Four lectures on the evidences and doctrines
of the Christian religion.
London, 18 36.

' Y^LH«¥lMII¥E]SSIIirY' • JLIBBISAISy B

Acquired by Exchange

rS«ii

WOOD'S FOUR LECTURES.

FOUR LECTURES

EVIDENCES AND DOCTRINES

CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

BY

THOMAS WOOD,
MINISTER OF STAMFORD STREET CHAPEL.

LONDON :
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMAN,
PATERNOSTER ROW;
AND
R. HUNTER, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.
1836.

PRINTED BY G. SMALLFIELD, HACKNEY.

r*f pi 53
W85"

I dedicate these Lectures to the Congregation meeting in
Stamford Street Chapel. May they, and all who read them,
regard the Apostolic admonition — " Prove all things : hold fast
that which is good."
THOMAS WOOD.

No. 16, Princes Street,
Stamford Street.

LECTURE I.

DIVINE ORIGIN OP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

Acts xvii. 16, 17:
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens his spirit was stirred
in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with
the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met
WITH him.
The method of promulgating the Christian religion adopted
by its first missionaries, appears to have been very different
from modern preaching. They seldom declaimed before their
auditors, but conversed or disputed with them, patiently
hearing and answering their objections. Thus Peter and John
reasoned with the High Priest, and Stephen reasoned with the
libertines : Paul, at Damascus, disputed against the Grecians,
and at Athens, in the synagogue, with the Jews, and with the
devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met
with him, and on Mars' Hill with the disciples of Epicurus and
the Stoics.
This method of preaching had been sanctioned by Jesus
Christ, who rarely pronounced a formal oration, but inculcated
his doctrines during conversations with his disciples, or in
those frequent and protracted reasonings which he held with
the Jews.

A similar mode of instruction was practised by the cele
brated public teachers of Greece and Rome. The masters of
philosophy, and rhetoric, and the healing art, delivered their
opinions in the groves or portico of the academy; and, in fami
liar discourse with their senior scholars, proved and defended
them. The modern professors of the sciences and arts have not
thought fit to follow the practice of their classical predecessors,
and there is not now the same need of public debates on reli
gious subjects which there was in the apostolic age. The
volume which contains the facts and articles of Christianity may
readily be obtained in the original or the vernacular tongue;
and Christians have published to the world a variety of books,
comprising the evidences on which they believe that volume to
be genuine, authentic, and inspired.
Peculiar circumstances may, however, arise, which will jus
tify the minister of religion in imitating the mode of disputa
tion used by those Christian teachers who are the models to be
copied by all Christian teachers coming after them. Nor will
he depart from the practice of his great examples if he modestly
relate any portion of his own experience which may be suffi
ciently uncommon to secure or merit attention.
Sanctioned by the illustrious authorities I have quoted, I
now address myself to the vocation of the morning, and in ac
cordance with their example, I shall not shrink from briefly
stating the circumstances which have led me to propose to de
liver the following Lectures.
I was educated amongst the Calvinistic Dissenters, and ex
ercised, in connexion with them, for about eight years, a some
what fugitive ministry, suffering long intervals of severe illness
and consequent mental depression. As 1 approached the ter
mination of the period I have mentioned, I became increasingly
dissatisfied with the theological creed in which I had been
educated, and which 1 had taught to others, until I was quite
unable to meet the demands made upon me constantly to reite
rate from the pulpit the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism, or to
cherish that sanctimonious state of the thoughts and feelings
which Calvinistic Dissenters regard as essential to piety. Nei-

ther could I any longer brook the petty vexatious inquisition
they impose respecting every freedom of thought or speech or
carriage. It was believed by my friends and myself that in
some quiet pulpit of the .Established Church I might find re
pose and liberty. At this period I was not delivered from the
prejudice which holds the Gospel to contain a system of mys
tical theology, although 1 no longer regarded the several
doctrines of that theology as suitable topics for frequent pulpit
discussion ; I felt, therefore, no difficulty in subscribing to the
articles of the Church. Application was made to the proper
authority for my admission to holy orders, and I cheerfully
and gratefully record the courtesy with which that application
was entertained, and the generous countenance I received from
several clergymen. A reasonable delay was required. I set
myself to the complete revision of my religious sentiments.
By the study of the Scriptures* I became convinced that the
New Testament contains no systerii of • mystical theology
whatever, that it asserts the distinguishing truth of the Jewish
religion — the unity of God; that it affirms the universal sinful
ness of the human race; that it iuculcates repentance towards
God, and on repentance, promises mercy; that it enjoins faith
in Jesus Christ as the divinely appointed and divinely endowed
Messiah ; that it enforces the moral virtues as the pure sources
of present happiness and everlasting good ; and that it reveals
the 'great solemn facts of the resurrection of the dead and a
future judgment. This conclusion of course forbade any fur
ther thoughts of entering the Established Church. The noble
simplicity of these truths, their sweet, merciful tendencies, im
parted a calm satisfaction, a holy liberty to my mind, which
the sterner temper of the Calvinistic system had- never in
spired. Three years have since elapsed ; I have read much
on them, and thought much on them; my first impressions
have been greatly deepened. I believe these truths to be most
valuable; I believe they constitute pure religion; 1 believe
they are the means by which the human race will yet be res
cued from idolatry, and error, and vice, and from the immense
* Dr. P. Smith's W6rk oh the Messiah I also re-examined with great attention.
B 2

portion of unhappiness consequent on these ; I therefore appear
before you this morning as their advocate.
We ask a patient, intelligent, candid hearing. If we have
friends who hold our veracity in any respect, or if there be
strangers who will charitably believe we would not lie on so
serious a matter, we crave their belief when we testify, that we
find in Unitarian Christianity, whose principles are the truths
above stated, an intelligent yet humble religion — one not enthu
siastic, yet one which allows and cherishes the free play of
every holy emotion, both towards God and towards Christ —
which, if it does not agitate the spirits with vague and vast
and terrible representations of the future world yet fills the
mind with the good hope of a peaceful and holy immortality,
and with an expansive charity toward all men. — Its creed is
not made up of proud, frigid dogmas. — Its worship is not a
cold, uninteresting, heartless formality. The preacher had
deeply imbibed the uncharitable prejudice (every where re
ceived), that to join in Unitarian worship would be to restrain
the penitence of the contrite heart, to extinguish utterly the
yet warmer and holier emotions of piety, and to freeze up all
the genial currents of devotional feeling. But if high and
honourable thoughts of the Divine Being, if deep reverence of
his Almighty power and wisdom, if strong convictions of our
weakness and sinfulness, if gratitude for God's mercy, trust in
his providence, and a lively hope of final deliverance, through
his grace, from all sin and suffering, constitute devotion, then
devotion, ardent, holy devotion, is not wanting to Unitarian
worship. I have no wish to conceal that our opinions are shunned and
feared. They are also misunderstood, misrepresented. Yet
why should it be thought that we obstinately cling to error
and wickedly reject truth? Are we scandalous in our lives?
Are we weak in intellect? Are we deficient in education?
Are we the enemies of public good ? Do our-opinions minister
to our reputation, our ease, our wealth? Men and brethren,
not in anger, but in a grieved spirit, which never hath violence,
we remind you of the solemn admonition pf the Lord — " Judge
not, that ye be not judged, foe with what judgment ye judge,

ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again." ' We assure you we hold our opinions
from conviction, from investigation. We think we are right,
but we are not prepared to assert, that is impossible we are
wrong. One thing, however, we are sure of (and we take leave
to rejoice exceedingly in the assurance, since it comforts our
hearts with the hope, that if we have not the true apostolic
faith, we have somewhat of the true apostolic charity, which
is greater than faith) — we can say with our whole souls, grace
be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, both
theirs and ours ; and if any man think we do not honour and
love the Saviour, he does us grievous wrong. We do not offer
to. him divine worship, as others do, (our reasons are hereafter
to be stated,) but we regard him as one with God, we reverence
his instructions as the word and the wisdom of God, — we see
purity and mercy and truth and highest dignity embodied in
his holy nature; in his death, and in his resurrection from the
grave, are founded our best hopes, hopes which support us
through the ills of life, and greatly augment its joys, which we
trust will not fail us in the dark times of sickness and dissolu
tion which extend to eternity. And in this great fact of our
Lord's resurrection we recognize the common faith which
united all Christians in the apostolic times. Even then differ
ences of opinion arose; but to confess with the mouth and to
believe in the heart that Jesus was the Christ, and that God
had raised him from the dead, was to secure the sympathies of
Christian men and all the privileges of the Christian church.
It was not until the simple faith, the free spirit, the large cha
rity of the apostolic times had passed away, that a more elabo
rate confession of faith was demanded of converts or disciples,
and that Christians fell into the foolish, fatal error, that their
religion consisted in metaphysical dogmas, rather than in obe
dience and charity and trust and hope.
Let me not be misunderstood in urging this remonstrance —
I plead in no suppliant tone for tolerance or favour on behalf
of myself or my brethren ; for our principles I do plead, they
concern the honour of God and human salvation ; and for
these principles I desire to contend with the meekness which

Paul commends Timothy to use towards those ttiat oppose
themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to
the acknowledging of the truth;* aiid yet, with the bold,
manly earnestness with which the Apostle himself withstood
to the face Peter at Antioch and the false brethren at Jerusa
lem, who came to spy out the liberty of the Christians, and to
bring them into bondage. To whom he gave place by sub
jection? No, not for an hour'.f Because authority is ar
rayed against us, and popular opinion — the master of au
thority; because men who have defiled the pure Gospel of
Jesus with their vain philosophy, deny to us the Christian
name and brand us as unbelievers ; because we are dragged
before the courts of law, in violation of all Christian usagej for
having, like freemen and Christians, thought for ourselves and
spoken as we thought; because every means that sophistry or
misrepresentation can invent is plied to our prejudice, are we
to crouch and flatter and trim our reasons and strain our con
sciences as nearly as we can to the dominant errors ? Verily,
no. I enter my serious protest against all such little arts of
controversy, useless as mean. We seek, we need no such piti
ful aids to the support of our good-^-ourtrue — our virtuous
cause. And although that cause is not popular, although its friends
are comparatively few, its opponents powerful and increasingly
hostile, yet we think we cherish no visionary hope, — we are
sure we do not indulge in mere rhetorical declamation when
we confidently anticipate a period in the history of man when
our principles will prevail. We found our confidence on the
innate power of truth, on the advancing intelligence of man
kind, on the danger which threatens already some of the strong
holds of error, and especially on the promises of the gospel.
And if it shall please God yet to delay the season when his
name, and his supreme authority, as the one true and living Je
hovah, shall be devoutly recognized by all his intelligent crea
tures, have we not in our principles sufficient to sustain us?
And what, although we should be called to endure obloquy
and abuse, and even penal censure, are w« better than our
* 2 Tim. ii. 25. T Gal. ii. 4, 5. J 1 Cor. vi.

brethren who have encountered these before us ? And shall
we not follow our Lord through evil as well as good report?
It may appear to some persons the mere anticipations of timi
dity to expect, in this age, penal censure on account of reli
gious opinions, but the signs of the times are not entirely free
from intimations of such an evil. The Church of England has
long stood in our midst as a tower of strength, for generations
the fastness of bigotry and luxury, yet sometimes the abode of
piety and virtue, and latterly of toleration. The stream of
ages rolling by its base is gradually swelling to a torrent
which threatens its foundations, and will assuredly sweep off
those remnants of things which have passed away, and which
the same stream brought down from a remote antiquity and
deposited and heaped around it. It may be, that in the hour
of her peril she may be cleansed from her impurities, and her
pride, and her Athanasian heresy, and remain amongst us as a
place of refuge, around which many of the friends of religion
and peaceful freedom will be found to muster, and which may
yet hold in check the inroads of fanatical intolerance. But she
may be utterly overthrown. Then will blaze forth that hot zeal
for a stern theology, which has long smouldered in the hearts of
a large and increasingly powerful body of our countrymen, the
avowed advocates of liberty, yet the enemies of every free
thought, who eschewing subscription to church articles, bind
themselves, and would, if possible, bind all men by a creed far
more narrow, far more severe. Be it admitted that many ofthem
are highly educated men ; this but presents us with the inex
plicable phenomenon of knowledge. and illiberality. going hand
in hand. Be it further admitted, that they are upright and
earnest men ; this but augments the evil ; for when sincerity
and earnestness have been joined with zeal for creeds, the exe
cutive minister of the unnatural triurnvirate has ever been in
tolerance. If this people should become dominant in the
country, we may expect, not indeed the persecution by fire,
but the no lesS mischievous persecution of legal restraints.*
But whatever be the fate of the Church of England, and
* Many of them, even now, would compel all men, by civil penalties, to the
observance of the Sabbath, according to their notions of its obligation and sanc
tity.

8
whatever be the delay of the final triumph of the truth, be it
our care diligently to cultivate that truth in our own hearts ;
no outward wrong can touch it ; he who cherishes it shall, in
return, by it be cherished. And be it also our care to use the
utmost efforts of persuasion to rescue the minds of our fellow
men from every opinion which we regard as erroneous and
pernicious. I have thought it well, in the following lecture, to occupy
your attention with the evidence for the divine origin of the
Christian religion, because Unitarians are frequently accused
wrongfully of infidelity, and because I regard their view of the
question to be by far the most advantageous to present to the
mind of the unbeliever. And I here state the great principle
which I intend shall guide me throughout the delivery of these
lectures — viz. the free and unreserved utterance of my
thoughts — I shall say nothing, because I suppose I may be ex
pected to say it — I shall withhold nothing through the fear of
offence. It is not a mean advantage to the Unitarian preacher.
nor a small honour to his people, that he is allowed such liberty.
Of course, it is by both parties well understood, that he alone
is responsible for his own opinions and his own mode of stating
or defending them.
Trinitarians in general look upon the New Testament Scrip
tures as inspired in the highest and minutest sense; they re
gard the sacred writers merely as the amanuenses of the Holy
Spirit ; they suppose that these writers were supernaturally
precluded from the possibility of error or misconception ; and,
indeed, argue as though they considered every sentence, every
word, every letter of their compositions essentially and infalli
bly stamped with the impress and authority of heaven.* The
Unitarian considers such inspiration to be unnecessary, dis
avowed by the sacred writers themselves, most inconsistent
with their works, utterly at variance with very many facts,
and very injurious to the cause of the Christian revelation.
He perceives in the New-Testament writers, men of unparal
leled simplicity and integrity, most honest and most capable
witnesses to the important facts to which they bear testimony;
* I am aware that a few considerate scholars amongst them entertain more
reasonable views.

he perceives in the whole series of events which they relate
the miraculous interposition of God; he perceives that Jesus
Christ, whose life and works they record, was supernaturally
endowed with wisdom and grace and authority and power;
and he regards the instructions of the Apostles of Jesus with
the highest respect and submission of mind; for he looks upon
them also as richly furnished with spiritual wisdom. I have
no space to enter into the proofs of the Unitarian opinion on
this point; but I think they will be found quite unanswerable.
It is, however, this view of the question I wish to present to
the good sense of the unbeliever, and which I entreat him to
keep constantly before his mind during all the reasonings which
may be suggested or recalled to his attention.
It is not my purpose to address my discourse to unbelievers
indiscriminately. There are, I fear, persons whose rejection
of Christianity has originated in vice or ignorance. The per
fect morality of that religion looks too severely on the volup
tuousness, and dishonesty, and pride of some ; these probably
wish to think it untrue, and, in consequence, the more easily
bring themselves to believe that it is so. And there are light-
minded men, illiterate, incapable of accurate reasoning or sus
tained thought, who loudly vociferate their flippant infidelity.
With such persons I hold no debate. My spirit hath ever
loathed the earthliness and levity of these men — the shallow
sophisms, and the pitiful ribaldry, which they are wont to put
forth as their strong reasons. Let them stand in awe of that eter
nity at which they mock ; for they, at least, have never proved
it to be a fable. Let the voluptuous renounce his unholy plea
sures — the harlot and the wine-cup : let the dishonest learn
righteousness : let the proud and vain become humble : let the
ignorant seek instruction, before they presume to denounce,
as forgeries or fables, the wonderful writings which form the
volume of the New Testament.
The man I wish to reason with is moral, honest, thoughtful,
diffident. His scepticism has forced itself upon him, contrary
to his wishes— his hopes. He well knows its gloomy conse
quences. Yet, strong in integrity, he will not reverence any
religion, however excellent, which is not proved by competent
evidence to be a revelation from God ; and, great in fortitude,

IQf
he will not shrink from any conclusions to which his investi
gations may conduct him. He is resolutely bent on abiding by
truth ; whether it lead him to the peace and joy of believing,
or plunge him into the dreary miseries of Atheism ; whether
it secure to him the good-will of his fellow-men, or eject him
from the companionship and sympathies of the wise and good,
and rend his soul from its most tender and cherished attach
ments. No man, I think, to whom this description is inapplicable}
may reject Christianity, and retain the respect of a thoughtful
mind. The extreme importance of the subject, the thrilling
interests which are suspended on its decision, imperiously
demand, from every person who approaches it, sobriety of
mind, integrity, diffidence, much and careful reflection, and
very earnest prayer.
I shall not expatiate on the happiness attendant on faith in
Christianity, until I have endeavoured to set forth sufficient
proof that it is from heaven. And, when we examine the
evidences of its divine origin, I would have our every faculty
of judgment and discrimination in vigorous and unrestrained
exercise. Such persons as those f have described are not unacquainted
with the evidences of Christianity, nor insensible to their
power ; they are impressed with the honesty and soberness of
the Evangelists, and with the manifest genuineness ofthe apos
tolic letters; they perceive that the prophecy delivered by
Jesus Christ, respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, received
a minute fulfilment ; but perhaps they consider the testimonies
to the Christian miracles insufficient. I shall not attempt now
to discuss with them the merit of these testimonies— <-I refer
them to the elaborate works in which this has been fully done,
and with which I suppose them to be familiar.
There is a; mode of presenting the question which may pos
sibly meet with greater favour in their estimation. Be it» ad
mitted that there are difficulties, serious difficulties, connected
with the Christian evidences ; yet still can we d.eny the truth
of the proposition — he who rejects Christianity encounters much
greater difficulties than he who receives it &
I here speak, not of those agitating perplexities of thought

11
and feeling, which arise from that ignorance of God, and that
doubtfulness concerning immortality, which ever must accom
pany the rejection of the Gospel; but merely of difficulties
which would be evident to the reasoning faculties of any ra
tional being, although he were the inhabitant of another world,
and in no way interested in this question.
There are two facts which fully illustrate this proposition.
— The contents qf the Christian Books, and the early success of
Christianity. The first fact is, the contents of the Christian Books.
If we were to collate all the compositions extant, of the
most celebrated heathen philosophers, and poets, and moralists,
and select from them whatever they contain excellent in ethics
and theology, we should' discover nothing of God, or of the
human soul — nothing of human duty, and humari destinies,
which may not be found in the Christian books. The ethics
and theology of the Gospel too are unaccompanied by those
perplexing doubts, and absurd contradictions, by that timid
censure of things vicious, and that compromising toleration of
things profane, which pervade the writings of heathen moral
ists ; and which clearly evince that, with them, these subjects
were rather matter of speculation than articles of faith ; ques
tions, about which they thought and disputed indeed, but
which generated little piety or virtue, and excited less hope.
The Christian books, moreover, contain doctrines and pre
cepts which, unquestionably, are not to be found in other
writings, and which are as important as they are original.
Two remarkable characteristics of the Christian morality,
are the commendations it- bestows on the passive, modest vir
tues — patience, humbleness, forbearance, placability; and the
imperative' manner in which it. enjoins the regulation ofthe
thoughts and affections. Captious interpreters of the precepts
of Christ may think some of them extravagant, too degrading,
or too refined, for creatures actuated by human passions. But
the sincere believer knows that it is not impossible to return
good for evil ; and the enlightened moralist perceives in these
precepts the elements of all goodness, the source of universal
peace and charity amongst men.

12
The character of Christ is altogether original. One of** na
tion immersed in prejudice, he stands alone above all preju
dice; one of a nation entertaining the most contracted, selfish
views, he was actuated by the benevolent and majestic design
of giving to the human race at large one pure and simple reli
gion. Fully aware of the unpopularity of his views, he un
waveringly persisted in them, not only with the full conscious
ness that they would bring him to a terrible death, but with
the calm confidence that his great design would finally be ac
complished. " The character of Christ," it has been forcibly
observed, "is made up of contrasts; in other words, it was a
union of excellencies which are not easily reconciled, which
seem, at first sight, incongruous, but which, when blended and
duly proportioned, constitute moral harmony, and attract with
equal power, love, and veneration. For example, we discover
in Jesus Christ an unparalleled dignity of character, a consci
ousness of greatness never discovered or approached by any
other individual in history; and yet this was blended with a
condescension, lowliness, and unostentatious simplicity, which
had never before been thought consistent with greatness. In
like manner he united an utter superiority to the world, to its
pleasures, and ordinary interests, with suavity of manners and
freedom from austerity. He joined strong feeling and self-
possession; an indignant sensibility to sin and compassion to
the sinner ; an intense devotion to his work, and calmness
under opposition and ill-success, a universal philanthropy,
and a susceptibility of private attachments, the authority
which became the Saviour of the world, and the tenderness
and gratitude of a son." He who combined these exalted
mental and moral qualities, was born and reared in a mean
station in an obscure Jewish town. If the character of Jesus
Christ be a fiction, it is the most magnificent creation of the
human fancy.
The miracles of the Gospel are not only immensely more
august events than those wonders we read of in general history,
but they are related with a brevity and felicity of diction sur
passingly eloquent. The description of Christ appeasing the
storm is a most beautifully chaste piece of composition. The

13
entire narrative is comprised in four short sentences. But
such is the happy selection of circumstances, such is the vivid
ness of the description, that we seem to hear the rushing of
the winds and the roaring of the waters, the rending of the
sails and the mariners* shouts. We see the Saviour peacefully
reclining in sleep amidst the tumult and dangers of the tem
pest; and, when awakened by his disciples, arising in all the
calm dignity of conscious power and rebuking it to stillness.
No sceptic, if he be capable of appreciating eloquent writing,
can read the simple narrative of this majestic event without
admiration. I feel confident that I am not pronouncing an exaggerated
eulogium on the Scriptures. I speak to you as to men of taste
and judgment, who know that I am giving a sober and very
brief summary of their peculiar excellences. Who, indeed,
can read those Scriptures, and not perceive that they beam
with wisdom ? Who can read them and not be deeply im
pressed with their grand moral principles ? and not feel that,
if these principles were universally acted upon, an entire reno
vation of human nature would be the result — that the whole
world would be filled with piety, and virtue, and happiness ?
And now let me remind you, that the authors of these won
derful writings were poor illiterate Jews— men certainly not
more respectable than the common fishermen of this 'Country,
and perhaps not so well informed. Do you call on me to esta
blish this point? If you are versed in ecclesiastical history,
you must be aware that we can positively prove that the Gospels
and Epistles we now have, are copies of Gospels and Epistles
written in the first century, and which, by the highest proba
bility, were ascribed to the Apostles. If you assert that the
general testimony of the church is but a vague and unsatisfac
tory proof, I not Only contend that this is precisely the same
sort of proof on which we ascribe the Iliad to Homer, or the
Cyropsedia to Xenophon ; but, I ask; if the Apostles did not
write these books, who did write them? Shall we ascribe
them to Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias ? It is
incredible that any of these fathers wrote the New Testament
books. They all appear to have quoted from them, and the

14
last-mentioned father expressly names the Gospels of Matthew
and Mark. Moreover, these fathers and their successors,
Justin Martyr, Irena_us, and Tertullian, were evidently alto
gether incapable of writing these books. Their compositions
which have come down to us, although deeply imbued with
piety, are abundant in silly reasonings, in idle conceits, in
ostentatious phraseology, in metaphysical follies, and absurd
fables. Independently, then, of the direct historical proofs of
the genuineness of the Gospels and Epistles, it is impossible to
ascribe them, with the least degree of probability, to any other
authors than those whose names they bear.
I shall suspend the application of these observations to the
general argument, until I have elucidated the second fact — the
early success of Christianity.
I freely admit that many Christian historians have greatly
exaggerated the success of the Gospel, and the numbers and
sufferings of the martyrs in the first century. Some of the
early writers permitted their love of marvellous tales and
pompous diction to overcome their discretion and their vene
ration for truth. And later writers have paid too great respect
to the reports of these men, and have too frequently adopted a
literal interpretation of their rhetorical flourishes. But, what
ever be the exaggerations in which some Christian authors
may have indulged, the following facts cannot be disputed :
they are proved by the well-known circumstances of the case —
by the indirect and direct testimonies of heathen writers — and
by the unanimous consent of all the ecclesiastical historians.
In a few months after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, some
hundreds of Jews and Samaritans were induced publicly to
profess their belief that he was the Prophet like unto Moses,
the Deliverer promised to Israel, the Son of God, the Sa
viour. And they endured, with singular patience and equa
nimity, the contempt or the hatred, the pity or the vengeance,
of their friends and countrymen. In a few years many hun
dreds of Pagans, in the cities of Asia Minor, Greece, and Mace
donia, were converted to the same faith ; and ere a century had
elapsed, ere the generation had completely passed away who
had seen Christ scourged in the hall of Pilate, and expire

15
amidst agony and shame, the Gospel had prevailed to such an
extent throughout the Roman empire, that, in one province at
least, the temples and sacred festivals of Polytheism were
almost deserted ; and, notwithstanding that tortures and death
were inflicted on the Christians, they continued rapidly to
increase in numbers, until at length their humble religion com
pletely triumphed over the idolatry and philosophy of the age.
Yet the facts, and articles, and spirit, of the new faith, must
have been obnoxious both to the Jews and to the Gentiles.
The Jews were eagerly expecting a warrior of the tribe of
Judah, and of the house of David, to rise amongst them, or
visibly to descend from heaven, who should restore them to
the full possession of Palestine, and from that sacred land con
duct them forth to the conquest of the world. Is it possible,
my hearers, to conceive of any energy of mere argumentation,
or any device of subtlety, that could induce them to recognize
that august and powerful personage in the crucified Jesus of
Nazareth ? — that personage described in their sacred books
under the title of Messiah the Prince, whose government and
peace were to be everlastingly upon the throne of David, and
upon his kingdom ?
Nor were the facts, and articles, and spirit, of the new reli
gion less obnoxious to the Gentile world. Its great article, the
doctrine of the Cross; its humiliating assertions of the sinful
ness of the whole human race; its imperative admonitions to
• repentance; its proffers of the same free and full salvation to
the most depraved, as well as to the most virtuous — to the
slave, as well as to the master ; its enjoinment of temperance,
humility, charity, self-denial; its assertions respecting the
resurrection of the dead; and its undisguised disapprobation of
every other faith, must have excited the highest indignation of
the speculative, haughty philosopher, and the bitterest dislike
of a proud, vain, profligate people.
Let it be remembered also, that the missionaries of the
Gospel in the first century had not merely to encounter the
prejudices of private persons. A learned, wealthy, numerous,
interested, active priesthood were opposed to them ; the minis
ters of a religion which was interwoven with the very consti-

16
tution of the state, and could command its best resources, — a
religion every way calculated to awe the multitude and to
engage their approbation. Its mysterious oracles, its sacred
retreats, its noble fanes, excited their superstitious reverence ;
its joyous festivals gratified abundantly their love of public
shows; and its vague morality granted unrestrained indulgence
to their grossest passions. Indeed, some of the most solemn
festivals of Polytheism were scenes of tumultuous revelry and
shameless pollution; where the people feasted oft the sacrifices
which had been offered to their deities, and afterwards, in
brutal debauchery and unrestrained licentiousness, celebrated
the rites of the God of wine, and of the Goddess of desire.
" This religion also was associated with whatever was venerable,
or sacred, or renowned, in the annals of the empire. Under
its auspices, the earlier Romans had attained to their severe
virtue and exalted courage; their matrons had learned to prefer
death to dishonour; their senators had practised an austere
philosophy ; freedom and the arts had been nurtured and matured
in the Grecian states ; the poets and orators of the Augustan
age had won immortal fame; the Caesars had subdued every
people, from the Atlantic Ocean to the river Euphrates, from
the streams of the Rhine and Danube to the deserts of Arabia
and Africa ; and the petty town founded on the banks of the
Tiber, by a Trojan fugitive or a shepherd's son, had become
the capital of the world.
Such was the array of prejudice, and pride, and learning,.
and depravity, and power, which the early missionaries of
Christianity encountered and overcame; those same poor,
mean, illiterate, friendless men, before spoken of as the authors
of the Gosples and Epistles.*
And in order that we may form some idea of the nature and
extent of their achievement, imagine that ten or twelve com
mon peasants, or mechanics, in any nation you choose, were to
take it into their heads that some obscure man, who had died
by the hands of the executioner, was the Son of God  that he
had arisen from the dead — and that they were endowed with
* Paul and probably Luke are the only Apostles to whom the epithet illiterate
will not apply.

17
miraculous powers, for the purpose of persuading the whole
world to trust in him as their Saviour. Yet, if Jesus Christ
was not from God ; if he did not rise from the dead ; if his dis
ciples were not endowed with the gift of tongues; if they did
not miraculously cast out diseases, — they were no wiser, nor
better, than these peasants and mechanics, not more fitted to
escape the contempt or the indignant vengeance of all men.
And yet they changed the religion of the world. This is a
fact — a fact which has no parallel in history. There never
has been an instance in which effects so immense haye been
produced by means so inadequate.*
Now there is an explanation of the two facts I have illus
trated, which is evidently a most sufficient one. Those men
who preached the Gospel with such wonderful success in the
first century, were aided by God, and by him endowed with
the gift of tongues and with power to work miracles. He who
rejects this explanation, must encounter much greater difficul
ties than he who receives it. He must believe that six or seven
Jews, most of them quite illiterate, have produced a book ex
hibiting views of the character and providence of God, and of
the destinies of the human being, more sublime and just than
can be discovered in any other writings — a volume comprising
a code of morals so pure, so exalted, so refined, and withal so
rational, that it is incredible it could have been framed by im
postors or enthusiasts — and which, if it be not authentic, is
written with a subtilty and profoundness of art altogether
matchless, and which has baffled the severest scrutiny. He
must believe that, although in every other period of their his
tory, neither kindness, nor severity, nor the persuasion of ac
complished advocates, has been effectual to induce half-a-dozen
Jews in a century to embrace the Christian faith, — and although
no other mode of religion has ever vanquished the scepticism
of one philosopher, — and although philosophy has never abo
lished idolatry in a single village, the rude sermons of these
same illiterate men, and their equally illiterate contemporaries,
* No one will contend, I imagine, that Mahometanism is really a parallel
case. C

18
prevailed over the prejudices of the synagogue, and the learn
ing and pride of the academy, and the swords of thirty legions,
and the cruel malice of a powerful priesthood, and the pagan
ism of fifty millions of people. * He must believe that wicked
or visionary men have invented a religion which has filled the
hearts of thousands with peace, and with a delight the most
exquisite and holy that the human soul can experience; which
has consoled human beings amidst insult, and oppression, and
poverty, and sickness ; which has nerved the timid and weak
to confront death with fortitude ; cheered the dungeon's
gloom ; soothed the agonies of the rack, and the more dreadful
agonies of remorse and despair.
It appears to me, further, that if you abide faithful to right
reason, you will not only admit the correctness of the proposi
tion, that he who gives up Christianity encounters much greater
difficulties than he who receives it, but also the truth of the
corollary of that proposition — namely, that Christianity is of
divine origin. This conclusion is necessary, not merely because
wisdom dictates that on every moral question we ought to
embrace that opinion which is encumbered with fewest diffi
culties, and recommended by a preponderating weight of evi
dence, but because it is essential that some explanation be given
of the facts which have occupied our attention ; and because
no rational explanation can be given of those facts, except that
which ascribes them to Divine interposition.
If it be an axiom of a sound philosophy, that we need not
seek for a more powerful cause than that which is sufficient to
produce any given effect, it is equally an axiom of the same
philosophy, that every effect must have an adequate cause.
And on the propriety of this axiom, do I call on the unbeliever
to account for the contents of the Christian books, and for the
early success, of Christianity. And I appeal to his candour
and judgment, when I demand whether he or any other man
has accounted for these facts by mere human causes? Has
Celsus, or Porphyry, or Hume, or Gibbon, done this? The
* The population of the Roman Empire during the age of the Antonines was
most probably about 100,000,000.

19
last-mentioned writer has laboured to account for one of
these two facts. He mustered to the effort his accom
plished scholarship; his varied and extensive knowledge; his
majestic diction, whose native strength sustains with graceful
ease a burden of ornament that would overwhelm a weaker
style; his profoundness and discrimination of thought, which
few men have equalled, and which perhaps Aristotle and
Hume alone have surpassed ; and which have solved some of
the hardest problems of history ; which have dived into the
abysses of human prejudices and human passions, and dis
cerned the secret causes of the prosperity and decay of nations,
and the private and complicated motives of statesmen and of
princes. Yet this man, mighty in learning, mighty in intellec
tual power, mighty in malice against Christianity— 'has alto
gether failed in shewing how that religion might have originated
in human invention, and have become popular by mere human
agency. The eloquent composition, the ingeniousness of the disquisi
tions, the artful insinuations scattered throughout the text and
the notes of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the " His-*
tory of the Roman Empire," render those chapters formidable
to the unlearned, and to all whose mental habits have not qua
lified them to scrutinize the correctness of principles — apart
from the gorgeous language in which they may be clothed —
or to discern between plausible and correct reasoning. But no
person, I think, will be greatly perplexed with these chapters
who has been trained to habits of discriminative thought.
The very facts by which Gibbon has proposed to account for
the prevalence of the Christian religion in the first and second
centuries, do really themselves require as much to be accounted
for as does the event which they are brought forward tp
explain. Will it be said, that although the two facts we have adduced
have no parallel in history, and although no very definite or
satisfactory causes of them can be pointed out, yet still it is a
most unwarranted conclusion, that the authors of the Christian
books were inspired, or that they and their contemporaries
wrought miracles ; that this is but one supposition out of many
c 2

20
which may be made With equal certainty; that many different
circumstances, which are unknown to us, may have pror
duced the effects in question ; that it is much more rational to
ascribe them to untaught genius, to fanaticism, to the wayward
ness of human passions and conduct, than to divine interpo
sition ?
This reasoning altogether overlooks that maxim of a sound
philosophy, that every effect must have an adequate cause.
Genius, fanaticism, the waywardness of human passions and
conduct, have never produced effects which even resemble
those we are considering, and they are evidently insufficient to
produce such effects.
There is yet another way in which the force of our argu
ment may be put aside. A man may admit the truth of the
facts, but, instead of tracing them to the only cause adequate to
their production, he, satisfies himself with expatiating on their
marvellous and inexplicable character. "Jesus Christ must
have been an astonishingly wise and virtuous man; his ethics
and theology are incomparably superior to those of any other
moralist; the history of his religion, too, abounds in mysterious
and unaccountable circumstances." In such reflections as
these, the impression made on the mind by the facts is evapo
rated. In this way Rousseau and Byron thought about Christianity.
The one was the most depraved and the meanest of men, who
trampled on the laws of the Gospel ; the other appears to have
cherished but little of the faith and hope whicbjare in Christ
Jesus. Yet both of them had too much fairness of intellect, and
too great susceptibility of impression from whatever is grand or1
lovely, not to admire the character ofthe Saviour ahd the doc
trines of his religion. Hence they have both pronounced eulo
gies upon them. Now, however we may approve the ingenuous
commendations which these authors passed on Christianity,
we cannot but censure their conduct as irrational, inasmuch as
they neglected to seek ;for an adequate cause of those remark
able facts and exalted-principles which obtained their reverence.
And it is well to remember, that if Jesus Christ was not ap
proved of God by signs and wonders, whatever be the abstract

21
wisdom and purity of the religion he taught, he was an im
pious impostor or a wild fanatic, for he assumed the authority
of the Deity •, and his disciples were miserable deceivers, or
absurd enthusiasts. They proclaimed that their master had
arisen from the dead, whilst he was rotting in the tomb ; they
affirmed that they were commissioned by God, when they were
moved only by a heated imagination, or a lying intention to
deceive ; they submitted to scourgings, and stonings, and im
prisonments, and death, from mere madness or obstinacy.
Do you not observe, my hearers, how every successive!
survey we take of our argument exhibits the necessity of as
cribing the Christian religion to Almighty God as its efficient
author ? '
. Will you say that if the Gospel had been of heavenly origin,
it would have been furnished with evidence so overpowering
as to have forced conviction on every mind ?
, It is true Almighty God could have ordained and endowed
Apostles of the Gospel, in every age, -with supernatural attri
butes, similar to those which in times past he gave to the disci
ples of Jesus ; he could have taught them to awaken the harp of
prophecy to celestial strains; he could have imbued their very
-garments and shadows with a healing virtue, like that which
went forth from the garments and shadows of Peter and Paul ;
he could unloose the tongue of every missionary to utter the
(language of the people to whom he goes ; and the same super
natural voice that proclaimed the divine mission of the beloved
Son, might,. from the clouds of heaven, speak forth the Gospel
to every successive generation.
But the all-wise God has not seen fit to appoint these things.
And certainly if he had, he would have departed from his usual
method of procedure. The Deist, who rejects revelation, is
left to reason out his opinions respecting the being and attri
butes of God, from data furnished by the work of nature and
the course of events ; nor are the perplexities connected with
his creed few or trifling. Our heavenly Father would have us
humble, upright, and confiding, before him. And it requires
no great sagacity to perceive how the 'very difficulties which in
infinite wisdom and goodness he has permitted to attend the

22
evidences of his Gospel, are calculated to call these qualities
into exercise. And the eternal God does assuredly speak, by
his Spirit, in most persuasive accents, to the heart and to the
intellect of every man who, in humility, and integrity, and
prayer, seeks to know the truth. And although he may have
granted to the people who beheld the miracles of his Son, a
more dazzling external proof of his Gospel than they can have,
who look back on those mighty works through the lengthened
and obscure vista of eighteen hundred years, — yet in the num
ber, and variety, and disinterestedness, and consistency, of the
testimonies by which we are assured that these miracles were
wrought; in the minute fulfilment of the prophecy which
Christ delivered respecting the destruction of Jerusalem ; in
the exalted moral principles of the Gospel, in the adaptation of
its economy of grace and salvation to the circumstances of
man ; in its early success ; and in its actual power over the
hearts, and consciences, and habits, of human beings; — he has
given us an accumulation of evidence, fully adequate, we think,
to justify an humble yet cheering faith.
I have addressed you, my hearers, throughout this argument,
as men who are deeply sensible of the perplexities and dis
tress which must assail every thoughtful mind that rejects
Christianity. But perhaps you are the eulogists of natural re
ligion ; perhaps you contend that the great principles of the
being and attributes of God, of a providence, and a future state,
are clearly taught by reason. Yet the knowledge of God, and
ofthe nature and destinies ofthe human soul, which mere ob
servation and reflection can furnish, is contracted and imper
fect. The Theist, who ascribes to the Deity the attributes of
wisdom and goodness, and almightiness. must be perplexed
with the vice and misery which abound in the world. And
although he may possibly reason himself into the conviction
that death, which decomposes the organization of his body,
has no power to destroy the immaterial substance which feels
and thinks, yet he cannot be sure that consciousness will con
tinue : sleep suspends consciousness— death may destroy it-
He may hope that after the mysterious event, death, the soul, no
longer impeded by the body, will expatiate over the wide

23
creation of the Almighty, and be filled with all that exalted
happiness which it is supposed knowledge can bestow ; or that
rt will repose amidst the bowers of an eternal paradise, whose
enjoyments are refined and exquisite, and where satiety is
unknown. But concerning these hopes, reason unequivocally
pronounces that they are the suggestions of fancy, rather than
of sober thought*
Boast not, my hearers, of the discoveries of reason — trust
not in the supports of philosophy. The former have never
given any man an assurance that a state of existence more
happy and more durable than the present is reserved for
him, and the latter have never yet bound up one broken heart.
They will fail you in all times of your distress — in the wretch
edness of poverty — in the pain, and faintness, and dejection of
sickness — and in the terrors of death, they will fail you.
I know there is a stern, gloomy resolution, in which a
sceptic or an Atheist, of great natural firmness, may wrap his
soul ; a proud complacency, which a lofty mind may feel in the
consciousness of its own magnanimity, that can spurn the con
solations of hope itself, and calmly contemplate annihilation.
But even this dark sublimity, this gloomy serenity of the
haughty spirit, will give way before the meanest vexations of
life, and in serious affliction will abandon the heart to perturba
tion, to a corroding melancholy — and, it may be, to despair.
Be assured, my hearers, that the mind of every sceptic has
within it all the ingredients of misery. Long intervals of
thoughtlessness, the occupations of life, the excitements of
pleasure, may shed over his existence a deceitful calm, which
may conceal from his fellow-creatures, and even from himself,
the discontented reason — the latent perplexities and fears — the
dissatisfied affections, cut off from their, appropriate exercise
in the love of God, and in the anticipations of immortality.
These only require excitement to overwhelm the heart with
confusion and dismay. The volcanic mountain may he clothed

* The author is not here expressing his own opinion on the nature of the sen
tient thinking principle. He is inclined to the view which regards man as an
uncon.pounded being.

24
in verdure; the vine and the olive may flourish on it; the flocks-
may sport there; and nature, in her serenest aspect, may repose
amidst its fruitfulness and tranquillity ; but within are the ele
ments of ruin, the smouldering fire, and the boiling lava, which
in a moment may burst forth, and sweep to annihilation all
this fertility and loveliness.
If Christianity be true, then we have an antidoteto all the
sorrows and vanities of life; the ways of Providence, if they
are not explained, are justified; holiness of heart and life is
enjoined on man by sanctions the most awfully impressive; and
visions of eternal felicity are revealed to us, as soul-entrancing
as any which poetry has imagined in her moods of loftiest in
spiration, and far more pure. If Christianity be false, all here
is inexplicable mystery, and the future impenetrable gloom.
I. know that the sceptic is a man, that he has a conscience,
and the charities of our common nature ; that he may be a
most upright and tender-hearted man; but it is still true, that
his principles lead right on to misery and crime. There is one
page in the book of history which he can never read too often,
nor too attentively — I. refer to that page which records the
horrors of the French Revolution. Undoubtedly that event
itself was produced by political causes. The French people
were oppressed and insulted beyond endurance by an insolent
aristocracy, and a luxurious priesthood, and a wasteful, profli
gate court, and a weak, vicious administration. They revolted
against their oppressors ; and that revolt brought with it its
inseparable consequences, anarchy and bloodshed. But the
first tumultuous contentions of the Revolution passed away —
the people completely triumphed. In the madness of their
newly-acquired liberty, they rejected not only the wicked
dominant superstition, but with that the Gospel itself; and,
with a daring impiety, denied the attributes and being of their
Creator. The temples of religion were closed — the Goddess
of reason was adored as the only divinity. It was proclaimed
in the streets, and written on the tombs, that death is an eternal
sleep. In this wild atheism we assuredly behold the cause of
the dark atrocities, the open, shameless, brutal lust — the reck
less suicides, the savage murders, the refined barbarities, which

25
rendered France one vast amphitheatre, with half, its people
engaged in the murderous sport of dying the arena with each
other's blood, and the other half applauding with enthusiasm,
or struggling forward over the dead and dying, to join the
inhuman contest. Of the various lessons which that event
teaches to mankind, none is plainer than this — that wherever
the principles of Atheism operate without restraint, they are
subversive not only of faith and hope, but of every holy, and
every tender, and every generous affection.
Should the discussion of the morning, or should any trains of
thought which that discussion may suggest, produce or deepen
a conviction in your minds that the Christian religion is of
Divine origin, permit me to remind you of the great importance
of rightly understanding the principles of that religion. It is
highly essential that we should carefully study and well under
stand its doctrines, its precepts, its salvation. These topics will
occupy our attention in subsequent Lectures.
May Almighty God lead us all to the knowledge and obedi
ence of the truth! r

26

LECTURE II.

THE UNITY OF GOD.

Mark xii. 29:
And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is,
Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord.
John iv. 24 :
God is a Spirit.
In these and in other like passages of his conversations with
his countrymen Jesus Christ affirmed that the Divine Being is
one — the One Supreme Mind. We are sufficiently acquainted
with mind to know that its most essential attribute is oneness,
indivisibility. So necessary is Unity to mind, that it appears
to be generally admitted amongst thinking persons, that it is
not strictly philosophical to speak of the powers of the mind,
but of the states of the mind. The one individual mind per
ceives, remembers, compares, reasons, rejoices, mourns, loves,
and hates. And amidst all these various states of the mind,
with whatever rapidity they may follow each other, and how
ever different they may be from each other, we have the most
unshaken conviction that it is thesameone individual mind which
is thus affected in various ways. The Unity of mind is one of
those few, great, incontrovertible, moral truths, which rank
with the axioms of geometry. It is as impossible even to ima-

27
gine that one mind is part of another mind, or that one mind
is three minds, as it is to imagine that one circle is part of an
other circle, or that one circle is three circles. All this may
be predicated without the least fear of contradiction of our
own individual minds. With similar force, with greater force,
the reasoning will apply to the one eternal supreme Mind — the
only pure Spirit. It has, however, been asserted, that the
Unity of the Divine Being is of such a kind as to admit of
three distinct subsistences or persons in the Godhead. This
assertion appears to be flatly contradictory, utterly impossible.
Its most zealous advocates will, I imagine, admit that it is
credible only on the supposition that Jesus Christ did not use
the language — " The Lord our God is one Lord," " God is a
Spirit," in its common and obvious sense. If he has not given
some statement or intimation to this effect, his words will be
understood by all men, the illiterate and the learned, to as
sert, that the Divine Being is absolutely and strictly one.
Now, has Jesus Christ given such statement or intimation? It
is well known that he has not. rt is well known that through
out the four Gospels, there is not a hint, or the shadow of a
hint, on his part, nor the faintest surmise on the part of his
biographers, that when he quoted and enforced the first com
mandment of the Jewish law — " The Lord our God is one
Lord," he did not use the words in the common, and obvious,
and Jewish sense. I say Jewish sense. Our Lord was a Jew,
and he addressed Jews, the only people who, at that time,
held in rigid purity the faith — that God is one. This people
were divided into various sects, whose animosities were in
tense, who eagerly seized every opportunity of accusing each
other of heresy. But all these sects,.' the Pharisees and the
Sadducees, the Herodians, the Gaulonites,- and the Essenians,
were agreed in one point of faith — the Unity of God. Amidst
the changes of their earlier history, during their slavery in
Egypt and their captivity in Babylon, when absorbed in their
philosophic speculations after their restoration to Palestine,
during their ¦ cruel subjection to Antigonus and Antiochus,
when surrounded by the paganism of their Roman conquerors,
amidst the utter and final desolation of their temple aud city,

28"
and when scattered abroad amongst all nations, this people re
tained, undefiled, their faith — that God is one. And in more
modern times, the tortures of the Inquisition, the gorgeous
luxury of Eastern Idolatry, the mystical speculations of
Europe, have alike failed to intimidate or seduce these uncom
promising Theists. Now the Saviour was a Jew, he addressed
Jews, he quoted to them and enforced the first great precept
of the Jewish law — "The Lord our God rs one Lord," he
never gave the slightest intimation that he used these words
in any unusual sense; it is therefore absolutely incredible that
he did not employ them in the common, obvious, Jewish
sense, which sense confined them to the expression of the
most absolute, severe oneness of the Divine Being.
When the. Trinitarian hears those passages of the New Tes
tament Scripture quoted, which assert the Unity of God as
condemnatory of his opinions, he invariably retorts that this is
po appropriate argument against him, for he also believes in
the truth taught in those passages, he also believes in the
Unity of God. But, surely, when he asserts that Unity to
consist of three distinct subsistences or persons, he not only
asserts an impossibility, a contradiction, but he overlooks al
together the important facts, that the Saviour, who affirmed
that " The Lord our God is one Lord," was a Jew, addressed
himself to Jews, quoted the first great command of the Jewish
law, never gave the slightest intimation that he used these
words in any sense, but the common, and obvious, and Jewish
sense, which sense confined them to the expression of the
most absolute, severe oneness of the Divine Being.
I do consider that these expressions of the Saviour at once
set aside every argument of the Trinitarian, and prove his opi
nions to be unscriptural ; and that the advocate of the pure,
simple Unity of God, may, without presumption, or petulance,
or injustice, refuse to examine any of the Trinitarian reason
ings. Whatever be the meaning of other texts of Scripture,
they cannot, by possibility, teach a Trinity without establish
ing a positive contradiction in the New Testament Scriptures-
There is no way of avoiding this conclusion. Unbelievers,
under the impression that the New Testament Scriptures do

29
teach a Trinity as well as the Unity of God, have pressed it as
one of their strongest objections against the divine origin ofthe
Christian religion.4 But I firmly believe that this doctrine is
not taught either directly or indirectly, either by positive state
ment or by necessary inference, in any part of genuine Scrip
ture. I can hardly hope that the Christian mind, whicli is not
convinced by the plain affirmation of our Lord, will be per
suaded by any other considerations. I know how very hard it
is to excite the mind even to the examination of opinions
which, in early life, have been wrought into our every associa
tion of piety, and virtue, and happiness, which are sanctioned
by the authority of ages, and, in many cases, are -the sacred
bequests ofthe beloved dead; yet in the faint hope that I may
win the ear and the judgment of some few candid Trinita
rians, and in the stronger hope that I may remove a stumbling-
stone out of the unbeliever's path, I shall endeavour to shew
that the New Testament Scriptures teach no doctrine which
is at variance with the great truth — " The Lord our God is
one Lord," — "God is a Spirit."
Before we proceed, let us inquire what this doctrine of the
Trinity is, which it is affirmed the Saviour and his Apostles
taught. If we look into the works of Trinitarians for a reply
to this question, we shall receive a variety of explanations con
tradictory of each other, or so vague, that we shall be utterly
at a loss to affix any distinct ideas to them. If we examine
the ancient opinions on this subject, prior to the Council of
Nice, in the fourth century, we find that they were very unlike
the modern notions of it. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement
of Alexandria, Tertullian, have no where in their writings, or
the fragments of their writings, which have come down to us,
(given any definitions of the Trinity,. which correspond to the
modern views of it; whilst their works abound with expres
sions and paragraphs, which are utterly inconsistent with such
views, and contain, moreover, several passages wnich prove
that these Fathers were the speculative, philosophising divines
of their day, whose mystical notions were by no means ap
proved by the great body of the Christians. Obscure, and
fanciful, and absurd, ahd utterly unworthy of credit, as all

30
these writers are, the substance of their testimony, such as it
is, is greatly unfavourable to the modern doctrine of the Tri
nity.* At the Council of Nice, the opinion of Athanasius,
* Many of the primitive writers have frankly confessed that the Son owed his
being to the will of the Father. See Clarke's Scripture Trinity, pp. 280 — 287. On
the other hand, Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what they
are afraid to deny. To arraign the faith of the Ante-Nicene fathers, was the ob
ject, or at least has been the effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the
Trinity (Dgm. Theolog. Tom. II) ; nor has the deep impression been erased by the
learned defence of Bishop Bull. (Gibbon's Rome, Vol. III. p. 15, notes, 1823.)
I will not refer here to Socinus, Priestley, Blanco White. " When, however, we
find it expressly stated, that it was Christ who appeared to Moses, and described
himself as the necessarily existing iyu _./*. - ity, we must conceive Justin to have
maintained the perfect divinity of Christ, and, consequently, his co-eternity with
the Father." (Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Justin Martyr, by
John, Bishop of Lincoln, 1829, p. 59.) " The distinct personality of the Holy
Spirit is also incidentally asserted." (Ibid. p. 69.) " But although, in the pas
sages above quoted, a distinct personality is ascribed to the Holy Ghost, we find
others in which the Spirit and the Aoyos seem to be confounded." (Ibid. p. 70.)
"We cannot doubt that he maintained a real Trinity; whether he would have
explained it precisely according to the Athanasian scheme is not equally clear ;
but I have observed nothing in the Apologies, or in the Dialogue with Trypho,
which appears to me to justify a positive assertion to the contrary." (Ibid. p. 72.)
The real Trinity of Justin seems to be expressed in his first Apology. " We
bless the Creator of all things, through 'his Son Jesus Christ, and through the
Holy Spirit." (Ibid. p. 88.) There is little doubt that Justin believed in Tran-
substantiation. The Bishop says consubstantiation. (Ibid. p. 93.) I refer also
to the Clement ofthe Bishop of Lincoln, pp. 6, 17 — 25, 53, 231, 283. The Eccle
siastical History of the second and third centuries, illustrated from the writii_gs
of Tertullian; by John, Bishop of Bristol, 1826, from pp. 528 — 565. Dr. Kaye
labours to prove that the opinions of Tertullian are conformable to the doctrines
of his church ; but he is compelled to admit, that " expressions sometimes fall
from Tertullian which seem, at first sight, to imply that the distinction" (of per
sons in the Trinity) " only subsists for the purpose of carrying on the Divine ad
ministration under the Gospel." (P. 533.) " He contends, also, that Father and
Son are correlative terms, one of which implies the existence of the other." (P.
539.) " But though we think that Tertullian's opinions on these points coincide
in the main with the doctrines of our church, we are far from meaning to assert,
that expressions may not occasionally be found which are capable of a different
interpretation, and which were carefully avoided by the orthodox writers of later
times, when the controversies respecting the Trinity had introduced greater pre
cision of language." (P. 555.) " In speaking also of the Holy Ghost, Tertullian
occasionally uses terms of a very ambiguous and equivocal character." (P. 560.)
It is highly probable that Tertullian held Transubstantiation. (See Preface,
p. 10, and p. 454, of text, ibid.) I refer also at large to Dr. Burton's Bampton
Lectures for 1829. The speculations of the earlier fathers, " till after the time of

31
that the divinity of the Son is consubstantial.with that of the
Father, prevailed ; but from that period down to the fourth
century, a fierce and perpetual contest was carried on by Tri
nitarians amongst themselves, and with the Arians, respecting
the real nature of their opinions, and the proper mode of ex
pressing them. So cruel was this spiritual warfare, that the
observation of a Pagan annalist who witnessed it is confirmed
by the lamentation of a bishop who had mingled in the strife.
The one affirms, that " the enmity of the Christians towards
each other surpassed the fury of savage beasts ;" the other
pathetically complains, that " the kingdom of heaven was con
verted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal
tempest, and of hell itself:"* and the contest continued to
rage with more or less violence until the fourth general Lateran
Council, held in the depth of the dark ages, when the doctrine
of the Trinity was defined to be a trinity of persons, haying
one unique essence. The same authority confirmed the doc
trine of Transubstantiation, and shortly afterwards lit up the
fires of the Inquisition,
If we examine the works of more modern Trinitarians, we
meet with similar conflicting .explanations of their doctrine.
Bishop Bull, in his elaborate defence of the Nicene Creed, has
in one section of that work so maintained the supremacy of the
Father, that the Son and Spirit seem to become subordinate
and dependent beings, and consequently the Athanasian Trinity
disappears. He indeed labours to obviate this conclusion ; but
many Trinitarians have denounced this portion of his work as
heretical, and few Trinitarians, I imagine, would choose to
adopt his language. Some eminent Trinitarians have expressed
distinctly their belief in three equal, underived, distinct, divine
Origen, were obviously considered by them more as a matter of philosophy than
of faith. There is sufficient evidence, that before and during his time, these spe
culations took little hold on the minds of common Christians." " The great body
of those who are considered as believers," says Origen, "knowing nothing but
Jesus Christ, and him crucified, thinking that the Logos made flesh, is the whole
ofthe Logos, are acquainted with Christ only according to the flesh." (Origen.
Comment, in Joannem. Op. IV. 53; Norton's Statement of Reasons, p. 288.)
* Gibbon, Vol. III. p. 72.

32
minds. Dr. Sherlock's sentiments are well known. "To say,"
he observes, "that there are three divine persons, and not three
distinct infinite minds, is both heresy and nonsense." "The
distinction of persons cannot be more truly and aptly repre
sented than by the distinction between three men ; for Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, are as really distinct persons as Peter,
James and John."* He endeavoured to explain the Unity of
the Deity as consisting in the perfect harmony of will and ad
ministration which exists between the three divine persons.
So John Howe seemed inclined to think that the three divine
persons were " three distinct, individual, necessarily existing,
spiritual beings, constituting the most delicious society." f
Others, look upon the Deity as sustaining in the economy of
human salvation three different characters or offices. These,
in truth, maintain onlya trinity of names. They are Unitarians
¦who choose to! make a most unwarrantable use of language.
The Trinitarians of our time adopt none of these hypotheses;
they distinctly renounce them all. They profess not, indeed,
to explain their opinions. They acknowledge that they them'
selves do not understand them. They consider them as sacred
mysteries which are utterly beyond human comprehension.
What, then, do they affirm ? They say, we read in the Scrip
tures that God is'one, and we believe that truth. We under
stand also from the Scriptures that Jesus Christ is God, and
that the Holy Spirit is God, and we believe those truths also.
Yet we do not think that there are three Gods, but that God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, are in a
manner altogether beyond our comprehension, but one God.
We think it wrong to invent any hypothesis on the subject^
since we find none in the Scriptures. We can give to our own
minds no explanation of this holy mystery, so of course can
offer, none to the minds of others. We receive and teach the
simple facts as we find them in scripture. The simple facts!
What are these simple facts ? First, that the Scriptures teach
that God is one. Granted. Second, that they teach that Jesus
* Sherlock's Vindication, pp. 66, 105. 1690.
t John Howe's Calm Discourse of the Trinity, &c.

33
Q-M-ist js Godv Denied^— but for the present granted. Third,
that they- teach: tliat the Holy. Spirit is God. Denied— but for
the present granted, too. ;/Wtell,.'t,hfese are.all: the facts. That
God the Father*, arid; God, the? Son', and God) the Holy Ghost, are
not three Gods, 'but one God, is no scripture fact. This is a
mere assertion— a poor inference of the Trinitarian himself. A
logical, necessary inference? By no means. The only logical,
necessary inference from these simple facts is, that the Christian
Scriptures teach three Gods, and yet that they teach but one
God, — a gross absurdity and a direct contradiction.
* We have thus far reasoned on the supposition, admitted
only for a moment, that the Scriptures assert that Jesus Christ
is God, and that the Holy Ghost is God. The former of these
two! affirmations is the one generally urged by Trinitarians,
and to that we shall therefore now confine our ^attention. I
repeat here, that if this statement were proved to be in the
Scriptures, it would convict them of teaching more Gods than
one, and yet of teaching that there is but one God, — a gross
•absurdity and a direct contradiction. But they do not teach
either the absutrdityor the contradiction. They do not teach
that "Jesus Christ is God, ¦,--,.
t -Becausei They teach that he was a man.
My hearers are no doubt so well acquainted with the nume-
merous texts .of Scripture in which Jesus Christ is called a
man, that. I need: riot' quote thiem.' i One; passage only I refer:tb,:
in orders that there rmay be.no link deficient in Wr-cbain 'of
proofs— ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth,
a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and
signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves
also know : Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain : Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the
painsof death, because it was not possible he should be holdenofit.f
* It is really not wise in Unitarian advocates to follow their opponents into
their own obscure regions. But if any one wishes to see the question of Myste-
ries)well. treated, let him examine Blanco White's Observations on Heresy and
Orthodoxy, pp. 95—98.
t Acts ii. 22-7=24-.- D

34.
Now, in reference to this text and this part of our subject, it is
necessary that we adopt a series of observations similar to those
we made on the Unity of God. This text and the numerous
parallel texts would evidently be understood by all men, the illi
terate and the learned alike, to teach that JesusChrist was a man,
a simple human being, a mere man in his nature, although a man
chosen by God and endowed with dignity and authority and
power beyond all other men. It is affirmed, however, that " the
person of Jesus Christ, the Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour of
mankind, comprises the unique and mysterious union of huma
nity and deity — the human nature with all its proper qualities,
^nd the Divine nature with all its essential perfections!"*
This assertion appears to be flatly contradictory, utterly im
possible. Its most zealous advocates will, I imagine, admit
that it is credible only on the supposition that the Apostle
. Peter did not use the language, " Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God," in its common and obvious sense. If he has
not given some statement or intimation to this effect, his words
will be understood by all who consider them to assert that
Jesus of Nazareth was absolutely and simply a man. Now has
the Apostle given any such statement or intimation? It is
well known that he has not. It is well known that there is no
such statement or intimation in any part of Scripture, and
more, in connexion with this quotation from the Acts, we have
a variety of circumstances all tending to confirm us in the con
viction that the Apostle used the words "Jesus of Nazareth, a
man approved of God," in their common and obvious sense^
The expression occurred in a sermon preached a little
time after Peter with the other apostles had seen Jesus taken
up into heaven — a sermon, preached on the day »f Pentecost,
when he with the rest of the apostles was filled with the Holy
Ghost — a sermon, the avowed object of which was to explain
to the assembled Jews the character and mission of the Saviour
— a sermon which asserts all the power and authority of Jesus
to have been derived directly from God and clearly affirms him
to have been but a chdsen instrument in the hand of God,
* Dr. P. Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, Vol. II. p. 372, 1st ed.

35
who wrought the miracles and Wonders and signs by him, and
who also raised him from the dead. I cannot imagine any
series of expressions, any concatenation of circumstances, that ,
could prove" more distinctly that Jesus Christ is not God, that
Jesns Christ was" a man 'approved of God.
When the Trinitarian hears those passages, of the New Tes
tament Scriptures quoted which assert that Jesus Christ was a
man as condemnatory of his opinions, he invariably retorts
that this is no appropriate argument against him, for he too
believes in the truth taught fri these passages, he believes that
Jesus Was' a niar.. Dr. Smith, in the Introduction of his work
on the Messiah, observes, " That Jesus Christ was arid is truly
arid properly a man, is maintained by the orthodox as strenu
ously as by the Unitarians." But surely, When he afterwards
asserts that Jesus Christ was alsb Godi he not only asserts a
contradiction, an impossibility, a fearful irripiety, but he over-
lboks altogether the important facts that the Apostle Peter de
clared Jesus of Nazareth to be a man — not only without the
slightest intimatiori that he employed these words in any sense
but the Common and obvious sense — but in connexion with a
series of expressions and a concatenation of circumstances that
forbid any thing but the cbrnmdn and obvious sense to be at
tached to them.
I do consider that this sermon of Peter and the parallel pas
sages to it at once set aside every argument of the Trinitarian
and prove his opiniohs to be ilnscriptural, and that the advocate'
of the pure humanity of the Saviour may, without presumption
or petulance or injustice, refuse to examine any of ttie Trini
tarian reasonings. Whatever be the meaning of other texts of
Scripture, they cannot by possibility teach that Jesus of Naza
reth is God, without establishing a positive contradiction in
the New Testament Scriptures. There is no way of avoiding
this alternative. Before, however, leaving this part of . oiir
subject, let us hear what one of the most wary of Trini
tarians, whom we have already quoted, and whose opinion
is greatly respected, really does affirm. " We readily avow
that we pretend not to know in wb/at manner the divine and
human natures, which we attribute to the Messiah, are united
d -2

36
in his sacred person. We believe that in this respect, espe
cially, ' his name is wonderful/ and that ' no one knoweth the
Son, except the Father.' The Scriptures appear to us on the
one hand, to teach the existence of such a union as produces a
personal oneness ; and on the other, to exclude the notion of
transmutation or confusion of the. essential perfections of either
nature with respect to the other." " The question of such a
union is a question of fact ; and its proper, its only evidence, is
DivineRevelation."* Again we ask, what is this question of fact?
The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ was a man. Granted.
The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is God. Denied; but, for
the present, granted. Well, these are all the facts. That
Jesus Christ is both God and Man, God and Man mysteriously
united — " that the person of Jesus the Christ, the Lord, Re
deemer, and Saviour of Mankind, comprises the unique and
mysterious union of humanity and deity ; the human nature
with all its proper qualities, the divine nature with all its
essential perfections," — is no scripture fact. This is a mere
assertion, a poor inference of the Trinitarian himself. A
logical, necessary inference? By no means. The only logical,
necessary inference from these facts is, that the Christian Scrip
tures teach that Jesus Christ is Man, and yet that they teach
also that Jesus Christ is God — a direct contradiction and an
absurd and fearful impiety. But they do not teach either
the contradiction or the impiety. They do not teach that
Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved of God, was God. For,
We have a number of circumstances in the conduct and
history of Christ utterly irreconcileable with the idea that he
was God. From these I select the Saviour's remonstrance
with the Jews who accused him of blasphemy — his reproof to
the young man who offered him homage — his declaration of
ignorance respecting the day of judgment — his agony in the
garden and on the cross — and his address to Mary after his
resurrection. The whole life of Jesus Christ — his infancy, his mature age,
his sympathies, his wants, his sufferings, his death, — all prove
to us that he was a man — a man chosen and qualified by God
• Dr. Smith's Testimony, Vol. II. p. 372.

37
to sustain the most exalted character and execute the most
important mission — yet in his nature but a man. And whilsf
his whole history proves this, thecircumstances thus selected
from that history establish in a peculiarly forcible manner the
negative proposition that he was not God.
His remonstrance with the Jews is recorded in the tenth
chapter of John. He had announced hirhself as the Messiah,
the Son of God, and had asserted, " I and my Father are one."
The Jews in consequence accused him of making himself God,
and took up stones to stone him for blasphemy. Our Lord
remonstrates with them. He refers them to their own scrip
tures, which apply the title God to rulers and prophets, and
other distinguished men. And he reasons, " If they be called
Gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture
cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanc
tified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because he
said, I am the Son of God ?" It appears to me impossible to
attach any other meaning to this explanation of the Saviour than
this — that whatever be the nature of his character and the extent
of his authority as the Christ, the Anointed, the Son of God,
he founded his claim to this august character not on his own
inherent divinity, but on the appointment and sanctification
and mission he received from his Father, the only living and
true God. That this interpretation of our Lord's explanation
is correct, is strongly confirmed by the remarkable language
at the close of the tenth chapter: "And many resorted unto
him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John
spake of this man were true." Certainly this expression is
riot the historian's own, but he records it as that of the people
who resorted to Jesus, and believed on him beyond Jordan ;
and is it credible that he would have passed by with appareiifc ,
approbation an opinion which reduced the Lord Jesus Christ
to a mere human being, if, in the discussion between his Master
arid the Jews which he had just before recorded, that Master
had asserted himself to be the living God of heaven and of
earth ?
His reproof of the young man who offered him homage is
recorded in Mark x. 17 : " And when he ivas gone forth into the

38
way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and ashed him,
Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life 9
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? there is
none good but one, that is, God." The utmost efforts of Trini
tarian ingenuity have been exerted to reconcile this text with
their hypothesis. The natural, plain meaning of the passage
rernains unaltered and unalterable. The amiable but un
decided youth seenis to have been sincerely impressed with
our Lord's dignity and mission, and his inquiry respectipg the
means of obtaining eternal life appears to have been earnest.
Our Lord's sympathies towards him were excited, he loved
him, and he promptly and kindly replied to his important in
quiry; but at the same time he admonished the youth that in
approaching him with demonstration^ of such profound re
spect, he had exceeded the bounds of propriety, and had ex
pressed towards himself a reverence which he ought to feel
and manifest towards God alone, the only really good Being.
It is impossible the Saviour could have spoken thus, if he had
been conscious that he was himself God.
The passage in which the Saviour disclaims a knowledge of
the Day of Judgment is in Mark xiii. 32: "But of that day
and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Jesus Christ here dis
claims one attribute essential to the Deity — Omniscience.
There was one day and one hour he knew not. Could he
be God to whom every atom in the universe, every thought
of every created being, every point in the eternity past or in
the eternity future was not perfectly and intimately known?
The minutest degree of ignorance on any subject, how
ever trivial, disproves beyond a doubt the ominiscience of him
who discovers it; the possession, on the contrary, of stores of
knowledge inconceivable by any human imagination, fathom
less by any human mind, boundless, so far as such a mind can
perceive, would not be in itself sufficient to establish the God
head of the possessor. We may pronounce with certainty, that
he is not God who is ignorant of any thing ; but of him who,
to our comprehension, should appear to know all things, we
could not, therefore, pronounce that he was God. We know

39
not the extreme degree in which it is possible for the Almighty
to impart knowledge.
"They who maintain that Jesus Christ was perfect God,
must surely mean, if words have meaning, that in his mind
were concentrated all the infinite attributes, that his will could
wield all the infinite powers of Deity. But what can more
directly and clearly refute this supposition than our Saviour's
express declaration, that there were, in the eternal counsels of
the Father, a day and hour that he knew not, that were, in
fact, hidden from him ? Can we suppose for a moment, that
he who made this open declaration either regarded himself as
the Omniscient one, or wished to be so regarded." *
Our Lord's agony in the garden, and his exclamation on the
cross, are recorded by the Evangelist in brief and touching
simplicity. It is most painful to my mind to adduce these
solemn passages of Holy Scripture for any purpose save that of
kindling in my own heart and in yours, my hearers, a holy,
fervent love towards that generous, blessed Saviour, who, for
us men, and for our salvation, sustained such overwhelming
sorrows. We possess, indeed, the consoling knowledge, that
having, for the joy set before him, endured the cross and de
spised the shame, he is now at the right hand of the throne of
God. But to be compelled to set in logical array his virtuous
sufferings, is a truly painful task ; and yet the cause of truth,
the cause of that truth for the promotion of which he lived,
for the establishment of which he died a death of torture and
ignominy, calls upon me to assert that the Saviour was not
God, who, in the anticipation of his cruel death, kneeled down
in the garden of Gethsemane, and prayed, saying, Father, if
thou be willing, remove this cup from me ; nevertheless, not mi)
will, but thine be done. To whom there appeared an angel from
heaven strengthening him, and who, being in an agony, prayed
more earnestly ; and his sweat was as it were great drops of
blood falling down to the ground; who, when uailed to the
cross, uttered in the agonizing, desponding exclamation, My
* Omniscience the Attribute of the Father only : a Sermon, by Dr. Hutton,
marked by that combination of clear intellect and excellent feeling which distin
guishes the Author. ;

40
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? and who, before he
gave up the ghost, so mastered his terrible pain, that he
tenderly commended his mother to the care of his beloved
disciple, and in calm resignation resigned his spirit into the
hands of his heavenly Father. All reasoning on these events
appears to me to be utterly vain, when addressed to any .'mind
which can read the several narratives of them in the Evangelisfsj
and believe that Jesus was the eternal God, i. e. the very being
to whom in his agony he prayed, to whom he commended his
soul. The Saviour's address to Mary, after his resurrection, is re
corded in John xX. 17: Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not;
for I am not yet ascended to my Father : but go to my brethren,
and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father ;
and to my God, and your God. Here again I cannot restrain
the remark, that it seems utterly useless to reason with any mind
which believes that the Saviour, who speaks of ascending to
God, to the God of his brethren, to his God, could possibly bti
himself God. If this text could be made to bear such a mean
ing, it would change the Saviour's solemn address to Mary into
the strange truism, I, God, ascend to God myself.
The supposition, always at hand, that when the Saviour
uses expressions or performs actions apparently at utter
variance with his supposed deity, he speaks and acts in his
human nature, feeble aid as it is, will hardly serve here.
On the Trinitarian hypothesis he had, by his own inherent
divinity, triumphed over death, and was about to return to the
throne of universal dominion. By what device of ingenuity
can such a view of the risen Saviour's nature be reconciled to
the expression — I go to my Father, and your Father; to my
God, and to your God ?
And that we interpret correctly these circumstances in the
conduct and history of Christ, is evident from the fact, that it
is clear none of the effects were produced on the first disciples
which the announcement of the proper essential deity of their
Lord must have produced. The first disciples of our Saviour
did- certainly at first consider him merely as a man. At some
particular period the communication must have been made,

41
that he was not a mere man. but that he was truly God.
Through what an agony of incredulity, and doubt, and amaze
ment, and consternation, must their minds have passed, before
they could settle down into the conviction, that their fellow-
man, and fellow-townsman, whose parentage, and birth, and
infancy, and youth, were before their eyes, — was the eternal
God ! and when convinced of this truth, with what unuttera
ble astonishment, with what profound awe, with what entire
prostration of soul, would they have approached their incarnate
God! with what absorbing, overwhelming interest would the
idea of a being so awfully mysterious have filled their minds
and pervaded their every thought, and movement, and expres
sion, respecting him ! Is there any record in the Evangelists
of such natural, necessary emotions having been excited in the
minds of the Apostles ? There is not the slightest intimation,
not the faintest trace of any such. There is not one expres
sion or one circumstance throughout the four Gospels which
gives the reader of these Gospels the most distant idea that the
disciples, on any occasion, during the entire life of Christ,
thought or felt that they were conversing, dwelling, travelling,
eating, drinking, hungering, thirsting, or praying, in company
with their God. Did they dream, that he whom they all for
sook on his apprehension — who they affirm was scourged,
and spit upon, and crucified, was God? If they had, instead
of the calm, brief, yet touching narratives they have given
us of these events, we should have had the thrilling, deep,
burning, bursting utterance of their horror and indignation.
Is it within the compass of credulity that Peter, but a brief
space after he had stood by the cross on which he had seen
his Maker and God, the Maker and God of all things, agonize
and expire, (dreadful thought,) could have said to his mur
derers — Ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Naza
reth, a man approved of God among you, ye have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain ?
And afterwards, during the apostolic ministry, where is to
be found the bitter, blasting sarcasms, the clamorous, enraged
opposition of the unbelieving Jews against this doctrine of the
Deity of Jesus Christ, or where the doubts, and difficulties,

42
and scruples ofthe believing Jews respecting it? The former
were ready to ransack earth and heaven for objections to the
Gospel. The latter were so imbued with prejudice, that they
were hardly persuaded by the apostles themselves to receive
the doctrine that God had granted to the Gentiles the remis
sion of sin. Yet there is not the faintest trace of controversy
or scruple on this point. It is never enforced, never disputed,
never stated. Is it possible it could have been held by the
A postles ?
Moreover the Apostolic preaching is quite inconsistent with
the idea, that the Apostles believed Jesus Christ to be God.
We have already had occasion to quote the sermon of Peter on
the day of Pentecost. The address of Paul to the Athenians —
his exposition of his faith to his countrymen at Jerusalem — his
defence before Felix. and Agrippa, are all utterly at variance
with the idea that he believed that Jesus was God.
Without going into an analysis of these several Apostolic
expositions of the Christian religion, I appeal to any serious,
zealous Trinitarian minister, I ask him — whether his con
science would allow him to use the language, and no word
more than the language, which the Apostle Peter addressed to
the assembled Jews on the day of Pentecost — if he were called
upon to address an immense body of Jews on the character and
mission of Jesus Christ, — the very topic of Peter's discourse?
I put it to him, whether his conscience would allow him to
confine his discourse to the being, and perfection, and providence
of God, as Paul did on Mars' Hill, if he were called upon to
address a heathen audience; or whether, in speaking to such
an audience on the future judgment, he would merely say,
" Because" God " hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ;
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead"? I put it to him whether, if called
upon, as Paul was called upon, to declare his faith in a public
court of law, his conscience would allow him to affirm merely
that the distinguishing article of that faith was a belief in the
resurrection of the dead ? I put it to him whether, if sent for
in private, as Paul was sent for by a ruler of the land, to ex-

43
pound the religion of Christ, his conscience would allow him
merely to reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment
to come? I put it to him whether, on all such occasions, he
would not feel it to be his paramount duty to exhibit, in most
prominent view, the Deity of Jesus Christ; the doctrine ofthe
Trinity; the fall of man; the universal depravity of man; the
doctrine of the atonement; salvation by faith ; and the eternal
misery of all who rejected those doctrines? Now he, the modern
Trinitarian preacher, looks back on the' facts of the Christian
religion, and on the Saviour's methodof teaching the truths of
his religion, through the long vista of eighteen hundred years,
yet he feels an imperative necessity for preaching the Gospel
in a way so widely different from the way in which the Apos
tles and companions of Jesus are recorded to have preached it,
that he would tremble in his soul to confine himself, even in
his briefest addresses to his own Christian brethren, to the
topics and illustration embraced in the Apostlic sermons. — He
feels that, if he were placed in the position of the Apostles,
he would have poured out his soul in advocating his Lord's
divinity and atonement, before Jews and Greeks, and bond and
free, before magistrates and kings, before the congregated
thousands, and in the secresy of private conference. Why is
this ? Whence arises this strange difference between the Apos
tolic sermons and the sermons of Trinitarian preachers ? There
is one explanation which the elder Trinitarians very generally
adopted, although it is quite rejected by their modern brethren.
I refer to the notion, that the Apostles suppressed the great
doctrines ofthe Trinity, and the Deity of Christ, from motives of
a politic nature, and that they transmitted these through private
pral tradition. The prevalence of this notion from the first to
the fourth century confirms our reasoning, that there is a won
drous discrepancy between the Apostolic preaching and the
modern Trinitarian opinions — and, as we do not believe the
Apostles had recourse to any such disgraceful, dishonest prac
tice, it conducts to the necessary consequence, that these opi
nions are not Apostolic.
Here we close our proofs. It will be evident to all, that it is
not within the compass of my design, nor of the limits of a

44
single discourse, to examine the several texts adduced by Tri
nitarians in support of their opinions. I sincerely believe, that
for the reasons which I have given, such an examination is by
no means necessary. I recommend, however, to any serious
inquirer who has not done so, forthwith to set'abbut the inves
tigation of these texts; he will find abundant aids in a multi
tude of Trinitarian arid Unitarian works. If we take from
these texts those which are interpolated and corrupted pas
sages, and which, curiously enough, are all on the Trinitarian
side — if we correct mistranslation's— and, again, select those
which clearly relate to God the Father, and which have been
improperly applied to Christ, — the number which remains,
and on which a judicious Trinitarian would choose to rely, are
really not numerous. Most of them' are easily harmonized
with the rest of Holy Scripture and the Unitarian opinions.
A few, a very few, are of difficult interpretation ; but were
these few immensely more difficult than they really are, they
would not, they ought not, to weigh a feather in the balance
against the affirmation of Jesus — "The Lord our God is one
Lord" — or against the Scripture statement that Jesus Christ
was a man approved of God.
In reference to these few difficult texts, I have further to
observe, that in attempting their explanation, we should con
sider well the intrinsic, inevitable ambiguity of all language,
and especially of language used respecting mind, or any ofthe
phenomena of mind. We should consider, further, the addi
tional ambiguity which must have accumulated around com
positions written many centuries ago in an eastern climate, and
amongst a people accustomed to a highly figurative style of
speech and writing, and dwelling in the ' midst of another
people given to the most refined, and subtle, and vague philo
sophy, compositions written in the language off this speculative
people, who have long since passed from the face of the earth,
whose tongue is dead, and whose writings, in consequence, can
only be interpreted by us through the comparison of authors,
and the aids derived from ascertained usages and events of
these passed times. If any one object that all these circum
stances are not necessary to be regarded in the exposition of

4,5
the New Testament writings, and that, as Dr. Chalmers asserts,
the work may be done, and ought to be done, with the lexicon,
and grammar only, — we may present such an objector with
the words of Christ in Matt. xxvi. 26: And as they were eating,
Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the
disciples, and said, Take, eat ; this is my body. And he took
the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye
all of it ; for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is
shed for many for the remission of sins. What will the gram
mar and lexicon do in the explanation of this text? In truth;
there is no one principle of interpretation which the Unitarian,;
employs in exposition of the few difficult texts in question,
which the Trinitarian Protestant does not use in the explana
tion of this text. The Trinitarian has no one text, no twenty
texts combined, to support his doctrines, as this text supports
the Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. Here we
have the doctrine of the Romanist in plain Scripture language.'
This is my body — this is my blood. The Trinitarian Protestant,
however, says, the language is figurative,- and that the meaning
which the Romanist gives to it is impossible, contrary to rea^
son. The Trinitarian, in proof of the Deity of Christ, pre
sents us with a few texts of a highly imaginative character, or
of obscure import — -as he says to the Romanist, we say to him,
(and with far greater propriety,) the language is figurative, the
meaning which you give it is impossible, contrary to reason.
We are assailed immediately with the serious charge of per
verting Scripture and explaining it away, and setting up
against it our own fancies and reason. Away with such false,
silly accusations! We are under no temptation to pervert the;
Scriptures. We have no mysterious creed to maintain by their
authority. We perceive that they are pervaded by the great
truth — The Lord our God is one Lord— and the great truth,
that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour,-
was a man approved of God. What, then, although we find
Jesus saying, "land my Father are one," and did not know
that he prayed that his disciples and himself might be in like
manner one, and that, consequently, the Unity spoken of in
both cases is an unity of will and purpose ? What, although

46
we find a disciple saying to his Master, " Lord, thou knowest
all things," and were not aware that an Apostle has said
of believers generally, " Ye have one unction from the Holy
One, and ye know all things," and that, therefore, a know
ledge short of Omniscience must be intended in both
cases ? What, although we read in the New Testament
Scriptures, that God will judge the world by that man whom he
hath ordained, and had not read therein, that the Saviour had
declared, " Ye which follow me, in the regeneration, 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
that, therefore, in both these cases, God himself still retains
the office of Supreme Judge, although it may please him to
consign to Jesus Christ, or his Apostles, authority and 'power
as his delegates and ministers. What, although we had not
these explanatory circumstances to aid us in the understand
ing of the texts I have quoted, are We, from such vague
grounds as these, to set aside the overwhelming" Scripture evi
dence that God is one, and Jesus Christ a man approved of
God?' Or is that evidence to be put aside, because a disciple,
filled with surprise and reverence, when he beheld Jesus after
his resurrection, exclaimed, "My Lord and my God"? or be
cause the holy martyr, Stephen, in the ecstacy of a heavenly
vision of the Son of Man at the right hand of God — commends
his spirit to the exalted Saviour? Or is that evidence to be
set aside, because, in the introduction of St. John's Gospel, we
meet with an obscure and difficult passage, Which, if carefully
examined, will be found quite as hard to accommodate to the
Athanasian as to the Unitarian opinions ? Or because, in the
Epistle to the Colossians, Christ is called the image of- the
invisible God, and, by the writer to the Hebrews, " the bright
ness of his glory, the express image of his person" ?
These texts are of the number of those oh which the Trini
tarian chiefly depends. May we not with propriety say of
them, that they themselves clearly prove the doctrine false
which they are adduced to substantiate? Is it possiblie that
the Apostle can affirm that God is the image of God, or that
God is the brightness of the glory of God ?

47
If it be so clear that the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be
found in the New Testament Scriptures, whence, it may be
asked, did it arise? The careful student of the philosophy of
the Apostolic times and of the succeeding century, will find
little difficulty in satisfying himself that from this philosophy
the doctrine had its origin. That philosophy was compounded
of the eastern theology, the mystic speculations of the Jewish
Cabala, and the subtle metaphysics of the Platonic and Alex
andrian schools. Its distinguishing characteristic was the
doctrine of emanations, and its genius and very soul was
mystery. The germ of the Trinity was planted by the
Docetae, who denied the humanity of Christ. It shot up
into growing life under the culture of Justin Martyr and
his contemporaries and immediate successors, men greedy as
himself of the inexplicable and the marvellous, and reprobate
to every sober simple truth. During the second and third
centuries it grew like the bramble, a luxuriant but tangled
shrub. The logicians of Nice and their successors of Ephesus
pruned it and digged about it, and behold, henceforth it over
shadowed Christendom — a spiritual Upas tree, under whose
pestilent shade sense and reason and scripture verity sicken
and die, and whose boll is heaped around with the blackened
victims of sixteen centuries. Or, to speak without a figure,
ecclesiastical history teaches us that from the time of Trypho,
the real or fictitious objector of the first century, until now, it
has furnished to thousands of honest thinking men their great
est objection to the Christian religion— that it deluged the
Roman empire for generations with contention and blood-
shedding, and that it has been in all ages of the church, since
its invention, the source of intolerance and cruel strife. And
it remains the greatest of all hindrances to the success of the
Gospel. In the inscrutable providence of God, the true reli
gion came from the east, and its worst corruptions have sprung
thence also — as from the same quarter of the heavens arises
the light which gives life to the flower, and the pestilent blast
that withers it.
Let our final thoughts dwell on the great truths affirmed by
the Saviour — The Lord our God is one Lord. God is a Spirit.

48
How simple, how grand, how holy is this truth! HoW is it
confirmed by the mute but powerful and unwavering testi
mony of all creation ! How is it responded to by every 'human.
soul ! The Almighty remains, and will probably for ever re
main, retired and, silent in the depths of his own uncreated and
infinite being. But in what part of the universe is not mani
fest the power and goodness of the Supreme Mind ? It may
please the advocate of a mysterious creed to affirm, that the
harmony of all creation will prove no more than an union of
intelligence and council and will in the court of heaven : but
although he contend this point until heart and brain are sick,
there will remain, I believe, on every mind the secret, deep con
viction, that one single, undivided Intelligence reigns over all.
The grossest or the most refined idolatry has never yet been
able to banish utterly this highest of all truths from the human
heart. The savage tribes of both continents have venerated the
Great Spirit. The deified emanations of eastern theology, in
all its varied ramifications, are but subordinate agents of one
Supreme Lord. The polytheism and philosophy of Greece
erected an altar to the Unknown God ; and even the modern
Trinitarian is strangely and most inconsistently zealous for the
Unity of the Divine Being.
But whilst other men, view this great truth through the
mists which idolatry or a false philosophy have thrown around
it, it is our happiness that it shines upon our souls in unclouded
brightness. May that brightness never be obscured by sin or
prejudice ! And it is our earnest prayer, that as the natural
light shiries on every land and on every man, so the spiritual
light of the knowledge of God. may shine into every human
heart.

49

LECTURE III.

THE WAY OF SALVATION.

Micah' vi. 8:
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the
Lord reo_uire op thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God?
Although the topic for this morning's discussion is the
doctrine of the Christian religion respecting man's salvation, I
have selected the text from the Old Testament Scriptures. I
have done so, not merely because the sentence I have quoted is
peculiarly suitable to my subject, but because the Calvinistic
opinion of the atonement is really founded on the sacrificial
rites of the Jewish law. The advocates of that opinion do, in
deed, consider that it is taught in the New Testament Scrip
tures ; and the passages of those Scriptures, on which they
rely, have undoubtedly a reference to the Jewish oblations :
but I consider that they are used merely in illustration of the
work which Jesus Christ accomplished, as the great Prophet,
and Messiah, and Saviour. And if it shall appear that the
Jewish sacrifices had no reference to the salvation of the soul,
but were mere ritual atonements for mere ritual offences, then
the very foundation of the Calvinistic opinion is removed.
It is not my purpose, however, to go very minutely into the
E

50
subject. Our former conclusion, that Jesus Christ is not God,
decides the present question. There are very few persons in
deed who disbelieve the proper Deity ofthe Saviour, and who
also maintain that he was offered as a vicarious sacrifice for
the sins of men ; and an elaborate discussion of the Calvinistic
doctrine is really not necessary. I believe that on this, and on
every important subject, the truth may be arrived at by broad
and public ways. We may conclude that we have wandered,
or that our guides are leading us astray, when we find our
selves in narrow, winding, difficult paths.
The comprehensive and noble sentence which I have read
as my text, is not only a complete epitome of true religion,
but, standing connected as it does with the Prophet's opinion
of sacrifice, furnishes a very efficient reply to the elaborate
reasonings of those interpreters of Scripture who maintain
that we are taught therein to believe, that the righteous and
merciful Jehovah cannot be approached acceptably by any sin
ful or morally imperfect beings, except through the medium of
a propitiatory offering of infinite value. "Wherewith shall I
come before the Lord, or bow myself before the most high
God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thou
sands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give
my first born for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for
the sin of my soul ? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is
good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?" It will
readily occur to your minds, that this is not an isolated pas
sage, that very many of a similar description are to be found in
the Old Testament writers, that, in fact, the important truths
of the text and context, are the substantial and often reiterated
instructions of the authors of the Jewish Scriptures, whenever
they undertake to expound the duty of man and the services
required of him by his Creator. When the author of the
book of Ecclesiastes gives the sum of the moral and spiritual
doctrine delivered in his work, he writes, "Let us hear the
conclusion of the whole matter : fear God, and keep his com
mandments: for this is the whole of man." When Jeho-

51
va'h, in the person of his servant, remonstrates with the
guilty, this is his language: " To what purpose is the multi
tude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord : I am full of
the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ; and I
delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-
goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required
this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain
oblations : incense is an abomination unto me ; the new moons
and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with;
it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and
your appointed feasts my soul hateth : they are a trouble unto
me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth
your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye
make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of
Mood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your
doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do
well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the father
less, plead for the widow."* And when David, the King, be
ing burdened in his conscience by an atrocious crime, pleads
with the Almighty for mercy, he speaks not of sacrificial
atonement, but prays for a penitent, regenerate mind: "Create
in me a clean heart, O God ; and renew a right spirit within
me. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:
thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit : a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou
wilt not despise." t Without quoting further from the Old
Testament Scriptures, we may refer to our Lord's beautiful
summary of them, in which we think he has sanctioned our
interpretation by his supreme authority. " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. This is the first and great command
ment And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all
the Law and the Prophets." J No confirmation of our Lord's
teaching is required, but a further reference to the writings of
his servants, the Apostles, will shew how beautifully harmo-
* Isaiah i. f Psalm li. J Matt. xxii. 27.
E c2

52
nious are the various Scriptures on this most important point.
" Pure religion and undefiled before God, even the Father, is
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep himself unspotted from the world."* " The grace of
God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking
for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: who gave himself for us,
that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." f
Now I feel that I am warranted — by the text and context,
and the other passages of Scripture I have quoted — in affirm
ing, that whatever were the purposes to be served by the ob
lations appointed under the Mosaic law, and whatever their
import, that law insisted on moral duties as far more impor
tant than any ceremonial observances, and distinctly taught
that the pardon of guilt and the acceptance of the soul before
God, were to be sought by contrition of heart and reformation
of life; and further, that whatever figurative or literal verisi
militude there may exist between the oblations of the Jewish
ceremonial law and the death of Jesus Christ, the Messiah,
that verisimilitude is not of such a kind as to abrogate the an
cient doctrine respecting the mode of an erring creature's ac
ceptance before God, by penitence and reformation, but, on
the contrary, is confirmatory of it. To deny that ancient doc
trine, is, in truth, to deny the plainest affirmations of the Old
Testament writers, and also our Lord's own exposition and
summary of those writers ; and to deny, that the New Testa
ment Scriptures teach and establish the same doctrine, is not
only to place the New Testament in opposition to the Old,
(a matter fraught with mischief,) but it is positively to reject
the clear, literal import of the passages which I have quoted
and referred to in the New Testament writings, in order that
other passages of those writings (which, all must admit, are
figurative, and, as a consequence almost essential, in some
* James i. 27. f Titus ii. 11—14.

53
degree obscure) may receive an explanation agreeable to
the fancies or the judgments of a certain class of inter
preters.* It is an important but a somewhat lengthened process of in
vestigation by which it may be shewn, that there is not one
instance in the whole law of Moses in which a sin or trespass
offering can be clearly proved to have been prescribed as an
atonement for a moral offence ; but, on the contrary, in almost
every instance it is evident, that these offerings were prescribed
in order to atone for ritual offences ; and in the very few cases
which are rather doubtfully or obscurely expressed, the latter
interpretation is, to say the least, quite as probable as the for
mer, and must, therefore, be preferred, on the principle of ex
plaining the equivocal by the clear. It is a still more impor
tant process of investigation, by which it may be shewn, that
all the sacrificial illustrations of the New Testament Scriptures
applied to Jesus Christ, are merely illustrations, having a pro
priety and force in the apprehension of those Jews by whom
they were used, and to whom they were addressed, which it is
difficult, nay, impossible, for us fully to appreciate, — but not
admitting of a literal exposition, without contradicting the
current doctrine of Holy Scripture, doing violence to every
principle of just interpretation, and refusing to the New Testa
ment writers all taste, or discrimination, or common sense. I
doubt not my hearers are acquainted with both the trains of
reasoning to which I have alluded ; at any rate, it is not my
present purpose to bring them forward. I rest in the affirma
tion, I think fully proved, that we are taught in the Holy
Scriptures, that the moral duties are far more important than
any ritual observances, whether of Jewish or Christian autho
rity; that the mode of acceptance with God. is by penitence
for our faults and amendment of them ; and that whatever proofs
the advocates of the doctrine of the Atonement, as popu
larly understood, may think they have in favour of their views,
there can be no doubt that these views are opposed by the least
* I earnestly request any person who questions the propriety of this state
ment, to examine very attentively the 33d chapter of Ezekiel, and our Lord's
Sermon on the Mount, and, indeed, the whple New Testament.

54
figurative, the easiest to be understood, and the most numerous
of all scripture texts.
But to leave disputation for a while, sometimes necessary,
but at all times more necessary than profitable, let us give our
devout attention to the true and pure and pious sentiments of
the text — sentiments which embrace all that is equitable and
benevolent in conduct, all that is holy and elevated in piety.
The ancient heathen moralists had honour in as much as they
announced many beautiful and useful aphorisms ; and when
the world around them was shrouded in error which brooded
as a thick darkness over the souls of men, they kindled at the
ever-burning torch of wisdom their feeble taper, which,
although it threw but an uncertain gleam upon their own path;
and flickered like an expiring ray amidst the general gloom,
yet served to make the darkness evident and hateful, and to
excite in their own hearts and in many kindred minds an
earnest searching after the light of life which was not far from
any one of these. But the Scripture writers have more abun
dant honour in as much as they have rolled back this thick
darkness from the human soul, and have revealed to it the
pure, bright, burning light of truth. And as, when the
morning chases from this fair earth the mists of night, and
tower and city, and glade and dingle, and lake and mountain,
and heath and forest, and sea and sky, and every other object
of the landscape rise into form and proportion and colour,
and, blended by light and shadow into one harmonious whole,
that beautiful vision which wraps the soul of genius in un
utterable sympathies, whence the painter and the poet draw
their purest inspirations and which the veriest day-drudge
of mammon cannot look upon unmoved,— so the sun of
righteousness has shed a blaze of living, spiritual light
upon all the dark places of man's understanding ; and beau
tiful truths, which ever were, though we saw them not, rise
around us in substantial being, and just proportions, and
sweetest harmony. And for the revelation of these great truths
the successive communications from God to man have all been
vouchsafed. For this end was established the simple worship
and simple institutions of Patriarchal times. For this end the

55
gorgeous appointments of the Jewish ritual— for this end the
Prophets were held in mystic trance, and poured forth ih
sacred poesy their divine visions — for this end the Saviour
came and did his wonderful works, and was crucified and
raised from the dead — for this end his Apostles were sent and
miraculously endowed — for this end the Scriptures were
written and have been preserved, — all, all to make known to
man with appropriate authority and impressiveness his duty to
his neighbour and to his Creator — all to teach him the great les
sons of the text, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with his God. Do I exaggerate the importance of my
theme — the shallow trick of an unskilful advocate ? I do not,
I cannot. For he who is in possession of this one sentence of
Holy Scripture is in possession of all that it is positively essential
for him to know as an intelligent, responsible being ; and he
who practises the duties it enjoins will be a wise^ a good, and
a happy man. It is comprehensive, discriminative, harmo
nious; at a distance equally remote from the Wicked folly
which would exalt religion at the expense of virtue, and from
the impiety which would establish virtue independent of re
ligion — its only true and sure basis. Unbelieving men may
speculate on the evidences of our faith, animadvert on the
antiquated style of the sacred books, or, mistaking the dogmas
of a false philosophy for the pure institutes of the Gospel, may
indite their sharp censures and their earnest protestations
against it; but which of them can withhold his hearty
respect to the sound doctrine of the text ? and where is the
heart not utterly depraved which will not join with us in
breathing to God a fervent prayer, that we may be endued with
grace to practise the duties so necessary to our honour, our best
sympathies, our good ?
I have left but brief space for explanation of the duties enr
forced in the text, and, in truth, but brief space is requisite
for this. To read the text is to expound it; — all men under
stand the virtues of integrity, piety, and benevolence.
To do justly, I need hardly say, is to act towards our fellow-
creatures with perfect honesty in all our dealings and inter
course with them— is to speak the truth in word and tone and

56
look— to avoid all detraction, all exaggeration — to contract no
debts that we know we cannot discharge — to indulge in no luxu
ries at the risk of incurring greater liabilities than we may pos
sibly be able to meet. A just man will always live within his
income, be that income ever so limited ; and although surround
ed by an artificial state of society, and by people of expensive
habits, who are resolved to enjoy the most graceful and extra
vagant conveniences, whoever may endure the cost, and who
fear dishonesty far less than the tyranny of fashionable but
vicious customs, — he will be content with a mean abode, with
common food, with plain and even inferior garments, and will
choose to encounter the inevitable disrespect, and neglect, and
perhaps insult which these subject him to, rather than part from
his integrity. The world understands it not, but he is too high-
minded a man to wish to seem richer than he is, — the vice of
the age, the vice of every refined age — the fruitful source of
many of the sins and as many of the miseries of human life.
But the spirit of integrity will influence not only the outward
conduct but the mental judgments ; it will guide the mind in
all its deliberations and decisions, checking prejudice and
passion, and securing an impartial audience for reason. And
especially it will be the soul's counsellor in all questions re
specting God, and duty, and eternity. How few in these most
important matters are faithful to their own minds ! The in
fluence of habit, of long-established usages, and the authority
of great names, govern the convictions of thousands of minds
on subjects1 which it becomes every man to examine with
scrupulous care, and to determine with unmixed uprightness.
Few indeed possess the power of just reasoning, the rarest and
most valuable of all mental qualities — the great art of dealing
fairly by evidence, which requires that we collate, compare,
adjust, arrange, and nicely balance contending and complicated
proofs, so that none have undue influence and none too little,
and all be present to the mind at the formation of its final de
cision. This combination of intelligence and integrity consti
tutes that true philosophic spirit of which it has been well
said, " it knows how to distinguish what is just in itself from
what is merely accredited by illustrious names; adopting a

57
truth which no one has sanctioned and rejecting an error of
which all approve with the same calmness as if no judgment
were opposed to its own ; — but which at the same time alive
with congenial feeling to every intellectual excellence, and
candid to the weakness from which no excellence is wholly
privileged, can dissent and confute without triumph, as it ad
mires without envy ; applauding gladly whatever is worthy of
applause in a rival system, and venerating the very genius
which it demonstrates to have erred."* Few possess this high
quality, but all may attain one great essential of it, honesty.
And this is enough ; because the great truths of religion and
morality are neither complicated themselves, nor complicated in
their evidence; and because, in common cases, he who reasons
uprightly for the most part reasons well.
True integrity is a high quality pervading the entire charac
ter, ruling the conduct and the heart. The just man has a
free, upright carriage in life ; and he cares not if his soul, his
intentions, his motives were bared before the congregated uni
verse, even as he knows these are naked and open to the eye of
God. This noble virtue, however, is closely allied to decision,
which, unless combined with the gentler virtues, is apt to be
come somewhat too stern. Mercy, therefore, must temper
justice. This will imbue the heart with all those charitable
principles which are alike the distinguishing characteristic of
the Saviour's own lovely nature and of his benevolent religion;
and which in an Apostle's judgment were greater than faith or
hope. The mind influenced by this virtue will not wantonly
hurt the meanest insect, or unnecessarily pain the most humble
dependent; it will be careful of offence towards all men, — real
distress, whether of mind or body or estate, will never appeal
to it in vain, — it will deem it more blessed to give than to
receive ; — and even when deeply wronged, it will be slow to
wrath and easy to appease, forgiving men their trespasses even
as God through Christ hath forgiven us ;— and especially it will
be tolerant of the religious convictions of men, knowing that
they are accountable to God alone in all matters which respect
* Brown's Philosophy.

58
conscience. Varied as are the minds of men, and extensively
varied as are the influences which affect their minds, at the
best but weak and erring, there is no question on which human
beings ought to be more tolerant of each other than on the
question of religion ; yet on no question has man been so mer
ciless to man. The pages of general history are sadly defiled
by sanguinary deeds ; but the pages of ecclesiastical history
are steeped in blood. The spirit of bigotry is the very demon
of cruelty, let it assume what name or shape it will — be it in
the form of Paganism, or Romanism, or Protestantism — whe
ther it vent its wrath in tearing the muscles and nerves of men,
or hunting them, by penal laws, from their homes and the
charities of life to dungeons, or deserts, or starvation, or in
denouncing on them (when it can do no more) God's wrath and
eternal pains. This foul spirit of bigotry is not dead — it will
never die — until men shall discern that religion is "charity out
of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith un
feigned." In the mean time how the unbelievers triumph ! Bitter and
most biting are their taunts! and never let the intolerant advo
cate of articles and creeds think to silence their sarcastic sneers,
their indignant remonstrances. He may muster in array his
historical evidences, and his logical reasonings; he may deal
out his fearful anathemas against Atheists and Infidels, but
they will laugh him to scorn. He may think that he is de
fending a rightful authority — but they too clearly see that he
is fighting for a loathsome tyranny, and doing battle for it too
with the iron weapons of oppression. Let him stand aside and
allow the meek, holy spirit of religion to defend herself with
her own gentle, persuasive eloquence — "To you, O men, I
call ; and my voice is to the sons of men. — O ye simple, un
derstand wisdom ; the fear of the Lord is to hate evil."
• Piety doth not consist in opinions which some may know
and others not— the reasons for which some may discern and
others not perceive — but it consists in probity, and charity,
and devotion ; there are many laws written by theGreatCreator
on every heart, and if you will search therein, you will find

59
them, defaced but not obliterated ; and in the oracles of God
they are engraven deep as the characters which fire or time
traces on the living rock.'
We have briefly spoken of the duties of integrity and bene
volence, we must not omit a more distinct notice of the duties
of piety — which constitute the greatest excellence of the hu
man character, its purest and surest source of holiness and
peace. Walk humbly with God — bow to his supreme autho
rity — reverently scan the mysteries of his creation and provi
dence, but never presumptuously question the goodness or
wisdom of them. In the exercises of devotion, pay to him that
homage which is at once a creature's duty and a creature's most
exquisite happiness ; cherish a holy confidence in his perpetual
care; humbly bow beneath the chastisements of his paternal
hand, and hold fast the lively, exalted faith, that " now we are
the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be :
but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ;
for we shall see him as he is."*
These three virtues — integrity, benevolence, piety — com
bined, constitute the character which the Scriptures call per
fect, — that mind so nicely balanced in all its qualities, wise,
holy, peaceful — richly furnished in highest knowledge, in
every happy emotion, in every principle jof good.
Is it an imaginative character ? We trust not. We trust,
that with all the faults and weaknesses of Christians, there are
many who are upright, benevolent, and devotional, — who have
imbibed the blessed spirit of their great Master, and who, if
they fall far short of his perfect excellence, yet maintain an
unremitting diligence to follow his commandments and his
example. If the like spirit pervaded the hearts of men in general, it is
no dream of the fancy, but a sober certainty, that the earth
would be changed into one Paradise, and the several tribes and
classes of men into one holy family. — The hard functions of law
would cease, because wrong and crime would cease, — differ
ences of opinion might remain, yet beget no strife,— faults and
h-
'¦'A. . * 1 John iii. 2.

60
imperfections too, but only such as charity would excuse,—
disease, and pain, and death, would not pass away, but these
sympathy would mitigate and faith patiently endure ; and the
race of men, no longer unmindful of their high destinies,
would look upon this life but as the commencement of a life
eternal and pure.
In the mean time, he who would do his utmost to regenerate
his country, to regenerate the world, must begin by amending
his own heart.

61

LECTURE IV.

THE MORAL INFLUENCES OF THE UNITARIAN AND ATHANASIAN
OPINIONS CONTRASTED.

Matt. vii. 16:
Ye shall know them by their fruits.
The subject of this morning's lecture is the moral influences
of the Unitarian opinions contrasted with the moral influences
of the Athanasian doctrine. I shall carefully avoid the appli
cation of the subject to private or individual character. Should
I speak strongly or warmly respecting the tendencies of the
Trinitarian sentiments, I take leave to say, that I am probably
better acquainted with those sentiments than the majority of
my hearers are: and it has been my earnest desire, that I
might not only be enabled to preach what I believe to be the
truth, without compromise, but that I might also be preserved
from every uncharitable feeling towards all whom I think to
be in error. 1 have not deemed my cause so weak as to re
quire the pitiful, wicked aids of scandal and misrepresentation,
and I trust your good sense will discriminate between the cen
sure of opinions and the censure of persons who hold those
opinions. The Omniscient God alone can judge the heart;
and the intelligent observer must have noticed, that benevolent
persons frequently hold very stern dogmas without any palpa
ble injury to their better natures, and that the most liberal sen-

62
timents are sometimes found associated with intolerant and
unkind dispositions.
Still opinions so opposite as those of Unitarians and Trinita
rians must exert very different influences on men in masses,
on society at large, and, consequently, (however numerous the
exceptions referred to above,) on the individual minds which
compose those masses.
I consider that the Athanasian opinions have been proved,
in the last two lectures, to be untrue, unscriptural ; and that
the Unitarian opinions have been shewn to be both reasonable
and Christian. That the former are unpropitious in their mo
ral influences, and the latter beneficial, is the natural result of
such conclusion. And if it shall appear on examination, that
this result is confirmed, then that result itself tends, in its turn,
to establish such conclusion. If opinions are untrue, they are
pernicious, — and if found to be pernicious, we have the highest
probability that they are also untrue.
We might shew how the Trinitarian opinions outrage our
natural reason and natural feelings — how they detract from the
majesty of God — how they degrade man — how they appeal
chiefly to the low passion of fear — how they tend to weaken
the incentives to virtue — how they require elaborate reasonings
in their proof and explanation, and, consequently, make the
salvation of all men (of the poor and illiterate, no less than the
intelligent) to turn on knowledge and evidence, which few
have the opportunity of attaining, and fewer the capacity of
estimating. We might appeal to the history of Trinitarian
opinions, and shew how they deluged Christendom, during the
fourth century, with contention and bloodshedding, and from
the fourth century to the fourteenth, combined with other
errors to steep it in spiritual darkness; how they mainly helped
to set up the iniquity of the holy office, and to fill its dungeons
and torture-chambers with miserable victims ; how they chain
ed the hands, blinded the eyes, and seared the hearts of the
Reformers of the fifteenth century, as well as of their Romanist
opponents. Much, no doubt, is injustice to be ascribed to the
barbarity and ignorance of those times, but much also to the
false and mischievous dogma, that the salvation of human be-

63
ings depends on the reception of abstract and mysterious arti
cles of faith. We have, indeed, abundant proof in our present
enlightened age, of the narrow, uncharitable spirit which this
dogma engenders, and must engender, wherever it is enter
tained ; and there is one deeply, affecting, one truly dreadful
result, which it is every day producing — a result which
they only witness who are professionally called upon to
attend the death-beds of their fellow-creatures. The Trini
tarian publications do frequently expatiate on the happy,
triumphant death of this converted profligate, or that vete
ran in the faith ; but why do they not tell the world of the
miserable death-bed scenes which are also witnessed as the re
sult of the prevalence of Calvinistic opinions ? I have seen the
agonies of disease and dissolution aggravated to maddening in
tensity by the deeper agonies of spiritual fear. I have seen the
wretched victim of superstition writhe under the horrid con
viction, that the tongue., parched with natural fever, was
scorched by the fires of that terrible hell, whose horrors had
been, from Sunday to Sunday, rung in his ears, and into whose
abyss he believed himself to be plunging. It is at all times,
and under all circumstances, a solemn and touching scene to
witness the ravages of disease, to look upon the ghastly coun
tenance, the worn, shrunken limb, the glazing eye, the help
less, sinking creature, which, but a brief space before, might
have been full of activity, of enjoyment, of life. And if there
be one period of our existence when religion is more precious
to us than another, it must be at the point of death. The
child, the parent, the wife, may wipe the cold sweat from the
brow, and pillow the head on a bosom swelling with sympa
thy and affection ; but it is religion, the ministering angel of
mercy, who brings resignation, and peace, and hope. And
shall we call that religion which, like a cruel fiend, tortures
the soul with intolerable papgs in the time of its weakness and
extremity? Forbid it, mercy! forbid it, common sense !
But 1 waive all these different points which I have alluded
to, and propose confining your attentionto one particular view
of our subject, which has much impressed my own mind.
After observation not very contracted, after long and serious

64
thought, I am strpngly convinced that Trinitarian opinions
have produced, and do produce, much unbelief respecting the
divine origin of the Christian religion. If so, they appear to
me to strike at the root of all morality ; for I am of opinion,
that however deep the foundations of morals are laid in the
principles of Deism and the nature of man, their truest and
purest development, their highest authority, their only effici
ent authority, are to be found in the Christian Scriptures. It
is a remarkable fact, that the popular and principal objections
which unbelievers make to the divine origin of the Christian
religion, derive their chief force from the mode in which those
who urge them identify Trinitarianism with Christianity.
And, indeed, I cannot see how it is possible to give an efficient
answer to these objections, provided the Trinitarian opinions
were to be found in the Scriptures. Let us look at one or two
of the principal objections of the unbeliever, and the mode in
which they are urged. The discrimination of my hearers will
discern between the preacher speaking in his own proper cha
racter, and in the character of the unbelieving objector. I
notice first the statement, that but a small part of the human
race has been benefited by Christianity.
According to the Hebrew and Vulgate Bibles,* forty cen
turies elapsed after the fall of the first parents, before the Son
of God appeared on earth to instruct mankind by what means
they may be purified from the depravity they derive from
Adam, and be rescued from the fearful vengeance of the Al
mighty which that depravity merits. During these forty cen
turies a hundred successive generations of men passed into the
other world, insensible of their guilt or unable to atone for it.
And although eighteen hundred years have expired since Jesus
Christ commissioned his disciples to go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature, three-fourths of the pre
sent inhabitants of the earth have never received the Christian
religion. Christianity, taken in its largest latitude, i. e. in
cluding the Greek and Eastern Churches, Catholics and Pro
testants, bears no greater proportion to the other religions of
the earth than five to twenty-five, or one to five; yet in no
* The Septuagint computes between five and six thousand years.

65
period of its past history has that religion been so widely pub
lished as in the present age. Reckoning from the creation of
the world to the present time, not more than one one-fifteenth
part of the myriads of human beings, who have passed into
eternity, have heard of the Christian religion.* And the most
liberal judgment will not permit us to believe that the Gospel
has been accompanied with that divine influence, without
which no man can receive it with the cordial faith which is
necessary to salvation, to more than one hundredth part of this
fraction. Now, it is most contrary to equity and goodness to
believe, that a merciful, just, wise, and almighty God, should
have so long withheld and so partially disseminated a revelation,
the knowledge of which is essential to the eternal salvation of
the immortal beings he has created — or that he should have
withheld that influence, in the absence of which the revelation
itself has confirmed and aggravated the condemnation of so im
mense a majority of those to whom it has been made known. If
it be said that the above calculation is incorrect, and thata much
greater number of those who have heard the Gospel have, been
benefited by it, I appeal to the writings of Trinitarians at large,
who universally affirm that the number of the saved is compa
ratively few.'
Now, on the Trinitarian hypothesis, I do not see how this
reasoning can be satisfactorily replied to. It is not possible
that a merciful, just, wise, and almighty Being, should have so
long withheld and so partially disseminated a revelation, the
knowledge of which is essential to the eternal salvation of the
immortal beings whom he has created, or that he should have
withheld that influence, in the absence of which the revelation
itself has confirmed and aggravated the condemnation of so im
mense a majority of those to whom ;it has been made known.
* Computing the worid to he ' about six thousand years old, Christianity has
existed less than two thousand years, or nearly one-third of that time. Since
Christianity was first preached, it ha9 not been made known to more than one-
fifth of the human race who have lived within that period. One-fifth of one-
third is equal to one-fifteenth. The average number of the earth's population is
aTiout eight hundred millions. A generation lasts about thirty years. In the
space of every successive thirty years, therefore, eight hundred millions die, and
as many are born. F

66
But Unitarians are hampered with no such difficulty — their
faith in the divine origin of the Christian religion is not shaken
by any such reasoning. They affirm, that the Scriptures no
where teach that the human race at large are abandoned to
perdition — but that "God is no respecter of persons — but in
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness,
is accepted of him."* They affirm, that the Scriptures no
where teach that the salvation of human beings depends on the
reception of any peculiar articles of faith, but that it consists in
righteousness, temperance, charity, piety; and they deny alto
gether that the Scriptures inculcate the fearful idea, that on
account of unbelief, or on any other account, the eternal God
will consign his creatures to the pains of hell for ever. They
regard the Gospel, indeed, as the great, moral means of enlight
ening and improving the human race ; and it may be to them
a question, accompanied with some little perplexity, why God
has not been pleased to extend it more widely by his provi
dence amongst the several tribes of the earth. But this per
plexity is a mere shadow when compared with the immense
difficulties which accompany the Trinitarian view, — a per
plexity, with several others of a like order, fairly borne down
and overpowered by the sufficient proofs of the divine origin
ofthe Christian religion.
Let us notice the objections founded on the discoveries of
modern astronomy.
' It is granted, that it is not the intention of the Scripture
writers to teach mankind the sciences, and that they might
have adopted with propriety the current language of their day
respecting the heavenly bodies. But it is utterly incredible that
the Sovereign of so many worlds should extend to this mean
and remote spot in his dominions, such distinguishing, such
humiliating attentions, as Christianity represents him to have
done. ' The sun, which presents itself to the eye under so diminu
tive a form, is really a globe, exceeding, by many thousands of
times, the dimensions of the globe we inhabit; and the moon
* Acts x. 35.

67
itself has the magnitude of a world. Of the five or six plane
tary orbs visible to the naked eye, two of them are immensely
larger than our earth. But our entire planetary system dwin
dles into insignificance when we think on the number and
magnitude of the fixed stars. The first thing which strikes a
scientific observer of the fixed stars is, their vast distance. If
the whole planetary system were lighted up into a globe of
fire, it would exceed, by many millions of times, the size of
this world, and yet only appear a small lucid point from the
nearest of them. If a body were projected with the velocity
of a cannon ball, when first discharged from a gun, it would
take hundreds of thousands of years before it described that
mighty interval which separates the nearest of the fixed stars
from our system. If this earth, which moves at more than
the rate of a million and a half miles a day, were to be hurried
from its orbit, and take the same rapid flight over this im
mense tract, it would not have arrived at the termination of its
journey after taking all the time which has elapsed since its
creation. These are great numbers and great calculations, and
the mind feels its own impotence in attempting to grasp them.
But they can be demonstrated by the powers of a most rigid
and infallible geometry. Those stars which are seated so far
beyond the limits of our system, must be masses of immense
magnitude; and the light which they give must proceed from
themselves, or they could not be seen at the distance of place
which they occupy. They are so many suns, each enthroned
in the centre of his own dominions, and pouring a flood of
light over his own portion of those unlimited regions,. Jf we
ask the number of suns and of .systems, the unassisted eye of
man can take in a thousand, and the best telescope which the
genius of man has constructed can take in eighty millions.
But why subject the dominion of the universe to the eye of
man, or to the powers of his genius ? Fancy way take its
flight far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope ; it may expa
tiate in the outer region of all that is visible; and shall we say
that there is nothing there? — that the wonders of the Almighty
are at an end, because we can no longer trace his footsteps;
that his omnipotence is exhausted, because human art can no
f 2

68
longer follow him ; that the creative energy of God has sunk
into repose, because the imagination is enfeebled by the mag
nitude of its efforts, and can keep no longer on the wing
through those mighty tracts which stretch far beyond what
eye hath seen or the fancy of man hath conceived— which
sweep endlessly along and merge into a vast and mysterious
infinity? Although this earth, with its mighty burden of
oceans and continents, and its myriads of people, were to sink
into annihilation, there are many worlds where an event so
awful to us would be unnoticed ; and others, where it would
be nothing more than the disappearance of a little star which
had ceased from its twinkling. The universe at large would
suffer as little in its splendour and variety by the destruction of
our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude of a forest
would suffer by the fall of a single leaf.* Further, it is in the
highest degree probable, that the millions of worlds which roll
in space teem with living and intelligent beings. Now it is
incredible that the Sovereign of so many peopled worlds
should extend to this mean and remote spot in his dominions,
such distinguishing, such humiliating attentions as Christianity
represents him to have done. According to that religion, the
Almighty has been, for a succession of centuries, conflicting
with some malignant power for the dominion of the human
race. That power has evinced sufficient sagacity to gain over
to its cause the majority of the people ; and although the Al
mighty took on him the weakness of a creature, and endured
for years the wretchedness of poverty and persecution, and
ultimately submitted to the agonies of death, yet he is unable
or unwilling to rescue more than a small fraction of mankind
from the cruel tyranny of Satan.'
Now, it is evident, the whole force of this reasoning depends
on the identity of Trinitarian opinions with Christianity; and
provided those opinions were really to be found in the New
Testament Scriptures, I see no way in which it could be re
plied to. — But we assert, and we think we have in former lec
tures shewn, that these opinions are not in the Bible. And the
* This sketch of modern astronomy is partly taken from the first of Dr.
Chalmers' Astronomical Sermons.

69
Unitarian, so far from being under the necessity of seeking an
answer to these statements, most heartily agrees with them.
He rejoices in the rational belief, that the same almighty and
benevolent Being, who has peopled space with millions of
worlds teeming, probably, with life and intelligence, has not
abandoned this little speck of his creation, full of wonderful
wisdom and goodness, in its minutest insect or its meanest
mineral. He can perceive how it enlarges our perception of
the omniscience and benevolence of the Almighty to know,
that whilst he impels the planets in their orbits, and sustains
the high intelligences with which he may have peopled those
vast and magnificent worlds which we discover rolling afar —
he also ministers to the preservation and to the wants of those
diminutive creatures to whom a few drops of water or a single
leaf afford a wide domain.* But the wonderful wisdom and
benevolence of the Deity, which equally care for and attend to
whatever is vast and whatever is minute in his creation, bear
no sort of resemblance to that anxious, capricious, extravagant,
yet feeble interference in the concerns of this earth's popula
tion — which not the Scriptures, but the Trinitarian Exposi
tors, assign to him. We believe that the Scriptures teach, as
does all creation, that " the Lord is good to all, and his tender
mercies are over all his works, — that all his works praise him,
and his holy ones bless him ;" that " he doeth as he will amongst
the inhabitants of the earth and the armies of heaven, that none
can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou ?" that
he "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the know-
* Spirit of nature ! here !
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers, —
Here is thy fitting temple ;
Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze — "' '
Yet not the meanest worm
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,
Less shares thy eternal breath. P. B. Shelley.
The poet hero, as in many passages of his works, seems to rise above his
scepticism.

70
ledge of the truth." And we would bid any thoughtful man,
who thinks the Trinitarian opinions are true, to go forth on
some still, clear night, and contemplate the heavens, — and
whether he knows the real magnitude and splendour of the
stars and planets, or whether he ignorantly thinks of them as
bright specks in the firmament, their vast and calm grandeur
shall fill his soul with emotions so solemn and exalted, that he
shall be made to feel, although he may refuse to acknowledge,
that his theology is a wretched conceit, equally unworthy of
the God to whom it refers and of the creature who believes it.
In a similar manner we might take notice of the remaining
principal objections urged by the unbeliever against the divine
origin of the Christian religion, and we should find that in
several other instances, the chief force of the objections would
rest on the identity of Trinitarian opinions with the Gospel.
But a more general appeal to the present state of men's minds
on the subject of unbelief, may be more pertinent.
Our religion as by law and fashion established is fast ceasing
to retain the respect of thinking men. They pay the same
outward reverence to it which their predecessors ages since
paid to the declining Pagan superstition, and they exert a simi
lar influence on the belief of the common people. On public
occasions they affect to treat with respect the religious institu
tions of their country, but their secret contempt is but awk
wardly concealed. And thus, with a considerable increase
of pious profession, we have a corresponding increase of irreli
gion, — at least We have the elements of scepticism rife in the
land : on the part of many of the intelligent, a formal profes
sion of faith in the established creed, with an almost avowed
infidelity — on the part of the unthinking, a blind, bigoted ad
herence to established opinions, or a shrewd suspicion that the
religion which their superiors so little respect they cannot
very heartily believe. Is any proof asked of this? It may
be found in our popular literature. Our poetry, our novels,
our reviews, our works on science, our critical theology,
abound in the scepticism of which I speak. In all, the esta
blished religion meets with wordy honour but with slight re
spect. The doubts and questionings of received mysteries, the

71
bitter sarcasms against vulgar zeal, the bursts of natural indig
nation respecting some of the sterner articles of the popular
creed, which are scattered through these works,— bespeak in
the writers unsettled, sceptical thoughts, and in their approving
readers a responsive sympathy. Many noble minds are thus led
to abandon the faith of common men, without light to guide
them to a truer faith. They have detected the false, the absurd,
but have not found the true, the wise. Perplexity and doubt
settle like a thick mist about their hearts, whose best emotions
are fettered by that dreary hopelessness which the wisest hea
thens never escaped, and which no thoughtful, upright mind
has ever yet been delivered from, except by the redemption of
true religion. Would that every heart which is struggling in
sober meditation against the bondage of a hard and narrow
creed, were persuaded to give serious attention to the religion
of Jesus Christ. We ask them not to receive our opinions.
We do not threaten their souls with the wrath of God and
everlasting perdition if they reject them. We only crave their
candid, serious examination of the religion of the New Tes
tament. We are persuaded that if they give this, they will
perceive how grossly that religion has been misrepresented, in
the systems of human invention which have falsely assumed
its authority. In these, truly, there is enough to drive any
generous, feeling, considerate person to utter unbelief — and I
believe, in my soul, that their unreasonable tenets do crowd the
ranks of infidelity with honourable minds.
It is generally admitted by all Protestants that the great
cause which gave rise to the mad Atheism ofthe French revo
lution was, the monstrous absurdity ofthe established religion,
as it existed in France, at the close of the seventeenth century.
That faith might contain articles more puerile, but none more
shocking, than that we are all plunged in impurity and guilt
and condemnation, through the silly curiosity or vanity of our
first mother, — that an immense majority of the human race
will be consigned to the fires of hell, and that no effort of their
own can rescue these from their fearful pollution, their horrible
doom, — that to save the remaining small elect number, God
became a human infant, and closed a brief life of suffering by a

72
cruel death, — and that this elect number have the merits of
this sacrifice laid to their account, and are thusjustified before
the Eternal Father and the wide universe. There are many
who teach and preach these dogmas in their undisguised de
formity. A larger number shroud them in more decent lan
guage, strive to hide their most obnoxious features, and would
protest vehemently against my statement of them. But it is no
new remark, it is one known to many a staunch polemic, that,
disguise the principles of Calvinism as we may, or name them
as we will, their true, unexaggerated character is such as I have
represented. If perplexed minds would turn from these prin
ciples to the religion of Jesus, they would see how simple,
how pure, how true a faith it is — how honourable to God, how
merciful to man !
We have taken notice of the influence of the popular theo
logy on observant but sceptical persons — what must be its
effects on intelligent, conscientious, humane hearts, who im
plicitly receive it as the only true religion ? There are un
questionably many such. But we think we have abundant
indications that of these there are few who do not feel it to
be a hard bondage. We speak not of the unthinking, indu
rated, presumptuous thousands who indulge brief questioning
of their own eternal salvation, and deal out their deep-mouthed
damnation against their fellow-men, with a flippant levity or
a brutal satisfaction horrible to hear, — but we speak of those
better minds, whose modesty and mercy are not crushed to
death by their iron theology. We think we perceive how
their free thoughts are fettered, how their charities are re
strained, how they are driven to compromise veracity and can
dour, — how they bid to silence honest sturdy doubts by pet
tiest reasons, and instead of meeting these with a bold brow
and a free heart, skrink before them into any shallow prevari
cation that offers a refuge. But we are not left to conjecture
the effect on such minds ; many of them have recorded their
experience. And do they not tell us of their struggles with
unbelieving thoughts which will not be suppressed, but which
stoutly question the most essential points of their creed, im
plicit and unshaken faith in which, constitutes their peace,

73
their hope, their safety? Do they not tell us of the writhings
of their natural feelings against the stern character of theirDeity^
not to be appeased without blood, dooming the creatures of his
hand to dreadful agonies, and looking on their tortures with
fearful complacency? Do they not tell us of their anxious and
often fruitless search after evidence of their own conversion,
of their lingering suspicions that they are self-deceived, of their
burning fears that sin and Satan will finally prevail against
them? Are they not at times haunted with a worse terror than
ever oppressed the Atheist's mind? His extreme anxiety is the
thought of annihilation— a thought which the wretched only
can reflect on with satisfaction, but which no one need antici
pate with dread, since consciousness and existence must cease
together, whilst the utmost which the popular theology per
mits to any man, is the hope that he is among the chosen num
ber destined for heaven. He may be included in that vast
majority who are reserved for perdition and eternal death.
This terror made the life of the amiable, gifted Cowper, one
lengthened melancholy, and it has driven some to distraction,
and added to the gloomy catalogue of human miseries — reli
gious madness and religious suicide. Then, to think that my
riads of our fellow-men are, generation after generation, passing
away unconverted, unredeemed, to the regions of eternal woe,
to watch by the death-bed of beloved relatives and affectionate
friends, who, by sharing our joys, more than doubled them,
and by partaking of our sorrows, made them light; whose
faithfulness has been unchanged in either fortune; whose very
heart-strings are entwined with ours ; to see them die, without
a sign that they are saved; to stand by their graves, and to
think, we shall never more behold them but in everlasting tor
ments, were enough to distract the brain, and would drive men
mad — but that the holy feelings of the human heart cannot be
exterminated, and render the firmest believers in this afflicting
creed secretly sceptical and unbelieving.
Much has been said, and is frequently reiterated, respecting
the superior motives to zeal and devotion with which Trinita
rian opinions furnish the mind.
It must be allowed, that the Trinitarian Calvinist has a most

74
stirring incentive to propogate his opinions. He believes that
the whole Heathen and Mahometan world are in imminent
peril of everlasting perdition, and that the entire Christian
world, who reject or slight his peculiar doctrines, will inevi
tably suffer a still deeper damnation. He believes that Al
mighty God has mysteriously connected the prayers and exer
tions of his believing people with his own eternal decrees re
specting the salvation or perdition of other men, and that if his
fellow-creatures perish everlastingly through his supineness,God
will require their souls at his hand. If he be a man of com
mon humanity only, or common seriousness, and firmly believe
his own creed, it is a matter of astonishment that he can eat or
sleep, or give himself to any ordinary occupation. Millions of
his fellow-men are passing away, generation after generation,
utterly ignorant of the existence of that peculiar form of reli
gion which he thinks can alone save them from everlasting
torments. Millions of his fellow-men, who have the knowledge
of this peculiar form of religion, are living before his eyes im
penitent and unbelieving; he sees them die unchanged, and
his imagination seems to hear, from the obscurity in which
they have vanished, the shrieks of surprise and terror, and the
overpowering accents of the messenger of vengeance.
The men of this faith do contribute a few thousands per
annum to their Home and Foreign Missionary Societies. — But
the marvel is, that instead of giving shillings and pounds of
the millions they possess, they do not bestow their all and
themselves for the furtherance of human salvation. How is it,
that, like other men, they can devote themselves to business,
to the accumulation of wealth, to the enjoyments of life ?
How is it, that they do not move off in masses to the missio
nary work ? How is it, that they do not cry aloud to their
perishing fellow-sinners — in the fields, and the high ways, and
the streets, and the markets, — in the North, and South, and
East, and West, with an unceasing energy of admonition and
remonstrance — a thousand fold more vehement than that with
which Noah warned his generation of the coming flood, or
Jonah prophesied to the Ninevites of the desolation of their
city? Trinitarian zeal ! Let it not be named. The early Mora-

75
vian brethren had it, and the Church of England has sent out
one devoted missionary. The names of Crantz and Henry
Martin will go down, in the annals of Christianity, as men
who lacked not the single-mindedness and fervour of apostles,
although, as we think, they wanted their sobriety of mind.
But let not those men speak of their zeal, who make of their
missionary work an income and a great gain. Let not those
speak of their zeal who believe that the world is perishing
under the wrath of God and an inexorable law, — who believe
too, that God has hinged the everlasting fate of many of these
on their prayers and their endeavours, and who yet expend
more on the luxuries of a month than they contribute in
a year towards the furtherance of human salvation, and are at
the best content to commit to hired hands the all-important
work which each should be plying to the utmost capacity of
his means and powers. The Unitarian has not the same incen
tives to zeal as the Trinitarian Calvinist. He does not think
that the Heathens, or the Mahometans, or the Christians who.
differ from him in sentiment, are in any danger of everlasting
perdition. Whatever be the errors or the sins of these classes,
or of human beings at large, and however deep the unhappi-
ness arising from these errors and sins in this life, or in the
future life, he can confidently trust them in the hands of the
great and good Creator of all, assured, that ultimately the om
nipotent and gracious God will establish them in holiness
and happiness. But yet, if he be deficient in an enlight
ened zeal for the extension of his opinions, the deficiency is
not in those opinions, but in himself. When he thinks of the
dishonour done to God and the degradation put upon man by
every form of idol worship — when he considers how the pure
religion which God gave by Jesus Christ is corrupted and hin
dered by prevailing errors — when he marks how the human
soul is enslaved by the fears and prejudices which these errors
engender, and when he adds to these reflections the thought,
that there is approaching a time of solemn retribution, when
God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret
thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil, surely he has
every motive which is fitted to influence a rational, benevolent

76
mind, both in "working out his own salvation," and in seeking
the instruction and reformation of others.
Much has been said and is frequently reiterated respecting
the superior devotional tendencies of Trinitarian opinions.
Unconscious as the Trinitarian Calvinist doubtless is of the
absurdity of the distinguishing article of his theology, and of
the presumptuous, complacent assurance, that he himself is the
elect favourite of heaven, and believing, as he doubtless does,
that with his soul the Almighty condescends to hold peculiar
and intimate communion, we cannot deny that he is likely to be
excited to an extreme fervour of passionate devotion. He looks
upon himself as a being to whose existence a mysterious import
ance attaches — about whose movements the spiritual agencies
of good and evil constantly and anxiously attend, who has been
chosen from his fellows by the Almighty, and destined from
eternity to a glory and felicity which shall endure for ever. For
his sake, and for his brethren's sake, the Almighty has ordained
all the wonders of creation and providence and grace; and
when his redemption and their redemption shall be completed,
then all other earthly beings shall be sent away from the pre
sence of their Creator into darkness and misery. With such
convictions, it is likely that his devotional feelings may be ex
cited tp a high degree of intensity — that he may work his soul
into an ecstacy of emotion which he will regard as the sensible
assurance of the very presence and smile of his heavenly Fa
ther. On the other hand, when such excitement is wanting,
he is subject to fearful misgivings, and, at times, to a desolation
and agony of spirit which he alone knows. He cries in the
bitterness of his heart that God has hidden his face from him,
or he is visited with the terrible fear that he is one of the re
probate. The sober Christian may rejoice that he is delivered
from these tempestuous workings of the soul — he may rejoice in
the liberty and charity of his faith. He is not insensible to the
exalted, holy, exquisite blessedness of communion with God,
whose ear is open to the prayers of all his creatures. With
his fellow-christians, and with his fellow-men, he can unite in
ascribing honour, and power, and dominion, and glory, to the
one Almighty Father of all. And how often, in his chamber,

77
during the hours of night— how often, amidst the beautiful
wonders of creation, in the garden, or the wood, or the plain,
or the mountain-top, or on the wide sea, do his thoughts
rise in silent devotion to the all-pervading Spirit ! And if
he has been redeemed from the tyranny of mystical dogmas,
his heart rejoices like that of the emancipated bondsman.
In his estimation no figure is too vivid to illustrate his former
estate. It, was the sickness, the blindness, the slavery, of the
soul; his present happiness is health, and light, and freedom.
His best affections meet with their holiest expansion in the
love of his heavenly Father, his kind, gracious, merciful
God; next his blessed Saviour shares his heart; then his
chosen friends, and all mankind, his brethren, like himself,
weak and erring, but not black with infamy, not accursed of
God. Love is the element in which he breathes. He has a
kindly feeling for all things that live, and even inanimate na
ture seems to his regenerated heart more balmy with fragrance,
more rich in beauty, than of old. Nor are his thoughts or
hopes confined to this transitory life; in the salvation which
God has wrought out for him, he sees the pledge and the com
mencement of a complete salvation after death — when sin and
pain shall cease for ever, when fulness of knowledge and cha
rity of heart shall make an eternal heaven wherever in his wide
and bright creation it shall please the Almighty to appoint
the human race a final home.

GEORGE SMALLFIELD, PRINTER, HACKNEY.

PamDhlet^  YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Binder li'lji III! i'lijli I'll i i' it !|pPI i|i| i
Gaylord Bros. Illllfflllllllllllllllllllll
SynSSFs. y 3 9002 08844 9823
pAI. M .1, 1903 '