to these engagements he is indebted for all that distinguished him above the meanest peasant in Galilee, what candour or sobriety appear in such representations? If we listen to the writers of the New Testament, his undertaking the office he sustained, was a proof of matchless humility; if we look to the facts, we find all the honour he ever possessed was the pure result of these offices. That it is possible to combine with such views of his character the admission of an eminent portion of virtue, we are far from denying; but it is not that sort of virtue, nor includes any of that sacrifice of personal honour and interest, which such representation supposes. ས. ON THE SPIRIT AND TENDENCY OF PSALM XIX. 7.-The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. THE minute examination of the minor parts of a great and complex object, will not suffice to give us a just conception of it, unless it is joined with an attentive survey of it as a whole. We have hitherto been occupied with the consideration of the errors of the socinian or unitarian system in detail. We have endeavoured to evince the opposition of several of its fundamental tenets to the clear, unequivocal testimony of scripture; and, in the course of the inquiry, have felt the necessity of descending to minute distinctions and tedious discussions. Could we even suppose the reasoning employed in the several branches of this extensive argument, to have wrought all the conviction we could wish, the conclusion might still continue destitute of an adequate impression of the general character and tendency of the system, against which these discourses have been directed. Instead of attempting a recapitulation of the topics discussed, and the arguments adduced, useless as it would possibly be if slight and general, and insufferably tedious if accurate and extensive; allow me to close these lectures by directing your attention to some of the distinguishing characteristics of the system, designated by the appellation of Modern Unitarianism. I. It will occur to the most superficial observer to remark, that, as far as it differs from the orthodox, it is almost entirely a negative system, consisting in the bold denial of nearly all the doctrines which other denominations are wont to regard as the most vital and the most precious. It snatches from us almost every thing to which our affections have been habituated to cling, without presenting them with a single new object. It is a cold negation, a system of renunciation and dissent, imparting that feeling of desolation to the heart, which is inseparable from the extinction of ancient attachments; teaching us no longer to admire, to adore, to trust, or to love-but with a most impaired and attenuated affection-objects, in the contemplation of which, we before deemed it safe, and even obligatory, to lose ourselves in the indulgence of these delightful emotions. Under the pretence of simplifying christianity, it obliterates so many of its discoveries, and retrenches so many of its truths; so little is left to occupy the mind, to fill the imagination, or to touch the heart; that, when the attracting novelty and the heat of disputation are subsided, it speedily consigns its converts to apathy and indifference. He who is wont to expatiate in the wide field of revelation, surrounded by all that can gratify the sight or regale the senses, reposing in its green pastures, and beside the still transparent waters, reflecting the azure of the heavens, the lily of the valley, and the cedar of Lebanon, no sooner approaches the confines of socinianism, than he enters on a dreary and melancholy waste. Whatever is most sweet and attractive in religion-whatever of the grandeur that elevates, or the solemnity that awes, the mind, is inseparably connected with those truths it is the avowed object of that system to subvert; and since it is not what we deny, but what we believe, that nourishes piety, no wonder it languishes under so meagre and scanty a diet. The littleness and poverty of the socinian system ultimately ensures its neglect, because it makes no provision for that appetite for the immense and magnificent, which the contemplation of nature inspires and gratifies, and which even reason itself prompts us to anticipate in a revelation from the Eternal Mind. By stripping religion of its mysteries, it deprives it of more than half its power. It is an exhausting process, by which it is reduced to its lowest term. It consists in affirming that the writers of the New Testament were not, properly speaking, inspired, nor infallible guides in divine matters; that Jesus Christ did not die for our sins, nor is the proper object of worship, nor even impeccable; that there is not any provision made in the sanctification of the Spirit for the aid of spiritual weakness, or the cure of spiritual maladies; that we have not an intercessor at the right hand of God; that Christ is not present with his saints, nor his saints, when they quit the body, present with the Lord; that man is not composed of a material and immaterial principle, but consists merely of organized matter, which is totally dissolved at death. To look for elevation of moral sentiment from such a series of pure negations, would be "to gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles," to extract "sunbeams from cucumbers." II. From hence we naturally remark the close affinity between the unitarian system and deism. Aware of the offence which is usually taken at observations of this sort, I would much rather wave them, were the suppression of so important a circumstance compatible with doing justice to the subject. Deism, as distinguished from atheism, embraces almost every thing which the unitarians D profess to believe. The deist professes to believe in a future state of rewards and punishments,-the The chief difference is, conviction on the subject unitarian does no more. that the deist derives his from the principles of natural religion; the unitarian from the fact of Christ's resurrection. Both arrive at the same point, though they reach it by different routes. Both maintain the same creed, though on different grounds: so that, allowing the deist to be fully settled and confirmed in his persuasion of a future world, it is not easy to perceive what advantage the unitarian possesses over him. If the proofs of a future state, upon christian principles, be acknowledged more clear and convincing than is attainable merely by the light of nature, yet, as the operation of opinion is measured by the strength of the persuasion with which it is embraced, and not by the intrinsic force of evidence, the deist, who cherishes a firm expectation of a life to come, has the same motives for resisting temptation, and patiently continuing in well doing, as the unitarian. He has learned the same lesson, though under a different master, and is substantially of the same religion. The points in which they coincide are much more numerous, and more important, than those in which they differ. In their ideas of human nature, as being what it always was, in opposition to the doctrine of the fall; in their rejection of the Trinity, and of all supernatural mysteries; in their belief of the intrinsic efficacy of repentance, |
