far: many churchmen, we apprehend, stop short of this point. To us it appears impossible to divest diocesan episcopacy of political patronage and secular intrigue, and these we cannot reconcile with a " kingdom not of this E 2nd Part of this valuable existence" of Christ, and an “Examination of the supposed Scriptural Grounds" for it. little volume consists of a "Disworld," and the confessions of epissertation on the Doctrine of the Precopal writers in the Church of England had always led us to regard her discipline as anomalous, arbitrary and inefficient. We may also be allowed, perhaps, to express our surprise at one of the arguments alleged by the Unitarians referred to in behalf of civil establishments of religion; namely, that they are "the best means, un The Arian scheme has been sometimes represented as presumptively true on account of its moderation, lying between two theological extremes; but our author very justly observes, (p. 99,)" Whatever forms a middle point between two opposing schemes, may appear abstractedly to be the safest and most probable theory; but if the two opposites be truth and error, the medium between them must partake of error no less than of truth." der Divine Providence, of supporting Christianity in the world," and that "without them the religion of Jesus itself would, almost if not altogether, have perished in the dark ages." It is matter of history that the Gospel prospered most, even after the withArianism, which for a time successdrawment of miraculous powers, when all the civil establishments of the world fully disputed with Trinitarianism the were arrayed against it, and that all empire of the church, is now matter of history only. Individuals may inthe great corruptions of it were imeline to the hypothesis, but the Arians posed upon the universal church by the secular arm. And we hazard little, in our own opinion, in saying, that civil establishments of Christianity brought in and confirmed the darkness of the middle ages, and that "the truth as it is in Jesus" has re covered its influence and prospered in later times in exact proportion as men have emancipated themselves from political churches. But this is one of the subjects ou which Unitarians will agree to differ, and on which we are persuaded they will set the edifying example of a diversity of opinion, unattended by any estrangement of heart. To the Letters in reply to Dr. Moysey, Mr. Belsham has properly appended the Letter in Reply to Dean Magee, which appeared first on our pages, Vol. XII. pp. 81-86 and 145 The are no longer a distinct sect. following remarks appear to us just and conclusive: "Modern Arians are divided into High and Low Arians. The terms properly dosignate (1) Those who believe the agency of Christ in the creation of the world; (2.) Those who retain the simple pre-existence, and regard Christ's executive office as purely spiritual. Others, who hold a mys terions supremacy in the Father, and a derived and dependent deity and procession in the Son, are sometimes called High Arians, but improperly: they may be better distinguished as Semi-Arians; though they, in fact, merely re-assert the Trinity of the early fathers. The only proper Arians are they who conceive of Christ as a created super-angelic spirit, the first and most excellent of the works of God, and the link and limit between the Creator and his creatures. "The separate personality of the Holy Spirit, as a creature above angels, co. operating with the Son, which was the notion of the ancient Arians, is generally abandoned by the modern, in favour of a divine attribute or quality. Some, however, still retain it, as did certain of the old Socinians. The created Sub-Creator, and the created illuminating Spirit, are equally destitute of the authority of ancient tradition and precedent, unless we seek for their parallels among the intelligences of the Gnostics. "HIGH Arianism incurs the suspicion of Ditheism. If Christ be the creator of the world, though only in an instrumental sense, such a being has powers and perfections, whether derived or not, which are only compatible with DEITY: he must still be strictly a God, though an inferior God, and, as such, is entitled to religious homage. In withholding worship from him who made the world, the Arians may justify themselves by the letter of Scripture, but not by the reason of the proceeding. They are Unitarians in letter but not iu spirit; for though they formally acknowledge the anity and supremacy of the only wise God,' they divide his attributes. "Most Arians conceive that they render the creative instrumentality of their preexistent Christ more credible, by confining his agency to this world; but they are in this dilemma:-they who imagine that Christ is not only our maker, but the maker of all other beings, constitute a second God of such high prerogatives and extensive power, as inevitably to suggest a doubt whether there be any other God, as no other would seem necessary:-and they who limit his operations to this parti=cular system, open the door to Polytheism; for if an intermediate agent was necessary for the formation of this globe or system, other similar agents must equally have been necessary for the construction of the rest; and thus we have a host of secondary creators, who are, in fact, Gods. The former scheme, which supposes that Christ created the universe, though it erect a duality of Gods, is preferable to the latter, which, by analogy, multiplies Gods without number. If Christ created this system, be created all; for the uniformity discernible in all the parts of nature offers a sensible refutation of the strange, capricious notion, that one system of planets and suns was formed by one Creator, and another by another. If Christ created all the worlds, why should the Arian hesitate to acknowledge that Christ is God supreme? "That no mention should be made of a subordinate Creator throughout the Old Testament, which yet perpetually alludes to the Maker of heaven and earth, and the wonders of his hand, forms, of itself, the strongest presumption against the truth of the theory; and when both the Old and New Testament describe the renovated state of the world under the gospel æra as a new creation, there can be no room for doubt that those passages which ascribe creation to Christ contain a spiritual sense, and have only an emblematic reference to the works of material nature. "Low Arianism is still more deficient in that sort of evidence which is derived from the indirect authority of opinions; as, indeed, it cannot stand on antiquity at all, VOL. XIV. and is wholly of modern growth. This modified scheme of Arianism recognizes the spiritual character of the creation or construction of all things ascribed to Christ, but interprets literally of a pre-existent glory those texts which, in language common to Scripture, speak of things predestinated as having a previous existence. "The Low Arians are more properly Unitarians than their elder brethren; but their hypothesis of pre-existence appears unnecessary. If God wrought in Christ, it did not require a superior nature or being, exclusive of God, to enable Christ to do what he did; and this applies to the original view of the Arian scheme, which seems to substitute super-angelic power for the power of God. A superior nature seems only called for on the supposition of a satisfactional purpose in the death of Christ; and then ouly on the supposition that the satisfaction could not be made but by a being of infinite or superior nature. "The Arians conceive that the dignity of Christ is lowered by the abandonment of the scheme of pre-existence. But if we exclude his agency in the material creation, it does not appear why, as a man anointed with the Holy Ghost, and with power,' the dignity of Christ is less, than as an incarnate secondary God, or a spirit above archangels. Although a man, he was to us as God; the organ of his will-the medium of his wisdom-the mercy-seat of his redeeming love-the agent of his power; and, as one in all respects like his bre thren,' tempted, yet without sin,' his moral dignity is incomparably greater than as a supra-human being, the meritoriousness of whose sinless obedience is lessened in exact proportion as his nature is exalted above the level of humanity."-Pp. 102-105. The author is very successful in exposing the weakness of the scriptural arguments for Arianism. We insert a specimen of his "Examination:" 6 · "John xvii. 5, And now, O Father! glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.' Ver. 24, That they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.' Ver. 22, The glory which thou gavest me I have given them: that they may be one, even as we are one.' These passages, compared, illustrate each other; and if the doctrine of pre-existence be made to rest on them alone, it must assuredly fall. "It is plain, from these three passages, "1. That the disciples were to behold that glory which the Father had given to the Son; and that it is not said that it was given him before the ages, but because the Father loved him before the ages. "2. That it was not a pre-existent glory which the disciples were to behold, or that they did behold, but the glory which should follow his sufferings,' in the diffusion, through his instrumentality, of gospel blessings. "3. That the glory given to the disciples was the same glory which God had given to Jesus before the ages; that the disciples had not a pre-existent glory given them, but the glory as of the best-beloved of the Father,' the grace and truth' described by John, by which they had oneness of will and heart with God, and the power and spirit of miracles and prophecy; that therefore it was not a pre-existent glory of which Christ spoke in reference to them, but the same glory of wisdom and grace and power, which the disciples had seen in him, and received from him. "If Christ had existed in God, or with God, before the ages, the observation, 'thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world' seems most unnecessary: it has only point or meaning as referring to the everlasting counsel and fore-knowledge of God; who calleth those things which be not as though they were:' Rom. iv. 17. "It has been argued that the words 'glorify me,' &c. if interpreted with reference to the foreknowledge of God, would mean no more than that he might be glorified still in the purpose of God.' This is verbal quibbling without sense. 'Glorify me with the glory which I had in thy decrees,' is plainly, bestow on me the glory which thou hadst decreed to bestow.' "The playing to be glorified with the same glory which he had with God before, in the literal sense of glory in a pre-existent state of beig, is totally irreconcileable, either on the Trinitarian or Avian scheme, with the uniform tenor of Scripture, as respects the glory of Christ. This is spoken of as a glory consequeat on his sufferings and obedience. Ile despised the cross for the glory which was set before him.' 'The God of our fathers hath GLORIFIED his Son Jesus.' God hath highly EXALTED him.' It is an abuse of terms to say that these and similar passages mean only that the glory set before him was the same which he had before; that in being glorified he had only his pristine glory restored to him, and that bis exaltation referred only to his human nature; which, to a divine or superangelic being, could not be considered in the light of reward. "In the same preordinate sense, Christ is spoken of by the prophet Micah, v. 2, Out of thee Beth-lehem] shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. A similar figure occurs 6 in Rev. xiii. 8, Whose names are not written in the book of life of THE LASE slain from the foundation of the world. The supposed pre existence of the Son of God is clearly explained by Peter; 1 Pet. i. 20, Who verily was FORE-ORDAINED before the foundation of the world, bui was manifest in these last times for you; who by him do believe in Gon that raised him up from the dead, and GAVE him glory.' "This figure of pre-existence may be illustrated by a passage of Clemens Alex. andrinus: We Christians were Gefore the foundation of the world; for we then pre-existed in Gon, who had decreed our future existence.' There is here an apparent allusion to Paul, Ephes. i. 4, ‘According as he hath chesen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.'”—Pp. 120—123. The "Examination" concludes with a pertinent observation, in reply to the argument so learnedly maintained in Ben Mordecai's Letters: "These hypotheses of Christ having been the angel who appeared in place of JEHOVAH, and the medium of all his revelations in the Old Testament history, are 'explicitly refuted by a passage of Paul; Heb. i. 1, Gop who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last times spoken unto us by his Son "-P.132. Part II. contains a "Dissertation on the Doctrine of a Satisfactional or Propitiatory Atonement," and an Examination of the supposed Scriptural Grounds for a Vicarious Satisfaction, or a Propitiatory Sacrifice." The doctrine of Satisfaction, in its full scholastic sense, is absolutely modern. Austin expressly opposes the notion of Christ having taken our guilt. "There was an idea that the price paid (the common scripture-term for the means of deliverance) was paid to the evil being. Austin thought that the sin of the first a was transmitted to his posterity, and that the human race were delivered over to the Devil; from whom God, having become incarnate in Christ, bought us by his blend; and Proclus explains the necessity of God dying for us, by no angel having the power to pay a sufficient price to Satan. This scheme, absurd as it is, is not so much so as that which is now generally thought a vital part of Christianity, and which either supposes the Omnipotent and Eternal Creator of the Universe to die, that he might enable himself to forgive his own creatures, or that his Eternal Son died to iu duce him to forgive them. In dividing almighty power with another being, of malignant nature, the modern believers in a personal spirit of evil are not far behind these ancient redemptionists."-P. 135. In its present popular acceptation, the doctrine of Atonement was car ried to its height by the Protestant Reformers, in their zeal to oppose the Romish doctrine of the merit of works, that is, the superabundant and transferrable merit of works of supererogation, works exceeding the necessary proportion of righteousness. The opposite extreme was the abominableness of human righteousness, and the necessity of imputed merit: into this the Reformers rushed, and their disciples have followed their wild steps. Yet no doctrine can be more selfcontradictory: "Whether we regard the triad in the Godhead as three different characters under which God acts, or as three attributes of his nature, or as three intelligences or essences, distinct from each other, yet united by a common consciousness, each being equally by himself God, yet all three together constituting but one single God, the satisfaction on the Trinitarian scheme is made by God to God; in other words, God, demanding a victim, becomes himself his own victim, and appeases himself by himself, and thus saves his justice by a fiction! "But it must be asked, which of the natures, joined in Jesus Christ, offered up this infinite satisfaction? Was it the divine nature; or the human nature? If the dirine nature, then the Godhead, or a portion of the Godhead, immortal and impassible, suffered death. If the human nature only, then an infinite satisfaction was not effected; and the purpose might equally have been obtained by a perfectly righteous man, as Enoch."-Pp. 139, 140. The author is, as usual, clear and convincing in his exposition of texts of Scripture and his reasonings upon them. "2 Cor. v. 21, He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' “He was made ‘sin for us,' in the double sense of having death, the condemnation of sin, pass upon him,' and in being crncified as a sinner: or 'numbered with the transgressors;' and in Gal. iii. 13, he is said to have been made a curse for us,' which is explained by the apostle in the next verse, as alluding to the accursed death of the cross: cursed is every one 6 that hangeth on a tree.' How we are made the righteousness of God through Christ's dying as a sinner, is shewn in Titus ii, 14: Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify of good works. In the same sense it is unto himself a peculiar people, zealous said, 1 Peter ii. 24, Who his own self bare we, being dead to sin, might live to righte our sins in his own body on the tree, that ousness: by whose stripes ye were healed :' avveyzey, bare up: bare away. This has affixed to it, as if Christ were smitten a very different meaning from that usually in our stead, and bare our punishment. Isaiah says, liii. 3, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted:'-that is, falsely so that he learned obedience, by the things esteem him. In Heb. v. 8, 9, it is said, which he suffered and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.' This is the chastening of moral discipline, not vicarious punishment, He has borne our griefs;' 11, He shall bear their iniquities;' and 12, He bare the sin of many,' is the bearing away; a probable allusion to the scape-goat. Matthew, quoting Isaiah, 'himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses,' applies it to Christ's miraculous cures: viii. 17. Ile surely did not take our diseases on himself, but he took them away: in the same sense, he bare our sins."-Pp. 151, 152. "GOD is also expressly said to have bought us, in a passage where he is ignorantly confounded with CHRIST, whom he made our ransom. 2 Pet. ii. 1, 'There shall be false teachers, denying THE LORD that bought them:' AcσTOTY, the only Potentate,' or SOVEREIGN LORD GOD; a title NEVER applied to CHRIST, who is styled only xupios. only, is proved, beyond cavil, from Acts "That the title is appropriate to GoD iv. 24, 27,And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to GOD with one accord, and said, LORD! [AETTOTα] THOU earth, and the sea.-Against thy holy child art Gon, which hast made heaven, and JESUS, both Herod and the Gentiles were gathered together.' New Testament, for the rich unpurchased "They who contend, from the Old and reconciliation which God himself wrought mercy of Gon, and receive the Scripture in Christ, as the true and only atonement, are accused by the Satisfactionists, on this very text, of denying the Lord that bought them.' But as the Lord, in this passage, is the Sovereign LORD GOD, the blessed and only POTENTATE, the Satisfactionists themselves, who deny that God is their redeemer, may be said to be those who'deny THE LORD that bought them.' The original allusion is probably to those Gnostics, who deuied that THE FATHER of Jesus Christ was either the maker of the world, or the author of the Jewish dispen. sation."—Pp. 156, 157. There is, (p. 175) a strong, we wish we could say an over-wrought, deseription of the anti-moral effects of the doctrine of Satisfaction, when it is not counteracted by the true doctrines of Christianity, which no system is able wholly to subvert. The author then institutes a comparison between the spurious orthodoxy of the day, and the "simplicity that is in Christ," and here he is animated by his subject to a rich strain of elo quence: "But the prominent feature of the doetrine, in the sense of substitution and satisfaction, is the mystic idolatry which it involves, and the necessary connexion with a denial of the supremacy of the only true God,' and with the falling away' from the worship of God, even THE FATHER; the Gon and FATHER' of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is now a reproach to worship HIM whom CHRIST worshiped. "It was the faith of Moses, that God should in the Messias raise up a prophet like to himself;' it was the faith of Peter, that Jesus of Nazareth was a MAN approved of God by signs and wonders, which God did by him;' it was the faith of Paul, that there is One God, and one Mediator between God and men, the MAN Christ Jesus.' It was the declaration of Christ, that he was a MAN who had told them the truth which he had heard from GOD.' Yet they who represent Christ, as Moses and Peter and Paul represented him, and as he declared himself, are accused of degrading Christ! What shall be thought of degrading GOD? "Who degrade Christ? They that behold in him a man in all respects like his brethren, tempted as they are,' and therefore peccable, yet WITHOUT SIN;' 'made perfect by suffering;' despising the shame for the glory that was set before him; yielding up his life with assured faith in the promises of God that he should receive it again; and giving to all an example of sinless purity and unfainting obedience to the will of God?-Or they who regard him as himself a Divinity or a super-angelic nature, superior to suffering, superior to temptation, INCAPABLE OF SIN; whose sinlessness had therefore no merit, whose devotion had no heroism, whose perseverance unto death was no proof of fortitude, no test of faith; whose resurrection is in itself no demse on that man will be raised from the life and martyrdom, whose actions and sufferings, are too supernatural for example, can awaken no admiration, can excite no sympathy? "Who degrade God? They who believe the assurances of his holy prophets, that he will abundantly pardon' those who return unto him; they who see in him pure and perfect benevolence and goodness, and regard his justice as only a modification of his benevolence; they who worship him as Moses and the prophets worshiped him, in the character of the ONE JEHOVAH, who 'stretched out the heavens by himself;' as Christ and the Apostles worshiped him, in the character of GoD even the FATHER;' the God and Father of us and of our Lord Jesus;' THE ONLY TRUE GOD; the blessed immortality; they who adore him as their mighty SAVIOUR and REDEEMER; their merciful and compassionate Father, who 'saw them when they were afar off;' the sole Author and original Fountain of all blessings temporal and eternal, all gifu and graces and influences, which He shed upon us of his own FREE MERCY in Christ, the Son whom Hɛ had sent to be the Sa viour of the world?-Or they who see it his justice only vengeance; who deny his glorious attribute of rich unpurchased mercy; who make him gracious on conditions which violate justice by substi tuting the innocent for the guilty; who transfer their gratitude for the work of redemption from him,' the only SAVIOUS,' to him whom he hath sent; from the author to the instrument; who refuse to him supreme homage; who libel his justice, limit his beneficence, divide his unity, contract his power, snatch the very work of creation out of his hands, and leave him amidst the darkness of unapproachable mystery and terror, a God who, of himself, is unable to bless and to save, and who is alone able to curse and to destroy? and ONLY POTENTATE, who ALONE hath "If all love and gratitude are to be concentered in the Son of God, which early inculcated into the tender minds of children, and which must be the case if he interposed between men and God, to arent vengeance and bribe compassion, the beart is shut up from those high and boly conso ́lations which the Scripture teaches us expect from the Father of mercies and God of comfort.' If the God and Father of his creatures were to retire from the universe, with awful reverence be it sp ken, what void would be left in the heart of the worshipers of Christ?” —Pp. 175—177. The "Appeal" concludes with lively anticipation, expressed in bea tiful scriptural figures, of the final success and universal prevalence Unitarian Christian truth. |
