II. On the Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion

 IT is not intended in the following pages to enter into any general view of so large a subject as Rationalism, nor to attempt any philosophical account of it; but, after defining it sufficiently for the purpose in hand, to direct attention to a very peculiar and subtle form of it existing covertly in the popular religion of this day. With this view two writers, not of our own Church, though of British origin, shall pass under review, Mr. Erskine and Mr. Jacob Abbott.

 This is the first time that a discussion of (what may be called) a personal nature has appeared in this series of Tracts [n.], which has been confined to the delineation and enforcement of principles and doctrines. However, in this case, I have found that, if it was important to protest against certain views of the day, it was necessary, in order to do this intelligibly, to refer to the individuals who have inculcated them. Of these the two Authors above mentioned seemed at once the most influential and the most original; and Mr. Abbott being a foreigner, and Mr. Erskine having written sixteen years since, there seemed a possibility of introducing their names without assuming to exercise the functions of a Review.

 It will be my business first to explain what I mean by Rationalism, and then to illustrate the description given of it from the writings of the two Authors in question. § 1. The Rationalistic and Catholic Tempers contrasted  § 2. Mr. Erskine's "Internal Evidence" § 3. Mr. Abbott's "Corner Stone" Postscript

 § 1. The Rationalistic and the Catholic Tempers contrasted

 RATIONALISM is a certain abuse of Reason; that is, a use of it for purposes for which it never was intended, and is unfitted. To rationalize in matters of Revelation is to make our reason the standard and measure of the doctrines revealed; to stipulate that those doctrines should be such as to carry with them their own justification; to reject them, if they come in collision with our existing opinions or habits of thought, or are with difficulty harmonized with our existing stock of knowledge. And thus a rationalistic spirit is the antagonist of Faith; for Faith is, in its very nature, the acceptance of what our reason cannot reach, simply and absolutely upon testimony.

 There is, of course, a multitude of cases in which we allowably and rightly accept statements as true, partly on reason, and partly on testimony. We supplement the information of others by our own knowledge, by our own judgment of probabilities; and, if it be very strange or extravagant, we suspend our assent. This is undeniable; still, after all, there are truths which are incapable of reaching us except on testimony, and there is testimony, which by and in itself, has an imperative claim on our acceptance.

 As regards Revealed Truth, it is not Rationalism to set about to ascertain, by the exercise of reason, what things are attainable by reason, and what are not; nor, in the absence of an express Revelation, to inquire into the truths of Religion, as they come to us by nature; nor to determine what proofs are necessary for the acceptance of a Revelation, if it be given; nor to reject a Revelation on the plea of insufficient proof; nor, after recognizing it as divine, to investigate the meaning of its declarations, and to interpret its language; nor to use its doctrines, as far as they can be fairly used, in inquiring into its divinity; nor to compare and connect them with our previous knowledge, with a view of making them parts of a whole; nor to bring them into dependence on each other, to trace their mutual relations, and to pursue them to their legitimate issues. This is not Rationalism; but it is Rationalism to accept the Revelation, and then to explain it away; to speak of it as the Word of God, and to treat it as the word of man; to refuse to let it speak for itself; to claim to be told the why and the how of God's dealings with us, as therein described, and to assign to Him a motive and a scope of our own; to stumble at the partial knowledge which He may give us of them; to put aside what is obscure, as if it had not been said at all; to accept one half of what has been told us, and not the other half; to assume that the contents of Revelation are also its proof; to frame some gratuitous hypothesis about them, and then to garble, gloss, and colour them, to trim, clip, pare away, and twist them, in order to bring them into conformity with the idea to which we have subjected them.

 When the rich lord in Samaria said, "Though God shall make windows in heaven, shall this thing be?" he rationalized, as professing his inability to discover how Elisha's prophecy was to be fulfilled, and thinking in this way to excuse his unbelief. When Naaman, after acknowledging the prophet's supernatural power, objected to bathe in Jordan, it was on the ground of his not seeing the means by which Jordan was to cure his leprosy above the rivers of Damascus. " How can these things be?" was the objection of Nicodemus to the doctrine of regeneration; and when the doctrine of the Holy Communion was first announced, "the Jews strove among themselves," in answer to their Divine Informant, saying, " How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" When St. Thomas, believing in our Lord, doubted of our Lord's resurrection, though his reason for so doing is not given, it plainly lay in the astonishing, unaccountable nature of such an event. A like desire of judging for one's self is discernible in the original fall of man. Eve did not believe the Tempter, any more than God's word, till she perceived that "the fruit was good for food."

 So again, when men who profess Christianity ask how prayer can really influence the course of God's providence, or how everlasting punishment, as such, consists with God's infinite mercy, they rationalize.

 The same spirit shows itself in the restlessness of others to decide how the sun was stopped at Joshua's word, how the manna was provided, and the like; forgetting what our Saviour suggests to the Sadducees, " the power of God."

 2.

 Conduct such as this, on so momentous a matter, is, generally speaking, traceable to one obvious cause. The Rationalist makes himself his own centre, not his Maker; he does not go to God, but he implies that God must come to him. And this, it is to be feared, is the spirit in which multitudes of us act at the present day. Instead of looking out of ourselves, and trying to catch glimpses of God's workings, from any quarter, throwing ourselves forward upon Him and waiting on Him, we sit at home bringing everything to ourselves, enthroning ourselves in our own views, and refusing to believe anything that does not force itself upon us as true. Our private judgment is made everything to us, is contemplated, recognized, and consulted as the arbiter of all questions, and as independent of everything external to us. Nothing is considered to have an existence except so far forth as our minds discern it. The notion of half views and partial knowledge, of guesses, surmises, hopes and fears, of truths faintly apprehended and not understood, of isolated facts in the great scheme of Providence, in a word, the idea of Mystery, is discarded.

 Hence a distinction is drawn between what is called Objective and Subjective Truth, and Religion is said to consist in a reception of the latter. By Objective Truth is meant the Religious System considered as existing in itself, external to this or that particular mind: by Subjective, is meant that which each mind receives in particular, and considers to be such. To believe in Objective Truth is to throw ourselves forward upon that which we have but partially mastered or made subjective; to embrace, maintain, and use general propositions which are larger than our own capacity, of which we cannot see the bottom, which we cannot follow out into their multiform details; to come before and bow before the import of such propositions, as if we were contemplating what is real and independent of human judgment. Such a belief, implicit, and symbolized as it is in the use of creeds, seems to the Rationalist superstitious and unmeaning, and he consequently confines Faith to the province of Subjective Truth, or to the reception of doctrine, as, and so far as, it is met and apprehended by the mind, which will be differently, as he considers, in different persons, in the shape of orthodoxy in one, heterodoxy in another. That is, he professes to believe in that which he opines ; and he avoids the obvious extravagance of such an avowal by maintaining that the moral trial involved in Faith does not lie in the submission of the reason to external realities partially disclosed, but in what he calls that candid pursuit of truth which ensures the eventual adoption of that opinion on the subject, which is best for us individually, which is most natural according to the constitution of our own minds, and, therefore, divinely intended for us. I repeat, he owns that Faith, viewed with reference to its objects, is never more than an opinion, and is pleasing to God, not as an active principle apprehending definite doctrines, but as a result and fruit, and therefore an evidence of past diligence, independent inquiry, dispassionateness, and the like. Rationalism takes the words of Scripture as signs of Ideas; Faith, of Things or Realities.

 For an illustration of Faith, considered as the reaching forth after and embracing what is beyond the mind, or Objective, we may refer to St. Paul's description of it in the ancient Saints; "These all died in Faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth:" or to St. Peter's; "Of which salvation the Prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow; unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have evangelized you." Here the faith of the ancient Saints is described as employed, not merely on truths so far as mastered by the mind, but on truths beyond it, and even to the end withheld from its perfect apprehension.

 On the other hand, if we would know the narrow and egotistic temper of mind to which the Rationalistic Theory of Subjective Truth really tends, we find an illustration of it in the following passage of a popular Review. Without apparently any intention of denying that the wonders of nature "declare the glory of God and show His handiwork," the writer seems to feel that there is one thing better and higher than the witness which they bear to a mere point in metaphysics; viz., the exact mathematical knowledge to which they can be subjected. He thus descants:

 "To the historian of science it is permitted to penetrate the depths of past and future with equal clearness and certainty; facts to come are to him as present, and not unfrequently more assured than facts which are past. Although this clear perception of causes and consequences characterizes the whole domain of physical science, and clothes the natural philosopher with powers denied to the political and moral inquirer, yet Foreknowledge is eminently the privilege of the Astronomer. Nature has raised the curtain of futurity, and displayed before him the succession of her decrees, so far as they affect the physical universe, for countless ages to come; and the Revelations of which she has made him the instrument, are supported and verified by a never-ceasing train of predictions fulfilled. He [the Astronomer] shows us the things which will be hereafter; not obscurely shadowed out in figures and in parables, as must necessarily be the case with other Revelations, but attended with the most minute precision of time, place, and circumstance. He [the Astronomer] converts the hours as they roll into an ever-present miracle, in attestation of those Laws which the Creator through him has unfolded; the sun cannot rise, the moon cannot wane, a star cannot twinkle in the firmament, without bearing testimony to the truth of his [the Astronomer's] Prophetic Records. How nobly is the darkness which envelopes metaphysical inquiries compensated by the flood of light which is shed upon the physical creation! There all is harmony, and order, and majesty, and beauty. How soothing and yet how elevating it is to turn to the splendid spectacle which offers itself to the habitual contemplation of the Astronomer! How favourable to the development of all the best and highest feelings of the soul are such objects! The only passion they inspire being the Love of Truth, and the chiefest pleasure of their votaries arising from Excursions through the imposing scenery of the universe: scenery on a scale of grandeur and magnificence, compared with which whatever we are accustomed to call sublimity on our planet, dwindles into ridiculous insignificancy. Most justly has it been said, that nature has implanted in our bosoms a craving after the Discovery of Truth, and assuredly that glorious instinct is never more irresistibly awakened than when our notice is directed to what is going on in the heavens," etc. etc. ( abridged .)

 The writer of these sentences cannot be said exactly to rationalize, because he neither professes belief in Revelation, nor dresses up any portion of its contents into a scientific, intelligible shape. But he lays down the principle on which rationalists proceed, and shows how superior, that principle being assumed, astronomy is to the Gospel. He tells us that knowledge, or what he calls truth, elicits "the best and highest feelings of the soul;" that the "love" and "craving" for such knowledge is the most noble of "passions," and a "glorious instinct;" that the attainments of such knowledge, say for instance, about the Milky Way or the Lost Pleïad (supposing it were possible), is emphatically "Revelation," not a mere inkling, conveyed in figures and parables, like "other" Revelations, but "soothing, and yet how elevating!" opening upon the scientific "excursionist" the most splendid "scenery," a "compensation" for "metaphysical darkness;" moreover, that the "physical universe" "eminently" gifts the astronomer with "the privilege of foreknowledge," and is converted for his use into a "prophetic record." No partial knowledge, he implies, can be so transporting as this unclouded light, the subject-matter of our contemplations, of course, never having any bearing at all upon the transport which the contemplations create. To know the God of nature in part is a poor thing in comparison of knowing the laws of nature in full. To meditate on His power or skill, on His illimitable being and existence, on His unity in immensity, is a mere nothing compared with the ecstasy which follows on the infallible certitude of the physical philosopher, that particles of matter are attracted towards each other by a force varying inversely as the square of their distance. I do not say that the writer in question would thus express himself, when brought to book; but it is the legitimate sense of his words, and the secret thought of his heart, unless he has but enunciated a succession of magniloquent periods.

 3.

 I have said he is not a rationalist; I do not call him so, because he does not own to a belief in Revealed Religion, or tamper with its contents. Rather he tends, how little soever he may realize it, to discard even Theism itself from his list of credenda . The only truth which he seems to think it worth while pursuing, is the knowledge of the universe; for a system can be more easily and thoroughly mastered than an Infinite Mind. Laws are stable; but persons are strange, uncertain, inexplicable. "Ex pede Herculem;" if I know one fact about the physical world, I know a million others; but one divine act and no more carries me but a little way in my knowledge of "Summum illud et æternum, neque mutabile, neque interiturum." There is some chance of our analyzing nature, none of our comprehending God.

 Such is the philosophy of the writer whom I have quoted; and such is Rationalism in its action upon Scripture and the Creed. It considers faith to consist rather in the knowledge of a system or scheme, than of an agent; it is concerned, not so much with the Divine Being, as with His work. Mr. Erskine is one of the writers who are presently to engage my attention; here I will anticipate my mention of him by citing a passage from his Essay on Faith, in illustration of the parallelism, as I read him, between him and the Reviewer. He assumes the very principle of the latter, viz., that clear knowledge is the one thing needful for the human mind, and by consequence that Christian faith does not really consist in the direct contemplation of the Supreme Being, in a submission to His authority, and a resignation to such disclosures about Himself and His will, be they many or few, distinct or obscure, as it is His pleasure to make to us, but in a luminous, well-adjusted view of the scheme of salvation, of the economy of grace, of the carrying out of the Divine Attributes into a series of providential and remedial appointments. He writes as follows:

 "I may understand many things which I do not believe; but I cannot believe anything which I do not understand, unless it be something addressed merely to my senses, and not to my thinking faculty. A man may with great propriety say, I understand the Cartesian System of Vortices, though I do not believe in it. But it is absolutely impossible for him to believe in that system without knowing what it is. A man may believe in the ability of the maker of a system without understanding it; but he cannot believe in the  system itself without understanding it. Now there is a meaning in the Gospel, and there is declared in it the system of God's dealings with men. This meaning, and this system, must be understood, before we can believe the Gospel. We are not called on to believe the Bible, merely that we may give a proof of our willingness to submit in all things to God's authority, but that we may be influenced by the objects of our belief," etc.

 That is, I cannot believe anything which I do not understand; therefore, true Christianity consists, not in "submitting in all things to God's authority," His written Word, whether it be obscure or not, but in understanding His acts. I must understand a scheme, if the Gospel is to do me any good; and such a scheme is the scheme of salvation. Such is the object of faith, the history of a series of divine actions, and nothing more; nothing more, for everything else is obscure; but this is clear, simple, compact. To preach this, is to preach the Gospel; not to apprehend it, is to be destitute of living faith.

 Of course I do not deny that Revelation contains a history of God's mercy to us; who can doubt it? I only say, that while it is this, it is something more also. Again, if by speaking of the Gospel as clear and intelligible, a man means to imply that this is the whole of it, then I answer, No; for it is also deep, and therefore necessarily mysterious. This is too often forgotten. Let me refer to a very characteristic word, familiarly used by Mr. Erskine, among others, to designate his view of the Gospel Dispensation. It is said to be a manifestation, as if the system presented to us were such as we could trace and connect into one whole, complete and definite. Let me use this word "Manifestation" as a symbol of the philosophy under review; and let me contrast it with the word "Mystery," which on the other hand may be regarded as the badge or emblem of orthodoxy. Revelation, as a Manifestation, is a doctrine variously received by various minds, but nothing more to each than that which each mind comprehends it to be. Considered as a Mystery, it is a doctrine enunciated by inspiration, in human language, as the only possible medium of it, and suitably, according to the capacity of language; a doctrine lying hid in language, to be received in that language from the first by every mind, whatever be its separate power of understanding it; entered into more or less by this or that mind, as it may be; and admitting of being apprehended more and more perfectly according to the diligence of this mind and that. It is one and the same, independent and real, of depth unfathomable, and illimitable in its extent.

 4.

 This is a fit place to make some remarks on the Scripture sense of the word Mystery. It may seem a contradiction in terms to call Revelation a Mystery; but is not the book of the Revelation of St. John as great a mystery from beginning to end as the most abstruse doctrine the mind ever imagined? yet it is even called a Revelation . How is this? The answer is simple. No revelation can be complete and systematic, from the weakness of the human intellect; so far as it is not such, it is mysterious. When nothing is revealed, nothing is known, and there is nothing to contemplate or marvel at; but when something is revealed, and only something, for all cannot be, there are forthwith difficulties and perplexities. A Revelation is religious doctrine viewed on its illuminated side; a Mystery is the selfsame doctrine viewed on the side unilluminated. Thus Religious Truth is neither light nor darkness, but both together; it is like the dim view of a country seen in the twilight, with forms half extricated from the darkness, with broken lines, and isolated masses. Revelation, in this way of considering it, is not a revealed system, but consists of a number of detached and incomplete truths belonging to a vast system unrevealed, of doctrines and injunctions mysteriously connected together; that is, connected by unknown media, and bearing upon unknown portions of the system. And in this sense we see the propriety of calling St. John's prophecies, though highly mysterious, yet a revelation.

 And such seems to be the meaning of the word Mystery in Scripture, a point which is sometimes disputed. Campbell, in his work on the Gospels, maintains that the word means a secret, and that, whatever be the subject of it in the New Testament, it is always, when mentioned, associated with the notion of its being now revealed. Thus, in his view, it is a word belonging solely to the Law, which was a system of types and shadows, and is utterly foreign to the Gospel, which has brought light instead of darkness. This sense might seem to be supported by our Lord's announcement (for instance) to His disciples, that to them was given to know the mysteries of His kingdom; and by His command to them at another time to speak abroad what they had heard from Him in secret. And St. Paul in like manner glories in the revelation of mysteries hid from the foundation of the world.

 But the passages of Scripture admit, as I have suggested, of another interpretation. What was hidden altogether before Christ came, could not be a mystery; it became a Mystery, then for the first time, by being disclosed at His coming. What had never been dreamed of by "righteous men," before Him, when revealed, as  being unexpected, if for no other reason, would be strange and startling. And such unquestionably is the meaning of St. Paul, when he uses the word; for he applies it, not to what was passed and over, but to what was the then state of the doctrine revealed. Thus in the text, 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52, "Behold I show you a Mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." The resurrection and consequent spiritualizing of the human body, was not dreamed of by the philosophy of the world till Christ came, and, when revealed, was "mocked," as then first becoming a mystery. Reason is just where it was; and, as it could not discover it beforehand, so now it cannot account for it, or reconcile it to experience, or explain the manner of it: the utmost it does is by some faint analogies to show that it is not inconceivable. Again, St. Paul, speaking of marriage says, "This is a great Mystery, I mean, in its reference to Christ and the Church;" that is, the ordinance of marriage has an inward and spiritual meaning, contained in it and revealed through it, a certain bearing, undefined and therefore mysterious, towards the heavenly communion existing between Christ and the Church: as if for persons to place themselves in that human relation interested them in some secret way in the divine relation of which it is a figure. Again: "Great is the Mystery of piety; God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory" (1 Tim. iii. 16). Now is the revelation of these truths a Manifestation (as above explained) or a Mystery? Surely the great secret has, by being revealed, only got so far as to be a Mystery, nothing more; nor could become a Manifestation, (that is, a system comprehended as such by the human mind,) without ceasing to be anything great at all. It must ever be small and superficial, viewed only as received by man; and is vast only when considered as that external truth into which each Christian may grow continually, and ever find fresh food for his soul.

 As to the unknown, marvellous system of things spoken of in the text just quoted, it is described again, in an almost parallel passage, as regards the subject, though differently worded, in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the full concourse and assembly of the first-born enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the perfected just, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (xii. 22-24). In like manner when St. Paul speaks of the election of the Gentiles as a Mystery revealed, the facts of the case show that it was still a mystery, and therefore but revealed to be a mystery, not a secret explained. We know that the Jews did stumble at it: why, if it was clear and obvious to reason? Certainly it was still a Mystery to them. Will it be objected that it had been plainly predicted? Surely not. The calling indeed of the Gentiles had been predicted, but not their equal participation with the Jews in all the treasures of the Covenant of grace, not the destruction of the Mosaic system. The prophets everywhere speak of the Jews as the head of the Gentiles; it was a new doctrine altogether (at least to the existing generation) that the election henceforth was to have no reference whatever to the Jews as a distinct people. This had hitherto been utterly hidden and unexpected; it emerged into a stumbling-block, or Mystery, when the Gospel was preached, as on the other hand it became to all humble minds a marvel or mystery of mercy. Hence St. Paul speaks of the Mystery "which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel."

 5.

 In these remarks on the meaning of the word Mystery, some of the chief doctrines of the Gospel Revelation have been already enumerated; before entering, however, into the discussion which I have proposed to myself, it may be right briefly to enumerate the revealed doctrines in order, according to the Catholic, that is, the anti-rationalistic, notion of them. They are these: the Holy Trinity; the Incarnation of the Eternal Son; His atonement and merits; the Church as His medium and instrument through which He is converting and teaching mankind; the Sacraments, and Sacramentals (as Bishop Taylor calls them), as the definite channels through which His merits are applied to individuals; Regeneration, the Communion of Saints, the Resurrection of the body, consequent upon the administration of them; and lastly, our faith and works, as a condition of the availableness and efficacy of these divine appointments. Each of these doctrines is a Mystery; that is, each stands in a certain degree isolated from the rest, unsystematic, connected with the rest by unknown intermediate truths, and bearing upon subjects unknown. Thus the Atonement:  why it was necessary, how it operates, is a Mystery; that is, the heavenly truth which is revealed, extends on each side of it into an unknown world. We see but the skirts of God's glory in it. The virtue of the Holy Communion; how it conveys to us the body and blood of the Incarnate Son crucified, and how by partaking it body and soul are made spiritual. The Communion of Saints; in what sense they are knit together into one body, of which Christ is the head. Good works; how they, and how prayers again, influence our eternal destiny. In like manner what our relation is to the "innumerable company of Angels," some of whom, as we are told, minister to us; what to the dead in Christ, to the "spirits of the just perfected," who are ever joined to us in a heavenly communion; what bearing the Church has upon the fortunes of the world, or, it may be, of the universe.

 That there are some such mysterious bearings, not only the incomplete character of the Revelation, but even its documents assure us. For instance. The Christian dispensation was ordained, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. iii. 10). Such is its relation to the Angels. Again to lost spirits; "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places" (Eph. vi. 12). In like manner our Lord says, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against" the Church (Matt. xvi. 18); implying thereby a contest. Again, in writing the following passage, had not St. Paul thoughts in his mind, suggested by the unutterable sights of the third heaven, but to us unrevealed and unintelligible? "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, not things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us" (that is, the Church,) "from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. viii. 38, 39).

 The practical inference to be drawn from this view is, first, that we should be very reverent in dealing with Revealed Truth; next, that we should avoid all rash theorizing and systematizing as relates to it, which is pretty much what looking into the Ark was under the Law: further, that we should be solicitous to hold it safely and entirely; moreover, that we should be zealous and pertinacious in guarding it; and lastly, which is implied in all these, that we should religiously adhere to the form of words and the ordinances under which it comes to us, through which it is revealed to us, and apart from which the Revelation does not exist, there being nothing else given us by which to ascertain or enter into it.

 Striking indeed is the contrast presented to this view of the Gospel by the popular theology of the day! That theology is as follows: that the Atonement is the chief doctrine of the Gospel; again, that it is chiefly to be regarded, not as a wonder in heaven, and in its relation to the attributes of God and to the unseen world, but in its experienced effects on our minds, in the change it effects when it is believed. To this, as if to the point of sight in a picture, all the portions of the Gospel system are directed and made to converge; as if this doctrine were so fully understood, that it might fearlessly be used to regulate, adjust, correct, complete, everything else. Thus, the doctrine of the Incarnation is viewed as necessary and important to the Gospel, because it gives virtue to the Atonement; of the Trinity, because it includes the revelation, not only of the Redeemer, but also of the Sanctifier, by whose aid and influence the Gospel message is to be blessed to us. It follows that faith is nearly the whole of religious service, for through it the message or Manifestation is received; on the other hand, the scientific language of Catholicism, concerning the Trinity and Incarnation, is disparaged, as having no tendency to enforce the effect upon our minds of the doctrine of the Atonement, while the Sacraments are limited to the office of representing, and promising, and impressing on us the promise of divine influences, in no measure of conveying them. Thus the Dispensation, in its length, depth, and height, is practically identified with its Revelation, or rather its necessarily superficial Manifestation. Not that the reality of the Atonement, in itself, is formally denied, but it is cast in the background, except so far as it can be discovered to be influential, viz., to show God's hatred of sin, the love of Christ, and the like; and there is an evident tendency to consider it as a mere Manifestation of the love of Christ, to the denial of all real virtue in it as an expiation for sin; as if His death took place merely to show His love for us as a sign of God's infinite mercy, to calm and assure us, without any real connexion existing between it and God's forgiveness of our sins. And the Dispensation thus being hewn and chiselled into an intelligible human system, is represented, when thus mutilated, as affording a remarkable evidence of the truth of the Bible, an evidence level to the reason, and superseding the testimony of the Apostles. That is, according to the above observations, that Rationalism, or want of faith, which has in the first place invented a spurious gospel, next looks complacently on its own off-spring, and pronounces it to be the very image of that notion of the Divine Providence, according to which it was originally modelled; a procedure, which, besides more serious objections, incurs the logical absurdity of arguing in a circle.

 Note

 Tracts for the Times.  

§ 3. Mr. Abbott's "Corner Stone"

 HERE then we have arrived at a point where we part company with Mr. Erskine, and join Mr. Abbott, who advances further in a most perilous career. The principle with which Mr. Erskine began has been above discovered to issue in a view or theory of the Gospel, which may be contemplated apart from that principle. That the human mind may criticize and systematize the Divine Revelation, that it may identify it with the Dispensation, that it may limit the uses of the latter to its workings through our own reason and affections, and such workings as we can ascertain and comprehend, in a word, that the Gospel is a manifestation, this is the fundamental principle of Mr. Erskine's Essay. Mr. Jacob Abbott seems so fully to take this principle for granted, that it would be idle to do more than notice his doing so; it will be more to the purpose to direct attention to his treatment of the Theory, in which Mr. Erskine's principle seems to issue, viz., that the Gospel is a collection of facts . I am now referring to Mr. Abbott's work called "The Corner Stone," which I do not hesitate to say approaches within a hair's breadth of Socinianism: a charge which I would by no means urge against Mr. Erskine, whatever be the tendency of his speculations.

 1.

 In the work in question, Mr. Abbott disclaims entering into theological questions, properly so called (Preface, p. vi.); nor is there any necessity for his entering into them, so that the line of discussion which he does take, does not intrude upon them or provoke them.

 "I have made this exhibition of the Gospel," he says, "with reference to its moral effect on human hearts, and not for the purpose of taking sides in a controversy between different parties of Christians."

 Again:

 "A system of theology is a map or plan, in which every feature of the country must be laid down in its proper place and proportion; this work is, on the other hand, a series of views, as a traveller sees them in passing over a certain road. In this case, the road which I have taken leads indeed through the heart of the country, but it does not by any means bring to view all which is interesting or important. The reader will perceive that the history of Jesus Christ is the clue which I have endeavoured to follow; that is, the work is intended to exhibit religious truth, as it is connected with the various events in the life of our Saviour. In first introducing Him to the scene, I consider His exalted nature as the great moral Manifestation of the Divinity to us . Then follows a view of His personal character, and of His views of religious duty," etc. Pp. vi. vii.

 Let us observe here the similarity of language between the two writers I am speaking of. They are evidently of the same school. They both direct their view to the Gospel history as a Manifestation of the Divine Character; and though, in the above extracts, Mr. Abbott uses language more guarded than Mr. Erskine, there will be found to be little or no practical difference between them. But there seems this most important distinction in their respective applications of their Theory, though not very distinct or observable at first sight; that Mr. Erskine admits into the range of his Divine facts such as are not of this world, as the voluntary descent of Christ from heaven to earth, and His Incarnation, whereas Mr. Abbott virtually limits it to the witnessed history of Christ upon earth. This, so far as it exists, is all the difference between orthodoxy and Socinianism.

 For this encroachment Mr. Erskine indeed had prepared the way; for he certainly throws the high doctrines of religion into the background; and the word "Manifestation" far more naturally fits on to a history witnessed by human beings, than to dispositions made in the unseen world. But Mr. Erskine certainly has not taught this explicitly.

 If we wish to express the sacred Mystery of the Incarnation accurately, we should rather say that God is man, than that man is God. Not that the latter proposition is not altogether Catholic in its wording, but the former expresses the history of the Economy, (if I may so call it,) and confines our Lord's personality to His divine nature, making His manhood an adjunct; whereas to say that man is God, does the contrary of both of these, leads us to consider Him a man primarily and personally, with some vast and unknown dignity superadded, and that acquired of course after His coming into existence as man. The difference between these two modes of speaking is well illustrated by a recent Unitarian author, whom on account of the truth and importance of his remarks, I am led, with whatever pain, to quote:

 "A quick child, though not acquainted with logic, ... will perceive the absurdity of saying that Edward is John ... As the young pupil must be prepared to infer from the New Testament that a perfect man is perfect God, he ... must be imperceptibly led to consider the word God as expressing a quality, or an aggregate of qualities, which may be predicated of more than one, as the name of a species; just as when we say John is man, Peter is man, Andrew is man ... And so it is, with the exception of a few who, in this country, are still acquainted with that ingeniously perverse system of words by means of which the truly scholastic Trinitarians (such as Bishop Bull and Waterland, who had accurately studied the fathers and the schoolmen,) appear to evade the logical contradictions with which the doctrine of the Trinity abounds; all, as I have observed for many years, take the word God, in regard to Christ, as the name of a species, and more frequently of a dignity."  Heresy and Orthodoxy, p. 91.

 It will be observed of this passage, that the writer [n. 1] implies that the Catholic mode of speaking of the Incarnation is not exposed to a certain consequence, to which the mode at present popular is exposed, viz., the tendency to explain away Christ's divinity. Man is God, is the popular mode of speech; God is man, is the Catholic.

 2.

 To return. It seems then that Mr. Erskine proceeds in the orthodox way, illustrating the doctrine that God became man; Mr. Abbott, starting with the earthly existence of our Lord, does but enlarge upon the doctrine that a man is God. Mr. Erskine enforces the Atonement, as a Manifestation of God's moral character; Mr. Abbott the life of Christ with the same purpose, with but slight reference to the doctrine of the Expiation, for of course he whose life began with his birth from Mary, had given up nothing, and died merely because other men die. Here then is something very like Socinianisrn at first sight.

 But again, let us see how he conducts his argument. Here again he differs from Mr. Erskine. The latter considers the incarnation of the Son of God to be a manifestation of God's mercy. Here then in his view, which so far is correct, there is a double Manifestation of the Son of God personally in human nature, and of God morally in the history and circumstances of His incarnation; though Mr. Erskine's argument leads him to insist on the latter. Mr. Abbott assumes the latter as the sole Manifestation, thus bringing out the tendency of Mr. Erskine's argument. In other words, he considers our Lord Jesus Christ as a man primarily, not indeed a mere man, any more than the conversion of the world was a mere human work, but not more than a man aided by God, just as the conversion of the world was a human work aided and blessed by God; a man in intimate union, nay in mysterious union with God, as Moses might be on the Mount, but not more than Moses except in degree. He considers that certain attributes of the Godhead were manifested in Jesus Christ, in the sense in which the solar system manifests His power, or the animal economy His wisdom; which is a poorly concealed Socinianism. So this, it appears, is what really comes of declaiming against "metaphysical" notions of the Revelation, and enlarging on its moral character!

 That I may not be unfair to Mr. Abbott, I proceed to cite his words:

 "In the first place, let us take a survey of the visible universe, that we may see what manifestations of God appear in it . Let us imagine that we can see with the naked eye all that the telescope would show us; and then, in order that we may obtain an uninterrupted view, let us leave this earth, and, ascending from its surface, take a station where we can look, without obstruction, upon all around. As we rise above the summits of the loftiest mountains, the bright and verdant regions of the earth begin to grow dim. City after city, etc. ... Our globe itself cuts off one-half of the visible universe at all times, and the air spreads over us a deep canopy of blue, which during the day shuts out entirely the other half. But were the field open we should see in every direction the endless perspective of suns and stars as I have described them ... God is everywhere ... The Deity is the All-pervading Power which lives and acts throughout the whole. He is not a separate existence, having a special habitation in a part of it ... God is a Spirit. A Spirit; that is, He has no form, no place, no throne. Where He acts, there only can we see Him. He is the wide-spread omnipresent power which is everywhere employed, but which we can never see, and never know, except so far as He shall manifest Himself by His doings.

 "If we thus succeed in obtaining just conceptions of the Deity as the invisible and universal power, pervading all space, and existing in all time, we shall at once perceive that the only way by which He can make Himself known to His creatures is by acting Himself out, as it were, in His works; and of course the nature of the Manifestation which is made will depend upon the nature of the works . In the structure of a solar system, with its blazing centre and revolving worlds, the Deity, invisible itself, acts out its mighty power, and the unerring perfection of its intellectual skill . At the same time, while it is carrying on these mighty movements, it is exercising, in a very different scene, its untiring industry, and unrivalled taste, in clothing a mighty forest with verdure, etc., etc. ... And so everywhere this unseen and universal essence acts out its various attributes by its different works . We can learn its nature only by the character of the effects which spring from it.

 "This universal essence, then, must display to us its nature, by acting itself out in a thousand places by such manifestations of itself as it wishes us to understand. Does God desire to impress us with the idea of His power ? He darts the lightning, etc. etc. Does He wish to beam upon us in love ? What can be more expressive than the sweet summer sunset, etc.? and How can He make us acquainted with His benevolence and skill ? Why, by acting them out in some mechanism which exhibits them. He may construct an eye or a hand for man, etc. How can He give us some conception of His intellectual powers ? He can plan the motions of the planets, etc. etc. ... But the great question, after all, is to come. It is the one to which we have meant that all we have been saying should ultimately tend. How can such a Being exhibit the moral principle by which His mighty energies are all controlled ?" Pp. 6-14.

 This is eloquent writing; but this is not the place for dwelling on this quality of it; as to its doctrine, to speak plainly, it savours unpleasantly of pantheism. It treats the Almighty, not as the great God, but as some vast physical and psychological phenomenon. However, we are immediately concerned with the author's views, not on Natural, but on Revealed Religion. He continues thus:

 "He is an unseen, universal power, utterly invisible to us, and imperceptible, except so far as He shall act out His attributes in what He does. How shall He act out moral principle ? It is easy, by His material creation, to make any impression upon us which material objects can make; but how shall He exhibit to us the moral beauty of justice and benevolence and mercy between man and man? ... He might declare His moral attributes, as He might have declared His power; but if He would bring home to us the one as vividly and distinctly as the other, He must act out His moral principles by a moral Manifestation, in a moral scene; and the great beauty of Christianity is, that it represents Him as doing so. He brings out the purity, and spotlessness, and moral glory of the Divinity, through the workings of the human mind called into existence for this purpose, and stationed in a most conspicuous attitude among men ... Thus the moral perfections of Divinity show themselves to us in the only way by which, so far as we can see, it is possible directly to show them, by coming out in action, in the very field of human duty, by a mysterious union with a human intellect and human powers. It is God manifest in the flesh  the visible moral image of an all-pervading moral Deity, Himself for ever invisible." Pp. 14, 15.

 On this explanation of the Incarnation, now, alas! not unpopular even in our own Church, viz., that "God manifest in the flesh" is "the visible moral image" of God, let us hear the judgment of one who was a Trinitarian, and has lately avowed himself a convert to Unitarianism. He thus relates the change in his own religious profession:

 "In my anxiety to avoid a separation from the Church by the deliberate surrender of my mind to my old Unitarian convictions, I took refuge in a modification of the Sabellian theory, and availed myself of the moral unity which I believe to exist between God the Father and Christ, joined to the consideration that Christ is called in the New Testament the Image of God, and addressed my prayers to God as appearing in that image . I left nothing untried to cultivate and encourage this feeling by devotional means. But such efforts of mere feeling (and I confess with shame their frequency on my part for the sake of what seemed most religious) were always vain and fruitless. Sooner or later my reason has not only frustrated but punished them . In the last-mentioned instance the devout contrivance would not bear examination. Sabellianism is only Unitarianism disguised in words : and as for the worship of an image in its absence, the idea is most unsatisfactory. In this state, however, I passed five or six years; but the return to the clear and definite Unitarianism in which I had formerly been, was as easy as it was natural."  Heresy and Orthodoxy, p. viii.

 This passage proves thus much, not perhaps, that the philosophising in question leads to Socinianism, but that it is a philosophy under which Socinianism may lie hid, even from a man's own consciousness; and this is just the use I wish to make of it against Mr. Abbott. He ends as follows:

 "The substance of the view which I have been wishing to impress upon your minds is, that we are to expect to see Him solely through the Manifestation He makes of Himself in His works . We have seen in what way some of the traits of His character are displayed in the visible creation, and how at last He determined to manifest His moral character, by bringing it into action through the medium of a human soul . The plan was carried into effect, and the mysterious person thus formed appears for the first time to our view in the extraordinary boy," etc. Pp. 15, 16.

 In these passages it seems to be clearly maintained that our Lord is a Manifestation of God in precisely that way in which His creatures are, though in a different respect, viz., as regards His moral attributes, a Manifestation, not having anything in it essentially peculiar and incommunicable, and therefore " a Manifestation," as he in one passage expresses himself, not the Manifestation of the Father.

 Further, he expressly disclaims any opinion concerning the essential and superhuman relation, or (as he calls it) the "metaphysical" relation of the Son to the Father, in a passage which involves a slight upon other doctrines of a most important, though not of such a sacred character:

 "Another source of endless and fruitless discussion is disputing about questions which can be of no practical consequence, however they may be decided; such as the origin of sin, the state of the soul between death and the resurrection, the salvation of infants, the precise metaphysical relationship of the Son to the Father." P. 323 [n. 2].

 Why called metaphysical, I do not understand. Is Almighty God Himself then, in Mr. Abbott's view, physical ? But we have been already introduced to this word by Mr. Erskine, whose original fallacy also, be it observed, is faithfully preserved in this passage; "questions which can be of no practical consequence," as if we have any warrant thus to limit, or to decide upon, the gracious revelations of God. He continues:

 "We have said they are of no practical consequence; of course an ingenious reasoner can contrive to connect practical consequences with any subject whatever, and in his zeal he will exaggerate the importance of the connection;"

 I interrupt the reader, to remind him that the subjects spoken of in this careless, self-satisfied way, are those which from the first have been preserved in Creeds and Confessions as the most necessary, most solemn truths;

 "in fact every subject in the moral world is more or less connected with every other one ; nothing stands out entirely detached and isolated, and consequently a question which its arguers will admit to be merely a theoretical one, will never be found." P. 324.

 But if so, who shall draw the line between truths practical and theoretical? Shall we trust the work to such as Mr. Abbott? Surely this passage refutes his own doctrine. We also say that there are no two subjects in religion but may be connected by our minds, and therefore, for what we know, perchance are connected in fact. All we maintain in addition, is, that evidence of the fact of that connexion is not necessary for the proof of their importance to us, and further, that we have no right to pronounce that they are revealed merely with a view to their importance to us.

 He disposes of the Catholic doctrine of Christ's eternal Sonship by calling it metaphysical; how he escapes from the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation we have already seen, he resolves it into a moral Manifestation of God in the person of Christ. But his view requires a few more words of explanation. First, as I have already had occasion to notice, he speaks of God in pantheistic language, as an Anima Mundi, or universal essence, who has no known existence except in His works, as an all-pervading power or principle, not external to the created world, but in it, and developed through it. He goes on to say that this Almighty, who is thus illimitable and incomprehensible, is exhibited in personal attributes in Christ, as if all the laws and provisions, in which he energizes in nature impersonally, were condensed and exemplified in a real personal being. Hence he calls our Lord by a strange term, the personification of God, i.e . (I suppose) the personal image, or the manifestation in a person. In other words, God, whose Person is unknown in nature, in spite of His works, is revealed in Christ, who is the express image of His Person; and just in this, and (as I conceive) nothing more, would he conceive there was a difference between the manifestation of God in Christ, and the manifestation of Him in a plant or flower. Christ is a personal Manifestation. Whether there be any elements of truth in this theory, I do not concern myself to decide; thus much is evident, that he so applies it as utterly to explain away the real divinity of our Lord. The passages are as follow:

 "It is by Jesus Christ that we have access to the Father. This vivid exhibition of His character, this personification of His moral attributes, opens to us the way. Here we see a manifestation of divinity, an image of the invisible God, which comes as it were down to us; it meets our feeble faculties with a personification." etc. P. 40.

 "We accordingly commenced with His childhood, and were led at once into a train of reflection on the nature and the character of that eternal and invisible Essence whose attributes were personified in Him ." P. 192.

 "The human mind ... reaches forward for some vision of the Divinity, the great unseen and inconceivable Essence. Jesus Christ is the personification of the divinity for us, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." P. 200.

 3.

 Next, as to his opinions concerning the doctrine of the Atonement. I will not deny, I am glad to perceive, that some of his general expressions are correct, and taken by themselves, would be satisfactory; but they are invalidated altogether by what he has at other times advanced. It may be recollected that Mr. Erskine in his treatise on Internal Evidence, lays such a stress upon the use of the Atonement as a Manifestation, as to throw the real doctrine itself into the shade. Viewed in itself, Christ's death is, we believe, a sacrifice acting in some unknown way for the expiation of human sin; but Mr. Erskine views it (as indeed it may well be viewed, but as exclusively it should not be viewed,) as a mark and pledge of God's love to us, which it would be, though it were not an Expiation. Even though Christ's incarnation issued in nothing more than His preaching to the world and sealing His doctrine with His blood, it would be a great sign of His love, and a pledge now of our receiving blessings through Him; for why should He die except He meant to be merciful to us? but this would not involve the necessity of an expiation. St. Paul died for the Church, and showed his love for it in this sense. When then the view of the Christian is limited, as Mr. Erskine would almost wish it to be, to the Manifestation of the Atonement, or the effect of the Atonement on our minds, no higher doctrine is of necessity elicited than that of its being a sign of God's mercy, as the rainbow might be, and a way is laid, by obscuring, to obliterate the true doctrine concerning it. So far Mr. Erskine proceeds, not denying it (far from it), but putting it aside in his philosophical Evidence: Mr. Abbott, upon the very same basis, is bolder in his language, and almost, if not altogether, gets rid of it.

 In the following passage he applies Mr. Erskine's doctrine of the moral lesson, taught in Christ's death, of the justice and mercy of God: and he will be found distinctly to assert that the virtue of it lay in this, viz., that it was a declaration of God's hatred of sin, the same in kind as the punishment of the sinner would have been, only more perfect, as a means of impressing on us His hatred of sin: not as if it really reconciled us to an offended Creator.

 "The balm for your wounded spirit is this, that the moral impression in respect to the nature and tendencies of sin, which is the only possible reason God can have in leaving you to suffer its penalties,"

 (one should think the reason might be that "the wages of sin is death,")

 "is accomplished far better by the life and death of His Son;"

 (surely it is a greater balm to know that Christ has put away the wrath of God, as Scripture says, than to theorize about "moral impressions" beyond the word of Scripture. Observe too, he says, "the life and death," excluding the proper idea of Atonement, which lies in the death of Christ, and so tending to resolve it into a Manifestation,)

 "God never could have wished to punish you for the sake of doing evil;"

 (God punishes the sinner, not indeed for the sake of evil, but as a just and holy God,)

 "and all the good which He could have accomplished by it is already effected in another and a better way." P. 179. [n. 3]

 Here is the same assumption which was just now instanced from Mr. Erskine, viz., that God cannot inflict punishment except in order to effect a greater good, or (as Mr. Abbott himself has expressed it just before) "because the welfare of His government requires" it, which is a mere hypothesis.

 Again:

 "A knowledge of the death of Christ, with the explanation of it given in the Scriptures, touches men's hearts, it shows the nature and tendencies of sin, it produces fear of God's displeasure, and resolution to return to duty; and thus produces effects by which justice is satisfied,"

 (observe, not by an expiation, but by the repentance of the offender in consequence of the "moral impression" made on him by the "Manifestation" of Christ's death, )

 "and the authority of the law sustained far better in fact than it would be by the severest punishment of the guilty sinner." P. 174.

 "Look at the moral effect of this great sacrifice, and feel that it takes off all the necessity of punishment, and all the burden of your guilt." P. 190.

 The necessity of punishment is (according to Mr. Abbott) the well-being of the Universe: and the virtue of the great sacrifice is, not expiation, atonement in God's sight, but the moral effect of Christ's death on those who believe in it. So again, in a passage lately quoted for another purpose, he says:

 "It is by Jesus Christ that we have access to the Father. This vivid exhibition of His character, this personification of His moral attributes, opens to us the way ." P. 40.

 Lastly, we have the same stress laid upon the facts of the Gospel as in Mr. Erskine's work, with this difference, that Mr. Erskine supposes the orthodox doctrine, or what he considers such, to be conveyed in the facts; Mr. Abbott, with the liberalism to which his predecessor leads, but which is more characteristic of this day than of fifteen years ago, seems to think that various theories may be raised about the facts, whether orthodox or otherwise, but that the facts alone are of consequence to us.

 "Such are the three great Manifestations of Himself to man which the one Unseen All-pervading Essence has made and exhibited to us in the Bible, and in our own experience and observation."

 ( This sentence, be it observed in passing, savours strongly of Sabellianism; he has spoken of what he calls three Manifestations of Almighty God, as our natural Governor, as influencing the heart, and as in Jesus Christ, without there being anything in his way of speaking to show that he attributed these Manifestations respectively to Three Persons. He proceeds:)

 "Though there have been interminable disputes in the Christian Church about the language which has been employed to describe these facts, there has been comparatively little dispute among even nominal Christians about the facts themselves ." P. 39.

 Such is the theology to which Mr. Erskine's principle is found to lead in the hands of Mr. Abbott; a theology (so to name it) which violently robs the Christian Creed of all it contains, except those outward historical facts through which its divine truths were fulfilled and revealed to man.

 4.

 This brief explanation of Mr. Abbott's theological system may be fitly followed up by some specimens of the temper and tone of his religious sentiments. In this way we shall be able to ascertain the character of mind which such speculations presuppose and foster.

 "Jesus Christ had a taste for beauty, both of nature and art; He admired the magnificent architecture of the Temple, and deeply lamented the necessity of its overthrow, and His dress was at least of such a character that the disposal of it was a subject of importance to the well-paid soldiers who crucified Him." Pp. 50, 51.

 Let us think seriously, is Christ God, or is He not? if so, can we dare talk of Him as having "a taste for nature"? It is true Mr. Abbott does speak in this way of the Almighty Father also; so that it may be said rather to prove that he has a low conception of God than of Christ. Perhaps it will be more truly said that his want of reverence towards the Saviour, has led on to the other more direct profaneness. Yet a "taste for beauty of art," for "architecture"! This of the Eternal Son of God, the Creator; will it be said that He is man also? true; but His personality is in His Godhead, if I may express myself in theological language. He did not undo what He was before, He did not cease to be the infinite God, but He added to Him the substance of a man, and thus participated in human thoughts and feelings, yet without impairing (God forbid) His divine perfection. The Incarnation was not "a conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but a taking of the manhood into God." It seems there is need of the Athanasian Creed in these dangerous times. A mystery, indeed, results from this view, for certain attributes of Divinity and of manhood seem incompatible; and there may be instances in our Lord's history on earth of less than divine thought and operation: but because of all this we never must speak, we have utterly no warrant to speak, of the Person of the Eternal Word as thinking and feeling like a mere man, like a child, or a boy, as simply ignorant, imperfect, and dependent on the creature, which is Mr. Abbott's way. To proceed:

 "Jesus Christ was in some respects the most bold, energetic, decided, and courageous man that ever lived ; but in others he was the most flexible, submissive, and yielding." P. 51.

 The Son of God made flesh, though a man, is beyond comparison with other men; His person is not human; but to say "most of all men" is to compare.

 "There never was a mission, or an enterprise of any kind, conducted with a more bold, energetic, fearless spirit, than the Saviour's mission." P. 52.

 This sentence may not seem objectionable to many people, and as it is similar to many others in the work, it may be right to remark upon it. The truth is, we have got into a way of, what may be called, panegyrizing our Lord's conduct, from our familiarity with treatises on External Evidence. It has been the fashion of the day to speak as to unbelievers, and, therefore, to level the sacred history to the rank of a human record, by way of argument. Hence we have learned to view the truth merely externally, that is, as an unbeliever would view it; and so to view and treat it even when we are not arguing; which involves, of course, an habitual disrespect towards what we hold to be divine, and ought to treat as such. This will in part account for the tone in which the History of the Jews is sometimes set forth. And it is remarkably illustrated in the work before us, which, though pointedly addressed only to those who "have confessed their sins and asked forgiveness," who "strive against temptation, and seek help from above," (vid. p. 1,) yet is continually wandering into the external view of Christ's conduct, and assumes in a didactic treatise, what is only accidentally allowable in controversy. To return:

 "There is something very bold and energetic in the measures He adopted in accomplishing His work ... In fact, there perhaps never was so great a moral effect produced in three years, on any community so extensive, if we consider at all the disadvantages incident to the customs of those days. There was no press, no modes of extensive written communication, no regularly organized channels of intercourse whatever between the different portions of the community. He acted under every disadvantage." Pp. 53, 54.

 Under no disadvantage, if He were God. But this is only part of one great error under which this writer lies. "There was no press"! What notions does this imply concerning the nature, the strength, and the propagation of moral truth!

 "He sought solitude, He shrunk from observation: in fact, almost the only enjoyment which He seemed really to love, was His lonely ramble at midnight, for rest and prayer ... It is not surprising, that after the healed crowds and exhausting labours of the day, He should love to retire to silence and seclusion, to enjoy the cool and balmy air, the refreshing stillness, and all the beauties and glories of midnight among the solitudes of the Galilean hills, to find there happy communion with His Father," etc. P, 55.

 The more ordinary and commonplace, the more like vulgar life, the more carnal the history of the Eternal Son of God is made, the more does this writer exult in it. He exults in sinking the higher notion of Christ, and in making the flesh the hegemonic of a Divine Essence. Even a prophet or apostle might be conceived to subdue the innocent enjoyments of His lower nature to the sovereignty of faith, and enjoy this world only as an emblem and instrument of the unseen. But it is the triumph of Rationalism to level everything to the lowest and most tangible form into which it can be cast, and to view our Lord Himself, not in His mysterious greatness, acting by means of human nature, and ministered unto by Angels in it, but as what I dare not draw out, lest profane words be necessary, as akin to those lower natures which have but an animal existence.

 "Another thing which exhibits the boldness and enterprise that characterized His plans for making an impression on the community, was the peculiarly new and original style of public speaking He adopted." P. 55.

 "This, then, is the key to the character of Jesus Christ in respect to spirit and decision ." P. 57.

 "For the real sublimity of courage, the spectacle of this deserted and defenceless sufferer coming at midnight to meet the betrayer and his band, far exceeds that of Napoleon urging on his columns over the bridge of Lodi, or even that of Regulus returning to his chains." Pp. 59, 60.

 Who could have conceived that there was any possible category under which the image of our Lord could be associated with that of Napoleon?

 "He evidently observed and enjoyed nature. There are many allusions to His solitary walks in the fields, and on the mountains, and by the seaside; but the greatest evidence of His love for nature is to be seen in the manner in which he speaks of its beauties. A man's metaphors are drawn from the sources with which he is most familiar, or which interest him most." P. 60.

 "We learn in the same manner how distinct were the impressions of beauty or sublimity, which the works of nature made upon the Saviour, by the manner in which He alluded to them ... Look at the lilies of the field, says He ... A cold heartless man, without taste or sensibility, would not have said such a thing as that. He could not; and we may be as sure, that Jesus Christ had stopped to examine and admire the grace and beauty of the plant," etc. Pp. 61, 62.

 "Now Jesus Christ noticed these things. He perceived their beauty and enjoyed it." P. 62.

 Surely such passages as these are simply inconsistent with faith in the Son of God. Does any one feel curiosity or wonder, does any one search and examine, in the case of things fully known to him? Could the Creator of nature "stop to examine " and "enjoy the grace and beauty" of His own work? Were indeed this said of Him in Scripture, we should say, "Here is one of the Mysteries which attend on the Incarnation;" but since we cannot suspect such writers as Mr. Abbott of inventing a Mystery for the sake of it, we must take it as evidence of an earthly and Socinian bias in his view of the Saviour of mankind.

 "He observed everything, and His imagination was stored with an inexhaustible supply of images, drawn from every source, and with these He illustrated and enforced His principles in a manner altogether unparalleled by any writings, sacred or profane." P. 63.

 So this is the ashes to be given as children's meat, to those who "confess" and repent, and try to know God's will in the Gospel!

 "Even His disciples, till they came to see Him die, had no conception of His love. They learned it at last, however. They saw Him suffer and die; and inspiration from above explained to them something about the influence of His death and

 "It is hard to tell which touches our gratitude most sensibly; the ardent love which led Him to do what he did, or the delicacy with which He refrained from speaking of it to those who were to reap its fruits." P. 94.

 that is, the delicacy towards sinners of an injured Creator, coming to atone in some mysterious way by His own sufferings for their sins in the sight of His God and Father.

 "There is, in fact, no moral or spiritual safety without these feelings, and our Saviour knew this full well ." P. 204.

 "Jesus Christ understood human nature better ... He was wiser than the builders of the Pyramids ... The Saviour did the work, and did it better, by a few parting words." P. 217.

 5.

 Such are the feelings which this author ventures to express concerning Him, who is his Lord and his God. In reprobating them, however, I have neither wish nor occasion to speak against him as an individual. For we have no concern with him. We know nothing of his opportunities of knowing better, nor how far what appears in his writings is a true index of his mind. We need only consider him as the organ, involuntary (if you will) or unwitting, but still the organ, of the spirit of the age, the voice of that scornful, arrogant, and self-trusting spirit, which has been unchained during these latter ages, and waxes stronger in power day by day, till it is fain to stamp under foot all the host of heaven. This spirit we may steadily contemplate to our great edification; but to do more than denounce it as such, to judge or revile its instruments would involve another sin besides uncharitableness. For surely, this is a spirit which has tempted others besides those who have yielded to its influences; and, like an infection of the air, it has perchance ere now, in some degree, not perhaps as regards the high doctrines of the Gospel, but in some way or other, breathed upon those who, at the present crisis of things, feel themselves called upon solemnly to resist it. The books of the day are so full of its evil doctrine in a modified shape, if not in its grosser forms, the principles (I may say) of the nation are so instinct with it or based on it, that the best perhaps that can be said of any of us, or at most of all but a few, is, that they have escaped from it, "so as by fire," and that the loudness of their warning is but a consequence of past danger, terror, and flight.

 I would view, then, works such as this, whether in their publication, or in their general reception, as signs of the religious temper of this Age. What shall be said of the praise that has been lavished on them? the popularity they have acquired? Granting that there are many things in them, from which a religious mind may gain some good (for no one accuses Mr. Abbott of being deficient in quickness and intelligence, and he evidently has had opportunities of studying human nature, whatever success has attended him in it, and it must be confessed that his first work published here was of a less objectionable character, and might well interest at first sight those who "thought no evil,") but, allowing all this, yet it may be fairly asked, is the book from which I have cited, one which can come very near to Christian minds without frightening them? How is it then that so many men professing strict religion, have embraced and dwelt on its statements without smelling the taint of death which is in them? And is there not something of a self-convicted mischief in that view of religion which its upholders (independent of each other, and disagreeing with each other materially in other points of doctrine and discipline) attempt to support by editing a book, as conducive to it, which turns out to be all but Socinian? The reason (I believe) why many pious persons tolerate teaching such as this, is, that they have so fully identified spirituality of mind with the use of certain phrases and professions, that they cannot believe that any one whatever can use them freely without the teaching of the Holy Spirit: to believe it otherwise, would be unsettling their minds from the very foundation, which indeed must take place sooner or later, whether they will or not.

 With some quotations from the preface of one of Mr. Abbott's editors, one of the most learned, orthodox, and moderate of the Dissenters of the day, I will bring this discussion to an end.

 "Mr. Abbott has so much of originality in his manner of thinking, and of unguarded simplicity in his style of expression," [as render a friendly editor useful,] "there might be peril that without such a precaution some readers would take a premature alarm, when they found some essential doctrines of Christianity conveyed in terms of simplicity, and elucidated by very familiar analogies, which appear considerably removed from our accredited phraseology and Whatever use we make of the language of the theological schools, we should never go beyond our ability to translate it into the plain speech of common life ."

 As far as the words go, this means, when duly explained, though the writer could not of course intend it, that Mr. Abbott's merit consists in having translated Trinitarianism into Socinianism. And that this is no unfair interpretation of the words, is plain from what presently follows, in which he speaks of the prejudice which the orthodox language and doctrine of divinity create against orthodoxy in the minds of those who are orthodox, all but receiving these orthodox statements. In other words, expressly specifying the Unitarians, he requires us to adopt Mr. Abbott's language in order to reconcile them to us. I quote his words:

 "But there is one department in the inseparable domain of theology and religion upon Mr. Abbott's treatment of which I should be very blameable were I to withhold my convictions. Among us, as well as in the New England States, there is a body, large and respectable if considered absolutely, but far from large when viewed in comparison with the numbers of other professed Christians. It consists of those who disbelieve the doctrines held, as to their essential principles, by all other Christian denominations, with respect to the way in which sinful, guilty, degraded mankind may regain the favour of God and the pure felicity of the world to come; the doctrines of a divine Saviour, His assumption of our nature, His propitiation and righteousness, and the restoration of holiness and happiness by His all-gracious Spirit. This class of persons is treated by some public men, and in some influential writings, chiefly periodical, with scorn and contumely, and are held up to hatred, not to say persecution; they are continually represented as blasphemers and infidels, alike dangerous to the State and inimical to all vital religion. Hence thousands of excellent persons, deriving their only knowledge from the source to which I have alluded, regard this portion of their neighbours with horror, never think of treating them with tenderness, never attempt to obtain a lodgment for truth and holy affections in their hearts. Ah! little think these well-meaning persons, etc. This is a state of things full of mischief and danger. Surely it is a pressing duty to do all that we can for clearing away the clouds of ignorance and misrepresentation which, with so dire effect, discolour and distort the objects seen through them.

 "For this purpose it is to me an heartfelt pleasure to say that Mr. Abbott's 'Corner Stone' is admirably adapted. Notions producing feelings, and those feelings of deep and wide activity in the formation of religious sentiments, have been derived from Pelagius, Socinus, and Episcopius, from Clarke, Law, and Watson, from Lardner, Priestley, and Channing; and it is the thoroughly pervading influence on the mind of those mutually acting feelings and sentiments which produces all that is formidable in the theoretical objections, and much of that which is effective in the practical repugnance, which are entertained by many against the doctrines of grace and holiness through the Atonement and the Spirit of Christ. How desirable to meet those feelings in their germinating principle; to anticipate those sentiments, by the dissolution of the causes which would form them! This is what our author has done. His reasonings and illustrations upon the personal and official attributes of our Lord and Saviour are such as may be compared to the correctness of anatomical knowledge, the delicacy of touch, and the astonishing preciseness of applying the probe and the knife, which we admire in the first surgeons of the age ."

 A correct and memorable witness, indeed, to the kind of treatment offered by these religionists to Him, whom, after His exposure on the cross, His true disciples reverently "took down," and "wrapped in fine linen," and "laid in a sepulchre wherein never man before was laid."

 I will conclude by summing up in one sentence, which must be pardoned me if in appearance harsh, what the foregoing discussion is intended to show. There is a widely, though irregularly spread School of doctrine among us, within and without the Church, which aims at and professes peculiar piety as directing its attention to the heart itself, not to anything external to us, whether creed, actions, or ritual. I do not hesitate to assert that this doctrine is based upon error, that it is really a specious form of trusting man rather than God, that it is in its nature Rationalistic, and that it tends to Socinianism. How the individual supporters of it will act as time goes on is another matter, the good will be separated from the bad; but the School, as such, will pass through Sabellianism, to that "God-denying Apostasy," to use the ancient phrase, to which in the beginning of its career it professed to be especially opposed.

 Postscript

 Since the above Essay was in type, an American periodical [n. 4], has been put into the writer's hands, containing an account of Dr. Schleiermacher's view of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

 It seems, indeed, impossible to doubt that a serious doctrinal error is coming as a snare over the whole of the Protestant division of Christendom, (every part, at least, which is not fallen into worse and more avowed heterodoxy,) being the result of an attempt of the intellect to delineate, philosophise, and justify that religion (so called) of the heart and feelings, which has long prevailed. All over the Protestant world, among ourselves, in Ireland, in Scotland, in Germany, in British America, the revival of religious feeling during the last century took a peculiar form, difficult indeed to describe or denote by any distinct appellation, but familiarly known to all who ever so little attend to what is going on in the general Church. It spread, not by talents or learning in its upholders, but by their piety, zeal, and sincerity, and its own incidental and partial truth. At length, as was natural, its professors have been led to a direct contemplation of it, to a reflection upon their own feelings and belief and the genius of their system; and thence has issued that philosophy of which Mr. Erskine and Mr. Abbott have in the foregoing pages afforded specimens.

 The American publication above alluded to is a melancholy evidence that the theologians of the United States are bringing the learning and genius of Germany to bear in favour of this same (as the writer must call it) spurious Christianity. Some passages from it shall be here extracted, which will be found to tend to one or other of these three objects, all of them more or less professed in the two works above analysed.

 1. That the one object of the Christian Revelation, or Dispensation, is to stir the affections, and soothe the heart.

 2. That it really contains nothing which is unintelligible to the intellect.

 3. That misbelievers, such as Unitarians, etc., are made so, for the most part, by Creeds; which are to be considered as the great impediments to the spread of the Gospel, both as being stumbling-blocks to the reason, and shackles and weights on the affections.

 1. "With regard to Schleiermacher's views as a Trinitarian, I can truly say that I have met with scarcely any writer, ancient or modern, who appears to have a deeper conviction of, or more hearty belief in, the doctrine of the real Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ... 'God manifest in the flesh,' seems to be inscribed, in his view, on every great truth of the Gospel, and to enter as a necessary ingredient into the composition of its essential nature. Yet Schleiermacher was not made a Trinitarian by creeds and confessions. Neither the Nicene nor Athanasian symbol, nor any succeeding formula of Trinitarian doctrine, built on this, appears to have had any influence in the formation of his views. From the Scriptures, and from arguments flowing, as he believed, out of Scriptural premises, he became, and lived, and died, a hearty and constant believer in the One Living and True God, revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ... He ventured to inquire whether, in the vehemence of dispute, and in the midst of philosophical mists, the former survey had been in all respects made with thorough and exact skill and care, and whether a report of it in all respects intelligible and consistent had been made out." Translator, No. 18, pp. 268, 269.

 2. "After defending in various places, in the most explicit manner, and with great ability, the doctrine of the Godhead of the Son and Spirit, and showing that such a development of the Deity is demanded by our moral wants, as sinners, in order that we may obtain peace and sanctification ; he concludes," etc.  Ibid .

 3. "Of his view of the Trinity, we may at least say that it is intelligible . But who will venture to say, that any of the definitions heretofore given of personality in the Godhead in itself considered, I mean such definitions as have their basis in the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds, are intelligible and satisfactory to the mind?" P. 277.

 4. "The sum of Schleiermacher's opinions ... is that ... the Unity ... is God in se ipso ; ... but as to the Trinity, the Father is God as revealed in the works of creation, providence, and legislation; the Son is God in human flesh, the divine Logos incarnate; the Holy Ghost is God the Sanctifier, who renovates the hearts of sinners, and dwells in the hearts of believers. The personality of the Godhead consists in these developments, made in time, and made to intelligent and rational beings. Strictly speaking, personality is not in his view eternal; and from the nature of the case as thus viewed, it could not be, because it consists in developments of the Godhead to intelligent beings," etc. P. 317.

 5. "That God has developed Himself in these three different ways, is what they [Sabellius and Schleiermacher] believe to be taught in the Scriptures, and to be commended to our spiritual consciences by the nature of our wants, woes, and sins." No. 19, p. 81.

 6. "Dr. Schleiermacher asks, with deep emotion, what more is demanded ? what more is necessary ? what more can further the interest of practical piety ?" P. 82.

 7. "I can see no contradiction, no absurdity, nothing even incongruous in the supposition that the Divine nature has manifested itself as Father," etc. P. 88.

 8. "Why should it ever have any more been overlooked that the names Father, etc., are names that have a relative sense and than that such names as Creator," etc. P. 110.

 9. "It may be proper for me to say, that the results of this reexamination of the doctrine of the Trinity are, in their essential parts, the same which I some years since advocated in my letters addressed to the Rev. Dr. Channing," etc. P. 115.

 These extracts are perhaps sufficient to justify the apprehensions above expressed, as far as the more religious part of Protestant America is concerned. It is believed that Protestant France also would afford similar evidence of the Sabellian tendencies of the day.

 February 2, 1836.

 Note on Essay II

 THE author of the second of the works criticised in the foregoing Essay met my strictures with a Christian forbearance and a generosity which I never can forget. He went out of his way, when in England, in 1843, to find me out at Littlemore, and to give me the assurance, both by that act and by word of mouth, that he did not take offence at what many a man would have thought justified serious displeasure. I think he felt what really was the case, that I had no unkind feelings towards him, but spoke of his works simply in illustration of a widely-spread sentiment in religious circles, then as now, which seemed to me dangerous to gospel faith.

 I have no other record of the incident, than the following two paragraphs in a well-known newspaper of the day.

 (From " The English Churchman .")

 "A few Sundays ago, a stranger, who had been observed joining very attentively both in the morning and afternoon services at Littlemore, begged permission in the evening to introduce himself to Mr. Newman. It proved to be none other than the well-known author of the 'Corner Stone,' and the 'Young Christian,' and the object of his call was to express his deep and sincere obligations to Mr. Newman for the severe strictures which had been made upon his work some time since in the 'Tracts for the Times.' He confessed that they had the greatest effect upon his mind, and that he should write very differently now. Mr. Newman asked if there were anything he would wish altered in a subsequent edition of the Tract, but Mr. Abbott admitted the entire fairness of the review, and wished nothing to be withdrawn or altered."

 To the Editor of " The English Churchman ."

 "Sir, I am very sorry to observe a paragraph in your paper of yesterday on the subject of the call with which I was favoured in this place, some time since, by Mr. Abbott. It has been evidently sent to you with a friendly feeling towards myself, to which I am not at all insensible, but it is kinder to me than it is respectful towards Mr. Abbott. What I saw of him impressed me with such feelings in his favour, that it would grieve me indeed did he think, from anything that has got abroad, that he had reason to charge me (in my report of our conversation) with rudeness, or want of consideration towards himself. I will add what I stated to him, that if in my remarks in the 'Tracts for the Times' upon one of his publications, I was betrayed into any expressions which might be considered personal, instead of confining myself to the work itself which I was criticising, I am sorry for them, and wish them unsaid. I saw him but for half an hour in his rapid passage across the country; but wherever he is, and whether I shall see him again or no, he has my good wishes and my kind remembrances. I am, etc.,  "JOHN H. NEWMAN.  "Littlemore, Oct. 6."

 I should add, that the exciting cause of my writing the above criticisms on works of Mr. Erskine and Mr. Abbott was my deep and increasing apprehension, that the religious philosophy, on which they are based, was making its way into Oxford, and through Oxford among the clergy, by the writings of Dr. Whately, Dr. Hampden's Bampton Lectures, and Mr. Blanco White's (then) recent publications. This explains, for instance, supr. pp. 69, 85, and 91. Vid. " Apologia," pp. 57, 385-6.

 Notes

 1. Mr. Blanco White.  

 2. Vide also p. 197.  

 3. Vide also p. 173.  

 4. The Biblical Repository, Nos. 18 and 19; in which is translated and reviewed "Schleiermacher's Comparison of the Athanasian and Sabellian Views of the Trinity."