New England States, there is a body, large and respectable if considered absolutely, but far from large when viewed in comparison with the numbers of other professed Christians. It consists of those who disbelieve the doctrines held, as to their essential principles, by all other Christian denominations, with respect to the way in which sinful, guilty, degraded mankind may regain the favour of GOD and the pure felicity of the world to come ;-the doctrines of a divine Saviour, His assumption of our nature, His propitiation and righteousness, and the restoration of holiness and happiness by His all-gracious Spirit. This class of persons is treated, by some public men, and in some influential writings, chiefly periodical, with scorn and contumely, and are held up to hatred, not to say persecution; they are continually represented as blasphemers and infidels, alike dangerous to the state, and inimical to all vital religion. Hence, thousands of excellent persons, deriving their only knowledge from the source to which I have alluded, regard this portion of their neighbours with horror, never think of treating them with tenderness, never attempt to obtain a lodgment for truth and holy affections in their hearts. Ah, little think these well meaning persons, &c. .....The circumstances of my life have put me into a condition of more correctly knowing this class of our fellow professors of Christianity; I know that there are among them serious, thoughtful, amiable persons, whose minds are prepossessed with prejudices against us and our system, much to the same extent as we are against them and theirs. I know, not merely how they reason, but how they feel. They in general have extremely erroneous conceptions of the orthodox system of faith. They have imbibed those misconceptions in early years; and subsequent circumstances have contributed to strengthen them. For some of those circumstances, of no trivial power to confirm prejudice, we have to blame ourselves. This is a state of things full of mischief and danger. Surely it is a pressing duty, to do all that we can for clearing away the clouds of ignorance and misrepresentation which, with so dire effect, discolour and distort the objects seen through them. For this purpose, it is to me an heartfelt pleasure to say that Mr. Abbott's "Corner Stone" is admirably adapted. Notions producing feelings, and those feelings of deep and wide activity in the formation of religious sentiments, have been derived from Pelagius, Socinus, and Episcopius, from Clarke, Law, and Watson, from Lardner, Priestley, and Channing; and it is the thoroughly pervading influence on the mind of those mutually acting feelings and sentiments, which produces all that is formidable in the theoretical objections, and much of that which is effective in the practical repugnance, which are entertained by many against the doctrines of grace and holiness, through the Atonement and the Spirit of Christ. How desirable to meet those feelings in their germinating principle; to anticipate those sentiments, by the dissolution of the causes which would form them. This is what our author has done. His reasonings and illustrations upon the personal and official attributes of our Lord and Saviour, are such as may be compared to the correctness of anatomical know

ledge, the delicacy of touch, and the astonishing preciseness of applying the probe and the knife, which we admire in the first surgeons of the age."

A correct and memorable witness indeed, to the kind of treatment offered by these religionists to Him, whom, after His exposure on the cross, His true disciples reverently "took down," and "wrapped in fine linen," and "laid in a sepulchre wherein never man before was laid."

I will conclude by summing up in one sentence, which must be pardoned me, if in appearance harsh, what the foregoing discussion is intended to show. There is a widely spread, though variously admitted School of doctrine among us, within and without the Church, which intends and professes peculiar piety, as directing its attention to the heart itself, not to any thing external to us, whether creed, actions, or ritual. I do not hesitate to assert that this doctrine is based upon error, that it is really a specious form of trusting man rather than God, that it is in its nature Rationalistic, and that it tends to Socinianism. How the individual supporters of it will act as time goes on is another matter, the good will be separated from the bad; but the School, as such, will pass through Sabellianism, to that god-denying Apostasy," to use the ancient phrase, to which in the beginning of its career it professed to be especially opposed.

66

OXFORD.

The Feast of the Purification.

N. B. For reasons, not necessary here to explain, it may be proper to observe, that this Tract was written before the commencement of 1836.

Postscript.

Since the above Essay was in type, an account of Dr. Schleiermacher's view of the doctrine of the Trinity, as contained in an American Periodical', has been put into the writer's hands, and raises very painful feelings.

It seems, indeed, impossible to doubt that a serious doctrinal error is coming as a snare over the whole of the Protestant part of Christendom, (every part, at least, which is not fallen into worse and more avowed heterodoxy,) being the result of an attempt of the intellect to delineate, philosophise, and justify that religion, (so called) of the heart and feelings, which has long prevailed. All over the Protestant world,—among ourselves, in Ireland, in Scotland, in Germany, in British America,-the revival of religious feeling during the last century has taken a peculiar form, difficult to describe or denote by any distinct appellation, but familiarly known to all who ever so little attend to what is going on in the general Church. It has spread, not by talents or learning in its upholders, but by their piety, zeal, and sincerity, and its own incidental and partial truth. At length, as was natural, its professors have been led to a direct contemplation of it, to a reflection upon their own feelings and belief, and the genius of their system; and thence has issued that philosophy of which Mr. Erskine and Mr. Abbott have in the foregoing pages afforded specimens.

The American publication above alluded to, is a melancholy evidence that the learning and genius of Germany are to be made to bear, by the theologians of the United States, in favour of this same (as the writer must call it) spurious Christianity. Some passages from it shall be here extracted, which will be found to tend to one or other of these three objects, all of them more or less professed in the two works above analysed.

1. That the one object of the Christian Revelation, or Dispensation, is to stir the affections, and soothe the heart.

1 The Biblical Repository, Nos. 18 and 19; in which is translated and reviewed "Schleiermacher's Comparison of the Athanasian and Sabellian views of the Trinity."

2. That it really contains nothing which is unintelligible to the intellect.

3. That misbelievers, such as Socinians, &c., are made so, for the most part, by the Creeds, which are to be considered as the great impediments to the spread of the Gospel, both as being stumbling-blocks to the reason, and shackles and weights on the affections.

"With regard to Schleiermacher's views as a Trinitarian, I can truly say that I have met with scarcely any writer, ancient or modern, who appears to have a deeper conviction of, or more hearty belief in, the doctrine of the real Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.... 'God manifest in the flesh,' seems to be inscribed, in his view, on every great truth of the Gospel, and to enter as a necessary ingredient into the composition of its essential nature. Yet Schleiermacher was not made a Trinitarian by creeds and confessions. Neither the Nicene nor Athanasian symbol, nor any succeeding formula of Trinitarian doctrine, built on this, appears to have had any influence in the formation of his views. From the Scriptures, and from arguments flowing, as he believed, out of Scriptural premises, he became, and lived, and died, a hearty and constant believer in the One Living and True God, revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.... He ventured to inquire whether, in the vehemence of dispute, and in the midst of philosophical mists, the former survey had been in all respects made with thorough and exact skill and care, and whether a report of it in all respects intelligible and consistent had been made out."-Translator, No. 18. p. 268, 9.

"After defending in various places, in the most explicit manner, and with great ability, the doctrine of the Godhead of the Son and Spirit, and showing that such a development of the Deity is demanded by our moral wants, as sinners, in order that we may obtain peace and sanctification; he concludes, &c." ibid.

"Of his view of the Trinity, we may at least say that it is intelligible. But who will venture to say, that any of the definitions heretofore given of personality in the Godhead in itself considered, I mean such definitions as have their basis in the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds, are intelligible and satisfactory to the mind?" p. 277.

"The sum of Schleiermacher's opinions... is that... the Unity... is God in se ipso ;... but as to the Trinity, the Father is God as revealed in the works of creation, providence, and legislation: the Son is God in human flesh, the divine Logos incarnate; the Holy Ghost is God the sanctifier, who renovates the hearts of sinners, and dwells in the hearts of believers. The personality of the Godhead consists in these developments, made in time, and made to intelligent and rational beings. Strictly speaking, personality is not in his view eternal; and from the nature of the case as thus viewed, it could not be, because it consists in developments of the Godhead to intelligent beings, &c." p. 317.

"That God has developed himself in these three different ways, is what they [Sabellius and Schleiermacher,] believe to be taught in the Scriptures, and to be commended to our spiritual consciousness by the nature of our wants, woes, and sins." No. 19, p. 81.

"Dr. Schleiermacher asks, with deep emotion, what more is demanded? what more is necessary? what more can further the interest of practical piety?” p. 82. "I can see no contradiction, no absurdity, nothing even incongruous in the supposition, that the Divine Nature has manifested itself as Father, &c." p. 88. "Why should it ever have any more been overlooked that the names Father, &c. are names that have a relative sense.... than that such names as Creator, &c." p. 110.

"It may be proper for me to say, that the results of this re-examination of the doctrine of the Trinity are, in their essential parts, the same which I some years since advocated in my letters addressed to the Rev. Dr. Channing, &c." p. 115.

These extracts are perhaps sufficient to justify the apprehensions above expressed, as far as the more religious part of Protestant Germany is concerned. It is believed that Protestant France could be made to afford similar evidence of the Sabellian tendencies of the day.

(SECOND EDITION.)

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