UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY

By William Ellery Channing

Delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Jared Sparks

in The First Independent Church of Baltimore on

May 5, 1819.

1 Thes. v. 21: "Prove all things; hold fast that

which is good."

The peculiar circumstances of this occasion not only justify,

but seem to demand a departure from the course generally followed

by preachers at the introduction of a brother into the sacred

office. It is usual to speak of the nature, design, duties, and

advantages of the Christian ministry; and on these topics I should

now be happy to insist, did I not remember that a minister is to be

given this day to a religious society, whose peculiarities of

opinion have drawn upon them much remark, and may I not add, much

reproach. Many good minds, many sincere Christians, I am aware, are

apprehensive that the solemnities of this day are to give a degree

of influence to principles which they deem false and injurious. The

fears and anxieties of such men I respect; and, believing that they

are grounded in part on mistake, I have thought it my duty to lay

before you, as clearly as I can, some of the distinguishing

opinions of that class of Christians in our country, who are known

to sympathize with this religious society. I must ask your

patience, for such a subject is not to be despatched in a narrow

compass. I must also ask you to remember, that it is impossible to

exhibit, in a single discourse, our views of every doctrine of

Revelation, much less the differences of opinion which are known to

subsist among ourselves. I shall confine myself to topics, on which

our sentiments have been misrepresented, or which distinguish us

most widely from others. May I not hope to be heard with candor?

God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with

the love of truth and virtue.

There are two natural divisions under which my thoughts will

be arranged. I shall endeavour to unfold, 1st, The principles which

we adopt in interpreting the Scriptures. And 2dly, Some of the

doctrines, which the Scriptures, so interpreted, seem to us clearly

to express.

I. We regard the Scriptures as the records of God's successive

revelations to mankind, and particularly of the last and most

perfect revelation of his will by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines

seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures; we receive

without reserve or exception. We do not, however, attach equal

importance to all the books in this collection. Our religion, we

believe, lies chiefly in the New Testament. The dispensation of

Moses, compared with that of Jesus, we consider as adapted to the

childhood of the human race, a preparation for a nobler system, and

chiefly useful now as serving to confirm and illustrate the

Christian Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the only master of

Christians, and whatever he taught, either during his personal

ministry, or by his inspired Apostles, we regard as of divine

authority, and profess to make the rule of our lives.

This authority, which we give to the Scriptures, is a reason,

we conceive, for studying them with peculiar care, and for

inquiring anxiously into the principles of interpretation, by which

their true meaning may be ascertained. The principles adopted by

the class of Christians in whose name I speak, need to be

explained, because they are often misunderstood. We are

particularly accused of making an unwarrantable use of reason in

the interpretation of Scripture. We are said to exalt reason above

revelation, to prefer our own wisdom to God's. Loose and undefined

charges of this kind are circulated so freely, that we think it due

to ourselves, and to the cause of truth, to express our views with

some particularity.

Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that

the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and

that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of

other books. We believe that God, when he speaks to the human race,

conforms, if we may so say, to the established rules of speaking

and writing. How else would the Scriptures avail us more, than if

communicated in an unknown tongue?

Now all books, and all conversation, require in the reader or

hearer the constant exercise of reason; or their true import is

only to be obtained by continual comparison and inference. Human

language, you well know, admits various interpretations; and every

word and every sentence must be modified and explained according to

the subject which is discussed, according to the purposes,

feelings, circumstances, and principles of the writer, and

according to the genius and idioms of the language which he uses.

These are acknowledged principles in the interpretation of human

writings; and a man, whose words we should explain without

reference to these principles, would reproach us justly with a

criminal want of candor, and an intention of obscuring or

distorting his meaning.

Were the Bible written in a language and style of its own, did

it consist of words, which admit but a single sense, and of

sentences wholly detached from each other, there would be no place

for the principles now laid down. We could not reason about it, as

about other writings. But such a book would be of little worth; and

perhaps, of all books, the Scriptures correspond least to this

description. The Word of God hears the stamp of the same hand,

which we see in his works. It has infinite connexions and

dependences. Every proposition is linked with others, and is to be

compared with others; that its full and precise import may he

understood. Nothing stands alone. The New Testament is built on the

Old. The Christian dispensation is a continuation of the Jewish,

the completion of a vast scheme of providence, requiring great

extent of view in the reader. Still more, the Bible treats of

subjects on which we receive ideas from other sources besides

itself; such subjects as the nature, passions, relations, and

duties of man; and it expects us to restrain and modify its

language by the known truths, which observation and experience

furnish on these topics.

We profess not to know a book, which demands a more frequent

exercise of reason than the Bible. In addition to the remarks now

made on its infinite connexions, we may observe, that its style

nowhere affects the precision of science, or the accuracy of

definition. Its language is singularly glowing, bold, and

figurative, demanding more frequent departures from the literal

sense, than that of our own age and country, and consequently

demanding more continual exercise of judgment. -- We find, too,

that the different portions of this book, instead of being confined

to general truths, refer perpetually to the times when they were

written, to states of society, to modes of thinking, to

controversies in the church, to feelings and usages which have

passed away, and without the knowledge of which we are constantly

in danger of extending to all times, and places, what was of

temporary and local application. -- We find, too, that some of

these books are strongly marked by the genius and character of

their respective writers, that the Holy Spirit did not so guide the

Apostles as to suspend the peculiarities of their minds, and that

a knowledge of their feelings, and of the influences under which

they were placed, is one of the preparations for understanding

their writings. With these views of the Bible, we feel it our

bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually, to

compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek

in the nature of the subject, and the aim of the writer, his true

meaning; and, in general, to make use of what is known, for

explaining what is difficult, and for discovering new truths.

Need I descend to particulars, to prove that the Scriptures

demand the exercise of reason? Take, for example, the style in

which they generally speak of God, and observe how habitually they

apply to him human passions and organs. Recollect the declarations

of Christ, that he came not to send peace, but a sword; that unless

we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we have no life in us; that

we must hate father and mother, and pluck out the right eye; and a

vast number of passages equally bold and unlimited. Recollect the

unqualified manner in which it is said of Christians, that they

possess all things, know all things, and can do all things.

Recollect the verbal contradiction between Paul and James, and the

apparent clashing of some parts of Paul's writings with the general

doctrines and end of Christianity. I might extend the enumeration

indefinitely; and who does not see, that we must limit all these

passages by the known attributes of God, of Jesus Christ, and of

human nature, and by the circumstances under which they were

written, so as to give the language a quite different import from

what it would require, had it been applied to different beings, or

used in different connexions.

Enough has been said to show, in what sense we make use of

reason in interpreting Scripture. From a variety of possible

interpretations, we select that which accords with the nature of

the subject and the state of the writer, with the connexion of the

passage, with the general strain of Scripture, with the known

character and will of God, and with the obvious and acknowledged

laws of nature. In other words, we believe that God never

contradicts, in one part of scripture, what he teaches in another;

and never contradicts, in revelation, what he teaches in his works

and providence. And we therefore distrust every interpretation,

which, after deliberate attention, seems repugnant to any

established truth. We reason about the Bible precisely as civilians

do about the constitution under which we live; who, you know, are

accustomed to limit one provision of that venerable instrument by

others, and to fix the precise import of its parts, by inquiring

into its general spirit, into the intentions of its authors, and

into the prevalent feelings, impressions, and circumstances of the

time when it was framed. Without these principles of

interpretation, we frankly acknowledge, that we cannot defend the

divine authority of the Scriptures. Deny us this latitude, and we

must abandon this book to its enemies.

We do not announce these principles as original, or peculiar

to ourselves. All Christians occasionally adopt them, not excepting

those who most vehemently decry them, when they happen to menace

some favorite article of their creed. All Christians are compelled

to use them in their controversies with infidels. All sects employ

them in their warfare with one another. All willingly avail

themselves of reason, when it can be pressed into the service of

their own party, and only complain of it, when its weapons wound

themselves. None reason more frequently than those from whom we

differ. It is astonishing what a fabric they rear from a few slight

hints about the fall of our first parents; and how ingeniously they

extract, from detached passages, mysterious doctrines about the

divine nature. We do not blame them for reasoning so abundantly,

but for violating the fundamental rules of reasoning, for

sacrificing the plain to the obscure, and the general strain of

Scripture to a scanty number of insulated texts.

We object strongly to the contemptuous manner in which human

reason is often spoken of by our adversaries, because it leads, we

believe, to universal skepticism. If reason be so dreadfully

darkened by the fall, that its most decisive judgments on religion

are unworthy of trust, then Christianity, and even natural

theology, must be abandoned; for the existence and veracity of God,

and the divine original of Christianity, are conclusions of reason,

and must stand or fall with it. If revelation be at war with this

faculty, it subverts itself, for the great question of its truth is

left by God to be decided at the bar of reason. It is worthy of

remark, how nearly the bigot and the skeptic approach. Both would

annihilate our confidence in our faculties, and both throw doubt

and confusion over every truth. We honor revelation too highly to

make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to

renounce our highest powers.

We indeed grant, that the use of reason in religion is

accompanied with danger. But we ask any honest man to look back on

the history of the church, and say, whether the renunciation of it

be not still more dangerous. Besides, it is a plain fact, that men

reason as erroneously on all subjects, as on religion. Who does not

know the wild and groundless theories, which have been framed in

physical and political science? But who ever supposed, that we must

cease to exercise reason on nature and society, because men have

erred for ages in explaining them? We grant, that the passions

continually, and sometimes fatally, disturb the rational faculty in

its inquiries into revelation. The ambitious contrive to find

doctrines in the Bible, which favor their love of dominion. The

timid and dejected discover there a gloomy system, and the mystical

and fanatical, a visionary theology. The vicious can find examples

or assertions on which to build the hope of a late repentance, or

of acceptance on easy terms. The falsely refined contrive to light

on doctrines which have not been soiled by vulgar handling. But the

passions do not distract the reason in religious, any more than in

other inquiries, which excite strong and general interest; and this

faculty, of consequence, is not to be renounced in religion, unless

we are prepared to discard it universally. The true inference from

the almost endless errors, which have darkened theology, is, not

that we are to neglect and disparage our powers, but to exert them

more patiently, circumspectly, uprightly. The worst errors, after

all, having sprung up in that church, which proscribes reason, and

demands from its members implicit faith. The most pernicious

doctrines have been the growth of the darkest times, when the

general credulity encouraged bad men and enthusiasts to broach

their dreams and inventions, and to stifle the faint remonstrances

of reasons, by the menaces of everlasting perdition. Say what we

may, God has given us a rational nature, and will call us to

account for it. We may let it sleep, but we do so at our peril.

Revelation is addressed to us as rational beings. We may wish, in

our to sloth, that God had given us a system, demand of comparing,

limiting, and inferring. But such a system would be at variance

with the whole character of our present existence; and it is the

part of wisdom to take revelation as it is given to us, and to

interpret it by the help of the faculties, which it everywhere

supposes, and on which founded.

To the views now given, an objection is commonly urged from

the character of God. We are told, that God being infinitely wiser

than men, his discoveries will surpass human reason. In a

revelation from such a teacher, we ought to expect propositions,

which we cannot reconcile with one another, and which may seem to

contradict established truths ; and it becomes us not to question

or explain them away, but to believe, and adore, and to submit our

weak and carnal reason to the Divine Word. To this objection, we

have two short answers. We say, first, that it is impossible that

a teacher of infinite wisdom should expose those, whom he would

teach, to infinite error. But if once we admit, that propositions,

which in their literal sense appear plainly repugnant to one

another, or to any known truth, are still to be literally

understood and received, what possible limit can we set to the

belief of contradictions? What shelter have we from the wildest

fanaticism, which can always quote passages, that, in their literal

and obvious sense, give support to its extravagances? How can the

Protestant escape from transubstantiation, a doctrine most clearly

taught us, if the submission of reason, now contended for, be a

duty? How can we even hold fast the truth of revelation, for if one

apparent contradiction may be true, so may another, and the

proposition, that Christianity is false, though involving

inconsistency, may still be a verity?

We answer again, that, if God be infinitely wise, he cannot

sport with the understandings of his creatures. A wise teacher

discovers his wisdom in adapting himself to the capacities of his

pupils, not in perplexing them with what is unintelligible, not in

distressing them with apparent contradictions, not in filling them

with a skeptical distrust of their own powers. An infinitely wise

teacher, who knows the precise extent of our minds, and the best

method of enlightening them, will surpass all other instructors in

bringing down truth to our apprehension, and in showing its

loveliness and harmony. We ought, indeed, to expect occasional

obscurity in such a book as the Bible, which was written for past

and future ages, as well as for the present. But God's wisdom is a

pledge, that whatever is necessary for US, and necessary for

salvation, is revealed too plainly to be mistaken, and too

consistently to be questioned, by a sound and upright mind. It is

not the mark of wisdom, to use an unintelligible phraseology, to

communicate what is above our capacities, to confuse and unsettle

the intellect by appearances of contradiction. We honor our

Heavenly Teacher too much to ascribe to him such a revelation. A

revelation is a gift of light. It cannot thicken our darkness, and

multiply our perplexities.

II. Having thus stated the principles according to which we

interpret Scripture, I now proceed to the second great head of this

discourse, which is, to state some of the views which we derive

from that sacred book, particularly those which distinguish us from

other Christians.

1. In the first place, we believe in the doctrine of God's

UNITY, or that there is one God, and one only. To this truth we

give infinite importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed,

lest any man spoil us of it by vain philosophy. The proposition,

that there is one God, seems to us exceedingly plain. We understand

by it, that there is one being, one mind, one person, one

intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite

perfection and dominion belong. We conceive, that these words could

have conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated

people who were set apart to be the depositaries of this great

truth, and who were utterly incapable of understanding those hair-

breadth distinctions between being and person, which the sagacity

of later ages has discovered. We find no intimation, that this

language was to be taken in an unusual sense, or that God's unity

was a quite different thing from the oneness of other intelligent

beings.

We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, that, whilst

acknowledging in words, it subverts in effect, the unity of God.

According to this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal

persons, possessing supreme divinity, called the Father, Son, and

Holy Ghost. Each of these persons, as described by theologians, has

his own particular consciousness, will, and perceptions. They love

each other, converse with each other, and delight in each other's

society. They perform different parts in man's redemption, each

having his appropriate office, and neither doing the work of the

other. The Son is mediator and not the Father. The Father sends the

Son, and is not himself sent; nor is he conscious, like the Son, of

taking flesh. Here, then, we have three intelligent agents,

possessed of different consciousness, different wills, and

different perceptions, performing different acts, and sustaining

different relations; and if these things do not imply and

constitute three minds or beings, we are utterly at a loss to know

how three minds or beings are to be formed. It is difference of

properties, and acts, and consciousness, which leads us to the

belief of different intelligent beings, and, if this mark fails us,

our whole knowledge fall; we have no proof, that all the agents and

persons in the universe are not one and the same mind. When we

attempt to conceive of three Gods, we can do nothing more than

represent to ourselves three agents, distinguished from each other

by similar marks and peculiarities to those which separate the

persons of the Trinity; and when common Christians hear these

persons spoken of as conversing with each other, loving each other,

and performing different acts, how can they help regarding them as

different beings, different minds?

We do, then, with all earnestness, though without reproaching

our brethren, protest against the irrational and unscriptural

doctrine of the Trinity. "To us," as to the Apostle and the

primitive Christians, "there is one God, even the Father." With

Jesus, we worship the Father, as the only living and true God. We

are astonished, that any man can read the New Testament, and avoid

the conviction, that the Father alone is God. We hear our Saviour

continually appropriating this character to the Father. We find the

Father continually distinguished from Jesus by this title. "God

sent his Son." "God anointed Jesus." Now, how singular and

inexplicable is this phraseology, which fills the New Testament, if

this title belong equally to Jesus, and if a principal object of

this book is to reveal him as God, as partaking equally with the

Father in supreme divinity! We challenge our opponents to adduce

one passage in the New Testament, where the word God means three

persons, where it is not limited to one person, and where, unless

turned from its usual sense by the connexion, it does not mean the

Father. Can stronger proof be given, that the doctrine of three

persons in the Godhead is not a fundamental doctrine of

Christianity?

This doctrine, were it true, must, from its difficulty,

singularity, and importance, have been laid down with great

clearness, guarded with great care, and stated with all possible

precision. But where does this statement appear? From the many

passages which treat of God, we ask for one, one only, in which we

are told, that he is a threefold being, or that he is three

persons, or that he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. On the

contrary, in the New Testament, where, at least, we might expect

many express assertions of this nature, God is declared to be one,

without the least attempt to prevent the acceptation of the words

in their common sense; and he is always spoken of and addressed in

the singular number, that is, in language which was universally

understood to intend a single person, and to which no other idea

could have been attached, without an express admonition. So

entirely do the Scriptures abstain from stating the Trinity, that

when our opponents would insert it into their creeds and

doxologies, they are compelled to leave the Bible, and to invent

forms of words altogether unsanctioned by Scriptural phraseology.

That a doctrine so strange, so liable to misapprehension, so

fundamental as this is said to be, and requiring such careful

exposition, should be left so undefined and unprotected, to be made

out by inference, and to be hunted through distant and detached

parts of Scripture, this is a difficulty, which, we think, no

ingenuity can explain.

We have another difficulty. Christianity, it must be

remembered, was planted and grew up amidst sharp-sighted enemies,

who overlooked no objectionable part of the system, and who must

have fastened with great earnestness on a doctrine involving such

apparent contradictions as the Trinity. We cannot conceive an

opinion, against which the Jews, who prided themselves on an

adherence to God's unity, would have raised an equal clamor. Now,

how happens it, that in the apostolic writings, which relate so

much to objections against Christianity, and to the controversies

which grew out of this religion, not one word is said, implying

that objections were brought against the Gospel from the doctrine

of the Trinity, not one word is uttered in its defence and

explanation, not a word to rescue it from reproach and mistake?

This argument has almost the force of demonstration. We are

persuaded, that had three divine persons been announced by the

first preachers of Christianity, all equal, and all infinite, one

of whom was the very Jesus who had lately died on a cross, this

peculiarity of Christianity would have almost absorbed every other,

and the great labor of the Apostles would have been to repel the

continual assaults, which it would have awakened. But the fact is,

that not a whisper of objection to Christianity, on that account,

reaches our ears from the apostolic age. In the Epistles we see not

a trace of controversy called forth by the Trinity.

We have further objections to this doctrine, drawn from its

practical influence. We regard it as unfavorable to devotion, by

dividing and distracting the mind in its communion with God. It is

a great excellence of the doctrine of God's unity, that it offers

to us ONE OBJECT of supreme homage, adoration, and love, One

Infinite Father, one Being of beings, one original and fountain, to

whom we may refer all good, in whom all our powers and affections

may be concentrated, and whose lovely and venerable nature may

pervade all our thoughts. True piety, when directed to an undivided

Deity, has a chasteness, a singleness, most favorable to religious

awe and love. Now, the Trinity sets before us three distinct

objects of supreme adoration; three infinite persons, having equal

claims on our hearts; three divine agents, performing different

offices, and to be acknowledged and worshipped in different

relations. And is it possible, we ask, that the weak and limited

mind of man can attach itself to these with the same power and joy,

as to One Infinite Father, the only First Cause, in whom all the

blessings of nature and redemption meet as their centre and source?

Must not devotion be distracted by the equal and rival claims of

three equal persons, and must not the worship of the conscientious,

consistent Christian, be disturbed by an apprehension, lest he

withhold from one or another of these, his due proportion of

homage?

We also think, that the doctrine of the Trinity injures

devotion, not only by joining to the Father other objects of

worship, but by taking from the Father the supreme affection, which

is his due, and transferring it to the Son. This is a most

important view. That Jesus Christ, if exalted into the infinite

Divinity, should be more interesting than the Father, is precisely

what might be expected from history, and from the principles of

human nature. Men want an object of worship like themselves, and

the great secret of idolatry lies in this propensity. A God,

clothed in our form, and feeling our wants and sorrows, speaks to

our weak nature more strongly, than a Father in heaven, a pure

spirit, invisible and unapproachable, save by the reflecting and

purified mind. -- We think, too, that the peculiar offices ascribed

to Jesus by the popular theology, make him the most attractive

person in the Godhead. The Father is the depositary of the justice,

the vindicator of the rights, the avenger of the laws of the

Divinity. On the other hand, the Son, the brightness of the divine

mercy, stands between the incensed Deity and guilty humanity,

exposes his meek head to the storms, and his compassionate breast

to the sword of the divine justice, bears our whole load of

punishment, and purchases with his blood every blessing which

descends from heaven. Need we state the effect of these

representations, especially on common minds, for whom Christianity

was chiefly designed, and whom it seeks to bring to the Father as

the loveliest being? We do believe, that the worship of a bleeding,

suffering God, tends strongly to absorb the mind and to draw it

from other objects, just as the human tenderness of the Virgin Mary

has given her so conspicuous a place in the devotions of the Church

of Rome. We believe, too, that this worship, though attractive, is

not most fitted to spiritualize the mind, that it awakens human

transport, rather than that deep veneration of the moral

perfections of God, which is the essence of piety.

2. Having thus given our views of the unity of God, I proceed

in the second place to observe, that we believe in the unity of

Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is one mind, one soul, one

being, as truly one as we are, and equally distinct from the one

God. We complain of the doctrine of the Trinity, that, not

satisfied with making God three beings, it makes; Jesus Christ two

beings, and thus introduces infinite confusion into our conceptions

of his character. This corruption of Christianity, alike repugnant

to common sense and to the general strain of Scripture, is a

remarkable proof of the power of a false philosophy in disfiguring

the simple truth of Jesus.

According to this doctrine, Jesus Christ, instead of being one

mind, one conscious intelligent principle, whom we can understand,

consists of two souls, two minds; the one divine, the other human;

the one weak, the other almighty; the one ignorant, the other

omniscient. Now we maintain, that this is to make Christ two

beings. To denominate him one person, one being, and yet to suppose

him made up of two minds, infinitely different from each other, is

to abuse and confound language, and to throw darkness over all our

conceptions of intelligent natures. According to the common

doctrine, each of these two minds in Christ has its own

consciousness, its own will, its own perceptions. They have, in

fact, no common properties. The divine mind feels none of the wants

and sorrows of the human, and the human is infinitely removed from

the perfection and happiness of the divine. Can you conceive of two

beings in the universe more distinct? We have always thought that

one person was constituted and distinguished by one consciousness.

The doctrine, that one and the same person should have two

consciousness, two wills, two souls, infinitely different from each

other, this we think an enormous tax on human credulity.

We say, that if a doctrine, so strange, so difficult, so

remote from all the previous conceptions of men, be indeed a part

and an essential part of revelation, it must be taught with great

distinctness, and we ask our brethren to point to some plain,

direct passage, where Christ is said to be composed of two minds

infinitely different, yet constituting one person. We find none.

Other Christians, indeed, tell us, that this doctrine is necessary

to the harmony of the Scriptures, that some texts ascribe to Jesus

Christ human, and others divine properties, and that to reconcile

these, we must suppose two minds, to which these properties may be

referred. In other words, for the purpose of reconciling certain

difficult passages, which a just criticism can in a great degree,

if not wholly, explain, we must invent an hypothesis vastly more

difficult, and involving gross absurdity. We are to find our way

out of a labyrinth, by a clue which conducts us into mazes

infinitely more inextricable.

Surely, if Jesus Christ felt that he consisted of two minds,

and that this was a leading feature of his religion, his

phraseology respecting himself would have been colored by this

peculiarity. The universal language of men is framed upon the idea,

that one person is one person, is one mind, and one soul; and when

the multitude heard this language from the lips of Jesus, they must

have taken it in its usual sense, and must have referred to a

single soul all which he spoke, unless expressly instructed to

interpret it differently. But where do we find this instruction?

Where do you meet, in the New Testament, the phraseology which

abounds in Trinitarian books, and which necessarily grows from the

doctrine of two natures in Jesus? Where does this divine teacher

say, "This I speak as God, and this as man; this is true only of my

human mind, this only of my divine"? Where do we find in the

Epistles a trace of this strange phraseology? Nowhere. It was not

needed in that day. It was demanded by the errors of a later age.

We believe, then, that Christ is one mind, one being, and, I

add, a being distinct from the one God. That Christ is not the one

God, not the same being with the Father, is a necessary inference

from our former head, in which we saw that the doctrine of three

persons in God is a fiction. But on so important a subject, I would

add a few remarks. We wish, that those from whom we differ, would

weigh one striking fact. Jesus, in his preaching, continually spoke

of God. The word was always in his mouth. We ask, does he, by this

word, ever mean himself? We say, never. On the contrary, he most

plainly distinguishes between God and himself, and so do his

disciples. How this is to be reconciled with the idea, that the

manifestation of Christ, as God, was a primary object of

Christianity, our adversaries must determine.

If we examine the passages in which Jesus is distinguished

from God, we shall see, that they not only speak of him as another

being, but seem to labor to express his inferiority. He is

continually spoken of as the Son of God, sent of God, receiving all

his powers from God, working miracles because God was with him,

judging justly because God taught him, having claims on our belief,

because he was anointed and sealed by God, and as able of himself

to do nothing. The New Testament is filled with this language. Now

we ask, what impression this language was fitted and intended to

make? Could any, who heard it, have imagined that Jesus was the

very God to whom he was so industriously declared to be inferior;

the very Being by whom he was sent, and from whom he professed to

have received his message and power? Let it here be remembered,

that the human birth, and bodily form, and humble circumstances,

and mortal sufferings of Jesus, must all have prepared men to

interpret, in the most unqualified manner, the language in which

his inferiority to God was declared. Why, then, was this language

used so continually, and without limitation, if Jesus were the

Supreme Deity, and if this truth were an essential part of his

religion? I repeat it, the human condition and sufferings of Christ

tended strongly to exclude from men's minds the idea of his proper

Godhead; and, of course, we should expect to find in the New

Testament perpetual care and effort to counteract this tendency, to

hold him forth as the same being with his Father, if this doctrine

were, as is pretended, the soul and centre of his religion. We

should expect to find the phraseology of Scripture cast into the

mould of this doctrine, to hear familiarly of God the Son, of our

Lord God Jesus, and to be told, that to us there is one God, even

Jesus. But, instead of this, the inferiority of Christ pervades the

New Testament. It is not only implied in the general phraseology,

but repeatedly and decidedly expressed, and unaccompanied with any

admonition to prevent its application to his whole nature. Could

it, then, have been the great design of the sacred writers to

exhibit Jesus as the Supreme God?

I am aware that these remarks will be met by two or three

texts, in which Christ is called God, and by a class of passages,

not very numerous, in which divine properties are said to be

ascribed to him. To these we offer one plain answer. We say, that

it is one of the most established and obvious principles of

criticism, that language is to be explained according to the known

properties of the subject to which it is applied. Every man knows,

that the same words convey very different ideas, when used in

relation to different beings. Thus, Solomon BUILT the temple in a

different manner from the architect whom he employed; and God

REPENTS differently from man. Now we maintain, that the known

properties and circumstances of Christ, his birth, sufferings, and

death, his constant habit of speaking of God as a distinct being

from himself, his praying to God, his ascribing to God all his

power and offices, these acknowledged properties of Christ, we say,

oblige us to interpret the comparatively few passages which are

thought to make him the Supreme God, in a manner consistent with

his distinct and inferior nature. It is our duty to explain such

texts by the rule which we apply to other texts, in which human

beings are called gods, and are said to be partakers of the divine

nature, to know and possess all things, and to be filled with all

God's fulness. These latter passages we do not hesitate to modify,

and restrain, and turn from the most obvious sense, because this

sense is opposed to the known properties of the beings to whom they

relate; and we maintain, that we adhere to the same principle, and

use no greater latitude, in explaining, as we do, the passages

which are thought to support the Godhead of Christ.

Trinitarians profess to derive some important advantages from

their mode of viewing Christ. It furnishes them,they tell us, with

an infinite atonement, for it shows them an infinite being

suffering for their sins. The confidence with which this fallacy is

repeated astonishes us. When pressed with the question, whether

they really believe, that the infinite and unchangeable God

suffered and died on the cross, they acknowledge that this is not

true, but that Christ's human mind alone sustained the pains of

death. How have we, then, an infinite sufferer? This language seems

to us an imposition on common minds, and very derogatory to God's

justice, as if this attribute could be satisfied by a sophism and

a fiction.

We are also told, that Christ is a more interesting object,

that his love and mercy are more felt, when he is viewed as the

Supreme God, who left his glory to take humanity and to suffer for

men. That Trinitarians are strongly moved by this representation,

we do not mean to deny; but we think their emotions altogether

founded on a misapprehension of their own doctrines. They talk of

the second person of the Trinity's leaving his glory and his

Father's bosom, to visit and save the world. But this second

person, being the unchangeable and infinite God, was evidently

incapable of parting with the least degree of his perfection and

felicity. At the moment of his taking flesh, he was as intimately

present with his Father as before, and equally with his Father

filled heaven, and earth, and immensity. This Trinitarians

acknowledge; and still they profess to be touched and overwhelmed

by the amazing humiliation of this immutable being! But not only

does their doctrine, when fully explained, reduce Christ's

humiliation to a fiction, it almost wholly destroys the impressions

with which his cross ought to be viewed. According to their

doctrine, Christ was comparatively no sufferer at all. It is true,

his human mind suffered; but this, they tell us, was an infinitely

small part of Jesus, bearing no more proportion to his whole

nature, than a single hair of our heads to the whole body, or than

a drop to the ocean. The divine mind of Christ, that which was most

properly himself, was infinitely happy, at the very moment of the

suffering of his humanity. Whilst hanging on the cross, he was the

happiest being in the universe, as happy as the infinite Father; so

that his pains, compared with his felicity, were nothing. This

Trinitarians do, and must, acknowledge. It follows necessarily from

the immutableness of the divine nature, which they ascribe to

Christ; so that their system, justly viewed, robs his death of

interest, weakens our sympathy with his sufferings, and is, of all

others, most unfavorable to a love of Christ, founded on a sense of

his sacrifices for mankind. We esteem our own views to be vastly

more affecting. It is our belief, that Christ's humiliation was

real and entire, that the whole Saviour, and not a part of him,

suffered, that his crucifixion was a scene of deep and unmixed

agony. As we stand round his cross, our minds are not distracted,

nor our sensibility weakened, by contemplating him as composed of

incongruous and infinitely differing minds, and as having a balance

of infinite felicity. We recognize in the dying Jesus but one mind.

This, we think, renders his sufferings, and his patience and love

in bearing them, incomparably more impressive and affecting than

the system we oppose.

3. Having thus given our belief on two great points, namely,

that there is one God, and that Jesus Christ is a being distinct

from, and inferior to, God, I now proceed to another point, on

which we lay still greater stress. We believe in the MORAL

PERFECTION OF GOD. We consider no part of theology so important as

that which treats of God's moral character; and we value our views

of Christianity chiefly as they assert his amiable and venerable

attributes.

It may be said, that, in regard to this subject, all

Christians agree, that all ascribe to the Supreme Being infinite

justice, goodness, and holiness. We reply, that it is very possible

to speak of God magnificently, and to think of him meanly; to apply

to his person high-sounding epithets, and to his government,

principles which make him odious. The Heathens called Jupiter the

greatest and the best; but his history was black with cruelty and

lust. We cannot judge of men's real ideas of God by their general

language, for in all ages they have hoped to soothe the Deity by

adulation. We must inquire into their particular views of his

purposes, of the principles of his administration, and of his

disposition towards his creatures.

We conceive that Christians have generally leaned towards a

very injurious view of the Supreme Being. They have too often felt,

as if he were raised, by his greatness and sovereignty, above the

principles of morality, above those eternal laws of equity and

rectitude, to which all other beings are subjected. We believe,

that in no being is the sense of right so strong, so omnipotent, as

in God. We believe that his almighty power is entirely submitted to

his perceptions of rectitude; and this is the ground of our piety.

It is not because he is our Creator merely, but because he created

us for good and holy purposes; it is not because his will is

irresistible, but because his will is the perfection of virtue,

that we pay him allegiance. We cannot bow before a being, however

great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. We respect nothing

but excellence, whether on earth or in heaven. We venerate not the

loftiness of God's throne, but the equity and goodness in which it

is established.

We believe that God is infinitely good, kind, benevolent, in

the proper sense of these words; good in disposition, as well as in

act; good, not to a few, but to all; good to every individual, as

well as to the general system.

We believe, too, that God is just; but we never forget, that

his justice is the justice of a good being, dwelling in the same

mind, and acting in harmony, with perfect benevolence. By this

attribute, we understand God's infinite regard to virtue or moral

worth, expressed in a moral government; that is, in giving

excellent and equitable laws, and in conferring such rewards, and

inflicting such punishments, as are best fitted to secure their

observance. God's justice has for its end the highest virtue of the

creation, and it punishes for this end alone, and thus it coincides

with benevolence; for virtue and happiness, though not the same,

are inseparably conjoined.

God's justice thus viewed, appears to us to be in perfect

harmony with his mercy. According to the prevalent systems of

theology, these attributes are so discordant and jarring, that to

reconcile them is the hardest task, and the most wonderful

achievement, of infinite wisdom. To us they seem to be intimate

friends, always at peace, breathing the same spirit, and seeking

the same end. By God's mercy, we understand not a blind instinctive

compassion, which forgives without reflection, and without regard

to the interests of virtue. This, we acknowledge, would be

incompatible with justice, and also with enlightened benevolence.

God's mercy, as we understand it, desires strongly the happiness of

the guilty, but only through their penitence. It has a regard to

character as truly as his justice. It defers punishment, and

suffers long, that the sinner may return to his duty, but leaves

the impenitent and unyielding, to the fearful retribution

threatened in God's Word.

To give our views of God in one word, we believe in his

Parental character. We ascribe to him, not only the name, but the

dispositions and principles of a father. We believe that he has a

father's concern for his creatures, a father's desire for their

improvement, a father's equity in proportioning his commands to

their powers, a father's joy in their progress, a father's

readiness to receive the penitent, and a father's justice for the

incorrigible. We look upon this world as a place of education, in

which he is training men by prosperity and adversity, by aids and

obstructions, by conflicts of reason and passion, by motives to

duty and temptations to sin, by a various discipline suited to free

and moral beings, for union with himself, and for a sublime and

ever-growing virtue in heaven.

Now, we object to the systems of religion, which prevail among

us, that they are adverse, in a greater or less degree, to these

purifying, comforting, and honorable views of God; that they take

from us our Father in heaven, and substitute for him a being, whom

we cannot love if we would, and whom we ought not to love if we

could. We object, particularly on this ground, to that system,

which arrogates to itself the name of Orthodoxy, and which is now

industriously propagated through our country. This system indeed

takes various shapes, but in all it casts dishonor on the Creator.

According to its old and genuine form, it teaches, that God brings

us into life wholly depraved, so that under the innocent features

of our childhood is hidden a nature averse to all good and propense

to all evil, a nature which exposes us to God's displeasure and

wrath, even before we have acquired power to understand our duties,

or to reflect upon our actions. According to a more modern

exposition, it teaches, that we came from the hands of our Maker

with such a constitution, and are placed under such influences and

circumstances, as to render certain and infallible the total

depravity of every human being, from the first moment of his moral

agency; and it also teaches, that the offence of the child, who

brings into life this ceaseless tendency to unmingled crime,

exposes him to the sentence of everlasting damnation. Now,

according to the plainest principles of morality, we maintain, that

a natural constitution of the mind, unfailingly disposing it to

evil and to evil alone, would absolve it from guilt; that to give

existence under this condition would argue unspeakable cruelty; and

that to punish the sin of this unhappily constituted child with

endless ruin, would be a wrong unparalleled by the most merciless

despotism.

This system also teaches, that God selects from this corrupt

mass a number to be saved, and plucks them, by a special influence,

from the common ruin; that the rest of mankind, though left without

that special grace which their conversion requires, are commanded

to repent, under penalty of aggravated woe; and that forgiveness is

promised them, on terms which their very constitution infallibly

disposes them to reject, and in rejecting which they awfully

enhance the punishments of hell. These proffers of forgiveness and

exhortations of amendment, to beings born under a blighting curse,

fill our minds with a horror which we want words to express.

That this religious system does not produce all the effects on

character, which might be anticipated, we most joyfully admit. It

is often, very often, counteracted by nature, conscience, common

sense, by the general strain of Scripture, by the mild example and

precepts of Christ, and by the many positive declarations of God's

universal kindness and perfect equity. But still we think that we

see its unhappy influence. It tends to discourage the timid, to

give excuses to the bad, to feed the vanity of the fanatical, and

to offer shelter to the bad feelings of the malignant. By shocking,

as it does, the fundamental principles of morality, and by

exhibiting a severe and partial Deity, it tends strongly to pervert

the moral faculty, to form a gloomy, forbidding, and servile

religion, and to lead men to substitute censoriousness, bitterness,

and persecution, for a tender and impartial charity. We think, too,

that this system, which begins with degrading human nature, may be

expected to end in pride; for pride grows out of a consciousness of

high distinctions, however obtained, and no distinction is so great

as that which is made between the elected and abandoned of God.

The false and dishonorable views of God, which have now been

stated, we feel ourselves bound to resist unceasingly. Other errors

we can pass over with comparative indifference. But we ask our

opponents to leave to us a GOD, worthy of our love and trust, in

whom our moral sentiments may delight, in whom our weaknesses and

sorrows may find refuge. We cling to the Divine perfections. We

meet them everywhere in creation, we read them in the Scriptures,

we see a lovely image of them in Jesus Christ; and gratitude, love,

and veneration call on us to assert them. Reproached, as we often

are, by men, it is our consolation and happiness, that one of our

chief offences is the zeal with which we vindicate the dishonored

goodness and rectitude of God.

4. Having thus spoken of the unity of God; of the unity of

Jesus, and his inferiority to God; and of the perfections of the

Divine character; I now proceed to give our views of the mediation

of Christ, and of the purposes of his mission. With regard to the

great object which Jesus came to accomplish, there seems to be no

possibility of mistake. We believe, that he was sent by the Father

to effect a moral, or spiritual deliverance of mankind; that is, to

rescue men from sin and its consequences, and to bring them to a

state of everlasting purity and happiness. We believe, too, that he

accomplishes this sublime purpose by a variety of methods; by his

instructions respecting God's unity, parental character, and moral

government, which are admirably fitted to reclaim the world from

idolatry and impiety, to the knowledge, love, and obedience of the

Creator; by his promises of pardon to the penitent, and of divine

assistance to those who labor for progress in moral excellence; by

the light which he has thrown on the path of duty; by his own

spotless example, in which the loveliness and sublimity of virtue

shine forth to warm and quicken, as well as guide us to perfection;

by his threatenings against incorrigible guilt; by his glorious

discoveries of immortality; by his sufferings and death; by that

signal event, the resurrection, which powerfully bore witness to

his divine mission, and brought down to men's senses a future life;

by his continual intercession, which obtains for us spiritual aid

and blessings; and by the power with which he is invested of

raising the dead, judging the world, and conferring the everlasting

rewards promised to the faithful.

We have no desire to conceal the fact, that a difference of

opinion exists among us, in regard to an interesting part of

Christ's mediation; I mean, in regard to the precise influence of

his death on our forgiveness. Many suppose, that this event

contributes to our pardon, as it was a principal means of

confirming his religion, and of giving it a power over the mind; in

other words, that it procures forgiveness by leading to that

repentance and virtue, which is the great and only condition on

which forgiveness is bestowed. Many of us are dissatisfied with

this explanation, and think that the Scriptures ascribe the

remission of sins to Christ's death, with an emphasis so peculiar,

that we ought to consider this event as having a special influence

in removing punishment, though the Scriptures may not reveal the

way in which it contributes to this end.

Whilst, however, we differ in explaining the connexion between

Christ's death and human forgiveness, a connexion which we all

gratefully acknowledge, we agree in rejecting many sentiments which

prevail in regard to his mediation. The idea, which is conveyed to

common minds by the popular system, that Christ's death has an

influence in making God placable, or merciful, in awakening his

kindness towards men, we reject with strong disapprobation. We are

happy to find, that this very dishonorable notion is disowned by

intelligent Christians of that class from which we differ. We

recollect, however, that, not long ago, it was common to hear of

Christ, as having died to appease God's wrath, and to pay the debt

of sinners to his inflexible justice; and we have a strong

persuasion, that the language of popular religious books, and the

common mode of stating the doctrine of Christ's mediation, still

communicate very degrading views of God's character. They give to

multitudes the impression, that the death of Jesus produces a

change in the mind of God towards man, and that in this its

efficacy chiefly consists. No error seems to us more pernicious. We

can endure no shade over the pure goodness of God. We earnestly

maintain, that Jesus, instead of calling forth, in any way or

degree, the mercy of the Father, was sent by that mercy, to be our

Saviour; that he is nothing to the human race, but what he is by

God's appointment; that he communicates nothing but what God

empowers him to bestow; that our Father in heaven is originally,

essentially, and eternally placable, and disposed to forgive; and

that his unborrowed, underived, and unchangeable love is the only

fountain of what flows to us through his Son. We conceive, that

Jesus is dishonored, not glorified, by ascribing to him an

influence, which clouds the splendor of Divine benevolence.

We farther agree in rejecting, as unscriptural and absurd, the

explanation given by the popular system, of the manner in which

Christ's death procures forgiveness for men. This system used to

teach as its fundamental principle, that man, having sinned against

an infinite Being, has contracted infinite guilt, and is

consequently exposed to an infinite penalty. We believe, however,

that this reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, which overlooks

the obvious maxim, that the guilt of a being must be proportioned

to his nature and powers, has fallen into disuse. Still the system

teaches, that sin, of whatever degree, exposes to endless

punishment, and that the whole human race, being infallibly

involved by their nature in sin, owe this awful penalty to the

justice of their Creator. It teaches, that this penalty cannot be

remitted, in consistency with the honor of the divine law, unless

a substitute be found to endure it or to suffer an equivalent. It

also teaches, that, from the nature of the case, no substitute is

adequate to this work, save the infinite God himself; and

accordingly, God, in his second person, took on him human nature,

that he might pay to his own justice the debt of punishment

incurred by men, and might thus reconcile forgiveness with the

claims and threatenings of his law. Such is the prevalent system.

Now, to us, this doctrine seems to carry on its front strong marks

of absurdity; and we maintain that Christianity ought not to be

encumbered with it, unless it be laid down in the New Testament

fully and expressly. We ask our adversaries, then, to point to some

plain passages where it is taught. We ask for one text, in which we

are told, that God took human nature that he might make an infinite

satisfaction to his own justice; for one text, which tells us, that

human guilt requires an infinite substitute; that Christ's

sufferings owe their efficacy to their being borne by an infinite

being; or that his divine nature gives infinite value to the

sufferings of the human. Not ONE WORD of this description can we

find in the Scriptures; not a text, which even hints at these

strange doctrines. They are altogether, we believe, the fictions of

theologians. Christianity is in no degree responsible for them. We

are astonished at their prevalence. What can be plainer, than that

God cannot, in any sense, be a sufferer, or bear a penalty in the

room of his creatures? How dishonorable to him is the supposition,

that his justice is now so severe, as to exact infinite punishment

for the sins of frail and feeble men, and now so easy and yielding,

as to accept the limited pains of Christ's human soul, as a full

equivalent for the endless woes due from the world? How plain is it

also, according to this doctrine, that God, instead of being

plenteous in forgiveness, never forgives; for it seems absurd to

speak of men as forgiven, when their whole punishment, or an

equivalent to it, is borne by a substitute? A scheme more fitted to

obscure the brightness of Christianity and the mercy of God, or

less suited to give comfort to a guilty and troubled mind, could

not, we think, be easily framed.

We believe, too, that this system is unfavorable to the

character. It naturally leads men to think, that Christ came to

change God's mind rather than their own; that the highest object of

his mission was to avert punishment, rather than to communicate

holiness; and that a large part of religion consists in disparaging

good works and human virtue, for the purpose of magnifying the

value of Christ's vicarious sufferings. In this way, a sense of the

infinite importance and indispensable necessity of personal

improvement is weakened, and high-sounding praises of Christ's

cross seem often to be substituted for obedience to his precepts.

For ourselves, we have not so learned Jesus. Whilst we gratefully

acknowledge, that he came to rescue us from punishment, we believe,

that he was sent on a still nobler errand, namely, to deliver us

from sin itself, and to form us to a sublime and heavenly virtue.

We regard him as a Saviour, chiefly as he is the light, physician,

and guide of the dark, diseased, and wandering mind. No influence

in the universe seems to us so glorious, as that over the

character; and no redemption so worthy of thankfulness, as the

restoration of the soul to purity. Without this, pardon, were it

possible, would be of little value. Why pluck the sinner from hell,

if a hell be left to burn in his own breast? Why raise him to

heaven, if he remain a stranger to its sanctity and love? With

these impressions, we are accustomed to value the Gospel chiefly as

it abounds in effectual aids, motives, excitements to a generous

and divine virtue. In this virtue, as in a common centre, we see

all its doctrines, precepts, promises meet; and we believe, that

faith in this religion is of no worth, and contributes nothing to

salvation, any farther than as it uses these doctrines, precepts,

promises, and the whole life, character, sufferings, and triumphs

of Jesus, as the means of purifying the mind, of changing it into

the likeness of his celestial excellence.

5. Having thus stated our views of the highest object of

Christ's mission, that it is the recovery of men to virtue, or

holiness, I shall now, in the last place, give our views of the

nature of Christian virtue, or true holiness. We believe that all

virtue has its foundation in the moral nature of man, that is, in

conscience, or his sense of duty, and in the power of forming his

temper and life according to conscience. We believe that these

moral faculties are the grounds of responsibility, and the highest

distinctions of human nature, and that no act is praiseworthy, any

farther than it springs from their exertion. We believe, that no

dispositions infused into us without our own moral activity, are of

the nature of virtue, and therefore, we reject the doctrine of

irresistible divine influence on the human mind, moulding it into

goodness, as marble is hewn into a statue. Such goodness, if this

word may be used, would not be the object of moral approbation, any

more than the instinctive affections of inferior animals, or the

constitutional amiableness of human beings.

By these remarks, we do not mean to deny the importance of

God's aid or Spirit; but by his Spirit, we mean a moral,

illuminating, and persuasive influence, not physical, not

compulsory, not involving a necessity of virtue. We object,

strongly, to the idea of many Christians respecting man's impotence

and God's irresistible agency on the heart, believing that they

subvert our responsibility and the laws of our moral nature, that

they make men machines, that they cast on God the blame of all evil

deeds, that they discourage good minds, and inflate the fanatical

with wild conceits of immediate and sensible inspiration.

Among the virtues, we give the first place to the love of God.

We believe, that this principle is the true end and happiness of

our being, that we were made for union with our Creator, that his

infinite perfection is the only sufficient object and true

resting-place for the insatiable desires and unlimited capacities

of the human mind, and that, without him, our noblest sentiments,

admiration, veneration, hope, and love, would wither and decay. We

believe, too, that the love of God is not only essential to

happiness, but to the strength and perfection of all the virtues;

that conscience, without the sanction of God's authority and

retributive justice, would be a weak director; that benevolence,

unless nourished by communion with his goodness, and encouraged by

his smile, could not thrive amidst the selfishness and

thanklessness of the world; and that self-government, without a

sense of the divine inspection, would hardly extend beyond an

outward and partial purity. God, as he is essentially goodness,

holiness, justice, and virtue, so he is the life, motive, and

sustainer of virtue in the human soul.

But, whilst we earnestly inculcate the love of God, we believe

that great care is necessary to distinguish it from counterfeits.

We think that much which is called piety is worthless. Many have

fallen into the error, that there can be no excess in feelings

which have God for their object; and, distrusting as coldness that

self-possession, without which virtue and devotion lose all their

dignity, they have abandoned themselves to extravagances, which

have brought contempt on piety. Most certainly, if the love of God

be that which often bears its name, the less we have of it the

better. If religion be the shipwreck of understanding, we cannot

keep too far from it. On this subject, we always speak plainly. We

cannot sacrifice our reason to the reputation of zeal. We owe it to

truth and religion to maintain, that fanaticism, partial insanity,

sudden impressions, and ungovernable transports, are anything

rather than piety.

We conceive, that the true love of God is a moral sentiment,

founded on a clear perception, and consisting in a high esteem and

veneration, of his moral perfections. Thus, it perfectly coincides,

and is in fact the same thing, with the love of virtue, rectitude,

and goodness. You will easily judge, then, what we esteem the

surest and only decisive signs of piety. We lay no stress on strong

excitements. We esteem him, and him only a pious man, who

practically conforms to God's moral perfections and government; who

shows his delight in God's benevolence, by loving and serving his

neighbour; his delight in God's justice, by being resolutely

upright; his sense of God's purity, by regulating his thoughts,

imagination, and desires; and whose conversation, business, and

domestic life are swayed by a regard to God's presence and

authority. In all things else men may deceive themselves.

Disordered nerves may give them strange sights, and sounds, and

impressions. Texts of Scripture may come to them as from Heaven.

Their whole souls may be moved, and their confidence in God's favor

be undoubting. But in all this there is no religion. The question

is, Do they love God's commands, in which his character is fully

expressed, and give up to these their habits and passions? Without

this, ecstasy is a mockery. One surrender of desire to God's will,

is worth a thousand transports. We do not judge of the bent of

men's minds by their raptures, any more than we judge of the

natural direction of a tree during a storm. We rather suspect loud

profession, for we have observed, that deep feeling is generally

noiseless, and least seeks display.

We would not, by these remarks, be understood as wishing to

exclude from religion warmth, and even transport. We honor, and

highly value, true religious sensibility. We believe, that

Christianity is intended to act powerfully on our whole nature, on

the heart as well as the understanding and the conscience. We

conceive of heaven as a state where the love of God will be exalted

into an unbounded fervor and joy; and we desire, in our pilgrimage

here, to drink into the spirit of that better world. But we think,

that religious warmth is only to be valued, when it springs

naturally from an improved character, when it comes unforced, when

it is the recompense of obedience, when it is the warmth of a mind

which understands God by being like him, and when, instead of

disordering, it exalts the understanding, invigorates conscience,

gives a pleasure to common duties, and is seen to exist in

connexion with cheerfulness, judiciousness, and a reasonable frame

of mind. When we observe a fervor, called religious, in men whose

general character expresses little refinement and elevation, and

whose piety seems at war with reason, we pay it little respect. We

honor religion too much to give its sacred name to a feverish,

forced, fluctuating zeal, which has little power over the life.

Another important branch of virtue, we believe to be love to

Christ. The greatness of the work of Jesus, the spirit with which

he executed it, and the sufferings which he bore for our salvation,

we feel to be strong claims on our gratitude and veneration. We see

in nature no beauty to be compared with the loveliness of his

character, nor do we find on earth a benefactor to whom we owe an

equal debt. We read his history with delight, and learn from it the

perfection of our nature. We are particularly touched by his death,

which was endured for our redemption, and by that strength of

charity which triumphed over his pains. His resurrection is the

foundation of our hope of immortality. His intercession gives us

boldness to draw nigh to the throne of grace, and we look up to

heaven with new desire, when we think, that, if we follow him here,

we shall there see his benignant countenance, and enjoy his

friendship for ever.

I need not express to you our views on the subject of the

benevolent virtues. We attach such importance to these that we are

sometimes reproached with exalting them above piety. We regard the

spirit of love, charity, meekness, forgiveness, liberality, and

beneficence, as the badge and distinction of Christians, as the

brightest image we can bear of God, as the best proof of piety. On

this subject, I need not, and cannot enlarge; but there is one

branch of benevolence which I ought not to pass over in silence,

because we think that we conceive of it more highly and justly than

many of our brethren. I refer to the duty of candor, charitable

judgment, especially towards those who differ in religious opinion.

We think, that in nothing have Christians so widely departed from

their religion, as in this particular. We read with astonishment

and horror, the history of the church; and sometimes when we look

back on the fires of persecution, and on the zeal of Christians, in

building up walls of separation, and in giving up one another to

perdition, we feel as if we were reading the records of an

infernal, rather than a heavenly kingdom. An enemy to every

religion, if asked to describe a Christian, would, with some show

of reason, depict him as an idolater of his own distinguishing

opinions, covered with badges of party, shutting his eyes on the

virtues, and his ears on the arguments, of his opponents,

arrogating all excellence to his own sect and all saving power to

his own creed, sheltering under the name of pious zeal the love of

domination, the conceit of infallibility, and the spirit of

intolerance, and trampling on men's rights under the pretence of

saving their souls.

We can hardly conceive of a plainer obligation on beings of

our frail and fallible nature, who are instructed in the duty of

candid judgment, than to abstain from condemning men of apparent

conscientiousness and sincerity, who are chargeable with no crime

but that of differing from us in the interpretation of the

Scriptures, and differing, too, on topics of great and acknowledged

obscurity. We are astonished at the hardihood of those, who, with

Christ's warnings sounding in their ears, take on them the

responsibility of making creeds for his church, and cast out

professors of virtuous lives for imagined errors, for the guilt of

thinking for themselves. We know that zeal for truth is the cover

for this usurpation of Christ's prerogative; but we think that zeal

for truth, as it is called, is very suspicious, except in men,

whose capacities and advantages, whose patient deliberation, and

whose improvements in humility, mildness, and candor, give them a

right to hope that their views are more just than those of their

neighbours. Much of what passes for a zeal for truth, we look upon

with little respect, for it often appears to thrive most

luxuriantly where other virtues shoot up thinly and feebly; and we

have no gratitude for those reformers, who would force upon us a

doctrine which has not sweetened their own tempers, or made them

better men than their neighbours.

We are accustomed to think much of the difficulties attending

religious inquiries; difficulties springing from the slow

development of our minds, from the power of early impressions, from

the state of society, from human authority, from the general

neglect of the reasoning powers, from the want of just principles

of criticism and of important helps in interpreting Scripture, and

from various other causes. We find, that on no subject have men,

and even good men, ingrafted so many strange conceits, wild

theories, and fictions of fancy, as on religion ; and remembering,

as we do, that we ourselves are sharers of the common frailty, we

dare not assume infallibility in the treatment of our

fellow-Christians, or encourage in common Christians, who have

little time for investigation, the habit of denouncing and

condemning other denominations, perhaps more enlightened and

virtuous than their own. Charity, forbearance, a delight in the

virtues of different sects, a backwardness to censure and condemn,

these are virtues, which, however poorly practised by us, we admire

and recommend; and we would rather join ourselves to the church in

which they abound, than to any other communion, however elated with

the belief of its own orthodoxy, however strict in guarding its

creed, however burning with zeal against imagined error.

I have thus given the distinguishing views of those Christians

in whose names I have spoken. We have embraced this system, not

hastily or lightly, but after much deliberation; and we hold it

fast, not merely because we believe it to be true, but because we

regard it as purifying truth, as a doctrine according to godliness,

as able to "work mightily" and to "bring forth fruit" in them who

believe. That we wish to spread it, we have no desire to conceal;

but we think, that we wish its diffusion, because we regard it as

more friendly to practical piety and pure morals than the opposite

doctrines, because it gives clearer and nobler views of duty, and

stronger motives to its performance, because it recommends religion

at once to the understanding and the heart, because it asserts the

lovely and venerable attributes of God, because it tends to restore

the benevolent spirit of Jesus to his divided and afflicted church,

and because it cuts off every hope of God's favor, except that

which springs from practical conformity to the life and precepts of

Christ. We see nothing in our views to give offence, save their

purity, and it is their purity, which makes us seek and hope their

extension through the world.

My friend and brother; -- You are this day to take upon you

important duties; to be clothed with an office, which the Son of

God did not disdain; to devote yourself to that religion, which the

most hallowed lips have preached, and the most precious blood

sealed. We trust that you will bring to this work a willing mind,

a firm purpose, a martyr's spirit, a readiness to toil and suffer

for the truth, a devotion of your best powers to the interests of

piety and virtue. I have spoken of the doctrines which you will

probably preach; but I do not mean, that you are to give yourself

to controversy. You will remember, that good practice is the end of

preaching, and will labor to make your people holy livers, rather

than skilful disputants. Be careful, lest the desire of defending

what you deem truth, and of repelling reproach and

misrepresentation, turn you aside from your great business, which

is to fix in men's minds a living conviction of the obligation,

sublimity, and happiness of Christian virtue. The best way to

vindicate your sentiments, is to show, in your preaching and life,

their intimate connexion with Christian morals, with a high and

delicate sense of duty, with candor towards your opposers, with

inflexible integrity, and with an habitual reverence for God. If

any light can pierce and scatter the clouds of prejudice, it is

that of a pure example. My brother, may your life preach more

loudly than your lips. Be to this people a pattern of all good

works, and may your instructions derive authority from a

well-grounded belief in your hearers, that you speak from the

heart, that you preach from experience, that the truth which you

dispense has wrought powerfully in your own heart, that God, and

Jesus, and heaven, are not merely words on your lips, but most

affecting realities to your mind, and springs of hope and

consolation, and strength, in all your trials. Thus laboring, may

you reap abundantly, and have a testimony of your faithfulness, not

only in your own conscience, but in the esteem, love, virtues, and

improvements of your people.

To all who hear me, I would say, with the Apostle, Prove all

things, hold fast that which is good. Do not, brethren, shrink from

the duty of searching God's Word for yourselves, through fear of

human censure and denunciation. Do not think, that you may

innocently follow the opinions which prevail around you, without

investigation, on the ground, that Christianity is now so purified

from errors, as to need no laborious research. There is much reason

to believe, that Christianity is at this moment dishonored by gross

and cherished corruptions. If you remember the darkness which hung

over the Gospel for ages; if you consider the impure union, which

still subsists in almost every Christian country, between the

church and state, and which enlists men's selfishness and ambition

on the side of established error; if you recollect in what degree

the spirit of intolerance has checked free inquiry, not only

before, but since the Reformation; you will see that Christianity

cannot have freed itself from all the human inventions, which

disfigured it under the Papal tyranny. No. Much stubble is yet to

be burned; much rubbish to be removed; many gaudy decorations,

which a false taste has hung around Christianity, must be swept

away; and the earth-born fogs, which have long shrouded it, must be

scattered, before this divine fabric will rise before us in its

native and awful majesty, in its harmonious proportions, in its

mild and celestial splendors This glorious reformation in the

church, we hope, under God's blessing, from the progress of the

human intellect, from the moral progress of society, from the

consequent decline of prejudice and bigotry, and, though last not

least, from the subversion of human authority in matters of

religion, from the fall of those hierarchies, and other human

institutions, by which the minds of individuals are oppressed under

the weight of numbers, and a Papal dominion is perpetuated in the

Protestant church. Our earnest prayer to God is, that he will

overturn, and overturn, and overturn the strong-holds of spiritual

usurpation, until HE shall come, whose right it is to rule the

minds of men; that the conspiracy of ages against the liberty of

Christians may be brought to an end; that the servile assent, so

long yielded to human creeds, may give place to honest and devout

inquiry into the Scriptures; and that Christianity, thus purified

from error, may put forth its almighty energy, and prove itself, by

its ennobling influence on the mind, to be indeed "the power of God

unto salvation."