege, and earthly
humiliation our highest honor, when sustained in the spirit, and
incurred for the sake, of the Gospel. Feeling thus alike respecting the
value of a common possession, desiring in common that all our race
should be partakers of it, making it the most earnest of our prayers
that we may receive it in its purity and employ it righteously, why
should we not help one another to apprehend it and hold it firmly? We
know, from the records of history, how the adherents of your faith have
so prized it as to sacrifice all things for it; how Catholic confessors
have borne long and painful testimony, and how Catholic martyrs have
triumphantly sustained the last proof of the strength of their
convictions. We can refer you to similar examples among those who
believed as we believe; and neither you nor we can doubt, that should
occasions of self-sacrifice again arise, every true Christian in your
body and in ours would show once more what the Gospel can do in
divesting the world of its allurements and death of its terrors. Why
then should we not congratulate each other on our common hope? Having
laid hold on the same anchor of the soul, why should we not rejoice in
each other's strength? And, differing as we do in the mode of holding a
common privilege, why should we not reason together to ascertain where
the difference lies, whence it arose, and by what means it may be
obviated? Though you and we may not regard variations in Christian faith
with an equal degree of regret and dread, we yield not to you or to any
on earth in our appreciation of the value of truth, and in our desire
that it may become the common possession of our race. Therefore it is
that we now propose to you an investigation into its principles; and
therefore it is that we seek the removal of all impediments to our
joining in hand as we already do in heart, in bringing those who are
astray to the fold of the true Shepherd.

The same means of ascertaining Divine truth are in your hands and in
ours, if, as your best writers declare and as we believe, you have free
access to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Our versions of
those Scriptures are, it is true, not exactly alike. It appears to us
that yours are, in various minor, and in some considerable points, less
correct than our own: but fair investigation will settle this
difference as well as others; and if not, such variations constitute no
insurmountable hindrance. The essential truth of the Gospel is not
involved in any or all of those modes of expression in which our
respective versions of the Scriptures differ. The difficulties which are
thus originated are of very inferior moment to those by which our
separation is perpetuated, and which depend on our application of the
spirit rather than our interpretation of the letter of the sacred
records. When we can as perfectly agree in our opinions concerning the
person of Christ, as we do in our veneration and gratitude for his
holiness and love; when we shall mutually rejoice in the universality as
well as in the blessedness of the salvation he brought, we shall not
dispute respecting the letter of some of his instructions, or long
lament the difficulty of reconciling some apparent discrepancies. If, as
you declare, the Scriptures are in common use among you, they must be
allowed to be the rule of your faith as well as of your practice; they
must be intended for your instruction as well as your confirmation; they
must supply subjects of thought as well as of feeling. Do us the justice
then, thus to use them as often as you hear us appeal to them. Compare
our interpretation of the Gospel with the records themselves. Compare
our deductions from facts with the original statement of those facts,
and with all which throws light on them from the history, the
discourses, the epistles which follow. To whatever common ground there
is between us, let us repair; and since that common ground is the very
spot where the living waters first sprang up, there can be no doubt but
that a patient search will bring vital refreshment to us all.

We know, brethren, that our mode of belief appears to you under the
greatest possible disadvantage, as being, even more than Protestant
religion generally, divested of the claims and graces of antiquity. You
regard our sect as newly formed from the dispersed elements of other
sects which have melted away. You find no mention of our heresy in the
records of the middle ages, or only such hints of the doctrines now held
by Unitarians as might serve as suggestions of our present opinions: and
you therefore naturally conclude that the parts of our faith to which
you object are but of yesterday, and consequently the impious inventions
of men. If it were so, our present address would indeed be indefensible;
our challenge to investigation would be an insult; our appeal to the
Scriptures would be blasphemy. But to shake your conviction of this
assumed fact, to convince you if possible that the reverse is the fact,
is the object of the exposition of our opinions which we now present to
you, and of every effort to explain and defend our faith. It is because
we believe our religion to be primitive Christianity that we are
attached to it as other Christians are to theirs. It is because we feel
that we can carry back our opinions to a remoter antiquity than other
Churches, that we prefer them; and though they were completely hidden
under the unauthorized institutions of the middle ages, we find no
difficulty in establishing their identity with those which were diffused
by the messengers and under the sanction of God. He who sees a stream
gushing forth from the cave, and can trace it back no further than the
darkness whence it issues, may reasonably conclude that he stands near
its source; but there may be a wayfarer who by observation and
experience knows and can attest that this is no subsidiary spring, but
the reappearance of a hidden stream, whose source is hallowed and whose
current is inexhaustible. We only ask you to listen to our evidence of
this, and to admit it or not, as you shall be afterwards disposed.

We agree with you in your reverence for antiquity in respect of the
faith; and desire nothing more than that by their comparative claims to
antiquity our respective religions should be judged. We feel that grace
as well as authority is conferred by every evidence of long duration. We
can enter into your reverence for your doctrines, because they were held
by Saints in cloisters which have crumbled to dust, by heroes and
anchorites whose arms were the relics of centuries gone by, or whose
rocky abodes have retained their sanctity for a thousand years. We can
understand your emotions on receiving sacraments or witnessing
ceremonies which fostered the devotion of the saintly and the heroic of
the olden time, and which filled the Christian temples abroad with music
and fragrance, while in our land the smoke of Druidical sacrifices was
ascending offensively to Heaven. But we thus sympathise because we too
refer our worship to ancient days. Our hearts also thrill under the
impulses which are propagated from afar. We also delight in spiritual
exercises, because they are sanctified by long-tried efficacy; and
enjoy our devotion more, because the same hopes exhilarated, the same
trust supported our spiritual kindred of the remotest Christian
antiquity. In our Churches we believe we feel the spirit of brotherhood
which first gave to the believers one heart and one soul. In the silence
of our chambers, or amidst the solitudes of nature, we are open to the
same incentives to prayer and praise which visited Peter on the
house-top, and Paul amidst the perils of the sea. When intent upon the
words of life, we, like the Apostle, are impelled to exclaim, 'O! the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' And were
the times of persecution to recur, we doubt not but that, at the very
stake, the consciousness of fellowship with the holy Stephen would add
vigor to our courage and splendor to our hopes. We refuse to perpetuate
the imposing ritual of the early ages because it is not antique enough:
but whenever we behold two or three gathered together to worship with
the heart and voice alone; when we see men assembling on the first day
of the week to break bread in remembrance of Christ, in the simplicity
of the primitive ordinance; when we see teachers, in all external things
like their brethren, gathering wisdom from the fowls of the air and the
lilies of the field,--we could almost forget the lapse of ages in
sympathy with those from whom they separate us.

Such a sympathy, if originated here, will be perfected hereafter; for it
is too purely spiritual to be dissolved by death. It will then be also
extended to all in whom the spirit of the Gospel is a vivifying
principle; as it would be here, if we could throw off our prejudices and
see each other as we are. If it is to be, why should it not already be?
With the Gospel before us, with some portion of its light beaming on
each of us, some measure of its kindly warmth glowing within us, why
should we turn away coldly and silently from communion respecting our
best treasure?

If either body believe their brethren in error, is it right to leave
them so without an effort to reclaim them? If both believe the truth
destined to prevail, is it not incumbent on them to assist that
prevalence? We believe it is; and therefore we address you; mingling
with our entreaties for your co-operation in the development of Divine
truth earnest prayers that the Father will abundantly administer to all
the resources of that intellectual power and Christian love which
constitute a sound mind.




THE ESSENTIAL FAITH OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH.


The primitive Christian Church, gathered together in Jerusalem by the
command of Christ, and sanctified by the descent of the Holy Spirit,
consisted exclusively of Jews. The three thousand who were baptized on
that memorable occasion, the numbers which were daily added to the
Church, the multitude who were converted to Christianity during the next
fifteen years, were all Jews. In some cases, the process of conversion
was probably gradual; but in many, we know it was sudden, being caused
by the immediate and irresistible evidence of miracles. The change of
conviction which it was necessary to work in converting a Jew, was of a
nature which could be effected speedily and completely by the display
of one miraculous testimony. It was not a change in all, or any of his
views of Deity and Providence. He was not required to relinquish a
single article of religious belief which he had previously held under a
divine sanction. The fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion,--the
strict Unity of Jehovah,--he was authorized to retain. He was confirmed
in his dependence on all that the Prophets had spoken, in his
conceptions of the Divine attributes, and in his trust in Divine
Providence. The only question on which depended his adhering to the Old,
or embracing the New Dispensation, was, whether Jesus of Nazareth was or
was not the promised Messiah. As the Jews were bound by the requisitions
of their own law (Deut. xviii. 19) to receive implicitly whatever should
be taught in God's name by a divinely authorized prophet, their
reception of the doctrines of Christianity was a sure consequence of
their acknowledgement of the Messiah; and that their acknowledgement of
Jesus in that character was the only thing essential to make them
Christians we have consistent and abundant evidence in the whole
Scripture history. In the preaching of the Apostles to the people of
their own nation, we find no intimations of any needful change in their
conceptions of God, and of his mode of government. On the contrary, it
was because the Jews were already prepared for their reception of
Christianity by their belief in the Unity of God and the consistency of
his moral government, that they were the most immediately and the most
easily incorporated with the Christian church. For proof of this, we
refer to the whole of the discourse delivered by the Apostle Peter on
the day of Pentecost, and to every other discourse addressed by the
Apostles to Jewish hearers.

The first Gentiles who were converted to Christianity were not
worshipers of a plurality of Gods; but men who from intercourse with
Jews, or from other opportunities of spiritual advancement, had attained
to the belief of One God, indivisible in his nature and unrivalled in
his supremacy. The same mode of teaching which sufficed for the Jews,
sufficed for them also, as far as the essential truth of Christianity
was concerned; and the same method was therefore adopted, as may be seen
in the discourse of Peter in the house of Cornelius.

The next converts were from the disciples of the Pagan theology of
Greece and Rome; with them a different method of instruction was
needed. Till they knew something of the Divine nature, it was useless to
open to them the Divine dispensations. The discourse of Paul at Athens
did not therefore begin with announcing the Saviour: if it had, his
inquisitive hearers would perhaps have inquired whether this messenger
was sent by Jupiter himself, or whether he was a deputy of some of the
inferior gods. The Apostle named not the name of Christ till he had
taught the fundamental doctrine--that Jehovah is not only supreme, but
sole; that all infinite attributes are centered in him; that all
dispensations proceed from him; not only those of nature, by which the
human race is created and preserved; but--the way being now prepared for
the annunciation--that of grace, by which the world is to be redeemed
through him whom God had ordained to be a Prince and a Saviour.

The heathen converts of the latter class had much more to learn, before
they could become confirmed Christians, than their more enlightened
brethren who had been prepared by intercourse with Jews. They were
equally ready in admitting the evidence of miracles, but not equally
clear as to the object for which those miracles were wrought. When Paul
and Barnabas restored the <DW36> at Lystra, the priests and people
could scarcely be restrained from offering sacrifice to them as gods,
even after the Apostles had explained to them the true nature of Deity.
Yet the true religion, being patiently and faithfully taught, was, at
length, fully understood and received; and the three classes of
converts, Jews, proselytes, and pagans, were made one in Christ;
holding, in undisturbed harmony of conviction, the essential doctrines
of the strict Unity of Jehovah, the divine authority of Jesus Christ,
and consequently, the divine origin of the Gospel he brought.

This unity of the faith seems to have been first broken in upon by the
introduction of a fourth class of converts, who, by incorporating their
former philosophical doctrines with the new theology they had embraced,
originated the first heresy. There had been disputes, it is true, in the
church; but not concerning matters of faith. In these disputes the
Apostles themselves had been not only involved, but actually opposed to
each other. These questions related to the fancied necessity of the
adoption by the Gentiles of the forms of the Jewish law: questions of
great importance to the Jews, as affecting their views of the ultimate
design of Christianity; to the Gentiles, as involving their spiritual
liberties; and to us and the Christian world at large, as throwing light
on the transactions of the primitive times, and as having originated
some of the Epistles of Paul.

But they bore no relation to the essential doctrines, which were held
free from corruption, controversy, or even doubt, till some converts
from the philosophical sect of the Gnostics introduced, within twenty
years after the death of Christ, the first taint of that corruption from
which the true faith has never since been freed.

The fundamental doctrine of the Gnostic philosophy was, that all mind is
ultimately derived from the Supreme mind; that the souls of all men have
therefore pre-existed; that there is a higher order of spirits, more
immediately emanating from the Supreme; that these superior
intelligences descend occasionally to inhabit the bodies of men, or to
assume their apparent form. This doctrine, to which they were much
attached, the Gnostic converts easily contrived to connect with their
new theology, believing Jesus to be one of these superior intelligences
in a visible form, or that the man Jesus was animated by such a spirit,
who was in reality the Christ. Against this corruption of the simplicity
of the faith the Apostle John protested in his First and Second
Epistles, in which he followed the example of Peter, Paul, and Jude.
That the Gnostics were the persons he had in view, is evident from the
fact that no other schismatics at that period troubled the peace of the
church, and also from his own application of his censure to such as
'confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.' (2 John 7.) The
'fables and endless genealogies' which Paul reprobates (1 Tim. i. 4.)
had the same origin; and the practices to which they led, of 'forbidding
to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats,' are condemned by him as
the work of 'seducing spirits.' Of the same class were the 'false
teachers,' accused by Peter of bringing in fatal heresies, 'by reason of
whom the ways of truth shall be evil spoken of.' All the opinions and
practices denounced by Jude, were either publicly maintained by the
Gnostics, or generally ascribed to them.

In order to disprove the truth of this representation, it will be
necessary to show who besides the Gnostics denied that the man Jesus
was the true Christ; who besides the Gnostics propounded fables,
originated schisms, and were addicted to superstitious practices, at the
times in which the Apostles wrote. This, we conceive, cannot be done.

That the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ must have been new and
strange to the faithful teachers of the church we know, not only from
their own intimation that it was so, but from the positive proof which
the Scriptures afford of the absence of all preparation for it. The
preaching of John the Baptist, and the conduct and discourses of Jesus
were such as to give his disciples the idea of his being truly and
entirely man; divine indeed in his derived power and spiritual
perfection, but human in his nature. His disciples accordingly testified
in their words and actions that they had no thought of his being any
thing else. They received him as their Messiah; but in all besides they
remained Jews, ascribing to God alone all divine attributes, worshiping
him alone, and paying honor to Jesus only as his most exalted messenger.
If they had been required to regard him as God, the history of their
conversion would have been widely different from what it is. A doctrine
to them so new and wonderful, would have engrossed their minds, would
have banished familiarity from their intercourse with the Saviour, would
have pervaded their preachings and writings; and, instead of being
wholly omitted in their addresses to their converts, would have been
made, as in modern creeds, a primary and essential article of belief.
Not till the introduction of oriental superstitions into the church,
however, do we find unquestionable evidence that such a doctrine had
been conceived by any individual mind; and then the information is
conveyed in the form of decided censure of the doctrine on the part of
the promulgators and guardians of the new faith. Even after this heresy
was introduced, we find no traces of it in the works of the Apostolical
Fathers, till nearly a century and a half from the birth of
Christ,--except in a very few writings, so uncertain in their date, so
wild and allegorical in their composition, and so evidently and
extensively interpolated, as to be of little or no authority. We refer
to the works commonly ascribed to Barnabus, Hermas, and Ignatius. The
only genuine epistle of Clemens Romanus which has come down to us,
neither advocates, countenances, nor alludes to any such doctrine.

Even the philosophizing Christians of the first century, against whom
the Apostles wrote, went no further than to suppose the Christ to be a
superior intelligence, inhabiting a mortal form, or assuming the
appearance of one: Cerinthus maintaining that Jesus was a man born of
Joseph and Mary, and that at his baptism the Christ descended upon him;
while Marcion held that the Son of God took the exterior form of a man,
and appeared as a man; and without being born, or gradually growing up
to the full stature of a man, he showed himself at once in Galilee as a
man grown. It was not till Justin Martyr, himself a philosopher, wrote
an apology for Christianity to a philosophical Roman emperor (A. D.
140), that any distinct mention appears to have been made of the
doctrine of the Divinity of Christ. It is not surprising that--feeling
how great a reproach the death of the cross must be in the eyes of the
potentate whom he wished to conciliate, and finding his mode of
exposition prepared by the Gnostic Christians, and by the application
made by the learned Philo of the Platonic doctrine of the
Logos,--Justin Martyr should have been tempted to recommend his new
theology by introducing an admixture of that philosophy which has
proved, according to the warnings of the Apostle, a 'vain deceit.' Such
we have no hesitation in calling it. A doctrine of this nature cannot be
in part true, but liable to mistake: it must be absolutely true or
absolutely false. We hold it to be the latter; because it was not made a
subject of distinct revelation by Christ, a primary article of belief by
the Apostles, or even a matter of distinct mention for a century and a
half from the birth of Christ.

All that, from the study of the records of Revelation, we hold to be the
primary and essential doctrines of Christianity, stand forth
conspicuously in the teachings, are confirmed by the deeds, and
illustrated in the lives of the Saviour and his followers. We propose to
bring them forward, with their evidence, in the following order.

I. The strict Unity of God.

II. The unlimited nature of the Redemption by Christ.

III. The existence of a Future State.

From these, various subordinate principles may be derived, some of the
most important of which we shall afterwards specify; and then proceed
to treat of the temporary sanctions and institutions of Christianity, in
distinction from its permanent principles.

It cannot be necessary for Christians, when addressing Christians, to
enter upon the evidence for the divine authority under which the Saviour
offered his Gospel, or for the consequent divine origin of that Gospel.
The name adopted by both parties is a sufficient testimony to the unity
of their faith thus far. Concerning the nature of Christ, we have
already declared that, in accordance with what we believe to have been
the faith of the primitive ages, we regard the Saviour as human in his
nature, but superhuman in his powers, and divinely appointed and
sanctioned in his office. The title 'Son of God' is peculiarly and
indefeasibly his own; for to no other being, as far as our knowledge
extends, has so immeasurable a portion of authority, of power, of grace
and truth, been vouchsafed; in no other has dwelt 'all the fulness of
the Godhead bodily.' The homage of reverence cannot be too fully and
freely rendered to him who was with God in His manifest presence; who
was one with Him in his purposes of eternal salvation to the human
race; who was the exponent of those purposes, and the means of that
salvation. The homage of love cannot be too fully and freely rendered to
him who suffered for our transgressions, and died for our justification;
who loved us with more than earthly love; who suffered in his compassion
for the sins and sorrows of men, as well as in the inflictions he
sustained for their sakes; and who, though wounded in spirit and
tortured in body, made use of the rule, authority, and power with which
he was invested, not for his own relief, but for our deliverance. To him
who brought us salvation, it is little to offer deep gratitude and
unbounded love. The homage of obedience cannot be too fully and freely
rendered to him who was wise with the wisdom of God, pure in heart,
sinless in his life, and sanctified by grace from the beginning. Even if
we did not know that obedience to Christ is the way to life eternal,
that obedience would be due to his divine claims: but knowing this, it
should be steadfast as our faith, cheerful as our hope, and boundless as
our love. Such was the obedience, such were the reverence and love of
the holy Apostles; and we desire to participate in them as fully as we
join, with heart and mind, in all that they have said concerning him.
They bow before his celestial authority,--so do we. They venerate his
perfect holiness,--so do we. They bless his love, testified in his
sufferings, sealed by his death, and glorified by his resurrection,--so
do we. They strove to be obedient in all things,--and we acknowledge the
obligation incumbent on us to be so likewise; and that we may be so, we
diligently inquire what were the doctrines which he confirmed and
revealed.

The great fundamental doctrine of the strict Unity of Jehovah was
abundantly confirmed by the Gospel. It had been long held in its purity
by the Jews, and was apprehended by a few, a very few, enlightened
heathens. It is called an essential doctrine of Christianity,--not
because it was originated by Christianity, but because it was thus first
introduced to the world at large, and because no other doctrine could
stand without it. It has accordingly been acknowledged in words by all
who have taken on themselves the name of Christ, while in its substance
it has been held pure by very few, we apprehend, since the apostolic
age. By the Unity of God we understand not a unity of substance
connected with a variety of persons, or a unity of persons accompanied
with a division of attributes; but a concentration of the attributes of
Deity in one eternal, indivisible substance. This, our fundamental
religious belief, is derived both from reason and from Scripture, and is
confirmed equally by both.

If we examine our own minds, we find that our first notions of a God are
low and earthly. We conceive of Him as of an earthly parent, watching
over our sleep with bodily eyes, furnishing our food with a bodily hand,
and following us from place to place with a material presence. As
infancy passes away, our conceptions become less gross. We think of Him
as omnipresent and invisible; but, deriving our notions from our
experience, we conceive of him as subject to emotions and passions. We
believe in the real existence--if not of his smiles and frowns--of his
joy, sorrow and anger, pleasure and pain. We can then imagine his
knowing and remembering all that has ever taken place, but can scarcely
conceive of his unlimited presence. Our childish obedience is then
yielded as to our parents,--partly through fear, partly through a desire
of approbation, and partly with the hope of of giving pleasure. All the
qualities or attributes which we ascribe to God have their origin and
counterparts in our parents, or those who supply their place to us: and
in no other way can the conception of Deity be originated. No mind can
arrive at the recognition of a general principle, but through an
observation of its particular applications; nor can a conception be
formed, otherwise than by the gradual reception of its elements; or
enlarged, but by adding to their number. From the watchfulness of its
parent in satisfying its wants and defending it from injury, the child
forms its first notion of Providence; and from the visitings of parental
approbation and displeasure, of a moral governor. When the presence of
Deity is thus recognised, some more abstract qualities are by degrees
attributed to him. Instances of the strength, foresight, and knowledge
of the parent are daily witnessed; and these, somewhat magnified, are
transferred to Deity;--and the moral attributes have the same origin.
Steadiness in awarding recompence, tenderness in inflicting punishment,
or readiness in remitting it on repentance, gradually communicate the
abstract ideas of justice, compassion, and mercy. Our first low notions
of holiness are formed by putting together all the best qualities we
have observed in the persons around us, and supposing them to be
unimpaired by the faults we are conscious of in ourselves. All these
attributes are ascribed to one Being; and the conception, already more
exalted than any we have formed of any other individual being, is
further improved by the richer elements of a more extended experience.
The imagination becoming stronger as the materials supplied to its
activity become more abundant, the conception of Deity perpetually grows
in grandeur and beauty, till it absorbs the intellect of a Newton and
engrosses the affections of a Fenelon. Still, this notion of a Being
whom we know and feel to be infinite, is formed from the results of our
finite experience; and the conception, however improved in degree, is
unchanged in kind. Let it be magnified to the utmost extent, it is still
only magnified, not metamorphosed. As there is a strict analogy between
the moral attributes of God and of men, there is also a strict analogy
between their natural modes of being. Justice in God is the same quality
as justice in men, however perfected and enlarged; and Unity in God is
the same as individuality in men, though ascribed to an almighty and
omnipresent Being.

A perpetual and perfect concentration of attributes is essential to our
notion of one God. We can conceive of his manifesting one attribute in
an especial manner on one occasion, and another on another; we can
imagine him conferring power analogous to his own on an inferior being;
but we cannot conceive of his laying aside, of his depriving himself of
any of the attributes of his nature, or of delegating his power,--if by
such delegation be implied any diminution or inactivity of it in
Himself. It is conceivable that he might employ some superior
intelligence in creating the material world (though we have no authority
to suppose that he did so;) but it is not conceivable that the work was
not, at the same time, wholly his own. It is conceivable that he might
send--it is certain that he did send--a being divinely furnished for the
work, to institute a dispensation of grace, and to offer pardon and
peace to sinful men. But it is not conceivable that the divine attribute
of mercy could previously, or subsequently, or ever, be laid aside, or
transferred, or suspended; that his unalterable purposes could be
changed, his compassion roused, his sympathies moved by any act of any
being, human or angelic. To suppose so, is supposing his purposes
mutable, and his compassion dormant; that is, divesting him of Deity. We
can, in accordance with our conception of Deity, understand how the
dispensation of grace may be committed, as it was committed, to a finite
being. But to suppose it the indefeasible prerogative of any eternal
Being but God, is clearly to suppose two Gods: and if the office of
sanctification be appropriated in a similar manner, we must suppose
three Gods. However long and deeply we may reflect and strive to
reconcile contradictions, we shall find at length that it is essential
to our belief in One God, that we ascribe creation, redemption and
sanctification, ultimately wholly to Him 'of whom, and through whom, and
to whom are all things.'

This unalterable decision of the reason is confirmed in every possible
way by revelation. It is needless to adduce proof from the Scriptures of
the Old Testament, as it is universally known that the Jews held, as the
fundamental doctrine of their religion, the strict Unity of Jehovah, in
nature, person, and attributes. There is not the slightest intimation,
in the records of the new dispensation, that any change took place in
the opinions of the Apostles, or of any other Jewish converts,
respecting the nature or person of God. They speak and write of Him as
One, ordaining the salvation of the world through Christ, and Himself
sanctifying those who were appointed to assist in the work. Jesus ever
spoke of himself as the servant of the Most High, deriving his purposes
and his powers from on high, and ascribing his achievements to the grace
manifested thence: 'I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught
me I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath
not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.' (John
viii. 28, 29.) 'My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine (whether it be of
God, or whether I speak of myself.' John vii. 16, 17.) Again, in
intimating the share which should be apportioned to his disciples in
publishing the new dispensation, he says, 'Ye are they who have
continued with me in my trials. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my
Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in
my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'
(Luke xxii. 28, 29, 30.) It is not conceivable that, anxious as he ever
was to attract the attention of men to the nature of his mission, and to
magnify the importance of the new covenant, he should have concealed the
most wonderful and important circumstance belonging to it, and have not
only left men in ignorance of his highest claims to their homage and
obedience, but have led them into it. That even his immediate followers
and the primitive Church had no suspicion of the Christ being more than
the most exalted of God's messengers, we have already declared our
conviction; a conviction which is confirmed by every page of their
writings. Paul was careful to declare 'the whole counsel of God.' Yet in
the passage of his writings in which, above all others he exalts the
Saviour, he tells how, for the meekness with which he bore the honors
which constituted in him a resemblance to God, for the humility with
which he took on him the office of a servant, and the compassion which
caused his submission to the death of the cross,--he was yet more
exalted by God, and favored with that name which is above every name,
through which every man is privileged to worship, and every tongue
permitted to offer praise, confessing 'that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God the Father.' (Phil. ii. 5--11.) Peter, in the discourse by
which three thousand persons were converted to Christianity, spoke of
Jesus of Nazareth as 'a man approved of God by miracles, and wonders,
and signs, which God did by him;' and as being made Lord and Christ,
raised from death and exalted to heaven by God. John repeats, in every
form of expression, that the love of God was especially manifested by
his sending his Son to be the Saviour of the world; and that as the Lord
manifested his love for us by laying down his life, we also should be
ready to lay down our lives for one another. Jude addresses his Epistle
to the Christians as to men 'sanctified by God the Father;' and in
almost every apostolic benediction and salutation we find the work of
sanctification as well as of grace ascribed to the Father.

But it is more satisfactory as well as easy to appeal to the whole body
of the sacred writings (which we confidently do,) than to separate
passages for proof that God the Father is the sole originator of every
work of nature and of grace; that as winds are his messengers, and
flaming fires his ministers in the world of matter,--righteous men,
prophets, apostles, and above all, Christ, the Holy One, are his agents
in the administration of the spiritual world, and the establishment of
the dispensation of grace.

Jehovah being thus sole in the possession of the attributes of Deity, is
the sole object of religious worship; for to God alone may such
adoration be innocently paid. This assertion rests not alone on the
commands delivered from above to the Israelites; though we hold the
authority of the second commandment of the Decalogue, as it stands in
Protestant Bibles, and is included in the Jewish version of the
commandments, to be equal to that of any part of the Mosaic law. 'Thou
shalt worship Jehovah thy God, and him only shalt thou serve,' is a
summary of the entire purposes and details of the first dispensation;
and the fundamental principle on which the second is based.

The prohibitions to the Jews to pray to any but Jehovah are too numerous
to be adduced, and too clear to need any further notice than a passing
reference. That the Israelites are not forbidden to seek the
intercession of departed spirits is accounted for by their ignorance at
first of a life beyond the grave, and their uncertainty respecting its
value afterwards: but that there was a total absence of all desire to
seek the intercession of a mediator in spiritual communion, is evident.
When Elisha stood by Jordan to witness the ascent of Elijah, no prayers
were wafted to heaven in the chariot of fire; no grace was sought
through the medium of the glorified prophet. When dangers compassed
round the prophet and his servant in Dothan, and a vision of heavenly
hosts was opened to them, no supplication was offered through the
radiant messengers; but Elisha offered his prayer immediately to
Jehovah. He, with all his nation, would have felt the liberty of direct
communion with God too great a privilege to be forgone, even if the
notion had occurred to them. No just fears which they could entertain
could be obviated by the employment of an intercessor; no desired
blessing could be so easily obtained as by a direct appeal to the
compassion of the Father of mercies. It would have been well if the
partakers of a fuller measure of grace had, in this respect, been
like-minded with their ancient brethren; had felt like them, that the
highest spiritual privilege is a free access to the divine presence,
the fairest spiritual promise that which declares 'If thou wilt call,
Jehovah shall answer thee. Come nigh unto me, and I will hear
thee.'--This privilege it was which Jesus himself used most abundantly;
and this promise he sanctioned by word and example, and taught his
followers to appropriate. He exhorted them to pray as he himself prayed,
in full assurance of faith, freely and immediately. On no subject were
his teachings more explicit, or his own practice and that of his
Apostles more fully ascertained. He taught them in what spirit, in what
manner, and for what objects to pray; viz. believing that what they
asked should be given, that what they sought should be found;--retiring
into recesses where none could intermeddle with the communion of the
heart; seeking whatever is needful for the body and the soul; supplies
of the means of life, pardon, grace and peace. After this manner his
followers prayed and taught others to pray. Paul mingled prayers for
forgiveness of his early misguided zeal with thanksgivings for the grace
vouchsafed to him, and ascriptions of praise to the supreme ordainer of
salvation. Peter prayed for strength to sustain persecution, and for
guidance in his mission. James directed his hearers to ask of God, if
they sought wisdom. In all their exhortations to prayer, however, there
is no intimation of a possibility that it may be offered otherwise than
immediately to Him to whom the Saviour prayed. Believing, as we are
convinced they did, that Christ was the son and servant of Him who
heareth prayer, and not authorised to usurp that holy prerogative, no
purpose could be answered by addressing supplications to him, but that
of alienating the heart of the suppliant from the prime Giver of good,
and no motive could be assigned for the act but a criminal distrust of
the divine love, or a groundless hope of evading his justice; motives
little likely to actuate apostolic minds. To prevent, however, the
supposition that such motives could have occurred, that the practice of
praying to Christ could have subsisted, we are in possession of a
declaration from Jesus himself which obviates all doubt. When about to
bid farewell to his Apostles, and to resign himself to death, he
promised them comfort from above; and from the fountain of prophetic
light within, casts gleams upon the stormy future for the guidance of
the trembling pilgrims whom he left behind. He told them that joy
should visit the world through their sorrow; and that his name, exalted
by the results of his mission and sanctified by death, should be the
seal of the rectitude of their prayers, and the pledge of their success;
while he distinctly disclaimed any part in the reception of their
prayers, any assumption of the offices of mediation or intercession. 'Ye
now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice,
and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me
nothing. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my
name, he will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name:
ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have
I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh when I shall no more
speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.
At that day ye shall ask in my name; and I say not unto you, that I will
pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye
love me, and believe that I came forth from God.' (John xvi. 22-27.)

According to these sayings, the Apostles made their requests for the
more abundant effusions of grace in the name of Christ; but, believing
that the Father himself loved them, they felt no need of other
supplication than their own, for benefits which he was more ready to
grant than they could be eager to receive. If we may judge of their
opinions by the records which remain, we should be convinced that they
regarded the Holy Spirit as a divine power only, and not a divine
person. As a power, as influence exerted by God himself, is the spirit
spoken of in all the writings of the Apostles; as when Paul expresses
the relation which the spirit bears to God to be the same as the spirit
of a man bears to man; 'What man knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no
man, but the spirit of God.' (1 Cor. ii. 11.) The mode in which the
operations of the spirit are described by them is perfectly inconsistent
with the notion of its being a separate person. Converts were said to be
_baptized_ with the spirit and _filled_ with the spirit, and they were
exhorted not to _quench_ the spirit. By the direction given to 'baptize
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,'
nothing more was understood by the primitive Christians, as we learn
from themselves, than the duty of spreading that religion which was
given by God through Jesus Christ, and comfirmed by miraculous power,
though, in comparatively modern times, it began to be used as a form
prescribed by Christ. As a form it does not appear to have been adopted
by his followers, who seem to have baptized in the name of Jesus only.
Like Christians of the present day, they believed the Holy Spirit to
have been the same by which the ancient prophets spoke; but, unlike the
modern belief, their conviction evidently was, that this spirit was the
same which moved on the face of the waters when the universe was called
up from chaos; the same which was manifested at Sinai; the same which
filled the temple of Solomon and abode in the Holy of Holies; the same
which wrought the works which Christ declared were not of himself; the
same which was and ever shall be, 'above all, through all, and in all.'
They believed the Spirit to be God himself, working in his creatures 'to
will and to do of his good pleasure.'

The peculiar endowments which were conferred on the disciples in the
apostolic age were called the gifts of the Spirit; and the thanksgivings
which were presented for them were always offered immediately to God,
from whom every good and perfect gift was known to come. When this
Spirit was spoken of as an impersonal existence, as an influence, a
power, it could not, of course, be made the object of worship any more
than the gifts it brought. When regarded as a personal existence, _i.
e._ as God, it was, of course, the object of direct worship. But, as
possessing any power of intercession, we may confidently declare it
never was appealed to, till the Christian theology had been mixed up
with the principles of the heathen philosophy. Among all the figurative
illustrations of the offices and powers of the Spirit, among all the
highly wrought personifications and bold metaphors which characterize
the Hebrew style of the apostolic writings, we find no intimation that
homage may be offered, or intercession made, through it or any existence
whatever, personal or impersonal. Even the highly figurative passage
which we meet with Romans viii. 25-28, and which is, we believe, the
chief basis on which rests the practice of false worship in the
Christian world, admits of no such interpretation as is commonly given
to it. It needs only a careful reading of the whole chapter to perceive
that 'the spirit' there spoken of is not the Holy Spirit; not the
immediate divine influence of which we hear so much; but the new life
supposed to be introduced by the Gospel, in opposition to 'the flesh' or
evil principle by which men were liable to condemnation under the old
dispensation. After declaring that the fulness of salvation must be
waited for with Christian hope, the apostle continues, 'Likewise this
spirit, also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us
with groans which cannot be expressed. But He who searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the spirit, that it intercedeth for the
saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, who are called according to his
purpose.' In the weakness of our nature, we know not what most to desire
and pray for, but the spirit of the Gospel informs and aids us;
obtaining for us benefits which we could not otherwise have enjoyed. And
the benefits thus obtained are such as the divine will designed for us;
all things thus tending to our good; the divine purposes, the aids of
the Gospel, and the circumstances amidst which that aid supports us. All
this has a very clear reference, not to any mediation of the Holy
Spirit, to which there is no allusion whatever; but to the agency of the
new dispensation in delivering men 'from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God.'--If the intercession of
Christ be needless because the Father himself loveth us, much more
needless must be the mediation of the Spirit, even were there such a
separate personal existence; and yet more needless must be the good
offices of Saints, supposing them capable of rendering such a service to
their mortal brethren.

Those who, like ourselves, derive their religious belief from the Bible
alone, can scarcely meet on the ground of argument those who profess
'most firmly to admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical
traditions,' if the subject of discussion be other than the authority of
such traditions. On this discussion we shall enter hereafter. It only
belongs to the present division of our subject to observe, that, not
admitting the authority of ecclesiastical traditions in matters of
faith, and finding in the Scriptures no intimation of homage being due
to the mother of Christ, or the holy men who glorified the Gospel in
their lives and deaths, we offer no such homage, and that the worship
and invocation of such are a direct infringement of the command, 'Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve.'

It is not difficult to trace the origin and progress of a custom which,
though founded on a natural veneration for holiness sealed by death, is
in our opinion more fatal to the purity, and inimical to the dignity of
the Gospel that any other which its professors have adopted.--It was a
custom in the early times of Christianity, to meet for worship at the
tombs of the Martyrs; not for the sake of paying homage to the departed,
but because the survivors found their devotional feelings more sensibly
excited there. Their imaginations were at the same time possessed by the
poetical fictions of the pagan philosophy, which represented the souls
of the departed as hovering round the place of interment, and conscious
of what was passing near. From this superstition arose the practice of
making offerings annually in the name of the deceased, as an
acknowledgement that they were still considered members of their
respective churches. This practice appears to have been first adopted at
the death of Polycarp, and to have speedily grown into a rite scarcely
distinguishable from the superstitions of heathenism. Tertullian
observes, 'We make oblations for the dead and for their martyrdom,
yearly, on certain days.' At this time it was the general belief that
the usual abode of the dead was in subterraneous places, or at least
'below,' somewhere near the earth, and as long as this belief subsisted,
prayers were offered _for_ the dead,--for their present repose and
joyful future resurrection. The Virgin Mary was thus prayed for. As the
Martyrs were more highly thought of, however, than other deceased
Christians, it began to be imagined, about the middle of the fourth
century, that they were, by peculiar favor, admitted earlier to the
immediate presence of God, and permitted to exert influence even over
his purposes. Then began the solicitations addressed to men doomed to
death, that they would be mindful of the survivors; and the agreements
of companions, that whichever should first depart should petition at the
foot of the heavenly throne for his mortal friend. In a few more years
arose the custom of invoking the spirits supposed to hover near the
tombs; some hesitation being implied in the expression 'if they were
indeed present, and had any influence in things below.' It was yet a
long time before prayer was offered to Saints in general, and in the
public services of the Church. That the practice, if it had been
originated, was not approved by the Fathers of the Church in the third
century, we know on the direct testimony of Origen, who says that men
are not to pray to any derived being (not even to Christ himself), but
to God the Father of all. Austin disapproved of praying _for_ the
Saints, though he believed that the Church might be helped by their
intercession; at the same time acknowledging, 'It is true the Saints do
not themselves hear what passes below, but they hear of it by others who
die and go to them.'

The time when the custom of invoking the Saints was first countenanced
by the Church may be fixed about the end of the fourth century. In the
fifth, all opposition to it had ceased, and the images of Martyrs began
to be regarded with peculiar honor; it being imagined by many that the
homage paid to the image drew down into it the propitious presence of
the celestial being whom it represented; in the same manner as the
statues of Jupiter and other pagan gods were believed by heathen
worshipers to become instinct with divine life. The temples of the
Martyrs were now, as Theodoret informs us, ornamented with little
figures, of gold and silver, representing eyes, feet, hands, &c.,
deposited for the acceptance of the lords of the temples, as memorials
of cures wrought by them on these several members: these memorials
proclaiming the power of the dead; whose power, again, demonstrates
their God to be the true God. How changed was this Christianity from
that given by him who forbade his followers to ask anything even of him,
because the Father himself loved them!

Concerning Mary, the mother of Jesus, those who have not vowed to admit
ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith, pretend to little
knowledge from the time of the death of Christ. Her name is mentioned
but once in the Book of Acts, when she is enumerated among the disciples
who were collected after the ascension of Jesus; and how and where she
lived and died, we have no means of ascertaining. The first act of
respect to her memory which is on record is censured by Epiphanius, as
'a heresy of the women.' It consisted of an offering of cakes, prepared
and offered by women only, and generally disapproved of, (though
oblations on tombs were then very common,) because it was not known
where she was interred. It may be inferred, however, from the account
given by Epiphanius, that prayers were by some persons offered to the
Virgin, though he rebukes the new superstition. The first person of
authority who is known to have introduced and countenanced the worship
of Mary, is Peter Gnapheus, bishop of Antioch, who in the fifth century
appointed her name to be invoked in the prayers of the Church. If such
homage were her due, how came the Apostles and the apostolic Fathers to
withhold it from her? Why was her claim disallowed so long?

We can fully enter into, and are far from disapproving of, the natural
curiosity which prompts an inquiry into the fate of one whom all
generations unite in calling blessed. When we ponder, as we cannot but
do, her privileges above all womanhood besides; when we imagine the
intentness of soul with which she must have watched the course of her
holy Son; perceiving perhaps before all others the manifestations of
divine grace in him; becoming more and more elated in her hopes, as the
presence of God in him became more evident; trembling at the malignity
of the rulers and the madness of the people; and finally sinking in
desolation of heart when every vital hope appeared extinguished; we
cannot but search for an authentic record of what befell her after the
day when the beloved disciple took her to his own home. But being
convinced, as we are, that no such record exists, we dare not fill up
the history with conjectures of our own; much less admit the claims
founded on fable and supported by superstition, which are advanced in
her favor by writers who possessed no more knowledge of her state than
ourselves, and who were much less impressed by experience with the
importance of keeping religion pure, simple, and undefiled. We regard
Mary as one of the most interesting persons presented by history, but as
in no respect connected with the Gospel we receive. Christianity was not
revealed till Christ became a man; and as Mary had no act or part in its
diffusion, she bears no other relation to us than as a being whose lot
engages our sympathies, and whose tender nature and pious character
should excite our affection and emulation. For the same reasons, however
largely we may share the universal curiosity respecting the state of the
dead, however rationally our philosophy may conceive, or however
vividly our imaginations may represent them as living, as observing the
course of events, as participating in our emotions, as enjoying the
manifest presence of God, we dare not found any religious belief or
practice on such speculations. If our religious observances had been in
any way connected with the dead, we should have known something of their
state and offices; but as no such knowledge is imparted, as there was no
pretension to it in the earliest ages, and especially as Christianity
clearly points to God as the sole object of religious worship, we invoke
the departed for no other purpose than to satisfy our speculative
doubts, we attribute to them no other office than that of endearing the
past and hallowing the future, and offer no other oblations than those
of the memory and the affections. Even if we believed them permitted to
intercede for us with our Father, we should be slow to seek their aid;
for if there be one privilege more precious than another, it is that of
direct, intimate communion with Him who knoweth our weakness and our
strength; if there be one provision more sacred than another in the
charter of our 'glorious liberty,' it is that by which they who are far
off and they who are near have equal access unto the Father; not through
the ministrations of inferior spirits, but face to face in the sanctuary
of his presence. He is not only our sure, but our near refuge; not only
our unfailing, but our very present help; not only our hope, but our
perpetual joy. The deepest of our joys and griefs, those which it is
most necessary to confide to Him who caused them, are absolutely
incommunicable to all besides; and what is emphatically true of our
self-communings, that 'the heart knoweth its own bitterness,' is yet
more true of spirit worship, 'no stranger intermeddling with its joy.'

Having thus stated the grounds of our dissent from that clause of the
symbol of Pius IV. which declares that 'the Saints reigning together
with Christ are to be honored and invocated, and that they offer prayers
to God for us,' it is needless to notice what follows; viz. that their
relics are to be venerated; 'that the images of Christ and the Mother of
God, ever Virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and
retained; and that due honor and veneration are to be given to them.'
Such practices we hold to be utterly inconsistent with the principle
that God is the sole object of religious worship; which principle is
derived from what we have laid down as the first essential doctrine of
Revelation,--the Unity of Jehovah.

The next essential doctrine is,

II. The unlimited extent of the Redemption by Christ.

A large proportion of the differences which have arisen in the Christian
world respecting the doctrine of redemption, proceed from the variety of
meanings which is attached to the term _salvation_. While one party
understands by it an admission to the privileges of the Gospel, and a
consequent emancipation from the penalties of the old dispensation;
another, the state of virtue and peace which will prevail when
Christianity has compassed the globe; and a third, a future state of
perfect bliss in contrast to one of eternal torment; there is little
hope of a mutual understanding respecting the doctrine of Justification.
Our part now is to state our own views, and not to enter on any
discussion of those of others.

We believe that by _salvation_ the Scripture writers commonly signified
the state of privilege into which Christian believers were brought by
their adoption of the principles of holiness and peace which the Gospel
affords. Thus, according to its original meaning, the term was
appropriated to a state of comparative blessedness in this world; but as
the principles of the Gospel exert the most powerful influence over our
spiritual state, over our capacity for happiness in a future world, the
term Salvation has naturally and not improperly been accommodated to
signify a state of future safety and bliss. That it did not always mean
this, however, is evident to all attentive readers of the Scriptures; as
there is not one of Paul's epistles or discourses which would be
intelligible, if he were supposed to declare his converts saved from the
pains of hell, instead of from the dominion of the evils of heathenism,
or the condemnation of the Jewish law. By _redemption_, we understand a
release from the same evils and penalties effected by a sacrifice on the
part of a benevolent mediator. By _remission of sins_, we understand the
forgiveness and consequent remission of punishment which are promised in
the Gospel on condition of repentance and newness of life. By
_justification_, we believe the sacred writers sometimes to signify the
process by which believers are released from all obligations incurred
towards the old law, and brought into a state of spiritual freedom; and
sometimes that free state itself. We conceive that this interpretation
of terms--not new and arbitrary, but only divested of the false
associations which have been long gathering round them--will clear up
most of the mysteries which obscure a very important Christian doctrine,
and enable us, in comparing scripture with scripture, to discern a
consistency of views and a depth of truth which afford an irresistible
evidence of their divine authority.

The whole scheme of revelation we conceive to be the method designed by
the divine wisdom, and adopted by the divine benevolence, for bringing
the human race into a state of purity and peace more rapidly than could
be effected by the religion of nature. The welfare of the whole race was
no less the object of the Jewish than of the Christian dispensation,
though its apparent privileges were confined to the peculiar people.
These privileges, immediately and positively advantageous to the chosen
people, were remotely and relatively so to others, by establishing
before their eyes evidences of a divine moral government; and as a moral
government implies consistency of authority, it affords a strong
presumption of the unity of the Governor. The Jews were led on from the
fundamental principle of the Divine Unity to the apprehension of a
divine moral government; while observant heathens, perceiving the moral
results of the national vicissitudes of the Hebrew people, deduced
thence the truth of the Unity of the Deity. Meanwhile, both were
advancing to a state of fitness for a fuller revelation; the Jews more
rapidly than the heathens, as being specially placed under the
schoolmaster who was to bring them unto Christ; but still, dispensing
spiritual benefits towards the heathen, for whose sake as well as for
their own they were placed in a state of privilege. The old
dispensation, though a condition of light and privilege compared with
that of nature, was a state of darkness and bondage when contrasted with
Christianity. Though the Hebrews had more elevated conceptions of God
and clearer notions of duty than the Gentiles, they yet could not
appreciate the riches of divine grace, or the extent of divine and human
relations, or the full beauty of holiness. They were burdened by a heavy
yoke of ritual observances; an escape from the penalties of the law was
impossible; and especially, they had no certain knowledge of a future
life. The blessings therefore which Christianity offered,--the
_redemption_ from the bondage of the law, the _remission_ of the
penalties of sin on repentance, the _justification_ by which they were
placed in a condition of spiritual power and freedom,--were worthy of
all the exultation experienced and all the thanksgivings expressed by
those who were thus redeemed, forgiven, and justified. These blessings
were yet more valuable to the Gentiles, in proportion to the more
rigorous bondage and deeper moral darkness to which they had been
subjected. Instead of the strict but salutary discipline of the law,
they had sustained the tyranny of lawless appetites and passions, had
lived without other restraints than those of nature; and had no hope in
death, but the glimmering and uncertain presages which their own
faculties or long-corrupted traditions supplied.

The mode of preparation for the introduction of the Gospel affords a
strong presumption that its benefits were intended for the whole race.
The Jews had been led on to the point when their spiritual development
absolutely required a more expansive revelation; and the Gentiles were
prepared, by their observation of the Hebrew people, and by their own
wants, sins, and sorrows, to receive with joy happier tidings than their
fondest hopes could anticipate, and richer benefits than their desires
could previously have comprehended. The benefits of the Gospel, after
being offered to the Jews and partially accepted by them, were freely
held out to the whole human race, and received by all who were conscious
of the need of them: so that the Gospel was truly what the aged Simeon
declared it, 'the salvation which God had prepared before all people; a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel.'

Yet there were many among the people of Israel who were blind to this
glory, and many of the Gentiles who rejected this guiding light. This
rejection was not caused by any restrictive quality in the revelation,
any provision in the Gospel itself for the limitation of its privileges:
nor was it caused by any previous arbitrary decree of the ordainer of
salvation, that on account of some very ancient event, totally
unconnected with the present dispensation, a large majority of the human
race should be rendered absolutely incapable of participating in the
blessings of redemption. It was occasioned by the prejudices of narrow
minds, by the ignorance of darkened minds, by the spiritual pride of
presumptuous minds, by the petty hopes and fears of selfish
minds,--prejudices, ignorance and selfishness naturally arising in the
then state of the world, and not to be immediately or speedily got rid
of but by miracle: a mode of agency which the Divine Being has
frequently made use of to sanction his revelations, but never to prepare
the human mind for their reception. Thus spiritual ignorance and moral
blindness are, we apprehend, the only obstacles to universal redemption;
and we firmly believe that these obstacles are only temporary. The
Gospel itself bears such an indisputable character of permanence and
universality (as we shall hereafter show), and so evident a provision is
made for the gradual dissipation of darkness and error, that we may
confidently anticipate the time when the hope of the Gospel shall be the
rich possession of every individual of every nation.

That it will be so we conclude, not from the persuasion of our own
hopes, or at the bidding of our reason in opposition to the declarations
of Scripture; but because every principle derived from the Gospel
sanctions the commands of our reason and affords a warrant of our hope.
There is in no Gospel, History, or Epistle, a hint of any restriction or
limitation of the blessings of redemption. Christ is ever spoken of as
having died for all; there are thanksgivings in the name of all,
invitations embracing all, and anticipations of the ultimate bliss of
all. Those who are mourned over, reproached, entreated, compassionated,
because they will not accept freedom and peace, are spoken of as
excluded by their own unfitness for grace, arising from natural causes,
and not by any sin of any ancestor, or by any arbitrary decree of God,
or by any repellant and exclusive character in the dispensation of grace
itself. Its most distinguishing character, on the contrary, was its
boundlessness. Its first work was to throw down the wall of partition
which had separated the favored people from others, to abolish arbitrary
distinctions, to exchange the multifarious conditions of the old law for
the few, simple and universal requisites of salvation declared in the
new. If other distinctions have since been instituted, other conditions
imposed, other requisites insisted on, they are no part of Christianity,
and shall no more impede its ultimate prevalence than the cloud which
shrouds the lightning can prevent its shining from one part of the
heaven unto the other.

It may be objected, and with justice, that this method of considering
the scheme of justification makes out the gift of grace to be only
ultimately and not strictly universal; unlimited in its tendencies, but
hitherto very limited in the diffusion of its blessings: and hence may
arise an inquiry concerning the fate of those who have died without the
hope of the Gospel.

As to the limited spread of the Gospel thus far, it is our business not
to assign the final cause of the fact, but to admit and reason on the
fact itself. The fact occasions no horror in our minds, and less regret
than is felt perhaps by any denomination of Christians besides
ourselves; and for this reason, that we do not hold perdition to be the
only alternative to salvation by Christ. We find no sanction for so
fearful a collocation of terms in the record of the covenant; no mode of
reconciling the doctrine thus originated with the attributes of Deity,
or with our conceptions of justice, much less of benignity. Moreover we
can clearly discern through what misconception the monstrous belief in
the everlasting destruction of unbelievers, whether by natural or moral
necessity, has sprung to birth. We believe it to have arisen from the
before-mentioned misapprehension of the terms Salvation, Remission of
sins, and Justification.

To the enjoyment of the blessings of the Gospel no alternative could be
opposed but their non-possession; to the remission of sins, but their
retention; to justification, but condemnation under the law. But it does
not follow that when these terms are shifted from their original use,
and accommodated to a subject to which they do not naturally belong,
they should be still opposed to each other, no others being allowed to
intervene. If it be generally agreed to understand by _Salvation_ a
state of perfect bliss after death, it is well: but if any man then
choose to transfer the term _Perdition_ from meaning the loss of the
privileges of Christianity to the loss of the happiness of heaven and a
consequent subjection to the pains of hell, he goes further than the
customary use of language allows, further than reason can sanction, and
much further astray from a true theology than he can at present
estimate, or can hereafter sufficiently deplore. It is mournful enough
that myriads have died in ignorance and error, that thousands have
rejected offered light; but no words can express the horror of the
popular doctrine of the eternal condemnation of all who have not died
in the faith of Christ, or our reprobation of the corruption through
which such a doctrine has been originated, received, and retained. While
we believe that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and that 'all
things are but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
our Lord,' we cannot believe that wrath from above and misery from
below, sin from within and darkness around, destined to be dissipated
only by the flames of hell, are the portion of all but those who are
equally happy with ourselves. Our belief appears to us more consistent
with our apprehensions of the perfections of our Father, with our
interpretations of his providence, and with the spirit of his revealed
law. We believe that though Christianity is the focus in which all the
lights of reason and religion are concentrated, every ray is not there
absorbed. We believe that though shadows brood more or less darkly over
every heathen land, there is in the most remote a glimmering of the
dawn; a ray which may direct the eye towards the fountain of glory, and
engage the attention to watch the rising of that sun which shall set no
more.

We believe that the rewards of righteousness are promised to all; and
that the practice of righteousness is not limited to any kindred,
tongue, or people, or essentially connected with any religious belief.
We hold that retribution is the universal sanction of the universal
moral law; and if the nature of the sanction be more fully understood by
Christians, and therefore practically admitted with greater readiness,
let them be as grateful as they will for the great privilege, but beware
of supposing that the sanction is abolished to all besides. Under the
various obscurations of this sanction, savage virtue may be inferior to
civilized,--Hottentot to Roman virtue, as both are to Christian
holiness; but there is every reason to believe that the savage who
surrendered his hard-earned meal to the hungry stranger, and the Pagan
senators and warriors who toiled and bled for their country, were as
sure of an appropriate reward as the most benevolent and heroic of
Christians.

The unlimited nature of salvation in this sense, leads us on to another
great doctrine of the Gospel; viz.

III. A Future State.

This truth, the most important to human improvement, the most
interesting to human affections, was so fully brought to light by the
Gospel, that Christians have differed respecting it no further than as
to the time and mode in which future retribution will take place. That
Jesus died on the cross, was inclosed in the sepulchre, and was led
forth thence by the manifest power of God, are facts too well
authenticated to be questioned to any purpose by the most hardy sceptic;
and on them securely rests the sublime belief which, from the midst of
obscurity, had already cheered the bereaved, animated the martyr, and
exalted the hopes and fears of the great body of the Hebrew nation. They
had been led, like many of the Gentiles, by the mournful questionings of
their affections, to inquire concerning a future state, and at length to
believe in it; but their indistinct belief was widely different in
nature and far inferior in power to the firm and clear faith with which
the resurrection of Christ authorized them to look forward. Their former
belief was strong enough to reconcile them to death; and perhaps they
had sufficiently clear convictions that the future life would be a scene
of retribution, to govern their own conduct by some regard to it; but
the evidence was not such as to authorize their pressing on the minds
of others the motives which the doctrine now affords. Without the
evidence of the facts of Christ's resurrection, Paul could not have made
Felix tremble at the prospect of judgement to come; or have enforced the
duties of masters to their servants by considerations of their
accountability to a master in heaven; or have felt how far better it was
to depart and be with Christ than to pursue his earthly labors. Without
this evidence, Stephen could not have met his fate as if he had been
welcoming the hour of rest from which the beams of a new day should
awaken him. Without this evidence, no one of the Apostles could have
passed through his labors and sufferings with zeal, patience, and
cheerfulness; for we have their own testimony, that if in this life only
they had had hope in Christ, they would have been of all men the most
miserable. Without this evidence, not only would the hopes of millions
who have since lived have vacillated, the peace of millions have been at
the mercy of sickness and death, and their spiritual strength in
perpetual peril from temptation, but the state of morals through the
whole civilized world, imperfect as it yet is, would have been far
inferior to what we see it, and could never attain the purity which we
confidently anticipate in some future age. Without this evidence,
Christianity would be almost nothing; for the doctrine of future
retribution is not only its most important revelation, but it is so
intimately connected with every other, as a sanction, that the Church
might as well be supposed complete without its chief corner-stone, as
Christianity to be efficacious if deprived of this last grand truth.
This evidence we have, however; and possessing it, it is of
comparatively little importance how widely men differ in their
speculations as to the time and mode in which the future life shall
succeed to the present, and as to the nature of the rewards and
punishments which shall follow their probation. The belief in a certain
and righteous retribution is all that is enforced upon us by
Christianity, all that is a necessary consequence of our faith in the
resurrection of Christ. Yet, as a tendency to unauthorized speculation,
and also a misapprehension of some Scriptural expressions, appear to us
to have caused a very extensive forgetfulness that retribution is not
only certain, but will be righteous, we must enter on some explanation
of our views respecting the extent of punishment of which the life to
come is to be the scene.

We say respecting the _extent_ only, because the _nature_ of the
punishment is a subject of far inferior importance, and one on which we
possess so little light that it may fairly be left to the imagination of
each individual to conceive for himself. Some persons, perhaps the great
majority of every denomination of Christians, believe that the pains of
actual burning will be inflicted on a corporeal frame, susceptible of
suffering in the same way as the body which we at present inhabit, but
rendered indestructible. Others conceive that the Scripture language
which describes the wicked as tormented by fire is metaphorical, and
that it clearly refers, by way of allusion, to the valley of Hinnom,
where corrupt substances were devoured by worms, and where human
sacrifices were offered by fire to Moloch. Such imagine that the future
sufferings of the wicked will be purely mental, but not therefore the
less severe and awful. If it had been necessary to form clear
conceptions on this subject, a fuller light would have been cast upon
it; and as that fuller light is not granted, we may fairly suppose that
we cannot at present understand the exact nature of the evil of which
we are emphatically called on to beware. But of the duration of the
evil, we believe ourselves so far qualified to judge, as to anticipate
that it will not be eternal.

Our reasons for thus determining are various. It is, in the first place,
utterly inconceivable that God should appoint to any individual of his
creatures a lot in which misery predominates over happiness. Our belief
in the Divine prescience requires that we suppose the fate of every man
to be ordained from the beginning. Our faith in the Divine mercy
requires that we should expect an overbalance of good in the existence
of every being thus ordained; and that in no case can the punishment be
disproportionate to the offence. Our faith in the Divine benevolence
inspires a conviction that all evil is to be made subsidiary to good,
and that therefore all punishment must be corrective, all suffering
remedial. Thus far the light of nature teaches us to anticipate the
final restitution of sinners.

It is confirmed by revelation,--by every passage of the sacred records
which represents God as a tender Father to all the human race, as just
and good, as incapable of being 'angry for ever,' or of taking pleasure
in the punishment of the wicked, and as chastising in mercy, for
corrective purposes. It is confirmed by every passage which describes
the good brought into the world by Christ as overbalancing the evil
produced by the introduction of sin and death. It is confirmed by every
passage which prophetically announces the triumph of the Gospel over all
adverse powers,--death, sin, and sorrow. Above all, it is confirmed by
the whole tenor of the preachings and writings of the Saviour and his
followers,--by the spirit of boundless benevolence, of joyful faith, of
exulting hope, which is every where blended with their emphatic warnings
of the perils of sin, and their mournful regret for the infatuation of
sinners. It appears to us that against all this array of evidence on the
one side, little or none can be adduced on the other.

That which is brought forward most frequently and with the most show of
reason is the expressions commonly translated _everlasting_, and which
are applied both to the future happiness of the righteous and misery of
the wicked. These terms (which are much less frequently applied to a
future state than is commonly supposed) do not invariably signify
'everlasting' and 'eternal,' as is evident from their being applied to
various institutions and states which have already come to an end and
passed away: as to the covenant with Abraham, which is declared to have
been long since annulled; to the priesthood of Aaron, of which no
vestiges remain; and to the flames of Gehenna, which have been quenched
for ages. The strictly correct rendering of the terms in these cases is
_permanent_, _continual_, _lasting_, and not absolutely eternal.

In order to reconcile the terms as usually rendered with the attribute
of Divine justice, some Christians have imagined that the limited
punishment of the wicked will be followed by immediate destruction; but
this supposition leaves the difficulty where it was before, and is
besides destitute of all support from reason or Scripture; as it is
incompatible with the character of the Divine dispensations that
punishment should be appointed for any but corrective purposes, or that
sin and sorrow should triumph in the annihilation of any individual of
God's creatures.

If we are asked why then we firmly believe in the immortality of the
righteous? we reply, that we found our faith on much better evidence
than the use of the terms we have now been considering. We believe it,
because the happiness of the creature is the fulfilment of the ends of
creation and providence; because happiness is an eternal principle,
while misery is only a temporary influence; and because it would argue
imperfection in the Deity, if he were either unable or unwilling to
prolong a holy and blissful existence.

This doctrine,--of the limited and corrective nature of future
punishment,--is often likened by those who disbelieve and disapprove it,
to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory; a likeness which Catholics and
Unitarians are perhaps equally unwilling to admit, though the latter
have little doubt that the belief in purgatory is a corruption of the
genuine doctrine as they hold it now.

It was the opinion of many of the Fathers in very early times, that the
world would be destroyed by fire; that the good would be purified by the
process, and the wicked consumed. It is clear that they derived a part
of this belief from some other source than the Scriptures; but it is
equally clear that they had no notion of an eternity of torment. Origen,
Clemens Alexandrinus, his master, with Gregory Nazianzen, and others of
the Fathers, held that the wicked would survive this punishment, and
come out purified and fit for a blissful state. The Catholic doctrine of
purgatory probably arose out of some of these opinions, though it
embraces much which does not appear to have entered into the
imaginations of the Fathers. Its substance, as declared in the councils
of Florence and Trent, is that every man is liable both to temporal and
eternal punishment for his sins; that the eternal punishment may be
escaped by faith in the atonement of Christ; but that the temporal must
be borne by the individual in this world or at his entrance on the next;
that the sufferings of those who undergo purgation may be relieved by
the prayers and suffrages of their earthly brethren, though in what
manner this relief is wrought, whether by a process of satisfaction, or
of intercession, or of any other method, it is not essential to true
faith to be certified. Neither is it necessary to know where the place
of purgation is; of what nature its pains are, and how long sufferers
may be detained there. The belief in purgatory was, for some ages, held
by all Christians, except the ancient Waldenses, who left the Church of
Rome before the doctrine was established there, and who never admitted
it. Soon after the Reformation, it was abandoned by all who left the
Church of Rome; so that it has since been peculiar to that church.

Our reasons for rejecting it are, that we find no trace of it in
Scripture, and that, as we declared before, we do not admit
ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith. We also reject the notion
that any part of the punishment of sin can be escaped through the
sacrifices, or mediation, or intercession of any being whomsoever. We
have been frequently accused of impairing a divinely appointed sanction
by asserting the limited extent of future punishment; but we think that
the sanction is, in reality, abolished by the admission that the Divine
decrees may be set aside by human acts, and that the relations of good
and evil, virtue and vice, which are declared to be immutable, may be
changed at the pleasure of mortal agents. We believe the punishment of
sin to be of limited duration; but as certain as the existence of the
moral agent, and as little capable of remission through the will of any
created being as the law which regulates the rise and fall of the tides,
the changes of the moon, and the revolutions of the planets. We hold it
to be awful, not only from its certainty, but from its concealed
nature. It will doubtless transcend all that the experience of earth
can suggest to the imagination. Can it be said that we impair this
sanction when we hold that the suffering consequent on guilt is
absolutely certain, lasting in its duration, and inconceivably dreadful
in its nature? What apprehensions could be fitted to excite greater
dread?

For the purpose of explaining why we believe that no part of the
consequences of guilt can be evaded through the sacrifices, mediation,
or intercession of any being whatsoever, it is necessary to pass on to
the next division of our subject. Having stated the three leading
doctrines of Christianity, the Unity of God, the unlimited scope of the
plan of redemption, and a future state, we now proceed briefly to
examine the principles of morals proposed by the Gospel.

The fundamental truths of Morals are eternal as He to whom they
primarily relate, and immutable as the purposes which they subserve. But
it is necessary that they should be communicated to men under different
forms and according to various methods, as minds are prepared to receive
them: and their application must also be regulated according to the
circumstances in which men are placed. The same principle was proposed
to Adam in Paradise, to Abraham in Beersheba, and to Paul when he set
his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, knowing that bonds and
afflictions awaited him there. Obedience to God was the motive proposed
for abstaining from the forbidden fruit, for sacrificing an only son,
and for facing suffering and death. But an intimation which was all
powerful with Abraham was insufficient to secure a much less painful
obedience from Adam; and the self-devotion of Paul was ennobled in all
its manifold instances, by its springing, not from so many express
directions, but from a principle, undeviating and perpetual in its
operation. In the infancy of the race, it would have been utterly
useless to reveal the grand principles of morals in any other way than
that which was adopted, viz. by exhibiting their application in various
instances. The Divine will was therefore made known in express
directions, probably very few in number at first, and gradually
increasing in number and importance, so as to enable observers, from
remarking the similar tendency of several, to infer a general principle
from them. All the records which we possess of the history of the race
to the calling of the Israelites out of Egypt, prove this to have been
the method adopted. The commands of God, and the promises and threats by
which they were sanctioned, bore an analogy, in their gradual elevation,
to those by which we influence an opening mind in its progress from the
first manifestation of intelligence to the age when the power of
conscience is recognizable. In the Mosaic system, a considerable advance
was made, a direct appeal to conscience being instituted, and the
gradual revelation of a moral government being provided for. Men were
then taught, not what we now know, that the relation between virtue and
happiness, vice and misery, is immutable (which they could not have
understood,) but that in their particular case, obedience to certain
laws would secure prosperity, and disobedience adversity. Such
obedience, the most virtuous were incited to render, from a fear and
love of God; but they could not have rendered it in any but specified
cases, because, not yet being made acquainted with the principle as a
principle, they could not direct its application for themselves. The
case was the same with the other great principle, Benevolence, as with
Piety; and, accordingly, the body of laws which was prepared for the
Israelites was voluminous, and their sanctions were expressed in a
copious variety of promises and threatenings, and embodied in a
burthensome ritual, consisting chiefly of penal acts. When the nation
had thus been exercised long enough to prepare it for entering on a new
course of moral agency (as we prepare a child for the spontaneous
exercise of filial duty and fraternal love by a discipline of express
commands and particular acts,) Christianity was dispensed, and men were
at length furnished with the principles themselves, with whose
application they were henceforth to be entrusted.

Christianity was designed to be permanent and universal; and, therefore,
though it was first communicated in the form best adapted to those who
were first to receive it, it contains within itself that which shall fit
it to be a revelation to the mind of man in every stage.

It contains eternal principles of doctrine and morals, embodied in
facts, which are the only immutable and universal language. The
character of Christ affords a never-failing suggestion, and a perfect
illustration of the principles of morals; a suggestion which only the
most careless minds can fail to receive, and an illustration by which
only the most hardened can fail to be impressed. From him it was learned
what part of the moral law of Moses was to be retained and what forgone;
how much was vital and permanent and how much external and temporary.
From him it was learned, and shall be learned to the end of time, how
the sympathy which caused tears at the grave of Lazarus, the compassion
which relieved the widowed mother of Nain, the tenderness which yearned
towards the repentant Apostle, the diffusive love which embraced in its
prayer all of every age and nation who needed the gospel of grace,
combined to enforce and adorn the principle of Benevolence. His parables
are eloquent in their praise of benevolence; his entreaties to mutual
love are urgent, and his commands decisive; but the eloquence of his
example is by far more urgent and irresistible. From him it was, and
ever shall be, learned that the rule of life is to be found in the will
of God. From his devotion to the work which God had given him to do,
from his perpetual reference of all things to the Divine will, from his
unhesitating submission to suffering and death, from his supreme delight
in devotional communion, we learn how Piety is the pre-eminent principle
of feeling and action which men are required to adopt. The parables
which inculcate ready filial obedience and sorrow for disobedience, the
declarations that it was his meat and drink to do the will of God, and
that he was not alone because the Father was with him, are powerful
enforcements of the principle; but not so powerful as the acts of
obedience and resignation in which its power shone forth. The whole
scheme of morals is comprehended in the precepts, 'Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and
thy neighbor as thyself;' but the concentration of truth and beauty is
less resplendant, less engaging, less universally clear and interesting,
than in the character of him who deduced these two principles from all
the law and the prophets.

With these two principles, and all the subordinate ones which are
derived from them, are connected sanctions from above, which attest
their origin and secure their adoption. By an irreversible decree of Him
who founded nature and vouchsafed a revelation, certain states of
enjoyment and suffering are connected with the practical adoption or
rejection of the principles of duty, not by way of arbitrary
appointment, but of natural consequence. The relations of holiness and
happiness, of guilt and misery, are unalterable; shown to be so by the
teachings of nature and experience, by the explicit declarations of
Scripture, and by every species of evidence which the mind of man is
capable of receiving.

Though the chief object of the Christian revelation was to make this
relation more evident than it had ever been before, many who received
the Gospel imagine that it discovers to them a means by which the
relation may be suspended or destroyed. This misapprehension we hold to
be more fatal in its moral consequences than any other which human
prejudice has originated. By what appears to us a strange perversion of
Scripture language, and by the gradual increase of some subordinate
errors, it began to be imagined, some centuries ago, that, though misery
is necessarily connected with guilt, yet that the guilt may be
perpetrated by one person, and the consequent misery endured by another;
and this belief has subsisted in almost every Christian church till this
day. It is well that it has been confined to the churches, and that its
application has been limited, by all but Catholics, to one very
peculiar case; for if it had become the common doctrine of our schools,
and colleges, and homes, if it had been enforced by parents and moral
philosophers and professors as a general truth, as it is by divines with
reference to a particular case, the very foundations of virtue would
have been overthrown, and the force of its sanctions not only wasted but
fatally perverted.

Happily the accents of reason and religion have been too distinct and
harmonious to be overpowered by the dictates of error, or very
extensively neglected. Notwithstanding all that religious teachers have
erroneously inculcated of the possible and actual separation of guilt
and its punishment on the principle of vicarious suffering, education
has still proceeded, and moral discipline been enforced as if no such
false principle had ever been advocated. Children are swayed by hope and
fear of the consequences of their actions to themselves; and
self-government is enforced at a riper age by the same motives, though
enlarged and elevated. In religion alone has an error, as absurd in its
nature as injurious in its tendencies, been retained thus long by the
force of prejudice; and that it has not spread further we hold to be
owing to its manifest folly and to its evidently noxious influence when
applied to any case but that to which it is appropriated. There can be
no surer proof that the principle itself is false.

It is difficult to know where to begin in disproving a doctrine which is
repugnant to every other doctrine, inconsistent with every received
truth, and incompatible with every admitted divine and human relation,
with every known attribute of mind, divine or human. It will be
sufficient to state one reason for utterly rejecting as we do the
doctrine of vicarious suffering; that reason being suggested and
confirmed both by our own understandings and by Scripture.

It is clear that no man can sin for another. He may sin at the
instigation of another, or for the supposed benefit of another; but in
the first case, the sin remains with both, and in the last, with the
perpetrator only. Moral disease thus bears an exact analogy to natural
disease. Natural disease may be communicated, or even incurred for the
benefit of another, but it cannot be so transferred as to be annihilated
with respect to the person who was first subject to it. The case is
precisely the same with the pain which is the inseparable consequence of
sin. If endured by any but the sinner, it is actually and completely
disconnected with the sin. It is no longer a punishment, but a
gratuitous infliction. This is so evident that, if proposed in any court
of justice but that from which our purest conceptions of justice are
derived, the reason and conscience of every man would exclaim against
the monstrous notion of a substitution of punishment. If a man had
transgressed the laws of his country by theft, would he not be the most
unjust judge upon earth who would sentence his elder brother, known to
be innocent and virtuous, to imprisonment or death for the offence?

Would the case be altered, except in the way of aggravation, if the
sentence were inflicted at the desire of the innocent man? Would any
purpose of justice be answered by such a process? Would not every
principle of equity--to say nothing of benevolence--be violated? Would
not the sufferer be as foolish and blind in his submission as the judge
arbitrary in the infliction? Is it not utterly impossible that a
transaction, perfectly analogous in principle, though infinitely more
momentous in its influences, should take place between the just Judge,
the tender Father of men, a creature made fallible by Him, and His holy
and beloved Son?

But we are told it is not for us to argue thus on the right and wrong of
a transaction which has taken place, and is continually taking place, by
Divine appointment. It is enough that God has appointed this method of
salvation.

The lawfulness of examining the Divine decrees with intent to understand
them, will be discussed hereafter. Our business now is to declare why we
do not believe this to be the appointed method of salvation, set forth
in the sacred records. Repentance (including not merely shame and sorrow
for sin, but newness of life) appears to us to stand forth on the face
of the sacred records as the grand, the sole, condition of forgiveness
of sins. The faith in Christ, which is so strenuously insisted on as a
requisite, is valuable as inducing sorrow for sin and purity of life.
Our obligations to Christ, which are so vividly described, are due to
him for the benefits he has bestowed on us through his Gospel, and not
for any subsequent arbitrary gift, which we feel it impossible for him
to have offered, for us to avail ourselves of, and for God to accept.
Our obligations to him are boundless and eternal;--for having devoted
and sacrificed his life to furnish us with the conditions of
salvation,--to teach us repentance, and incite us to holiness. He was
truly a sacrifice for men; he suffered and died because they were
sinners, and in order to bring them salvation. This the Scripture
teaches, and this we readily admit; finding, however, no intimation that
any sin has ever been forgiven on any other condition than that of
repentance; that repentance has ever failed to procure forgiveness; that
any being whatever has at any time exercised or possessed the power of
separating sin and suffering by taking either upon himself, or of
transferring both from the consciousness of another to his own; that if
the endurance of suffering by substitution were possible, it could not
be righteous; or that if it were not unrighteous, it could be available
to any beneficent purpose. Finding none of these suppositions, but all
their opposites in the spirit and detail of the sacred records, we
absolutely reject the popular doctrine of the atonement by Christ, while
we regard his sacrifices for us with reverential gratitude, and our
obligations to him with awe and rejoicing.

The more attentively we ponder his instructions and the more amply we
estimate the benefits he brought us, the more conscious do we become of
the impiety of withholding from the Supreme Author of our salvation the
gratitude and praise which are due to his free, unpurchased grace. It is
given through Christ, but it originates in God. It comes through a
mediator; but that mediator was appointed, informed, guided by God. To
him Christ ascribed, not only the acceptance of his sacrifice and
mediation; but the design in which it originated, the means by which it
was wrought, and the end which it should ultimately accomplish; and the
more we contemplate the design, become acquainted with the means, and
joyfully anticipate the end, the more eagerly do we join with Christ in
ascribing to Jehovah the glory and the praise.

We will now explain our meaning in saying that the Catholics alone, of
all Christians who have admitted the doctrine of satisfaction for sin,
have not restricted its application to one very peculiar case. They have
been perfectly consistent in not so restricting it; and they would have
been more extensively consistent if they had gone as much beyond the
point they have reached, as they have beyond the Church of England and
the disciples of Calvin. If the principle be sound, it will bear a
boundless application; if it be unsound, it can be no part of
revelation, and should be instantly relinquished. If atonement for sin
by a transferrence of punishment be possible in any case, it cannot be
pronounced impossible in any similar case. If spiritual guilt can be
atoned for by ritual sacrifices, in any instance, no one knows that it
may not in any other instance. Therefore if the Church of England holds
that the Jewish sacrifices were in strict analogy with that of Christ,
they cannot reasonably condemn the offering of the mass, and pious gifts
offered by the innocent on behalf of the sinner. Neither can the
Calvinists, who regard the Mosaic offerings as atonements for spiritual
sin, consistently object to the practice of penance, or the principle of
granting indulgences. It appears to us that there is no tenable ground
between the ultimate extension of the principle and its absolute
rejection,--between dissolving to each individual the connection between
guilt and punishment, and asserting that connection to be absolutely
indissoluble: thereby maintaining the genuine Scripture doctrine that
repentance alone can obtain remission of sins.

The lawfulness of the practice of penance and the enjoyment of
indulgences is, we perceive, defended by Catholics as being established
on the same ground as the Jewish sacrifices. They expressly state that
the _eternal_ pain due to guilt cannot be removed by indulgences, or
averted by penance, but only the temporal pain over which the death of
Christ has no power of remission. This bears a strong analogy to the
case of the Mosaic sacrifices, which were ceremonial atonements for
breaches of the ceremonial law, and were not of themselves, as is
universally allowed, intended to avert the penalties of spiritual guilt.
But this analogy yields no countenance to the Catholic practices we are
considering, unless it can be proved that two distinct species of
punishment were divinely ordained, and two distinct methods of atonement
prescribed. And even if this were proved, the case would not be
complete: for though we should suppose two kinds of punishment, and two
methods of reconciliation appointed, it is further necessary that the
offender should be liable to two distinct species of offence; a position
in which none but an ancient Jew was ever placed.

The Divine sanctions were altogether so different under the Jewish from
what they are declared to be under the Christian dispensation, that no
analogy which can be instituted between them will hold with any
completeness. A future state of retribution formed no part of the
revelation made to the Jews. To them, the ultimate punishment which they
could anticipate was national adversity, which was the infallible
consequence of moral guilt (unless averted by repentance), as ritual
penalties were the necessary atonement for breaches of the external law.
Of Christians, a higher obedience is required,--a more spiritual
devotion to the will of God; and this higher obedience is enforced by
more elevated sanctions. Christians are free from the Divine imposition
of external observances, and therefore from all divinely appointed
external penalties. They are to worship in spirit and in truth; to yield
the obedience of the heart; and all their outward manifestations of
devotion are of human appointment;--salutary, no doubt, and even
necessary to the maintenance of piety, but still optional, possessing
only a derived value, and in their very nature incapable of being made
atonement for sin. Spiritual atonement, _i. e._ repentance, is the only
atonement which the Gospel prescribes or supposes possible for
spiritual guilt. Reparation indeed is to be made by the guilty to the
injured person, when the case admits of it; but this reparation does not
constitute the atonement, nor does it partake of the nature of penance.
It is only an external atonement for an external injury, and is an
evidence that the spiritual atonement,--repentance, has been already
made. It bears a relation to that class of offences only which
immediately respects our fellow-men, and is impracticable in cases where
the offence is against God and ourselves. In such cases, external
penance bears no other relation to the offence than such as the weak
will of man has originated;--a relation arbitrary, unsanctioned by God,
and therefore perilous to man.

This relation, being thus arbitrary, fails of the object for which it
was established. Their belief in the efficacy of penance is thus stated
by Catholics. (We copy from the universally accredited work, entitled
'Roman Catholic Principles in reference to God and the King,' first
published in 1680, and ever since acknowledged as a faithful
exposition.) 'Though no creature whatsoever can make condign
satisfaction, either for the guilt of sin, or the pain eternal due to
it, this satisfaction being proper to Christ our Saviour only, yet
penitent sinners, redeemed by Christ, may, as members of Christ, in some
measure satisfy by prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, and other works of
piety, for the temporal pain which, in the order of Divine justice
sometimes remains due, after the guilt of sin and pains eternal have
been remitted. Such penitential works are, notwithstanding, no otherwise
satisfactory than as joined and applied to that satisfaction which Jesus
made upon the cross, in virtue of which alone all our good works find a
grateful acceptance in the sight of God.'

As we have already stated our opinion respecting the nature of the
sacrifice of Christ, we have only to inquire, in our examination of this
passage, into the meaning of the words _temporal pain_. If they be
intended to signify the natural evil consequences of sin in this world,
it is clear that no penance of human institution can avert them; since
the very efficacy of this penance would prove these consequences not to
be natural but arbitrary. A man who has defrauded his neighbor cannot
preserve or recover his character for honesty, or secure the confidence
of those around him 'by prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, or other works of
piety.' The means are not adapted to the end. The method he must pursue,
and the only one which can be used with effect, is to restore that which
he had unjustly obtained, and to persevere in a course of integrity till
the rectitude of his motives becomes unquestionable. If in the meanwhile
he employs prayer, fasting, and alms-deeds as means of rousing his
highest affections and confirming his virtuous resolutions, he may find
them so far efficacious; but the removal of the _temporal pain_, the
stain upon his reputation, is not ascribable to them, but is the
consequence of his well attested repentance.

But it appears doubtful whether we have rightly interpreted the words
_temporal pain_; since the being obnoxious to this pain is one of the
qualifications for the discipline of purgatory. We wish that an exact
account could be obtained of its real nature: though, be it what it may,
it is clear to us that no natural penalty can be averted by so arbitrary
an institution as that of penance. The clause on indulgences is as
follows. We quote the doctrinal part of it, that we may avoid the
danger, of which it warns us, of charging on the Church such abuses or
mistakes as have been sometimes committed in point of granting and
gaining indulgences, through the remissness or ignorance of individuals.

'The guilt of sin, or pain eternal due to it, is never remitted by what
Catholics call indulgences; but only such temporal punishments as remain
due after the guilt is remitted: these indulgences being nothing else
than a mitigation or relaxation, upon just causes, of canonical
penances, enjoined by the pastors of the Church on penitent sinners,
according to their several degrees of demerit.'

Our conviction of the absolute inefficacy of canonical penances to
obtain the end for which they are practised having been stated, we
proceed to consider the legitimacy of the power by which such acts are
imposed, and a remission from them granted. We shall ground our
arguments on some of the subordinate principles, which are clearly
deducible from the primary principles of doctrine and morals which we
have already stated and arranged.

One of these principles, whose claim to admission is seldom
unequivocally denied in theory, though too often practically disallowed,
is Christian Liberty,--the indefeasible right of every man to freedom
from all human control in spiritual concerns. This comprehends the
right of entire privacy of conscience, of exemption from all inquiry and
interference in spiritual matters, of examining, interpreting, comparing
and understanding the sacred records under a responsibility to none but
God; and of forming, changing, and announcing opinions without
hinderance or molestation. We are aware that this principle is seldom
carried out to its utmost length, even in speculation; and as seldom is
it absolutely rejected. But, as we have said with respect to another
principle, and as we would say of all, let it be put to the test of
reason and experience; and if sound, let it be fully admitted with all
its consequences; if unsound, let it be discarded. The process of
attestation which we have instituted obliges us to receive it
unhesitatingly, and to act on it unreservedly.

The primary spiritual relation of men is to God; their highest
subordinate relation is to each other. Their conduct in the subordinate
relation is to be regulated by a regard to the primary; but the primary
relation is not to be invaded by any influences from below. The
relations between man and man are established by God and guided by Him
to the fulfilment of purposes known only to Him, except in so far as it
has pleased Him to reveal them. The relation of the mind of man to its
Maker is, on the contrary, so intimate as to admit of no intervention;
and of a nature which cannot be affected by any influence whatever. This
relation may be unperceived; (though there is perhaps no instance on
record of its being so) it may be heedlessly forgotten; it may be, as
alas! it too often is, obscured by the shades of vice or the influences
of spiritual tyranny; but it can never be usurped or changed; and the
time must come when this indissoluble relation shall be recognized and
claimed as comprehending all the manifold privileges of existence. The
course of nature seems designed to lead men to its perception, and the
grand object of revelation is to blazon it forth; while every intimation
of its nature describes it as sacred from all invasion. Every
manifestation of the Divine will must, therefore, be made to each
individual mind as exclusively as if no other mind existed. The religion
of nature, though adopted in various countries, and amidst its different
aspects among different nations, embraced by myriads under every form,
is yet a bond between God and every individual man as complete as if
that man alone had been created. In like manner the Gospel is a covenant
between God and the human race only as it is a covenant between God and
every individual of that race who shall embrace it: and there can be two
parties only to the transaction,--he who offers the conditions, and he
who accepts or rejects them. To no one has the Author of this covenant
deputed the power of imposing the conditions, or of judging how far they
have been fulfilled, or of passing; sentence accordingly. To none could
he depute this power without making him, in fact, the only person with
whom the inferior party has to do, _i. e._ the God of the inferior
party. It may be objected that we argue upon a metaphor; but, let the
Gospel be regarded under every possible aspect, the same truth will
still be demonstrable,--that between the Creator and the created no
created power can, without the Divine concurrence, interfere; and that
in the spiritual creation, the powers requisite for interference being
above those of humanity, such concurrence never can have been, and never
can be granted.

If the nature of Christian obedience had been different,--if it had been
ritual instead of spiritual, it may be conceived possible that God
might have committed to man the power of judging and sentencing; but the
things of the heart, the desires, the struggles with temptation, the
silent conflicts, the unapparent defeats and victories of conscience,
are known and can be known by none but God. Through the medium of
confession alone can one man gain any insight into the spiritual state
of another; and no medium can be more deceptive. It is perhaps
impossible for the most conscientious mind to communicate to the most
congenial fellow-mind a faithful detail of the thoughts, wishes, hopes,
and fears of any single hour; and if it were possible, the fellow-mind
would still be incapable of forming an estimate of the spiritual state,
or of directing the necessary discipline; because the apparent results
of operations which he does not understand are all the materials that he
has to judge from; whereas the object of discipline is to rectify the
operations themselves. If a man confesses to his bosom friend that his
devotional feelings have been for some time past sensibly weakening;
that he looks on the beautiful world of nature with apathy, and thinks
on the perpetual presence of God without awe or delight; that his spirit
is dead in the public offices of devotion, and roving when it ought to
be fixed in prayer; his friend may mourn with him over so painful an
experience, and suggest, more or less wisely, methods of arousing the
sleeping faculties, and kindling anew the failing fires of devotion. But
he does this as an adviser, and not as a judge; for the power of judging
is not given to him. He knows not whether the origin of the distemper be
bodily or mental: he knows nothing of the thousand influences, from
within and from without, which have of late modified the delicate
processes of the intellect and the soul. He cannot therefore know what
restorative influences are most needed; whether mute converse with
nature or busy intercourse with men; whether the terrifying or the
alluring appeals of the Gospel; whether the awful claims of the Divine
holiness, or the mild persuasions of the Divine compassion; whether any
or all of these, or of the manifold influences besides which are
perpetually dispensed by Him who knoweth our frame, but have never been
confided to the empirical disposal of man.

If, as is evidently the case, all human judgment of sin and holiness is
comparative instead of positive, and therefore ever changing as the
means of comparison become more ample and the faculty stronger, it is
manifestly impossible for any one mind to form an exact estimate of the
qualities of another by any but its own imperfect and varying measure:
and since to God alone are the principles of morals present in their
complete development, to Him alone can their infallible application
belong. The agency of men on each other is appointed accordingly. They
may confess their sins one to another for their mutual relief and
guidance; but such confession must be strictly voluntary, and carefully
disconnected with all inclination towards spiritual usurpation on the
one hand and subservience on the other.

There is no subject on which the sacred writers are more explicit than
this, and none on which their practice exhibited a more eloquent
commentary. Hear what the Apostle of the Gentiles asserts in defence of
the spiritual liberty of the least enlightened members of the Church,
who were, as he believed, in error respecting some modes of practice
which were very important at that time. 'Him that is weak in the faith,
receive ye; but not for doubtful disputings. One believeth that he may
eat all things; but another who is weak eateth herbs only. Let not him
that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not
judge him that eateth; for God hath received him. Who art thou that
judgest the servant of another? To his own master he standeth or
falleth. But he shall be established, for God is able to establish him.
It is written, 'As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.' So then every one of us shall
give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another
any more.' (Romans xiv.) This was the rule which the Apostle observed in
all his transactions with the infant churches which referred their
spiritual concerns to him, as their father and guardian in the faith. He
denounced guilt, expounded the faith, guarded against error, and used
every method of argument, persuasion, and entreaty, with which his head
and heart could furnish him to establish them in righteousness; he set
before them every motive of hope and fear, and faithfully declared the
whole counsel of God, as bound by his office, and privileged by his
unequalled qualifications; but he throughout abstained from
intermeddling with any man's conscience, not only by direct
interference, but by indirect influence. Let us see how scrupulous was
his regard to liberty of conscience. 'I know and am persuaded by the
Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that
esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. All things
indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It
is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything by which
thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith?
Have it to thyself before God.' (Romans xiv.) A yet more eminent example
is on record, whose conduct bears a reference to a case of still more
awful responsibility than that instanced by the Apostle. 'If any man
hear my words and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge
the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth
not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken,
the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of
myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I
should say and what I should speak. (John xii. 47-49.) How, in the face
of these declarations, can men impeach the faith and pronounce sentence
on the practice of their brethren, assuming their own judgments as the
standard of truth, and their own conceptions as the measure of holiness?
How, in the face of these declarations, can ministers of the Gospel have
ever grasped, as a right, the power which Christ himself disclaimed; not
leaving judgment till the last day, but delivering over to reproach and
death those who were 'weak in the faith,' or perplexed with 'doubtful
disputations'? How, in the face of these declarations, can priests of
any church have denied that to his own master every man stands or falls,
and have made close inquisition into the secrets of the soul, pretending
to understand its errors, and presumptuously undertaking to cleanse its
secret faults by methods which no voice from above has sanctioned as
lawful, and no sign from on high has shown to be efficacious? Could such
inquisitors and such priests (and they are to be found in every Church)
have mingled with the followers of Jesus, they would have cried out for
fire from heaven on the Samaritans, notwithstanding every prohibition;
they would have questioned the sinful Mary, not satisfied with her
loving much, till they had ascertained how much; they would have
pronounced the young lawyer very far from the kingdom of God unless he
could have made a fuller profession of faith; and, meeting the
adulteress in the outer courts of the temple as she left the mild
presence of Jesus, would have prescribed her penance with a rigor well
pleasing to the accusers, who were themselves too modest to cast the
first stone. Since Jesus, who knew what was in the hearts of those
around him, forbore to condemn, much more ought they to forbear who have
no such knowledge. If he awarded no punishment to those who rejected the
Gospel he understood so well, much less should they who are themselves
but learners inflict pain of body or mind on their fellow-disciples who
understand differently, or the unbelievers who cannot understand at all.
If he who spake as his Father commanded him left it to the Father to
enforce these commands, it ill becomes those on whom the Spirit has not
descended to assume an authority which inspiration itself could not
sanction. It becomes them to learn what they themselves are, before they
judge how little their brethren are what they ought to be. It becomes
them to ascertain their own superiority over the Apostles, before they
claim an authority with which no Apostle ever believed himself to be
invested; and which, if he had so imagined, he would have prayed for
permission to resign. Far less perilous, far less burdensome would be a
commission from on high to guide the seasons, to dispense showers and
sunshine, and regulate the produce of the fields, than to control the
spiritual movements, and administer the fertilizing influences under
which the fruits of holiness are to spring up unto everlasting life.

That any such commission was ever given, is as true in the one case as
in the other; and the belief of any individual that to himself it was
ever confided, is a proof of unsoundness in heart or brain. To any man
it is honor enough, as it was to Paul and Apollos, to plant and to
water. To God alone it belongs to give and to measure the increase.

We therefore disapprove of the practice of confession as adopted by
Catholics, for one reason among many, that it infringes liberty of
conscience, by making man practically accountable to man, and
countenancing an assumption of that power to judge and punish which
belongs to God alone. The punishments of canonical penances are, it is
true, of human institution; but they are awarded to spiritual guilt, of
which no one has a right to take cognizance but God. We therefore deny
the right of any man to impose penances, or, in consequence, to issue
indulgences; and we hold that wherever such a right is claimed, the
prerogative of God is invaded and the cause of his Gospel injured.

Christian liberty secures to every man the right, not only of reading
the sacred records for himself, but of interpreting them for himself; of
ascertaining by his own unbiased judgment what they teach, and of
holding the opinions thus formed without being accountable to any man or
to any body of men. In advocating the free perusal of the Scriptures and
the formation of individual opinions from them, we shall be careful to
avoid any bias from the popular and false impression, that the faithful
pastors of the Catholic Church would prohibit their flocks from reading
the Bible: and we shall enter on no discussion respecting the
comparative fidelity of Catholic and Protestant English translations of
the Scriptures. On the latter point, much must be said, if anything; so
much, that no room would be left us for matters of greater importance.
Important as it is that the sacred books should be faithfully rendered,
that it should be shown how long-prevalent errors, supposed to be
countenanced by them, are not so countenanced; important as it is, for
instance, to decide whether the sacred teacher said 'Repent,' or 'Do
penance,' it is yet more important to develop the principles to which
all modes of expression are subservient: to attend to the spirit rather
than the letter, to establish truths and explode errors to the
perception of which every intellect is adequate, than to debate matters
to which, though of inferior moment, peculiar qualifications are
requisite.

We willingly accept the following testimony of Fenelon to the fact of
the unrestricted use of the sacred writings in the early times of
Christianity; though we dissent from the concluding remark. The passage
is translated from a letter from Fenelon to the Bishop of Arras.
(_Oeuvres Spirituels de Fenelon_, 8vo. tom. 4, p. 241.) 'I think that
much trouble has been taken in our times very unnecessarily, to prove
what is incontestable, than in the first ages of the Church the laity
read the Holy Scriptures. It is clear as daylight, that all people read
the Bible and service in their native languages; that as a part of good
education, children were made to read them; that in their sermons, the
ministers of the Church regularly explained to their flocks whole books
of the sacred volume; that the sacred text of the Scriptures was very
familiar to the people; that the clergy exhorted the people to read
them; that the clergy blamed the people for not reading them, and
considered the neglect of the perusal of them as a source of heresy and
immorality. But in all this the Church used a wise economy; adapting the
general practice to the circumstances and wants of individuals. It did
not, however, think that a person could not be a Christian, or not be
well instructed in his religion, without perusing the sacred writings.
Whole countries of barbarians, innumerable multitudes of the faithful
were rich (to use the words of St. Paul) in words and science, though
they had not read the sacred writings. To listen to the pastors of the
Church who explain the Scriptures to the faithful and distribute among
them such parts as are suited to their wants, is to read the
Scriptures.'

This last proposition is in perfect accordance with the creed which
declares that 'to the holy Mother Church it belongs to judge of the true
sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures,' but inconsistent with
the principle held by us, that no man has the power of judging for
another or the right to prescribe the opinions of another. 'What then is
to be done,' it is asked, 'with those who cannot read for themselves?'
They must take what they can obtain from their pastors, or from any
other medium of communication. If the medium be as faithful as human
fallibility allows, much truth may be learned and the means of holiness
may be abundantly afforded: but yet the learner is precluded by his
ignorance from the full enjoyment of his Christian liberty; and to hang
on the lips of his instructor is far, very far from being the same thing
as reading the Scriptures for himself.

Such a 'wise economy' as Fenelon speaks of seems to us but a fleshly
wisdom, a narrow policy originated by men, discountenanced by God, and
available to perpetuate, not the Gospel itself, but the corruptions
which were early mixed with it, and which will not stand the test of
examination. Who was to decide what 'parts were suited to their wants?'
Who knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in
him? Who gave the power of prohibition to read the Scriptures over such
as 'were not disposed to read them to their advantage?' Who was to
judge of the disposition; who could discern the tendency of inquiry; who
could estimate the advantage and disadvantage of the results? How dared
the Church to 'withhold from the laity the perusal of the Bible without
permission of their pastors,' from the assumption that it was 'unsafe to
allow the people at large to read the sacred text?' How unsafe? For the
Gospel itself? The Divine care would have provided a preventive or a
remedy, if the danger had been real. For the honor of God? He would have
made provision for its vindication. For the spiritual welfare of the
people? It could not have been injured by the free use of the means
ordained to perfect it: nor was it ever the province of pastors to
promote that welfare by other means than the Gospel authorizes. And
where is the patent for the monopoly of the Scriptures to be found? But
it is alleged that there are many passages in the sacred volume which,
being hard to be understood, are wrested by the unstable and the
ignorant to the destruction of the purity of their faith. True. But the
case was the same in the days of the Apostles; and did Peter ever desire
that Paul's writings should therefore be kept back from the unlearned
and unstable? Or did he enjoin an explanation of them from the wise, to
which the foolish should be required to assent? No; he recommended
caution in giving heed to other men's errors, and growth in the
knowledge of Christ Jesus; both which must be better promoted by
independent thought and judgment than by subservience to any mind,
however pure and enlightened. Christ himself, though he knew what was in
man, never required this subservience from any one of his followers. He
gave his instructions in as many different forms as we have them in now:
in discourses, in parables, in familiar dialogue, and by actions; and
invariably he left to the hearers the application of the principles thus
conveyed, except when pressed by his immediate followers for an
interpretation. He took no pains to preserve his Gospel from 'the rash
criticisms of the vulgar,' as the piety of Fenelon erroneously advises.
He did not act upon the belief that previous instruction was necessary
to the comprehension of the word of life, or that 'the people should be
full of the spirit of the Gospel before they are entrusted with the
letter.' The letter of the Gospel now is the same as the letter of the
Gospel then; the spirit now, as then, is only to be got at through the
letter; and the letter now, as then, is only valuable as it communicates
the spirit. Christ did not think that 'it should only be permitted to
the simple, the docile, and the humble; to those who wish to nourish
themselves with its divine truths in silence; and withheld from those
who merely seek to satisfy their curiosity, to dispute, to dogmatize, to
criticize.' This doctrine of Fenelon is, we are told, and ever has been,
the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Were the disciples to whom
Christ spoke of the bread of life and who therefore forsook him, 'docile
and humble?' Yet what saying was more 'hard to be understood?' When he
declared the nature of his Gospel, and the authority under which he
proposed it, were the Pharisees in the temple 'simple and docile?' Was
there no disposition 'to dispute, to dogmatize, to criticize' among the
elders, the scribes, the Sadducees whom he referred to his works,
assured of the temporary nature of the Jewish covenant, and besought to
listen to the truth which should make them free? The glad tidings of
salvation were then preached, as they ought to be now, to the poor and
ignorant without fear that what is truly the Gospel can be dangerously
misapprehended, and without intimation that the faith needs the
interpretation of fallible understandings, or the guardianship of human
wisdom.

If we believed (which we do not) that error in matters of faith could of
itself endanger salvation,--_i. e._ exclude from the happiness of a
future state,--we should be convinced that those were much more liable
to error who adopted the faith after it had passed through a fallible
mind, than those who received it from Christ himself, speaking directly,
as in fact he does, in the faithful records which the Bible presents.
And the more feeble and ignorant the recipient mind, the more liable
will it be to admit the errors of others, as well as to originate some
of its own. While, if referred to the sacred volume itself for his
faith, a man is in danger of entertaining no errors but his own. However
imperfect his mental vision may be, he is thus more likely to behold the
object in its true form and colors, than by the interposition of a
faulty medium. If it be objected that the medium, so far from being
faulty, corrects the imperfections of the natural faculty, we ask for
the test of its possessing this quality, and for the proof that it was
ever conferred.

But, being convinced, for reasons given before, that the possession of
the true faith is not an indispensable requisite for future happiness,
and that the non-possession of it is not to be followed by eternal
misery, or by any arbitrary infliction whatever, we cannot admit the
plea of care for the souls of men as any reason or excuse for trenching
on the natural liberty of the mind, or prescribing opinions which Christ
himself only administered the means of forming, and which his Apostles
presumed not to impose. Purity of faith is the most exalted attainment
of the most exalted mind,--the richest of the myriads of rich blessings
which the Father of our spirits has placed within our reach. It should
be sought as the most precious of all treasures; it should be guarded as
the most sacred of all trusts: but though it may be won by any, it can
be communicated by none. It is the especial reward of individual search,
and loses its very nature by being transferred: for that which is truth
to a man who has discovered it for himself, can be truth to another man
only so far as his faculties are exercised upon it, apprehend, and adopt
it. This, which may be justly said of all truth, may be especially
declared of religious truth, which is of no value unless made a
vivifying principle, and can never become a vivifying principle unless
perceived by the understanding and recognized by the heart.

The true office of the pastors of the Church (and likewise of all
believers) is to lead others to that knowledge of the truth which can
never be imposed. Their concern for the spiritual welfare of their
brethren can never be too earnest; their diligence in guidance and
guardianship, too eager; their value for purity of faith, too high; or
their apprehension of spiritual danger, too ready or too ardent. But all
this concern and apprehension should be justly directed, and this
guidance and guardianship exercised with a regard to the rights with
which God has invested every man. The first object to be desired is
spiritual advancement, to which intellectual rectitude is subsidiary.
The first object of dread is moral corruption, and not mental error. The
guidance to be exercised is that of an experienced over an inexperienced
person. The one points out to the other the snares and dangers into
which he is liable to fall, the labyrinth in which he may lose himself,
and the various tendencies of different paths; but he has no lawful
power to insist upon a particular path being pursued, or to condemn his
companion to destruction for interpreting differently the invitation on
which they both proceed. The guardianship is faithful as long as it
consists in warning off the attacks of temptation, declaring the threats
and promises of the Gospel, and educating for independent action; but it
becomes tyranny when restraints are imposed on the exercise of the
faculties, and any impediments are thrown in the way of a free range
through the spiritual world of which God has made every man an
inhabitant. It is the office of Christian pastors to study the sacred
records with all diligence, striving to ascertain by the help of
learning and philosophy, and every other help, what the true faith is,
and how other minds may be best disposed for its apprehension; to place
before those minds whatever may best tend to enlighten, convince, and
establish them; to excite them to activity and stimulate them to further
action when aroused. But further than this they must not go. The mind
must work out the results for itself; and for those results none but
itself can be answerable. Its safety or peril rests with God, who hath
given into no man's hand the souls of his brethren.

It is justly observed by Catholics, that many of the very persons who
complain of the discouragement by them thrown in the way of the general
perusal of the Scriptures, circulate the Book of Common Prayer of the
Church of England 'as a safeguard against the misinterpretation of the
Bible,' and by their doubt and dread of the consequences of making the
Bible common, seem to admit the probability and danger of such
misinterpretation. It is very true that such inconsistencies obtain
among Protestants, and such inconsistencies will exist as long as there
is any dread of carrying out a good principle to its full extent. If all
Protestants adhered to the grand principle of the Reformation, that the
Bible alone is the religion of Protestants, there would not only be no
damnatory clauses in their creeds, but no creeds,--no embodying in an
unchanging form of words principles which were given in no such form,
which cannot be received under the same aspect by minds differently
prepared, and which are too expansive in their nature to be long
confined within arbitrary limits of human imposition. The Church of
England forsakes its fundamental principle of dissent from the Roman
Catholic Church when it would secure uniformity of faith by framing
articles of faith, by keeping back the Bible from the feeblest
intellect, or appointing 'a safeguard,' or interfering in any way
between the Bible and the minds which are to derive their religion from
it. If uniformity of faith cannot be thus obtained, it is a necessary
consequence of the Protestant principle that uniformity of faith is not
necessary to salvation. This consequence, which we fully admit, the
Church of England, in the letter and spirit of her articles and creeds,
inconsistently denies.

It is manifestly absurd to exhort a man to derive his faith from the
Bible, if it is declared to him beforehand what he is bound at his
eternal peril to believe. Yet this is in fact done, when the Book of
Common Prayer is circulated as a safeguard to the Bible, and also when a
Catholic is made to declare on his admission to the Church, 'I also
admit the Sacred Scriptures according to the sense which the holy Mother
Church has held and does hold,' &c. For purposes of faith, all use in
reading the Bible is over when this declaration is made. The disciple
can only, while striving to learn his duty from the sacred pages, wonder
at what he finds there;--at the appeals to individual judgment; at the
addresses to the intimate consciousness of every man; at the freedom
allowed and encouraged among the first Christians; at the absence of all
pretension to authority in matters of opinion, of all wish to prescribe,
of all tendency to domineer. If he be intelligent, it will occur to him
as surprising that no creed, if creeds be good things, was given by our
Saviour to his Apostles before he left them, weak and divided in the
faith as they at that time were. And again, when they were strong and
united, but when doubt and disagreement were creeping into their
churches, it must seem strange that Christ, who manifestly watched over
the interests of his Church, should not have authorized and communicated
a profession of faith more ample and particular than that which had
hitherto accompanied baptism; viz. that Jesus was the Christ, and that
remission of sins came by repentance.

Finding no trace of the Apostles' Creed among all the sacred books, he
will inquire into its origin, and discover that it was not composed by
the Apostles,[A] and that when, in an evil hour, it was proposed for
general adoption, its main purpose was to exclude the Gnostics, who
would have mixed up their false philosophy and vain deceits with the
simple faith in Christ which then, as now, constituted a man a
Christian. Having gone thus far, the disciple begins to doubt whether he
has hitherto possessed and exercised the spiritual liberty which is his
birthright. If he pursue the inquiry he will, undoubtedly cast off the
restraints which man's wisdom has imposed on his faculties, and
interpret, judge, and believe for himself. If he look back to his
promise to admit the sense of Scripture only as the Church declares it,
and renews that promise, he must lay aside every hope of purifying and
strengthening his faith by his scriptural studies. Henceforth it will
indeed be, as Fenelon declares, the same thing to him to read the words
of Christ, and to hear an explanation of them from his pastor. Not for
this were the Beraeans cited as an example by Paul; not by these means
was Timothy prepared for his extensive labors; not thus did Apollos
learn how to apply his vigorous talents to the service of the infant
churches. All these men searched the Scriptures, knew the Scriptures
from their youth up, were learned in the Scriptures, from which they
ascertained for themselves the promise of Christ's coming, and
themselves applied the tests which proved that Jesus of Nazareth was
this Christ.

[Footnote A: See Lord King's 'Critical History of the Apostles' Creed.']

Every man has a natural right, not only to form his opinions for
himself, but to change them as frequently as he shall believe himself
led to do so. This natural right is not only sanctioned, but its
exercise is approved, by the Gospel. As long as the opinions of men are
not absolutely right, as long as they fall short of the truth as it will
be perceived in heaven, there is room and occasion for a change; and
such a change, wherever recorded in the New Testament, is recorded with
approbation. Where was there ever a more extensive change of opinion
than in Apollos on his conversion? Yet in his youth, Apollos was as
orthodox, as undoubtedly correct in his religious opinions before the
introduction of Christianity, as any Christian who now subscribes all
the creeds of the Catholic Church. But what would have been the
consequence if he had engaged never to 'take and interpret the
Scriptures otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the'
Rabbis; or if he had promised, vowed, and sworn most constantly to
profess his present faith whole and entire, with God's assistance, to
the end of his life? It is true that no revelation is likely to
supersede the faith of Christians; but it is, at the same time, as
little probable that no developement of the principles of Christianity
should cause gradual changes of opinion in the course of a lifetime, as
it then was that Judaism should not be expanded into the fuller
revelation of the Gospel. If, like Apollos, we believe rightly now, it
is impossible to answer for no change of opinion being necessary to
enable us to believe rightly twenty years hence. The view which we have
already taken of the expansive tendency of the eternal principles of
Christianity authorizes our declaring that a gradual enlargement of
views, _i. e._ change of opinions, is a necessary consequence of the
correct apprehension of religious truth.

Creeds are intended to be permanent and universal professions of faith;
and are the instrument by which a uniformity of faith is to be secured,
if such a thing be yet possible. But creeds never have fulfilled, and
never can fulfil, any one of these purposes. No uniformity of faith has
existed since the first creed was framed; no one formulary has been
universally received among Christians; and experience already indicates,
what the lapse of time will prove,--that no creed will be permanent. If
the most ancient of creeds, commonly called the Apostles', be named in
answer to the last remark, let it be remembered that the first version
of this formulary given by Irenaeus, and the subsequent ones by
Tertullian, Cyril of Alexandria, and others, were as widely different
from those now in use as from each other. Widely different versions of
this creed are used in the Catholic Church and the Church of England;
and those who subscribe to the same form of words understand those words
variously. The permanence of this most ancient of creeds is in name
only; and the name itself is a false assumption.

Creeds cannot be permanent and universal, unless the language of which
they consist is also permanent and universal; which no language has ever
been. There is no test by which it can be proved that any two minds
affix precisely the same meaning to the commonest terms; while we have
abundant evidence that very abstract terms (such as abound in creeds)
convey very different notions to different minds. Thus, if the terms of
a language were absolutely immutable, and if one language prevailed over
the whole earth, there would still be room for a variety of
interpretations of anything expressed in that language. But the
mutations which time occasions in every tongue, and the necessity of
translation and re-translation, increase a thousandfold the chances of
such a variety, and indeed render it absolutely unavoidable.

It is well, therefore, that the truths of religious doctrine cannot be
made one with the language in which any age or nation chooses to clothe
them, as that language is necessarily mutable. And it would be well if
believers were henceforth and for ever to desist from the attempt to
connect what is mutable with what is immutable, that which is perishable
with that which is immortal, by requiring the present age to adopt the
language of the past, and providing for a similar adoption by the
future. If they wish the spiritual _conceptions_ of former ages to be
perpetuated, this may best be done by changing the _terms_ as their
meanings become modified, and not by retaining them the more
pertinaciously, the more varied are the conceptions they originate. If
the Gospel itself had been inseparably connected with any form of
language, or embodied in anything but facts, it would ere now have
passed away, or have been so far transformed as to be a different
religion. It would have been untranslateable; it would have been
untransferrable to any country beyond that in which it originated; it
would have been unintelligible to succeeding generations of even native
inhabitants of that country. It is only in so far as Christianity is
disencumbered of formularies of faith, and emancipated from the
guardianship of Councils, that it becomes the religion of mankind. The
metaphysical clauses of the Apostles' Creed, and the canons of the
Council of Trent, may contain the belief of a few, a very few,
speculative minds. The declaration that God sent Christ Jesus into the
world to save sinners, contains the substantial belief of Christendom,
which will be the faith of the whole world,--because it is Christianity.

It is as impossible for a man to prescribe to himself the faith of his
future years, as for one age to prescribe the faith of a succeeding age:
and for the same reasons. He may in his youth state an opinion in
unambiguous terms, and with perfect sincerity, which, if he still hold,
he cannot state in the same terms ten years after. The opinion may be
substantially the same, and yet have such a bearing upon some other
opinion, or may be so modified by some other opinion that the same form
of words may not express it fully, or perhaps correctly. It is yet more
probable that the conceptions which are now attached to the terms are
enlarged by his improved experience; so that, if he would declare the
same truth, he must change his terms; or if he can conscientiously
retain the terms, he must have modified his opinion. What enlightened,
reflecting Christian understands exactly the same by any one parable,
any one axiom, any one fact of Scripture that he did when he first
admitted its truth? He believed it then; he believes it now; but how
differently since science has brought new evidence to light, since
philosophy has developed its origin and tendencies, since experience has
tested its truth, and faith invested it with a hallowed interest and an
indestructible beauty! How, therefore, is it possible for any one
faithfully to engage that his views even of eternal truth shall never be
modified! Witnessing, as every reflecting man does, the gradual
evolution of truth from the vicissitudes of human experience, and from
the successive dispensations and the progressive course of Providence,
he may with safety declare that Gospel truth is immutable and divine;
but he will avoid the presumption of supposing that all her riches are
already shed into his bosom, that her brightest light is poured upon his
feeble eye. He will rather hope that his apprehension will continually
become clearer, his powers invigorated, and his capacities enlarged,
till his views of religious truth become as unlike what they were when
first admitted, as the fair face of nature appears to the new-born
infant and to the mighty poet. He will reject, as an infringement of his
inalienable rights, every attempt to bind him down to engagements which
it may not be in his power to fulfil. He will refuse to promise that his
intellect shall remain stationary; and to permit that any individual,
any council, or any church, shall usurp that spiritual influence which
he trusts shall be immediately dispensed from the fountain of grace and
truth. Desiring wisdom, he asks of God; not profaning and annulling his
prayer by engaging to receive it only in certain measure; and if any
church on earth interfere to prescribe the measure, he rejects the
interference as unauthorized by the letter of the Gospel and condemned
by its spirit.

Christian liberty comprehends an entire freedom from restraint in the
publication of opinions. To his own master every man standeth or
falleth, not only in the formation of his opinions, but in the use he
makes of them when formed. According to his conscientiousness in seeking
for truth, and not according to the accuracy of his judgment, will he be
judged by God in forming his opinions; and when formed, he will be
responsible, not for the rectitude of his influence, but for the
rectitude of his intentions in exerting it. What a man believes to be
the truth, it is his duty to declare in the method and degree which
benevolence and prudence may point out to be the best. For what but this
do we venerate the heroic Stephen, and every other martyr who bore
witness to the truth in the early days of Christianity? Yet for what but
this have Christians been led to the stake by Christians, age after age,
under the pretended sanction of a religion of liberty and brotherly
love? For what but this have Catholics and Protestants vied with each
other in torturing in body and mind men whose conscience was omnipotent
over the love of liberty and life, and who thus showed that, whether
their intellects were or were not unfaithful, their souls were true to
God? For what but this are the lovers of truth even yet too often
punished, directly or indirectly, for inviting others to participate in
the benefits which they believe they have gained. Stephen was stoned
because he was a heretic; Paul worshiped the God of his fathers
according to a way which was then called heresy, and for which he was
persecuted through life and unto death. Peter and John were brought
before the high priest and rulers for publishing their heresy, and
punished for refusing to cease to publish it. Yet has this their heresy
prevailed; and thus shall every new truth prevail, and its promulgators
be honored, in despite of the wrath of man; while the more freely errors
are canvassed, the sooner will they be exposed. What was once said with
truth in relation to the Gospel of truth,--'If this counsel or this work
be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot
overthrow it,'--may be said with equal wisdom of every other kind of
truth and the test of investigation is a much surer one than that which
is furnished by the prejudices and the passions of men. There is no
natural, no Divine law which sanctions the infliction of pain for the
exercise of the intellect, or for communicating the results of that
exercise; and that any human law or custom should have existed by which
injury of mind, body, or estate is made the consequence of the formation
and publication of opinions, is a proof that the natural rights of man
have not been understood, and that the spirit of Christian liberty has
not pervaded Christian society. As long as reproach is attached to the
act of promulgating opinions (independent of the manner,) as long as the
holder of opinions is treated with the same reprobation as the opinions
themselves, as long as he is prospectively consigned over to perdition
as they are to detestation, as long as ideas of merit and demerit are
associated with the convictions of the understanding, or blame is
attached to the act of making those convictions known, not only will the
subordinate principles of the Gospel remain in part unrecognized, but
its essential principles will be violated; for it is clearly a duty of
piety to reveal all that is believed to have been discovered of the
works and ways of God;--and of benevolence to communicate what, being
conceived to be truth, is conceived to be intended for the universal
benefit of the race.

It may excite surprise that we have not here examined the claim of the
Holy Catholic Church to spiritual supremacy: but it will better accord
with our plan to take that claim into consideration while treating of
the temporary institutions of Christianity.

From the essential principles of the Gospel we derive our belief that
Christianity, is not designed for any union, permanent or temporary,
with worldly power and grandeur; that it is incapable of such a
connexion; being injured instead of confirmed by the support of temporal
authority, and impaired instead of adorned by the adjuncts of worldly
pomp. This principle is asserted in words by every Christian Church in
existence; but violated, in fact, by almost as many. Christianity is
acknowledged to be a religion of poverty of spirit, of self-denial, of
looseness from the world and its possessions. If this principle were
carried out into each individual case, it is plain that the pomp and
ambition which have despoiled the Gospel of its purity could no longer
exist. It is remarkable that this poverty and self-denial are most
insisted on in those Churches where the temporal power and luxury are
the most excessive. We hear of them above all from Catholics, whose
popes, cardinals, and bishops have, in every age, exceeded all temporal
princes in the enjoyment of splendor and luxury. We hear of them from
the Church of England, whose superior officers revel in unbounded
wealth, and especially prize the connexion with the State which their
office occasions. While we Unitarians, who hold that Christianity is of
a purely spiritual nature, and therefore dishonored by the pretended
support of powers inferior to its own, insist much less earnestly than
the Catholic Church on the duty of self-mortification and voluntary
poverty. Our Church, were it as extensive as the Catholic, would contain
no ecclesiastical princes, and no friars; no potentates clothed in
purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day from the revenues
of the Church, and no believers whose piety is testified by a vow of
poverty. We believe that our religion ought to be exerted in controling
the passions, exalting the desires, and equalizing the affections, not
so much by regulating the external manifestations of those passions and
desires, as by influencing the heart. Self-denial is taught much better
by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of
innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is much better taught by
making spiritual things the objects of supreme desire, than by
commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life. But
while the Gospel thus leaves men free to follow the bent of innocent
desires,--to decide, each for himself, what is lawful and expedient,--it
lays a powerful restraint on all the passions, and curbs all
propensities which are inconsistent with its purity and spirituality.
All worldly ambition, all selfish luxury are utterly incompatible with
the faith of the Gospel, which disallows every claim founded on itself
to distinctions of rank, to abundance of wealth, to power over the
possessions of other men, to the indulgence of earthly desires. The
Gospel affords no sanction to the accumulation of wealth, or to the
assumption of authority. It affords examples, on the contrary, of
submission to temporal authority, of the endurance of voluntary poverty
in hardship, not because poverty and hardship are in themselves
spiritually desirable, but because they were necessary to the attainment
of some benevolent end. From the Gospel we learn that Jesus utterly
disclaimed all pretensions to authority, except in those matters where
his authority was supreme. 'Who made me a judge or a divider over you?'
was his remonstrance with those who referred the disposal of an
inheritance to him: and his reply respecting the lawfulness of paying
tribute was such as ought to have obviated all doubt whether temporal
and spiritual power could ever be properly united; 'Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.'
What could be meant by the declaration 'My kingdom is not of this
world,' but that his authority was of a spiritual nature only? Why did
he strenuously oppose every attempt to make him a king? Why did he send
forth the seventy disciples without gold and silver and changes of
raiment? Why did he recommend to the rich man to sell his possessions,
if wealth and power can be made the means of serving the interests of
the Gospel? Why was his indignation so perpetually roused by the
spiritual assumptions of the Pharisees, but because religion was in them
disgraced by its connexion with worldly greatness? Yet not a few
Christians have loved the chief seats in public assemblies, and homage
in the streets; not a few have made proclamation when they dispensed
their alms, and prayed in the high ways; not a few have taken on
themselves to appoint places in the Messiah's kingdom which the Messiah
himself refused to promise, because such power belonged to God alone.
While he declined all interference in matters of temporal concern, and
rejected all support to his Gospel from magisterial authority, and all
benefit from the resources of wealth, it is clear that such support must
ever be needless and such resources unhallowed.

How does it happen, it is perpetually asked, that while the right to
temporal power is abjured in words by every Church, the State religion
of every country affords an instance of its assumption? It happens, as
many other strange and inconsistent things happen, through the misuse of
terms. What we call temporal power, the advocates of a State religion
call spiritual power; and thus have all ecclesiastical abuses been
justified from the day that ecclesiastical domination was established.
By spiritual authority have kings been enthroned and deposed; by
spiritual authority have tributes been raised, wars been originated and
conducted, properties been confiscated, and lives forfeited! By
spiritual authority were the Crusades begun and carried on; by spiritual
authority have popes divided and distributed kingdoms, have cardinals
negotiated and priests intrigued! By spiritual authority did Wolsey
amass his treasures, and rule his sovereign at home, and the agents of
his sovereign abroad! By spiritual authority does the Church of England
demand tithes, and under the same sanction do her bishops legislate.
What then is temporal power? What are worldly pomp and wealth?

The abuses which have deformed every State religion in turn are evident
to all,--even to those who still help to support them; but the origin of
those abuses is not generally ascertained. We ascribe them to the error
of mixing up the permanent principles of Christianity with its temporary
institutions.

Spiritual principles can only be recognized by means of external
manifestations; but the principles and the manifestation are not the
same thing; nor can they have a lasting connexion, as every thing
external is mutable, while the principles of truth are immutable. As
long as mind is connected with body, as long as the intellect can only
be reached through the senses, and the heart through the intellect,
truth must be invested with a form, and realities be accompanied by
shadows. But that form is changeable, and those shadows are fleeting:
the proximate cause of which is the constitution of all material things;
and the final cause, the ultimate universal recognition of the
principles of truth. We have already described how these principles were
communicated to the Israelites by means of ordinances which the mind of
man has long since outgrown. The principles of Christianity were, in
like manner, embodied in institutions, some of which are obsolete, while
others remain; but, since Christianity is destined not to be superseded
by any other scheme, it appears to follow necessarily from the
principles on which we have been reasoning, that none of its
institutions were, like the Jewish, positive, but avowedly adopted from
motives of expediency. It is therefore the belief of a portion of the
Unitarian body, that Christ himself appointed no ordinance for permanent
adoption, and that those which were appointed by the Apostles, and
sanctioned by their practice, were established on the ground of
expediency alone. They were not therefore the less obligatory upon their
disciples in those times, nor upon us, as far as the original ground of
the ordinances remains; but as some apostolic practices have, through
the revolutions of human affairs, become obsolete, it is desirable to
to search into the foundation of all.

Baptism cannot be called a Christian institution, since the rite was
practised long before the mission of the Baptist; but some of our body
adopt it as a Christian ordinance, because it was countenanced by Jesus
and administered by his followers: while other Unitarians, deeming the
practice of baptism inexpedient in their circumstances of age and
country, decline the rite themselves, but recommend its use in cases
analogous to those in which it was first adopted, i. e. in cases of
conversion from Paganism. There are others who wish to abolish it
altogether, from a fear of encouraging superstition by an ungrounded
attachment to external observances.

The ordinance of the Lord's Supper is considered a positive institution
of Christianity by almost the whole of the Christian world, the great
majority of Unitarians included. The Society of Friends, and the
Free-thinking Christians, are perhaps the only sects who positively
decline, from principle, the practice of the rite; while some Unitarians
deem it inconsistent with their principles to believe that Christ
designed the ordinance for permanent and universal adoption. It is
practised by many as a means, a very important means, of increasing love
and exciting to obedience, while they yet cannot plead a Divine sanction
in its favor, or much less suppose that any peculiar quality resides in
what is eaten and drank, or any peculiar virtue in the act of eating and
drinking by which any peculiar privilege can be attained. In these last
suppositions all our body are agreed, since no intimation can be found
in the Scriptures that the sacramental bread and wine were at any time
used otherwise than as merely emblematical of the sacrifice of Christ.
It was the practice of the early Christians to assemble for the supper,
each carrying his portion of the feast, which was eaten like any other
feast, and frequently with excess on the part of the rich, while his
poorer neighbor hungered. 'When ye come together,' says the Apostle (1
Cor. xi. 20-23,), it is not to eat the Lord's Supper; for in eating,
every one taketh before another his own supper, and one is hungry and
another is drunken. What? Have ye not houses to eat and drink in? Or
despise ye the Church of God, and shame them that have not?' (v. 33.)
'Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, wait one for
another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not
together unto condemnation.'--It is not conceivable that these
Christians had any notion that what they ate and drank was in itself
sacred, or that the Apostle was aware of any other purpose of the rite
but that of 'showing forth the Lord's death till he came.'

This rite was usually practised on the first day of the week, when the
disciples met to commemorate the resurrection of their Lord, and to
worship together. The custom of meeting on a stated day for worship has
been continued ever since; and the day has been wisely set apart for
purposes of rest and refreshment to body and mind. An institution so
simple for purposes so salutary will probably, however abused, be of
very long standing, even after it is more generally allowed than at
present, not to be a Divine appointment. The Jewish Sabbath was a Divine
ordinance for the use of the Jews; and by them alone has the last day of
the week been regarded as sacred. The Lord's Day, or, as it sometimes
called, the Christian Sabbath, is a totally different institution, and
one which is professedly arbitrary, though subservient to very important
objects. If the Jews were encouraged by their Messiah to look to the
final purposes of their sabbatical institution, much more ought we, the
subjects of a more enlarged dispensation, to bear in mind that all
external observances are but means to ends; ordinances of which it is
certain that they were made for man, and not man for them.

Whatever may be the diversity of opinion among Unitarians respecting the
ground of the three ordinances just referred to, there is none with
regard to those institutions whose period appears to have been
determined at the moment of their origin.

The institution of Apostolic Ordination, which the Roman Catholic Church
holds to be of a permanent nature, we believe not to have been designed
to outlive the Apostles. We perceive no intimation in the various
instructions given them which can lead us to imagine that their office
was intended to be or could be bequeathed. They were chosen to be
witnesses of the circumstances of the life and death of Christ, and the
depositaries of miraculous powers after his ascension; but as the
assistance of the Holy Spirit, that is the power conferred from on high,
was only a temporary sanction, the peculiar office with which it was
connected could also be only temporary. The evidence which we possess
on this very important subject consists of the words of Christ himself,
addressed to his Apostles respecting their mission, their own incidental
observations, and the facts which ecclesiastical history presents. From
all these sources of evidence we derive our belief that the office of
_witnessing_, which is absolutely untransferrable, was the peculiar
office of the twelve Apostles; that they were especially qualified by it
for the task of preaching and establishing the new Gospel, and that to
enable them to do so with sufficient effect, among the many and great
difficulties which the state of the world then presented, the miraculous
gifts of the Spirit were granted to them, with power to impart them to
whomsoever they would, and that this miraculous power was coexistent
with the apostolic age,--with what is variously called 'the age,' 'the
kingdom of God,' 'the kingdom of Christ,' 'the kingdom of heaven;' that
is, from the descent of the Holy Spirit to the abolition of Judaism on
the overthrow of Jerusalem. We find no evidence of miracles after that
time which is at all to be compared with that on which we rely
respecting the apostolic gifts; none which allows us to hesitate in our
opinion, that with the apostles expired the power of communicating
miraculous privileges; and that on them alone were such privileges
immediately conferred. These gifts of the Spirit served as a Divine
sanction to their testimony, and were therefore coexistent with that
testimony; and the same evidence which recorded their testimony after
their death, recorded the Divine sanction likewise; and upon this broad
and immutable foundation is built the Christian faith, against which,
according to the Saviour's promise, no opposition has prevailed or can
prevail. When some who could not deny the peculiarity of his mission,
but would not admit his pre-eminent claims, supposed him to be John the
Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or another of the prophets,
Simon Peter, who was not blinded by prejudice, and who believed for the
works' sake in opposition to the opinions of men, boldly declared him to
be 'the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus pronounced him
blessed, because he believed what the power of God made manifest, and
not what men declared; and promised that on such testimony as his should
the Gospel be established, so that no opposition should prevail against
it; and further declared that it should be in the power of Peter to
admit men into the privileges of the Gospel, and to have extensive
influence over their spiritual state. 'Blessed art thou, Simon; for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in
heaven. And I also say unto thee that thou art Peter (a rock,) and on
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of death shall not
prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven.' This promise was fulfilled. Peter bore testimony far and wide,
with all the zeal and energy by which he was characterized, to the life,
teachings and death of his divine master; and from this testimony, in
conjunction with that of his brethren, is derived the evidence on which
Christianity is received to this day. Peter had also pre-eminent power
in the infant Church, converting three thousand persons on the day of
Pentecost, and afterwards preaching, baptizing, and adding multitudes to
those who were pressing into the kingdom of God.

No record exists of any attempt on his part to delegate any portion of
his power; none of which could be transferred but such authority in the
Church as he possessed under the mode of church government which then
subsisted. That which constituted the chief glory of the Prince of the
Apostles belonged to him as the follower of Jesus and as an eminent
recipient of the gifts of the Spirit. It appears exceedingly improbable
that Peter ever was Bishop of Rome, though he suffered imprisonment and
perhaps martyrdom there. The authority of the Apostles was general, and
seems to have been exercised generally, instead of being fixed in any
one congregation. At all events it is clear that the Bishops of Rome did
not lay claim to any preeminence over the patriarchs of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, (further than as they all claimed
precedence of one another on account of the dignity of their several
cities, and the superior wealth of their sees,) till the Arian
controversy afforded them various opportunities of extending their
power. When remonstrances were offered by the sixth Council of Carthage,
in A. D. 426, and by many other assemblies, against the encroachments of
the Bishops of Rome, the pleas which are now brought forward in support
of their claim to supremacy had never been heard of; and they were in
fact never adduced till many centuries after the death of Peter. It was
not till the beginning of the seventh century that the title of Pope was
appropriated by the Bishops of Rome; it being applied to all bishops at
first, and afterwards to those who held the larger sees, as when
Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, called Cyprian the Pope of Carthage. The
assumption of the title of Universal Bishop by John of Constantinople,
towards the end of the sixth century, was condemned by Gregory the
Great, then Bishop of Rome, as presumption and even blasphemy; and he
further showed his sense of the presumption by investing himself with
the humbler title of Servus Servorum Dei. Yet so soon after as A. D.
606, Boniface III. obtained of the Emperor Phocas that the Bishops of
Rome alone should henceforth call themselves Universal Bishops: the
claim being founded on the dignity of the city and the wealth of the
see, and not on the transmission of the apostolic office from Peter, of
which not the slightest hint appears to have been given till Leo
complained that the Council of Chalcedon had granted his claim to
preeminence on no better ground than the importance of the city where
he presided. Even he, however, had no thought of advancing pretensions
to infallibility, as the successor of an infallible Apostle; this
additional claim being reserved for Agatho, who, in 680, brought forward
the novel doctrine 'that the chair of Rome--never erred, nor can err in
any point;' and that 'all the constitutions of the Roman Church are to
be received as if they had been delivered by the divine voice of St
Peter.' So that there is an utter absence of proof that 'the Catholic or
Universal Church has been visibly continued through all ages in one
uniform faith, being guided and preserved from error in matters of faith
by the assistance of the Holy Spirit.' On the contrary, there is every
kind of evidence to prove that the supernatural influences of the Spirit
ceased with the close of the apostolic age; that divisions of various
kinds and degrees existed in the Christian Church, over which the
Bishops of Rome for five or six centuries exerted no pre-eminent
control, and which the decrees of Councils were of no avail to soothe
and unite. We therefore hold apostolic ordination to have been a
temporary institution, and at the time more universally understood to
be so than perhaps any other provision for the spread of the Gospel.

Of any such institution as a Church, permanent or temporary, established
by Christ, and distinct from the simple exhibition of his Gospel, we
find not the most remote hint in any records but those of the vain
imaginations of men. _A Church_ means literally an assemblage; and the
Church of Christ signifies, everywhere in the sacred writings, those who
believe in Christ. Where the term is limited, it signifies assemblages
of Christians in different places, as the Church at Corinth, the Church
at Ephesus, &c. By the universal Church it is impossible to understand
any thing but the total number of Christian believers: nor can we
conceive of any means by which it can be shown that the primitive
Christians understood otherwise, or that the term can admit of any other
interpretation. We hold, therefore, that the propositions we are about
to quote from the document to which we have before referred ('Roman
Catholic Principles,' &c.) are founded on an unauthorized and erroneous
conception of the nature of the Christian Church. 'The way or means by
which man may arrive at the knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel'
are declared to be 'not by the reading of Scripture, interpreted
according to the private judgment of each disjunctive person or nation
in particular; but by an attention and submission to the voice of the
Catholic or Universal Church, established by Christ for the instruction
of all; spread for that end through all nations, and visibly continued
in the succession of pastors and people through all ages. From this
Church, guided in truth, and secured from error in matters of faith by
the promised assistance of the Holy Ghost, every one may learn the right
sense of the Scriptures, and such Christian mysteries and duties as are
necessary to salvation. This Church, thus established, thus spread, thus
continued, thus guided, in one uniform faith and subordination of
government, is that which is called the Roman Catholic Church: the
qualities just mentioned, unity, indeficiency, visibility, succession,
and universality, being evidently applicable to her. From the testimony
and authority of this Church it is that we receive the Scriptures, and
believe them to be the word of God; and as she can assuredly tell us
what particular book is the word of God, so she can, with the like
assurance, tell us also the true sense and meaning of it in controverted
points of faith; the same Spirit that wrote the Scriptures, directing
her to understand both them and all matters necessary to salvation.'

As we believe ourselves included in the universal Church, _i. e._ in the
number of Christian believers, we acknowledge no authority but that
which thus included us,--the authority of Christ himself: to no other
voice but his, as delivered in Scripture, do we listen with submission;
and to none do we commit the office of interpretation; believing that
God has given to every man the inalienable right and sufficient power to
ascertain for himself what doctrines and duties are necessary to
salvation. What the Romish Church may be which, so far from being
'universal' expressly assumes the power of guiding and informing
Christian believers, we profess not to understand, having received no
evidence of its origin and no attestation of its claims; but we know
that in the _Christian Church_ there has never been, since the apostolic
age, 'one uniform faith and subordination of government;' nor do we
believe that such subordination is designed by Providence, or that such
uniformity is compatible with the present nature of man, or essential to
his safety and peace. Believing that the Scriptures contain the word of
God, and that the natural faculties of man are its appropriate
interpreters, we dare not commit to others the task of receiving a
message which we know to be addressed immediately to ourselves;
especially as we are convinced that, since the apostolic age, no
peculiar gifts of wisdom or of tongues have been conferred on any man.
The same Spirit which dictated the Gospel we believe to pervade the
whole spiritual universe, giving wisdom liberally to all who seek it,
and enlightening those who do the will of God respecting the doctrine
which is of God.

Since the Roman Catholic Church cannot find a basis for its claims in
the Scriptures, those claims must be founded on the 'apostolical and
ecclesiastical traditions' which she requires her members 'most firmly
to admit and embrace.' The question between the Catholic and Protestant
Churches on this subject is,--what traditions are to be received and
what rejected; for the one Church would be as unwilling to receive all
that have been current, as the other to reject all that have been
substantiated. It is evident, as the Protestant Church admits, that the
Christians who were not converted by the Apostles themselves, and who
lived before the publication of the canonical Scriptures, could have had
no other foundation for their faith than tradition; and on the same
ground we establish our belief in the genuineness of the Scriptures; _i.
e._, we declare them canonical.

When we reject traditions therefore, it is not as traditions, but in
proportion to their evidence. If they appear inconsistent with the
sacred writings, incompatible with the convictions of reason, or
disagreeing with the circumstances of the age, we feel that the balance
of evidence is against them. If they be merely vague and
inconsequential, and not contradictory to each other or to any known
truth, we hold them loosely, without firm conviction and without
positive disbelief. If they be, not only consistent with, but
corroborative of ascertained truth, clear in the origin, and early and
extensively held, our faith in them is willing and steadfast. Of the
first class are those traditions which were pleaded before the second
Council of Nice, A. D. 787, on behalf of the worship of images, which we
reject on all the grounds mentioned above; viz. because they are
inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the sacred books; because
they are incompatible with the convictions of our reason, and because
they are perfectly irreconcileable with the practice of the Apostles and
the discipline of the primitive Church. Of the second class are those
which relate the various fate of the first followers of Christ, and
which we admit in the absence of all other evidence, though on such
slight grounds as to have no firm conviction of their truth. Of the
third class are those by which we receive the sacred books as genuine,
and which command belief from their universal prevalence, their strong
inherent probability, and perfect consonance with the contents of the
books themselves. It will be easily anticipated from what we have said,
that we reject those traditions which corroborate the claims of the
Roman Catholic Church to a special divine commission; since such
traditions are in opposition to what we recognize as the spirit of the
Gospel, and unsanctioned by the conduct of the Apostles, especially of
Peter. Rejecting these traditions, we hold the opinion suggested by the
record of the Acts of the Apostles, that their special commission
expired with themselves; that apostolical ordination was a temporary
institution; and that the special influence of the Holy Spirit was
designed to be a temporary sanction.

The church of England appears to us to merit the censure and even the
ridicule cast upon her by the Roman Catholic Church for the
inconsistency of her institutions with the principle on which she
professes to act,--the principle of the Reformation,--that the Bible
alone is the religion of Protestants. Catholics and protestants
Dissenter join in challenging her to produce from the Bible the grounds
of the practice, among others, of episcopal ordination; including, as it
does, the declaration of the regular transmission of the office, with
its peculiar gifts of the Spirit, from the times of St Peter till the
present day. Rejecting, as she does, the ecclesiastical traditions on
which the Catholics depend, and unable as she is to adduce authority
from the Scriptures to which Dissenters appeal, she has no alternative
but to own the practice ungrounded, or to adduce some third authority,
hitherto unheard of.

Some of the most objectionable forms of ordination for Christian
pastorship were, notwithstanding, retained by various denominations of
Dissenters long after their separation from the Church of England, and
are still partially held; but Unitarians have altogether relinquished
the conception that the teachers of the Gospel are peculiarly qualified
for their office otherwise than by their voluntary devotion to it, and
by those natural means of study, reflection and prayer which their duty
requires them strenuously to employ.

We conceive that the Church of England has been led into the
inconsistency mentioned above by conceiving in common with the
Catholics, and as we think erroneously, that the institutions of Church
government established in the apostolic age are a part of Christianity,
and therefore destined to be permanent. Her Church government is, it is
true, not the same, because it cannot, by possibility, be so, the lapse
of ages having wrought unavoidable changes; but this mutability, which
ought to prove to her the temporary nature of the institution, only
makes her cling the more eagerly to the points of resemblance which she
conceives to have been preserved between her own constitution and that
of the primitive Church; forgetting that such supposed resemblance is
immediately derived from that very Catholic Church whose superstitions
inspired her with so much horror at the Reformation. Whatever
resemblance the two Churches bear to the primitive Church in its
external offices, they bear in common.

This resemblance, however, is but slight. In the primitive Christian
Church, regulated by elders chosen from the people, and in no way
distinguished from them in rank or learning, and served by deacons,
whose office was to distribute the funds held by all in common, we can
scarcely recognize the original of the pompous establishments in which
religion is now believed to be preserved in its purity, till, on
examining the history, we trace the degrees by which spiritual
domination was secured. The most distinguished of the elders served the
office of moderator in the assemblies which met for the transaction of
business. In time, the office became permanent, and the 'constant
president' was allowed to appropriate the title of 'bishop,' which had
before been common to all the elders. When numbers increased so that
smaller congregations were separated from one larger, each colony had an
elder at its head, and the chief of the parent Church became a diocesan
bishop. Large country congregations were, however, empowered to choose
a complete set of officers for themselves, consisting of bishops,
elders, and deacons, and were independent of the city Churches, till the
Council held at Antioch A. D. 341 forbade country bishops to ordain
priests or deacons, and allowed them the power of choosing only the
inferior officers of the Church. The next step was to abolish the order
of country bishops; _country deans_ and _arch priests_ being
substituted. At length, synods were held, at which the bishops met as
deputies of the people, to communicate concerning affairs of common
interest, forgetting from time to time the character in which they
appeared, and venturing to make decrees by their own authority, and even
to claim a power of prescribing in matters of faith and discipline. The
principal bishop in a large district was employed by his brethren to
convoke these assemblies; and as the choice usually fell on the chief
officer of the metropolitan Church, the title of metropolitan bishop or
arch-bishop was applied to him; which term became common in the Church
after the year 430. The patriarchs were of a higher rank still; and
there were only five of them, belonging to the sees of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. They were not
called Primates till the time of Leo I. The ambition of the clergy found
extensive means of gratification in the changes made by Constantine, who
adapted the government of the Church to that of the State, which he had
newly divided and ordered. As the superior clergy grasped at greater
power, the inferior clergy pressed upon their steps; and we soon hear of
arch-presbyters and arch-deacons, and of the occasional union of the
offices of priest and deacon in the same individual. Thus did the
servants gradually become the masters of the Church; and thus, in four
centuries, was the constitution of Christian congregations so entirely
changed, that scarcely a shadow of their original institutions remained.

This brief detail (the truth of which is so well known that it is
needless to give as our authority every accredited ecclesiastical
history) affords the best argument for the temporary nature of the
institutions of Church government, and sanctions the declaration of
those who are charged by either Church with schism, that before they can
again be required to join the Establishment, that Establishment must be
reduced to the simplicity of government and discipline which
characterized the primitive church. The bishops must assume nothing
over their brethren, and be superior in no respect but in holiness; they
must be stewards of God, not given to lucre, but eminent in faith, in
temperance, in charity. The deacons must administer the common revenues
of the church for the benefit of those who have need, appropriating
nothing themselves nor suffering others to appropriate. The church
itself must be, in all its views and objects, not of this world; having
no respect of persons, not awarding to the man in goodly apparel a
better place than to the poor man in vile raiment, rejecting every
inducement to the usurpation of secular power, and leaving to the
conscience of every man, as Peter referred to the conscience of Ananias,
the obligation of contributing to the common revenue. 'While the land
remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was not the price
in thine own power?' is not the language of ecclesiastical tax-gatherers
in the present day: and till all contributions to the churches become
strictly voluntary, till the churches abjure all temporal authority, and
free their discipline and ritual from the encroachments of spiritual
tyranny and the defilements of superstition, neither the one nor the
other can advance any claim to spiritual allegiance, and men who dissent
from both may hold themselves innocent of the sin of schism.

Thus much we say on the supposition that it might be possible or
desirable to restore the ancient constitution of the Church. But we make
such a supposition only for the sake of meeting the views of those who,
feeling that the ecclesiastical establishments of the present day are
unchristian, would fain substitute for them the simple institutions of
the primitive Church. Believing as we do, that all such institutions
must be classed among the non-essentials of Christianity, we would have
them modified according to the circumstances of the age and country in
which they are to be used. It is not possible that some of the original
Christian ordinances can be advantageously employed in every country and
through every age. The first Christians belonged, for the most part, to
the middling and lower classes of society, and consequently had few
possessions. These possessions, with whatever was voluntarily offered by
the few rich men among them, were gathered into a common stock, in order
that all might be so far freed from secular cares as to be able to
devote their minds and hearts to the furtherance of the cause of the
Gospel. It is obvious that the same reasons for establishing a community
of goods do not exist in a Christian country, where the faith has no
longer to maintain a struggle with the powers which opposed its first
promulgation. Nor could such a community of goods answer the same
purposes in a wealthy commercial state and among the cantons of
Switzerland, among the nobles and boors of Russia, and the back-woodsmen
of America; in states where civilization is most advanced, and in
regions where the rights of property are almost unrecognized.

The same may be said of the external modes of worship. Granting that the
complex ceremonies of Roman Catholic worship, so nearly resembling the
rites of Paganism, might, by possibility, admit of a connexion with pure
Christian faith, it cannot be supposed that the cross, wax lights, and
incense can ever form a ritual appropriate to the customs of Arabs or
Indians, or that they will help the devotion of the fiftieth generation
from the present. Primitive modes of worship have, by a singular
ordering of circumstances, been preserved among the Vaudois, and are
still consonant with their secular state: but men who dwell amidst
ravines and mountain forests think and feel differently, and therefore
worship differently from those who inhabit the cities of the plain;
while the faith of all is essentially the same. It is, therefore,
unreasonable of the Catholic Church to require of all her members, dwell
where they may, in the north or in the south, in the metropolis or the
wilderness, the vow, 'I also receive and admit the ceremonies of the
Catholic Church, received and approved in the solemn administration of
all the seven sacraments.'

Far more reasonable is the Gospel in its requisitions, the sole
condition of whose promises is, that men shall 'worship the Father in
spirit and in truth.' We have said that the essence of Christian faith
is the same through all varieties of manifestation. It has ever been so,
and it shall ever be so, for these varieties of manifestation are
ordained for the very purpose of preserving the essence. They are
ordained, lest men, too much regarding things seen and temporal, should
confound with them things unseen and eternal; should not only
incorporate religion in material forms, but identify it with them. They
are ordained that men may learn what Christianity really is, what the
Lord God requires of them concerning it, what He promises them in it,
what He purposes to effect by it; and furthermore, that men may mutually
recognize the new bond of brotherhood which the Gospel discloses, by
which all are made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. This
recognition must take place as soon as the nature and design of
Christianity are understood, be it here or hereafter, in this world or
in the next; and surely the sooner the better.

That mode of belief which encourages the closest investigation into the
principles of Christianity; which discovers the most clearly all
spiritual relations; which affords the most distinct apprehension of the
permanence and universality of the Gospel; which discerns how its
promises are ratified, its threatenings confirmed, its truths
corroborated by all other spiritual influences, by all the results of
human experience, and all the developments of Providence,--must be the
best adapted to the needs and capabilities of an ever-expanding and
immortal spirit. That mode of belief which adapts itself to all times
and circumstances, and which is independent of all influences but those
which are unfailing, must be the truest and best: and such a faith
actually exists in those views of Christianity under which it appears
as simple and diffusive as natural religion.

The Greenlander, who sees how rapidly all natural influences combine to
enhance the bloom of his transient summer, recognizes the same
attributes of Providence as the philosopher who marks the expansion of
mind under the vicissitudes of events: both are natural religionists.
The great truths of Christianity may be also common to both. The
Greenlander loses the wife of his bosom, and wanders on the icy shore to
watch if any skiff traverses the horizon, to bring him tidings from the
world of spirits; he listens to the sullen roar of the waves and the
moaning of the wind, in the intense hope that the voice of a spirit may
mingle with their murmurs. The philosopher who has suffered bereavement
feels a similar want, though his yearnings are differently expressed.
His reason is adjured, and not his senses, to yield evidence of a life
beyond the grave; and the intellect of the one is as intently fixed as
the eye and ear of the other on whatever may bring a solution of his
doubts. Is not the main fact of Christianity that which is preeminently
fitted to afford consolation and hope to both? To each in the proportion
in which he is able to receive it? The Greenlander, who believes that
there has been an actual resurrection in proof that all men shall live
after death, is soothed and cheered by hope. He is brave when tossed by
the storms of the ocean or half-buried in a snow-drift, because death is
no longer the fearful thing it was. He is patient when his winter store
of provisions is exhausted and his children ask him for food, because
his faith teaches him that he who can restore the dead from the grave
can preserve the living, though the means may not be immediately
apparent. This faith is the same with that on which the philosopher
reposes his trust, when he sees things that yet are not as though they
were,--the revelations of the grave, the spiritual and intellectual
communion of a higher state, and the blessed results of the trials and
privations of the present. And a similar congeniality prevails
respecting every other essential doctrine and principle of the Gospel;
and even respecting its minor details. The universal spread of Glad
Tidings is a fit subject for universal rejoicing. The moral beauty of
the Saviour's character is recognizable by all; the spirit of his
teachings is congenial to all; and the very illustrations in which they
are set forth are of a universal nature. Storms everywhere beat on
human dwellings, and in all regions flowers spring, and the lights of
heaven shine and are obscured. The filial and fraternal relations
subsist everywhere; widowed mothers mourn over the bier of a son, and
rejoicings are witnessed at marriage feasts. The parables of the Gospel
are the most appropriate elementary teachings for all minds from pole to
pole; and the principles which Christ proposed command the assent of
every intellect, from that of the child whom he set in the midst of his
followers, to that which, exalted by all holy influences, is surrounded
on its release from the grave by a throng of perfected spirits. It is
for man to beware how he limits what God has thus made universal; how he
monopolizes what God designs to be diffused; how he encumbers by human
inventions that truth which Divine wisdom has made free to all.

By the Gospel, a new relation is established between Him who gives and
him who receives it; and it is for man to beware how he attempts to
modify this relation, or to intrude on the special communion which it
establishes. It is not in the power of man to take away any thing from
the Gospel, though he may narrow the capacity of its recipients; but he
must beware how he adds to it the teachings of his own low and vain
imaginations. He can do nothing to impair Divine truth, for it is made
invulnerable by God: but he may impair and destroy its efficacy for
himself and his brethren, by mistaking its nature and perverting its
influences; by transferring to others the task which he may not
delegate, of admitting its evidences and interpreting its commands. It
is not in the power of man to silence the voice of God speaking on earth
through Christ; but he must beware of listening to any other exponent of
the Divine will, whether or not he refer his claim to St Peter; whether
or not he appeal to human wisdom throned in the papal chair or attested
by the unanimity of Councils; whether or not he entitle himself the
Vicar of Christ on earth.

It is not in the power of man to restrict the influences of the Gospel.
What they have been, they will be; what they have done, they will
continue to effect. They will bless the spirit in its wanderings and in
its retirements, making the universe the record of its history, and its
inmost recesses the dwelling-place of Deity. They will restrain the
excesses, chasten the emotions, and ennoble the sympathies of humanity.
They will bless life, and hallow the grave. They will develope
themselves perpetually as ages roll on, till it shall be their lowest
office to still the sighings and subdue the conflicts of the spirit;
while their highest shall still be, so to direct its pursuit of ultimate
objects, so to invigorate its natural and moral powers, as to evidence
to itself its ever-growing resemblance to its Maker. It is for man to
beware lest he exclude himself from these influences or impair their
operation by mistaking superstition for religion, and by supinely
relinquishing the intellectual and spiritual liberty with which Christ
has made him free.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essential Faith of the Universal
Church, by Harriet Martineau

*** 