fourth letter under the third head of the second argument. "In this connexion, it may justly be doubted whether Jesus means positively to assert the existence of the devil, and his ascendancy over the human mind. It is far more probable that he uses the phrase in conformity to the prevailing notions of his countrymen. From a parable, nothing can be inferred but the doctrine or instruction which it is intended to inculcate; the circumstances are to be overlooked, and every thing which is collateral is to be considered only as the ornament of the allegory." The writer does not once advert to the fact that this is not a parable, but the interpretation of a parable, given by Christ himself, not to his countrymen at large, but to his own bosom friends in their retirement. It would seem that a Unitarian writer, is under an almost physical, a sort of "absque remedio " inability to state a difficulty fairly, to meet an argument logically, or to translate correctly. To proceed with this writer. "John viii. 44. Ye are of your father the devil,' &c. Such is the influence of association and of long established habits of thinking, that it will not be easy to suggest any interpretation of this passage different from the common one, which will not appear to many very harsh and unsupported." True. Reader, how do you think he gets over or round this difficulty? Tax your invention to the utmost, and you will be disappointed at last. This writer is not one of those, gravelled with a small or a sizeable difficulty. He thinks it most natural to suppose that Cain was the murderer, who abode not in the truth, referred to by Christ in this place. But should any of his readers have some "doubts and difficulties," as to this allusion, he has still another bridge over which he can retreat. In that case, he says, "Jesus need only be supposed to refer to the commonly received opinion of the origin of evil designs and wicked practices." Any farther explanatory notice one would think a work of, supererogation. However, he follows up these two rather startling propositions by a third, which is not far out of its proper place in capping such a climax. "In the language of his reproaches and of his accusations against those who were seeking his life, we are not to look for his authorized instructions upon a subject incidentally introduced"!!! Incidentally introduced! Expressly introduced by himself, without any call or extraordinary occasion for it on the part of the Jews. Such is the reverence of English Unitarians for what they allow to be the very declarations of Christ himself. No wonder after this, that the apostles should be treated quite cavalierly. "Acts xiii. 10. 'O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness,' &c. Paul was a man of strong feelings and strong passions, and no doubt was greatly irritated and provoked by the conduct of Elymas. It seems there was just occasion for this resentment, for it is recorded that Elymas was struck blind by the instrumentality of Paul; but no argument for the existence and agency of the devil can be founded on the indignant language of the apostle." Certainly not! If the language "of reproach and accusation" employed by Christ only confirmed his hearers in a long received error, what else could be expected from an "indignant" apostle? It matters not that, in the ninth verse, Paul is said to have been "full of the Holy Ghost;" a circumstance thought too unimportant by this writer to deserve even a passing notice. The devil, who goes about as a roaring lion, is, according to this writer, none other than Nero. 66 We now come to a passage, to which, and this writer's remarks upon it, I do most earnestly invite the serious, inquiring, reflecting reader to give special attention. 1 John, iii. 8. He that committeth sin, is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.' Unquestionably the devil is here spoken of as the author of sin; and as a being who himself sinned; in reference to which the apostle again says, verse 10, in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God." This writer allows, that in the 12th verse, the same allusion is made, "not as Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother." Even a rational understanding could not help seeing that "the wicked one," of whom Cain was, differed from this very Cain himself, who is said to be the devil in the eighth of John. "It may however be questioned," [what cannot be questioned by a sturdy, heartless skeptic?] "whether the apostle means to support the truth of this opinion, or only adopts it as the common and prevailing one.” Again. "This may be only in allusion to the philosophy of that dark age, when the Jews incorporated the mythology of the heathens with the pure doctrines of revelation. They on whom the Sun of Righteousness has arisen," [what does this mean in the Unitarian vocabulary?] "have learnt that God isthe Creator and Maker of all, that all men are his offspring, and that it is only in a figurative sense that the vicious are the children of the wicked one, i. e. of the devil, or the being who is supposed to sustain that character, the author of every thing which is evil." How they have learnt this last fact, he does not inform us. Christ and his apostles "unquestionably" taught a directly opposite doctrine. I am not aware that any chemical analysis, or any geological stratum, or any botanical classification, or any phrenological nomenclature, or any of the results of comparative anatomy, or any of the wonders developed and demonstrated in the Mèchanique Cèleste, fasten upon Christ and his apostles the charge of teaching falsely, or of incompetence or unwillingness, at the hazard of their lives, to teach the truth. Till something in the shape of evidence is produced, I trust it will not be thought indicative of either weakness or prejudice, to believe Christ, "that for this end was he born, and to this end came he into the world, to bear witness unto the truth." But this writer is yet to give the finishing touch to his picture of revelation. "The only passage in Jude is one of very doubtful authority. I do not mean that it is wanting in any of the copies now extant;" [after this, I hope we shall hear no more from the Unitarian press about Griesbach of what use are his labors? The lower criticism is gone ;] "but of doubtful authority, that an inspired apostle, or one who had a competent knowledge of the history of the Old Testament, and of the dispensation of the gospel, should introduce such a fabulous legend as that, which is the subject of the 9th verse, how that Michael, &c. If any one can build his faith in the existence of such a being, on such a contemptible story as this, I would leave him in quiet possession of his opinion; for there is little room to hope that reason will have much influence, where absurdity has obtained such an absolute dominion." Let it not be forgotten that English and American Unitarians solemnly profess to receive the epistle of Jude as a part of the inspired Word of God. Let it be remembered that the preceding extracts have been taken from the accredited organ of English Unitarianism, evidently written by one able to make the best of his subject. It is no common mind, which can give such uncommon twists to scripture. These were written twenty years ago. Unitarianism is a precipitous declivity; down, down, down to a bottomless abyss. But few prints of returning feet are to be traced in an upward pathway. What Marshal Ney said to Napoleon, "revolutions never go backward," is equally true in the religious and in the political world. A distinguished Unitarian writer thinks, that if forty years more are allowed his system, it may be proved as true by its works, as Calvinism. I will only ask, if fifteen years have brought the greater part of the Unitarian clergy of New England, from Worcesterians or Semi-Arians to Humanitarians, how long it will take the latter to become infidels in speculation? Mark this, I do not charge any one with designing to become infidel. But I recollect who said, "ye know not what manner I have not thought it necessary to remark, in the Letters, on the alleged use of the word devil, in the New Testament, as a personification of the idolatrous and persecuting power. I know not that any NewEngland Unitarian holds that opinion. Let the reader, however, apply either of Mr. Belsham's personifications to this one passage, "the devils believe and tremble," in its connexion in the epistle of James. Mr. Belsham is not ignorant of the power of words, nor what a mist hard names can conjure up before ignorant imaginations. He understands the " philosophy of mind" too well, to let slip the opportunity of verbal influence. We could tell him of some, who, after years of study in the Hebrew idiom and habitudes of thought, and after an acquaintance, not altogether slight, with the Syriac and Chaldaic and Arabic languages and learning, still "believed the real existence of an evil spirit." In his own land, he might find in Proffessor Lee, "the admirable Crichton" of the age, such an one; he need not go far from his own door to meet John Pye Smith, the first dissenting clerîcal scholar of Great Britain, whose chastened taste, and various learning, and unassuming yet active piety, present one of the most finished models for youthful contemplation. One other quotation from the Monthly Repository, shall close this Note. A writer therein thinks the sufferings of Christ in the garden, resulted from the exquisite susceptibilities of his physical frame. Besides, "he had a most severe and distressing bodily disorder" at this time. He was seized "with a violent nervous affection." Hence his distress. I suspect this will be news to the most enlightened American rationalist. NOTE D. Page 56. As the Unitarians have recently broken ground on a subject, where it has long been known, often predicted, and as often denied, that they must ultimately come, it may not be "travelling too far beyond the record," to meet them at the outset in a note appended to this discussion. The subject referred to will be found, in the end, to be nothing less than a denial of the inspiration of the whole sacred volume. In the Christian Examiner for January and February, 1828, is the continuation of a learned and elaborate essay on the author of the epistle to the Hebrews. The writer of this essay has come out, with a degree of boldness, and a distinctness of expression, hitherto unusual in his school. For this the community will thank him. No religious teacher, least of all an instructer of religious teachers, should hold opinions which he would not freely state, and, when called upon respectfully, defend with what of argument and ability he may possess. For his own religious opinions, individually, he is alone responsible to his God and his Redeemer. But when he assumes the office of a public teacher in any community, his situation changes. He is then in duty bound to let that community know, fully and frankly, what his opinions are. The writer referred to is, both by report and by internal evidence, a distinguished individual in the Unitarian ranks. When on common ground, he writes with a beauty and a force that are truly admirable. Two pages from the pen of Johnson can scarcely be selected, superior in discrimination and felicity of expression, to those which precede the discussion in this number of the Examiner. In this essay, though something, I doubt not, is still undisclosed, something new, in this country, has been advanced. The fact, that Unitarians reject the epistle to the Hebrews as uncanonical, is not now for the first time known, though it is for the first time distinctly made known in the accredited organ of American Unitarianism.* The epistle to the Hebrews must be got * I shall not stop to inquire why so absurd, illogical, mystical, unintelligible a book has been so long allowed by intelligent Unitarians to pass for genuine, believing it, as they must have done, to be spurious. |