Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

and enlightened canton is now therefore what the Presbytery of Antrim has been for upwards of a century; and all experience shows, that if such a change does not begin in Unitarianism, it is certain, sooner or later, to end there.

“Unitarianism is triumphant in the church and city of Geneva-the chosen abode of the renowned John Calvin-the spot which witnessed the martyrdom of Servetus; and heard the fiendish laugh that greeted his consignment to the flames.

“Unitarianism is making progress among the Protestants of France. The leading men in two of the principal Consistories, or Presbyteries of the kingdom-those of Paris and Lyons-have come forward to avow their adoption of its tenets; and have founded a periodical work, intended to illustrate, defend, and explain its principles for the information of their countrymen. France, the native country of Calvin, is experiencing the change which has already been experienced by the land of his adoption.

[ocr errors]

And Holland, the land which saw assembled within its bosom the unholy and persecuting Synod of Dort,—which witnessed the legal murder of Barnevald, and heard the sentence of perpetual imprisonment pronounced against Grotius and Hoogerbeets;-Holland, which beheld so many of its best citizens punished by fine, imprisonment, exile, and other marks of ignominy, because they did not submit to the sentence of the Synod, which silenced the ministers of the Remonstrants from preaching;-Holland has itself adopted the maxims of the party which once it persecuted, and, as far as it could, destroyed. In Holland, the churches have been released from the necessity of subscribing the decrees of Dort; and religious truth is, in consequence, advancing with rapid strides. The Remonstrants kindled a light in Holland which is now enlightening the whole land.

"It is needless to go farther into these details. It may suffice to know, that in every country where the profession of religion is free, Unitarianism exists largely; that in Holland, Switzerland, France and Germany, it is professed by probably not less than one half of all those who have renounced the Church of Rome; that every where it is making progress; every where it is steadily on the increase.

"Were it consistent with our views to glory in the men who have espoused our cause, we have names whereof we might be proud. Milton, Newton, Locke, Chandler, Lardner, Taylor, Priestley, Price, Rees, and Rammohun Roy, are men of whom any denomination in the world might be proud. Could I bring myself to name living men, I might extend the list. A late Archbishop of Dublin called our faith a feeble and conceited heresy! Feeble and conceited Archbishop Magee! Sir Isaac Newton is pronounced by Archbishop Magee to have espoused a feeble and conceited heresy! I fearlessly leave it to all men who know what these epithets mean, to pronounce which of the two— the Archbishop himself, or Sir Isaac Newton-is best entitled to bear them. The advocates of Unitarianism are pronounced by Dr. Chalmers to be men of pygmy understanding. Yes: such pygmies as Milton and Locke; such pygmies as Lardner and Priestley; and no doubt, compared

with these, Dr. Chalmers himself will appear, in the eyes of many, as a giant in intellect! I confess, however, that I am not of this opinion; and think that even Dr. Chalmers himself would have shown discretion, as well as courtesy, had he spoken of such men with a little more respect.

[blocks in formation]

The inference from all this is-that Unitarianism has a progressive character; that its advance is not owing to the influence of worldly power, law, force, or authority; that it has reached its present position in spite of persecution, penalties, and disabilities-in spite of clamour, invective, and misrepresentation; that it has made its way by the force of reason, argument, and truth-illustrated by the learning, adorned by the lives, and dignified by the heroic fortitude of its advocates; that it has commanded the assent of the men of the most capacious intellect whom our race has ever produced; that it is still upon the advance-on, and on, and on, is its motto; forward, forward it goes, conquering and to conquer. We see the signs of the times are in many places favourable -the fields are ready for the harvest. We pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into his harvest. We feel all joy and confidence in the prospect which lies before us. We believe that our counsel and our work are of God—and we know that it is not in the power of man to overthrow it. Were our faith a falling and a sinking cause—as its enemies are so fond of repeating-this would be no reason to desert it, or to relax our endeavours for its support. In such circumstances, a good Christian would no more think of abandoning his profession than a gallant soldier would of deserting his standard when the tide of battle rolled most furiously against it. But there is still an increase of energy and activity gained from beholding that past exertions have not been made in vain. An impression has been made. The banner of truth has in some places been carried triumphantly through the contest. The fears of the enemy, as evinced by their clamour and impotent rage, are a proof of the progress it has already made, and a measure of their sense of the effects it is capable of producing. Let then the friends of the cause be earnest, instant, indefatigable, and there is reason to anticipate the most favourable results."

We have taken a great liberty with this Lecture; we have literally almost transferred it to our pages. Once more we recommend the whole work, as the very best we are acquainted with, for popular purposes. It cannot be circulated without conveying the truth it manifests to the convictions of many,— nor, what is infinitely more important, without awakening moral life within the soul, and nourishing the springs of personal religion.

VOL. III. No. 14.-New Series.

2 E

ART. III.-WHAT AM I TO BELIEVE?

No. I.

It is a remarkable fact in the history of advancing knowledge, that every new Truth is resisted by those who, under the sanction of civil law, have assumed the direction of mankind in religious affairs. The resistance seems to be proportional to the palpability, increasing in the ratio of clearness of demonstration. It would appear that Truth is held in terror by the men styled spiritual guides, and what is false cherished: but charity demands that we believe this, in very many cases, (it is feared not in all,) to arise from conscientiousness, which, when not guided by the senses or the intellect, is apt to be as tenacious of error as of Truth. They seem to measure the chance of man being saved, by the degree of influence they fancy they have a right to exercise over the human mind; and by the submission and prostration of the intellect, to whatever dogmas they may be pleased to invent, or pretend to twist out of the pure religion taught, in humble simplicity, by Jesus Christ. These remarks are not made in a spirit of vituperation, but of lamentation over the miserable state to which the minds of numbers of excellent persons are reduced by the influence of what, with regret, must be styled Jesuitical chicanery, and of pharisaical externals, of which modern Christianity appears alas! to consist. To censure such things, to hold them up to the detestation of good men, is not the result of an evil spirit of ill-will, but of an humble imitation of that spirit which exposed the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and denounced them, and the thraldom under which they had brought their countrymen to labour and to suffer- of a desire to thrust buyers and sellers out of the temple.

Priests began by sacrificing animals and making libations, to flatter or appease the Deity; and even human beings were sacrificed. When our part of the world became too wise to endure this, the offering next demanded by the priest, was that of the human understanding, which he sacrificed with the leaden club of ignorance; sending back the spirit to its Maker, unenlightened by the book of knowledge which God had made and opened; and disfigured and degraded from the rank which He had designed it to attain. Long were the leaves of the book, in which it was said everlasting happiness was to be found, glued together by the meed of superstition; and when some master minds attempted to moisten and separate them, and succeeded in exhi

biting but a glimpse of Truth, a dungeon or the stake was their lot.

In our day, in our, so called, happy land, in the land which boasts to be the cradle of liberty, what is the lot of the man who dares to say, "The eyes of the people shall be opened?" He is held up to the unhappy beings whom their spiritual guides have made the slaves of their dogmas, as one who, if listened to, will unfit them for Heaven and prepare them for Hell. How is that man treated who dares to say, "In the Bible I find no such dogmas as those you wish me to embrace; they are contradicted by it, as well as by every thing discovered to be an established law of nature?" He is denounced as a poisoner, a corrupter of the mind; and it is declared that his purpose is not to disseminate Truth, but to undermine and overthrow religion!-as if this were in the power of man! He is reviled and abused, not because he may hold certain dogmas to be false, but because Churchmen feel that the unchristian domination which they exercise must cease, the moment when Education shall have unfolded Truth to the ignorant.

Much has been said of the evils attending an established church; and perhaps the only one of great importance is, that the necessity for a creed being formed, and adhered to, shuts out all possibility of error in the adopted creed being acknowledged, though it may be felt. Right or wrong, young priests must adopt what is demanded by old priests backed by the law they must forfeit all liberty of conscience; and in their turn propagate and hand down a dogmatic creed as it was invented by their predecessors, no matter whether it be founded on just views and interpretations, or otherwise. Men thus bound down, become careless of investigating truth; their minds imperceptibly arrive at a condition (which they nevertheless deny) that imposes on them an obligation to resist the demonstration of Truth, whenever it may show to be false, the deductions drawn by the church from unwarranted interpretations; and to hold up these as of such sanctity that, to impeach them, to impeach the doctrines of men, incurs the penalty of expulsion and damnation. Here we may also perceive the origin of the pretended love for old metaphysical systems of mental philosophy, and the reasons for keeping the mind from being too curious, by means of Greek and Latin, and academical honours, as they are called. It must happen that some minds come to be united with the profession of a churchman, which are powerful enough to perceive that these systems and Truth do not go hand in hand. It is seen, however, that, while unfounded on any tangible and true principle, such systems are

admirably calculated to occupy powerful minds, and to divert them from the paths in which Truth is likely to be found. To keep every thing like true and just Philosophy out of the schools, seems to be the avowed aim of the church establishments of the present day. They will use every effort to prevent attacks on their dogmas being read, but not a member of them will stir a finger to refute the honest expression of honest opinion. They know that there are yet in the world multitudes of weak minds, ready to take for granted whatever they may please to say of a book or of its author; and small is the courage which Truth and Honesty inspire, if an author can be annoyed at this time by the puny hostility of men who pervert pure Christianity, and give that name to a yoke of ignorance, that has bent the neck of humanity to the dust. It is forgotten that Christianity was propagated by its founder to elevate the human character, to enlighten human understanding, and to point out the way for man to approach the Perfection which created him. Pure Christianity cannot fail to produce such effects but the so-called Christianity that tends to render man wretched by degrading him in his own eyes must fail.

:

We might not, perhaps, feel so hostile to church establishments, were they not exclusive, and bound down to abstain from the improvement of religious creeds, when the discovery of Truth may authorize it, and to resist Truth when known. Were Churchmen not nursed in prejudice, not enlisted in the service of dogmatism; were they free to regard their predecessors as not entitled to exclusive wisdom, to exercise their own powers in separating the chaff from the wheat; were they free to allow to laymen the privilege of interpreting and assisting to arrive at just views of Christianity; could they look, without jealousy and envy, on the efforts of freely-educated men, and permit those who aspired to the sacred office to be freely educated; then there might be harmony, peace and good-will to men, and acceptable service to the God of all; then might establishments be supported, and be serviceable because reasonable. Differences of opinion might then be maintained without rancour, and argued without hostility or personality; Power and wealth would cease to be the aims and idols of those called to teach meekness and humility. They would do unto others, as they would that others should do unto them, and they would love their neighbour as themselves. At the present time Christian morality is a dead letter, and vague idealism is made the anchor of hope: Faith is founded on abstraction, and Charity is pushed to the wall.

A review of the doctrines contained in the Westminster Con

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »