3 REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE. ART. I.-The Bampton Lecturer Reproved; being a Reply to the calumnious Charges of the Rev. C. A. Moysey, D. D. etc., in his late Bampton Lectures against the Unitarians, and especially the Editors of the Improved Version; in Letters to a Friend. To which is annexed, A Letter, in Reply to the Charges of the Very Reverend Dean Magee, in Volume II. Part II. of his Dissertations on Atonement and Sacrifice. By Thomas Belsham, Minister of Essex Street Chapel. 8vo. pp. 198. Huuter and Eaton. 1819. A CONTROVERSIAL work which is not answered is usually represented by party zeal as unanswerable; we are pleased, therefore, that Mr. Belsham has condescended to take up his pen against the present 5 assailant of the Unitarians, who is no otherwise considerable than as he has connected himself, in the quality of Bampton Lecturer, with the great theological question of our times. most reverend assailant upon the occasion to which I allude, if the rumour is correct, to say the least, it was not very manly to attack where a defence was impossible." Pp. 118, 119. These incessant attacks upon the Unitarians may be owing, in many cases, to the sincere horror which the reputed orthodox feel in contemplating a system of faith which they apprehend endangers men's salvation, and in some instances they may have been provoked by the supposed aggression of Unitarian sermons or publications; but they cannot be wholly accounted for, except on the admission of a certain unsoundness of which the Trinitarians are conscious in their own arguments, and of a consequent growing defection from their own communion. The danger from Unitarianism is not at any rate magnified in the eye of the thorough believer, by any affectation of mystery in the proceedings of the Unitariaus them selves. Mr. Belsham says, with as much truth as good-humour, Trinitarian writers are fond of depreciating both the numbers and the "All that Unitarians do to promote talents of the Unitarians; but their their cause is done openly, without any own practice shews that they do not reserve or affectation of concealment. consider these opponents as few or Their books are published, their lectures weak. Not a sermon is preached are advertised; the proceedings of their upon any public occasion, not a charge societies are made known; hardly half a is delivered, as Mr. Belsham says, p. dozen cau meet together for friendly con118, but a thrust is made at the Uni-versation, but the secretary sends up the tarians. From the highest dignitary to the lowest aspirant, all are loud in their invectives against the Unitarians. Mr. Belsham adds, "It has even been said that attempts have been made to poison the ear, and to excite the prejudices of the august representative of royalty, who cannot indeed be expected to enter deeply into theological speculation, and who will probably be content to believe as the church believes; but who, I trust, will never depart from those prin ciples of toleration which have hitherto distinguished his illustrious House, which so fondly endeared the Hanover Family and the Hanover Succession to the op pressed nonconformists of a former age; and the reverse of which first devoted to public execration, and afterwards banished from the throne, the detested family of Stuart. As to the reported conduct of the next Repository; and hardly any pions account, signed with his initials, for the and charitable female is gathered to her fathers, but her works and virtues are immediately chronicled for the benefit of pos terity. Our adversaries may smile at the consequence we assume; but, at any rate, a community, which affects so much publicity, can never be suspected of treasonable designs; and whatever passes among ourselves, nothing hostile or unfriendly to our fellow-christians, however different in opinion, ever escapes upon such occasions."-Pp. 119, 120. Far be it from us, however, to re pine at the frequency or vehemence of the contests to which Unitarians are challenged. Experience has proved that controversy, even when carried on most unpleasantly by their opponents, is favourable to their cause. They have never wanted, and, under Providence, will never want writers to maintain their principles and vindicate their characters. May their advocates always obtain as honourable a triumph as must be decreed to Mr. Belsham for his victory over the Bampton Lecturer! Dr. Moysey displays so much petty intolerance, and falls into such gross blunders, that his auswerer could not possibly have preserved an uniform tone of gravity. -Mr. Belsham's motto is, that it is better to laugh than to be angry." If his antagonist (for the Bampton Lecturer attacks him personally) feel the edge of his irony, he must reflect that his own temerity has given it all its sharpness. The Oxford divine seems to cast a look of regret upon the departed statutes which carried pains and penalties against the Unitarians, and attributes the present activity of these misbelievers to " the impunity which the Legislature has formally granted to them;" upon which Mr. Belsham says, with becoming spirit, "The Unitarians rejoiced in the success of Mr. Smith's Bill, because it placed them upon a level with their fellow-subjects. They now enjoy their religious liberty upon the ground of legal right, not as a matter of courtesy and forbearance. But in point of security, they feel no difference between the protection of the spirit of the times and that of the laws. In this enlightened and tolerant age, what miserable narrow-minded bigot would have dared to rouse the spirit of the persecuting laws against the Unitarians? Or who can believe, if such a savage were to be found, that the mild spirit of the House of Brunswick would not immediately have issued out a noli prosequi, as upon all former occasions, to have stopped such infamous proceedings? The Unitarians felt no fears. And the learned Lecturer knows but little of mankiud, or of the history of religion, if he is not aware that persecution has never damped the zeal or stopped the progress of a rising and ardent sect. The truth is, that Unitarianism has preserved its steady march it has neither been accelerated or retarded by the repeal of the pepal laws. All its engines were at work before. Plain speaking, sound argument, sober criticism, Scripture proofs, theological learning, ecclesiastical history, public preaching, fair and learned controversy, Unitarian societies for the distribution of books, Unitarian funds, Unitarian missionaries, Unitarian academies, and the And if the success Improved Version,-all these machines and with thankfulness to Divine Provi Dr. Moysey, following herein the usage of soi-disant orthodox doctors, charges Unitarians with rejecting doctrines, however clearly revealed, merely because they cannot compre hend them; to which his Reprover replies, "A charge so unjust and illiberal as this is ouly to be met by a direct negative. And I do aver in my own name and in that of my Unitarian brethren, that no one individual amoug us ejects the doctrine of the Trinity, or any other doctrine, solely because it is incomprehensible: but we refuse our assent to the doctrine of the Trinity because, according to some expe sitions of it, it is a gross and palpable contradiction; and because in every form it is unfounded in reason and unsupported by the Scriptures."-Pp. 11, 12. Mr. Belsham is eminently successful in this, às in all his preceeding works, in the statement of the philosophical argument for the pure Unitarian doctrine, and in the exposure of the weakness or inconsistency of all the received explications of the Trinity. Dr. Moysey takes up the scheme of Bishop Gastrell, which is expounded in the words of the bishop, and then auimadverted ou, in the following passage: "These three names, of God the Fa ther, Son and Holy Ghost, must denote a threefold difference or distinction belonging to God, but such as is consistent with the unity and simplicity of the divine nature; for each of these includes the whole idea of God and something more. So far as they express the nature of God, they all adequately and exactly signify the same. It is the additional siguification which makes all the distinction between them.' "So, then, according to this newly-discovered or more properly revived hypothesis of the Trinity, the Father includes the whole idea of God and something more: the Son includes the whole idea of God and something more and the Holy Ghost includes the whole idea of God and something more: white altogether, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost make but one entire God and no more. "This is indeed the mystery of mysteries Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii. It transcends transubstantiation itself. It is a mystery at which reason stands aghast; and faith herself must be more than half confounded.' Well might the learned Lecturer so earnestly and repeatedly call for and enjoin the lowest prostration of the understanding before he divulged so awful a secret. Well might he cry avaunt! to the busy and meddlesome Unitarians, who are so notorious for their profane habit of prying into holy mysteries, and their troublesome opposition to implicit faith. learning strikes his opponent with as little awe as his theological metaphysits. Iu reading the extract which we are now about to give, the least impartial reader will be ready to cry out for mercy on the Bampton divine: "But for my own part, I must profess, that however I may be branded by the learned Lecturer as a Deist, an infidel, a heretic, a blasphemer, or with any other term of reproach which may be drawn from his copious vocabulary; if the penal code itself were to be restored, so that I might no longer speak truth with impunity; nay, even if the wholesome statute de hæretico comburendo were again to be called into action, and I were absolutely bound to the stake; yet with all these powerful aids to unlock the understanding and to support the faith, I could never be brought to believe the doctrine of the learned Bampto "There is, however, one text which appears to have fallen under the learned Lecturer's high displeasure, and which he marks repeatedly with tokens of disappro bation. Nor, to say the truth, do I greatly wonder at it, for it is full in the teeth of his favourite doctrines. The author of the Letters to the Bishop of London' has stated, that the Unitarians believe Jesus Christ to be a proper human being, in all respects like unto his brethren.' This the learned Lecturer cites as a very obnoxious doctrine, in direct opposition to the doctrine of the church and (p. 64) he marks the words in all respects' by italics, as being particularly offensive. These words, he tells us, (p. 65,) assert that our Saviour was a mere human being-and they lose none of their impiety by the subsequent admission of Christ's divine mission." To this unfortunate text the learned Lecturer recurs again and again, and always with some note of disapprobation, particularly p. 92: They seek to degrade our Lord to a mere man' in all respects like unto bis fellows. But the falsehood of that blasphemy has been shewn.' This is strong language: but to do justice to the learned Lecturer, I do not believe that he knew that it was a passage of Scripture against which he was fulminating the charges of falsehood, impiety and blasphemy. But if he will take the trouble to open his New Testament at the second chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, he will find, at the 17th verse, that the writer affirms that in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren.' I quite agree with the learned Lecturer, that this doctrine is utterly irreconcileable to that of the Church of England: but for this discrepancy the members of that communion, and not the Urritarians, are responsible."-Pp 41, 42. nian Lecturer to be true, viz. that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each of them include the whole idea of God and something more,' and yet when taken together that they make up one entire God and nothing more."-Pp. 32, 33. The zealous Lecturer's biblical Son of man.' (John v. 27.) The apostles are also described as his coadjutors upon this solemn occasion (Matt. xix. 28): When the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel And the apostle Paul appeals to the Corinthians, (1 Cor. vi. 2,) Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?' The import of this prophetic language it is perhaps impossible for us fully to comprehend, and is such as nothing but the awful reality can explain. It is evident, however, that whatever is signified by judging the world,' it means nothing more than what a man may by divine appointment and energy be qualified to perforin; and that the apostles and even Christians in general are to be associated with Jesus upon the grand occasion, And this consideration allows room for the conjecture, that possibly no personal interposition even of Jesus himself may be intended. But as prophets are said to perform what they only predict, (see Jer. i. 10,) so Jesus may be said to judge the world, because he has solemnly and authoritatively announced that God will judge it and apostles and saints may be said to be associated with him in this high office, because the apostles, by authority from Christ himself, and believers in all ages by their doctrine and example, bear their solemn and united testimony to this grand consummation of the divine government. But it becomes us not to be dogmatical on so mysterious a subject, but rather to be mindful of our own important duty, to give all diligence to be found of our Judge in peace."-Pp. 54, 55. Dr. Moysey gives himself up, bound hand and foot, to his ever-watchful opponent, when he asserts (singular assertion!) that the Unitarians "array a few selected and mutilated passages against the general and harmonious evidence of the whole gospel :" "Yes, Dr. Moysey, they do select, and they do array, the whole Gospel of Matthew, and the whole Gospel of Mark, and the whole Gospel of Luke, and the whole history of the Acts, and the whole of the twa Epistles to the Corinthians, and the whole Epistle to the Galatians, and the whole Epistle to the Ephesians, and the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, and the two Epistles to Timothy, (notwithstanding the spurious reading of God manifest in the flesh,') and the whole Epistle to Titus and to Philemon, and the whole Epistle of James, and the two Epistles of Peter, and the whole of the three Epistles of Johu, (notwithstanding the notorious and abominable interpolation of the heavenly witnesses,) and finally, the whole Epistle of Jude ;-these insulated and detached books the Unitarians do select and do array: and they challenge their Trinitarian brethren to produce a single passage, from beginning to end, in any one of them, which contains any thing like the doctrine of a Trinity of persons in a unity of essence. And against what do they select and array these sacred writings?-Against the rest of the books of the New Testament? No, no! very, very far from it. They select and array them against the misconception and misinterpretation of a few passages in the Gospel of John, who is a very mystical and figurative writer; against a difficult passage or two in the Epistle to the Romans; against the obscurity of some rhe torical passages in the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians; against the fanciful and misunderstood analogies of the unknown writer to the Hebrews; and against the difficulties occurring in the prophetic language of the Apocalypse. But of each of these books by far the greater portion speaks the purest Unitarianism. The doctrine of the Trinity derives no countenance from a single sentence through the whole New Testament; and that of the deity of Christ derives its support from a small number of mistaken and misinterpreted texts; while that of the proper unity of God, in person as well as in essence, and that of the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, shine forth with a resplendence that he who runs may read."-Pp. 60, 61. There is no little meaning in the following reply to the wanton, virulent charge of audacity and fraud, preferred against the Editors of the Improved Version : "And what motive can reasonably be assigned to these abused and calumniated Editors, which could induce them to act so base and foolish a part? Men do not usually act without a sufficient reason; and where the crime is great the tempta tion is proportionable. If indeed mitres and erosiers bad danced before the eyes of these reprobated Editors; if deaneries and bishoprics had awaited them as the prize of their laborious and iniquitous exertions to support a tottering and unrighteous cause, frail human nature might possibly have given way. They might have been induced to falsify and prevaricate, and against their better knowledge they might have been led to pervert and to corrupt the word of God:-they might have been tempted to tamper with the sacred text: and, in defiance of all evidence, to retain notorious interpolations as genuine read. ings, in order to impose upon the ignorant, and to support popular and established errors:-they might eagerly have contended for gross mistranslations which they knew to be erroneous, but which, in sound at least, were favourable to the popular system-they might have tortured and wrested the genuine and figurative language of Scripture to a sense which they well knew to be the reverse of its real meaning, in order to support a cause which it was their interest to defend ;-and with the utmost exertion of ingenuity and industry, and the most pompous display of learning, they might have laboured to advocate the faulty translation of a faulty text, and to oppose with the utmost vehemence and bitterness every attempt at improvement; and meanly to depreciate the qualifications, to asperse the motives, and to calumniate the characters of those who, with the best intentious, in the calmest and most inoffensive language and manner, and from the best anthorities, endeavoured to correct the text and to improve the version."-Pp. 70, 71. This quotation is from Letter VII., which, with Letter VIII., contains a defence of the Improved Version, in answer to numerous objections brought against that work by the Lecturer, who, it would really appear, never saw it, but contented himself with the account given of it by Dean Magee and other like-minded authors. The Editors have something to answer for, we allow, in that they have put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in their brother's way. Mr. Belsham uses very strong language, naturally prompted however by benevolence, on the subject of Eternal Torments, which of course the Oxford theologian believes and defends, though he makes a concession which is more creditable to his humanity than to his "orthodoxy :" 6 "To do him justice, he seems to be a reluctant advocate of this heart-withering doctrine. "We have all,' he says, (p. 212,) too much reason to wish that eternity of torment for unrepentant sinners were not a part of God's system.' This language, surely, is very strange and unbecoming. Believing, as I do, in the infinite knowledge, power and goodness of God, I must and do most joyfully believe that every portion of the system which God has formed is the wisest and the best; that nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it; that evil as well as good is over-ruled for the best purposes; that even wicked agents, with all their malignant purposes, and in all the plenitude of their powers, are but fulfilling, however unknowingly and involuntarily, his wise and good designs; and that when they have accomplished his benevolent purposes, he puts his hook into their nose, and his bridle into their jaws,' and saith, Hitherto shalt thon go, and no further.' To wish that what God has appointed were no part of his system, is to set up our wisdom and will in opposition to God's :-it is to wish, like the impious Alphonso, that God had consulted us in the choice of his plan:-it is to wish that the system which now, in all its parts and bearings, is the most perfect which infinite wisdom could devise, which infinite good. ness could prompt, and which infinite power could carry into effect, were altered and deteriorated, to gratify our humour and caprice, or at least to fall within the limits of our fiuite understanding, our narrow views and comprehension. "Yet the learned Lecturer is right. He feels that if human guilt is visited with eternal misery, God is an almighty tyrant; he naturally wishes that he and his fellowbeings lived under a more wise, a more righteous, and a more merciful government; and that he could contemplate the out dismay."-Pp. 97-99. character of the Almighty Sovereign with On a text cited by Dr. Moysey to prove the eternity of punishment, viz. Rev. xiv. 11, "And the smoke of their torment," i. e. of those who worship the beast and his image, "ascendeth up for ever and ever," Mr. Belsham remarks, intended by this obscure symbolical de- Mr. Belsham vindicates Unitarians from the reproach of being peculiarly hostile to the Established Church, and says, (pp. 133, 184,) that he knows many strict Unitarians who are decided friends to civil establishments of religion, and who, "without contending for its divine institution, approve of diocesan episcopacy and the form of government and discipline as established in the Church of England, as expedient and wise." We were not aware that any Unitarians carried their approbation of the Church so |