Saviour in it may be very beautiful, very philosophical, very moral; but still it wants the grand essential to make it suitable to a Christian audience. In fact, he said, that the mind of the preacher might be known from his discourse, and that he could not be duly impressed with the grand truths of Christianity, unless he made them appear in striking colours in every address delivered from the pulpit.

I cannot, by any means, approve of the reasons alleged by Mr. Belsham, for retaining the term "idolatrous" in the articles of the Unitarian Book Society; for the obstinate adherence to that term appears to me to swerve very far from what is recommended to us by our Saviour, the wisdom of the serpent and the innocence of the dove. What a striking contrast may be perceived in the conduct of the framers of the articles of the Unitarian Book Society, and that of the apostle Paul at Athens, whose admirable speech before the Areiopagus is so strangely travestied in the Bible now in general use. The apostle's spirit was roused in that city, wholly given to idolatry; but he does not use the term idolatrous, nor does he utter an expression which would convey contempt of his audience. His speech is a masterpiece of eloquence, and points out to us most forcibly the mode of conduct to be used towards those who are of a different opinion from ourselves.

The framers of the articles of the Unitarian Book Society appear to me to have imbibed a portion of that spirit which dictated the articles of the sect established by law in the southern part of this island. I can easily conceive, that both parties were convinced in their own mind, that what they drew up was founded on the Scriptures, and, therefore, essential to the faith of every Christian. But the hand of man appears in both, and in the vain endeavour to clothe their sentiments in a formulary that every Christian might safely subscribe, they have met with the success which such an attempt deserves. We must leave the Scriptures to speak for themselves, and when we travel out of the record, we shall certainly fall into error.

I might now proceed to discuss the formulary given to us by Dr. Lant Carpenter, but as I have trespassed so long on your patience, I will beg leave

to reserve my observations upon it till another opportunity. W. FREND.

SIR, London, Dec. 6, 1819.
FTER the audacious attempt of

A to

tian religion into discredit, it was to be expected that its ministers would reprobate such conduct, and bear their most decided testimony against Infidelity. The sermon of Mr. Fox, entitled, The Duties of Christians towards Deists, [Mon. Repos. XIV. 701,] forms an exception, for he palliates Unbelief, and dwells on the imperfections as well as certain vices of professed Christians, with an unmitigated severity.

The au

Mr. Fox begins with assuring us, "I am no sceptic as to the essentials of Christianity." But why should scepticism, in any form or degree, attach to the professors of Christianity? Essentials and non-essentials differ not in their truth, but in their importance. To be a sceptic, therefore, as to non-essentials, is to be in a measure an Unbeliever, and surely this ought not to be the case with the faithful minister of the New Testament. To say the best, it has an odd appearance, and will probably account for many positions by which the performance is characterised. thor, however, adds, " Its truth is my trust; its evidences are to my mind most convincing; its moral loveliness charms my heart; to its holy precepts I would yield unreserved submission; in the removal of its corruptions and the extension of its influence I would exert all my powers and spend all my days, and its promises I regard as a sure foundation for the immortal hopes of man." After this admirable declaration, Mr. Fox, in the next page, dwelling on the moral evidence of Christianity, reminds the reader that it is not mathematical or demonstrative; therefore, the Deist may be right and the Christian wrong; and upon this representation he seems to expatiate with ill-timed amplification. Where is the necessity of throwing out the idea that "the prophecies” may be no more than lucky guesses, that CHRIST may have entertained "the fancy" of being the Messiah, that the apostles might turn out clan of ignorant deceivers," and that their system, so framed and so pro

66

a

pagated," might nevertheless become the admiration of the wisest, the delight of the virtuous, the refuge of the afflicted, the source of knowledge, holiness, and joy to the world! This, indeed, he supposes, to be "barely possible;" but why make the supposition at all? A concession of this kind, the Deist, he may rest assured, will turn to no good account. And it is unavailingly counteracted by the author avowing his own belief on such evidence and by declaring that the rejection of such evidence incarcerates us in the dark dungeon of eternal scepticism."

Mr. Fox then proceeds in the same style of special pleading: "Christians, draw not too hastily the inference that, if the conclusiveness of these and other proofs be not seen, it can only be attributed to the mental perception being dimmed by the effluvia of a corrupted heart. He to whose sight alone the heart is open, who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust, can alone be qualified to pronounce such a condemnation, and to him much may be visible which you cannot perceive, productive of an effect so undesirable, without inculpating the individual. Nay, you may imagine various pleas which in the judgment of charity ought to be admitted for the claims of an avowed and ACTIVE Deist, not to be ranked in sincerity and rectitude materially below an honest and active Christian"!

The preacher then institutes a kind of mathematical process to exculpate the individual in his predilection for Infidelity; but though we may grant that some minds are unhappily inclined to scepticism, yet, generally speaking, there is no reason to question the truth of our Saviour's solemn asseveration: "This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light-because their deeds are evil"! Jesus Christ makes no exception, and his ministers need not affect a greater delicacy on the subject. But I shall not enter any further into an analysis of this singular discourse, which has, we understand, drawn forth profusely the thanks of the Deist, whilst it has given offence to some of the best friends of Christianity. There was no need of handing over weapons to the

enemy. There was still less need of exposing and blazoning forth the differences subsisting betwixt the advocates of revealed religion. The enlightened and consistent Unitarian, who, at such a time, would wish to repel the charge that his creed has any alliance to Infidelity, ought to have avoided even the appearance of evil. The duties of Christians towards Deists are, most assuredly, not to seek out every possible excuse for their unbelief, but to expostulate with them on their unreasonableness in rejecting that plenitude of moral evidence of which alone religious subjects are susceptible; on their perverseness in identifying the corruptions and abuses of Christianity with the Christianity of the New Testament, in opposition to all that has been advanced to the contrary; and on the danger incurred by reviling a religion whose origin is divine. This is our bounden duty; and more than this ought not to have been done. We disclaim, as to Deists, the aid of the civil power, and leave them to the mercies of that God who alone has the disposal of the world to come.

Before I conclude, it is only justice to the author to remark, that the Sermon is well written, and many of its passages in strict accordance with the spirit of Christianity.-But I would caution a minister of the gospel against saying any thing which may promote rather than check the prevalence of Infidelity. Unitarians owe nothing to Mr. Carlile; he has, in the eyes of thousands, done them an injury which will not be easily retrieved. The reputedly orthodox will, in this point, believe the Infidel, though they yield him credence in nothing else. CHRISTIANS have an awful task to sustain in not betraying, either by principle or by practice, the religion they profess to an inveterate and outrageous enemy. And, with the author of this discourse, I am most firmly persuaded, that, "when the reign of ANTICHRIST is over, all hostility will be disarmed, and the genuine gospel, rising from the ruins of corruption, like the fabled phoenix in renewed youth from the funeral pile, shall spread its wings for a glorious flight, and urge its resistless course around the globe."

AN UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN.

SIR,

T

How your Correspondent could fall into so strange a mistake as to assert that, " during the last winter, no controversy was afloat amongst the medical professors and students at Bartholomew Hospital" upon the subject in dispute, is to me unaccountable, having a personal knowledge of the contrary. A word or two here as to dates. Mr. Abernethy's Lectures, to which I referred, were published in 1817, and it is the first in the series that furnished the principal ground of my animadversion, in the severity of which I do not feel inclined to make any abatement. The first course delivered by Mr. Lawrence, and upon which his colleague animadverted, were not, I believe, published; but his second course were so, and did not make their appearance until last winter. As these contained the obnoxious doctrines, the discussion was revived, and involved, at the same time, some theological inquiries. It was here the tenderness existed that occasioned the suppression of the book. The unwarrantable conduct of certain governors in attempting to put down metaphysical opinions by the infliction of civil pains and penalties, your Correspondent refers to another institution. My informant, whose authority I have no reason to question, speaks of it relatively to Bartholomew Hospital. know not which is right; perhaps it may be true of both. Before I quit the subject of these lectures, I would just observe, that the enormous price at which they were published was a sufficient bar to their extensive circulation.

January 8, 1820. RUTH being of much more consequence to society than fame to an individual, I shall at all times feel grateful for a candid statement of any errors I may be led into, and I am willing to make due allowance for partiality in every case of personal feeling. With this sentiment I must express my thanks to your Correspondent for his detail (XIV. 750) of the Medical Dispute on the Origin of Vitality; at the same time, I trust it will appear in the sequel, that he has greatly magnified the inaccuracies of my statement, which, on his own shewing, are entirely local, and do not at all affect the subject in discussion. It is true, he has in part shifted the scene of the drama; but the performers in it remain the same, the plot is the same, and the dénouement, if I may so speak, continues the same also. Upon a close inspection, I find that the mistakes which are so greatly multiplied for the purpose of effect, and which, at first sight, have a very formidable appearance, really resolve themselves into a single one; and it is this: that the Lectures, which I stated to have been delivered at Bartholomew Hospital, were, in truth, pronounced at the Surgeons' College in Lincoln's Inn Fields; a circumstance that I certainly might have recollected, and for the inadvertency I here apologize. Your readers, then, will change the locality of the public performances, although not of the controversy, and read thus: That two medical professors, who are surgeons to Bartholomew Hospital, each having pupils and followers as ardently attached to their masters and to their dogmas as any in the schools of the ancient philosophers, in the course of their public lectures at Surgeons' College, have maintained what they consider opposite theories on the doctrine of life, and have brought to the discussion as large a portion of the spleen as can be reasonably desired. Now, I would ask, is it at all likely that the young men, who were auditors of the lectures, and in a measure idolize the professors, should not take a lively interest in the discussion of the jarring opinions? This, therefore, is a sufficient reason why the disputes should run higher at the Hospital I have mentioned than at any other.

I

Since I wrote my former article, I have taken up the Monthly Review for last September, and there find the view I have taken of the subject fully corroborated. In a review of Mr. Abernethy's "Physiological Lectures,” the writer says, It is naturally to be expected that a lecturer under (his) circumstances, should be disposed to look with peculiar respect on the character and acquirements of Mr. Hunter, and to regard them with the eye rather of an advocate than of an impartial spectator: but while we allow considerable latitude to these feelings, and should be much disinclined to question them, if restrained within moderate limits, it is impossible not to

66

lament over that perversion of sentiment which leads Mr. Hunter's admirers to deem it a necessary tribute to his fame to attack, with other weapons than those of argument, every one who is induced to maintain opinions or hypotheses contrary to those of their master." 'Mr. Abernethy's additions, (to Mr. Hunter's opinions,) as far as we learn their nature from this volume, are much more liable to animadversion than the tenets of his master; yet he betrays extreme impatience and irratibility because they have been disputed, and even condescends to repel the attack by an appeal to prejudices, and by something that, we are concerned to say, borders at least on abuse." After noticing a want of charity towards Mr. Hunter's opponents, the Reviewer goes on to observe," He speaks of them with a feeling of rancour that is seldom manifested in the writings of modern

As I would wish to regulate my own conduct by the rules that I prescribe to others, I hope that in the foregoing observations I have not indulged in any uncalled-for severity. To wound the feelings of any person unnecessarily, is far from my intention; but when I take up a book and find the author resorting to other means than argument to support his opinions, I cannot help thinking him an unworthy advocate. And I must add, that if the use of reproachful language, and of disingenuous arts in controversy, be not the ready way for a writer to disgrace" himself, I do not know what is. With these sentiments, unwilling to trespass farther upon your columns, I commit myself to the judgment of your readers.

SIR,

66

W. W.

Essex-House, January 17, 1820. my former letter

signated as 'a party,' entitled 'modern sceptics,' and tauntingly styled 'writers by profession; their morals and good sense are questioned, and they are assimilated to a description of persons whom we are taught to avoid, as maintaining principles at once dangerous and absurd."

Upon the merits of the controversy itself, I must still refrain from pronouncing any opinion, but should be glad to see the question discussed with temper and ability in your well-conducted work. Whatever be the immediate cause of life, whether it be the result of organization, as Mr. Lawrence contends, or the consequence of an electric fluid, according to Mr. Abernethy, it is a fair topic for inquiry, without quarreling, and there can be no just reason why either party should set down the other for fools or knaves. To consign our adversaries over to the prejudices of mankind, by calling them professed sceptics,"" persons in disguise," or "writers by profession, who have words at will to make the worse appear the better argument," is not a very legitimate mode of treating a philosophical question. The inconvenience of appealing to the passions, particularly when excited by theological prejudices, has already been felt by one medical professor, and may, in his turn, perchance, one day fall to the lot of the other.

VOL. XV.

which I know to be incontrovertible, I shall now, in reply to my friend Dr. Carpenter, [XIV. 744,] whose abilities, zeal and exertions in promoting the great cause of Christian truth I hold in the highest estimation, only offer explanations where it appears to me that my expressions have been misunderstood, or my intentions misconceived; and I will do it with all possible brevity, even at the hazard of appearing abrupt.

1. I trust that my friend does not mean to insinuate, by the distinction which he makes in his eighth remark between the London and the Western Societies, that I have been guilty of the rudeness of animadverting upon the proceedings of a Society of which I am not a member, and to which I have never subscribed a shilling. I flatter myself that he knows me too well to suspect that I am capable of so flagrant a breach of propriety and decorum. My friend, I doubt not, well knows that I was, if I may presume to say it without being charged with over-weening vanity, one of the first members of the Western Unitarian Society, and a subscriber for life; and it was under this character that I gave an opinion of their late proceedings, and knowing that the principle and object of the two Societies were originally the same, namely, to spread the doctrine of the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, I

I expressed my great satisfaction in the result of the late discussion.

2. What is an Unitarian? Answer, 1. One who believes in the simple humanity of Jesus Christ. 2. One who believes in his simple pre-existence. 3. One who believes that the Logos which animated the body of Christ was the Maker of the world, but not the object of worship. 4. One who believes that, being the Maker of the world, he is the object of worship. 5. One who, whatever be his opinion concerning the person of Christ, worships the Father only. 6. All Antitrinitarians. 7. All who profess their belief in the unity of God, whether they do or do not believe that in the unity of the Divine essence there are three subsistences or persons, and whether they are Realists, like Waterland and Sherlock, who denounce Nominalists as heretics, or Nominalists, like Wallis and South, who accuse their Realist brethren of blasphemy and nonsense. 8. I have lately seen another definition of an Unitarian, viz. one who believes that "this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." This, if not the most perspicuous, is, at least, the most Catholic definition of Unitarianism that ever was given for in its ample range it includes not only the holy apostolic Roman Church, and all the various denominations of Protestants which secede from it, but it also comprehends the Greek, the Nestorian and the Syriac churches in the East, and likewise the Copts and the Abyssinians in Africa; all of whom would be ready to subscribe this simple creed, and to form one grand Unitarian Society throughout the world.

3. Öf these various definitions I have myself selected the first; and being a plain man, who write to be understood in all my publications, I invariably adhere to that definition, so that no person can read what I have published without knowing precisely the sense in which the word is used.

My reason for making this selection is, historically, because I believe the term was first applied to the Polish Unitarians who denied the pre-existence of Christ, and etymologically, because I conceive that, in strict propriety, the term can only be applied to the two first definitions; for whoever

ascribes the formation of the world to Jesus Christ, deifies him, for he attributes to him a work appropriate to God, and infringes the great doctrine of the Divine Unity. Finally, I adopt this sense of the term upon the authority of Dr. Lardner, the great reviver of genuine Unitarianism in modern times, and my two venerated friends Mr. Lindsey and Dr. Priestley, the ablest and the most celebrated luminaries of the Unitarian Church. And here I trust I shall not be arraigned of presumption and arrogance in claiming these eminent confessors as my particular friends, even though no`kind notice was taken of me in their wills. While living, they constantly communicated with me upon every theological topic without reserve, and dying, they bequeathed a legacy more precious than rubies: the bright example of a disinterested love of truth, and of firmness, fortitude and perseverance in the profession of it, in the face of opposition, calumny and reproach, and under the loss of all things. These venerable men uniformly used the word Unitarian in the sense which I have adopted from them: and if this use of it is censurable, I am very willing to take my share of the reproach.

I have too much regard for the rights of others to presume to censure any for using the term with greater latitude than myself. I only lament that it is used in so many senses as to occasion great ambiguity of language, and that to such a degree that, in reading what is published by many who call themselves Unitarians, I declare that I am utterly at a loss to understand their meaning.

4. I regret to differ from my worthy friend concerning the importance. of the doctrine of the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, which to me appears an article of primary importance, and one upon which the greatest stress is deservedly laid by those who desire to see Christianity restored to its primitive purity. My reason is this: Errors concerning the person of Christ were among the first which were introduced into the church even in the apostolic age, and were zealously opposed by the apostles themselves, and particularly by Paul and John. And upon this primary error, as the chief foundation, almost all, and certainly all the principal corruptions of the Christian