peal

tions and disappointments? It is needless to remark that the subject of our intercessions should have respect to the success of the word of God, in its awakening, enlightening, strengthening, and consoling influences; to his presence in our congregations, upon which, and not upon any ability or fervour of our ministrations, the efficacy of our preaching supremely depends; to the supply of unction, life, and comfort proportioned to the weakness, and wants, and circumstances of temptation of each of our people; and finally to the general effusion of his Holy Spirit upon the church, to advance and consummate the glory of the latter days; to raise the mountain of the Lord's house in the tops of the mountains;' that all flesh may see the salvation of God,' and the voice of Zion may be heard, lifted up with strength, saying unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God.' Let us only exhibit our character as 'watchmen set upon the walls,' who shall never hold their peace day nor night, and let us not doubt but he will, before long, return with an abundant increase of light, and power, and love, until he establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.' The blessed influences of this spirit of intercession upon the ministration of the word of God would be manifest to all men. Ministers who habitually pray for their people will not fail to find their people praying with them and for them, so that for the gift bestowed upon them by the means of many persons, thanks will be given by many on their behalf.'

penitent returning to him and faithful waiting upon him, after two days will he revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.' I presume that we are ready, amidst our greatest discouragements, to make our apto our flock: God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.' I should trust that our return from the house of God, when we have concluded the service of the temple with lifting up holy hands' to bless our people, is not the interruption of the course, but only the change of the plan, of our work. The seed which has just been sown is now doubtless secretly followed with our prayers that it may be watered with the dew of God's blessing. But is this with us what it was with the apostle, a never-ending employment; giving account with joy' or with grief, as we have watched for the souls of our flock, and marked the prosperity or the decline of the work of God among them? I cannot but conceive this spirit of ministerial prayer to be as necessary to form the character of a pastor, as the spirit of personal prayer to form that of a Christian. I have no hope of acceptance for the diligence that I might exhibit in every department of our momentous labour, unless this spirit of prayer is constantly cherished. I seem to be giving up the only way in which I can hope to benefit my people, or in which I can maintain the affectionate frame of self-denying devotion to the service of God, which is the spring of interest in my course of communication with them. What but this habit of unceasing supplication will keep alive the spark or flame of love in the endurance of successive provoca

"*

• «Heb. xiii. 17. The apostle is evidently referring, not to the solemnity of

the final account, but to a continual rendering of our account to God in such a manner as is here intimated."

"Let us, then, adopt as our own the words of that most eminent servant of God, Moses, when praying for the display of the Divine Israel;- Make us glad according power and glory to his people to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work ap

pear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of

our hands upon us: yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.' (Ps. xc. 15-17.)"

It is long since we have believed and said, that the natural and invariable tendency of Unitarianism is toward the point which it has fairly reached in some parts of Germany -an avowed, unqualified, and total rejection of the Bible as a revelation from God. In approaching this point, however, the gradations of advance, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly made, are almost innumerable-from the semi-arianism of Dr. Clark, to the perfect humanitarianism of Dr. Priestley. The following paper, which a friend has done us the favour to translate from the Archives du Christianismė, and which there forms a part of a review of Scott's essays, describes Unitarianism as it now exists in France, and in some other portions of the European continent. We think the attentive reader will find it both interesting and instructive.

A CONTRAST BETWEEN EVANGELICAL AND RATIONAL CHRISTIANS.

In these days of awakening, which we rejoice to see rising upon the world, and upon our country in particular, and when an almost general attention is directed, in one way or other, to RELIGION; the source from which Christians draw it, has naturally become a particular object, if not of serious study, at least of curiosity and interest. In examining the spirit in which the Bible is read and cited by those who profess to receive it as the word of God, one may, as it appears to us, separate them into two great classes. The grand characteristick feature of each of these classes is,

perhaps, that the one has much more extended ideas than the other concerning the subject of inspiration, under the influence of which the sacred penmen composed their writings. One class admits an inspiration more complete, the nature of which we are not required at present to discuss, but which, being extended to things apparently the least important, excludes all possibility of error; the other supposes limits to the divine influence, which, it is true, they do not and cannot understand; but they all agree to admit that in our sacred books there are portions inspired, and other portions not inspired, or less inspired. Hence arises a fundamental difference in the manner in which these two classes of persons view and study the Bible. The latter class form beforehand a systematick idea of what, according to their reason and the little that they can know and comprehend of the perfections of God, they think they ought to find in the sacred volume; and they make great efforts to bring over to their system all that may appear opposed to it in the holy scriptures. A great number of this class are honest, and do not themselves suspect, or scarcely suspect, this tendency of their mind, although it does not the less exist. We, ourselves, have heard these remarkable words drop from the mouth of a man, upright, sincere, and learned, indeed, but little informed respecting the foundations of revealed and evangelical truth: "It is incontestable (said he) that if we take the Bible literally, the orthodox doctrine is found in it en

tire; but that doctrine cannot be true; therefore the Bible ought to be differently interpreted." We leave these characteristick words to the meditations of our readers; the only use which we wish to make of them at present is, to confirm what we have just been saying. The other class of persons, of whom we have spoken, on the contrary, receive entirely the articles of their faith as delivered in a complete inspiration of the word of God; and after having employed their reason in the examination of the solid proofs upon which this inspiration rests, and, with the aid of light from on high, which they fail not to implore, certifying the sense which the Bible presents, they discuss no longer, they believe. They know that there can be nothing in the word of God contradictory to reason, which also comes to us from God; but if they find some things which they cannot comprehend by the light of that reason, the bounds of which they have learned to know, it is reason and not the word of God, which they arraign; and they carefully distinguish between two things which are too often confounded, namely, that which is above reason, and that which is contradictory to reason. They know that in order to perceive that two things are contradictory, it is necessary to be acquainted with them both, and that here they are not acquainted, and while on earth will never be acquainted, with more than one of the terms of this comparison; and even with this, their acquaintance is but imperfect.

From this primary difference flows another, which we find nearly always and every where. It is, that those of the one class have, as they express themselves, only opinions, respecting which they acknowledge that people may differ from them without departing from the truth, to which opinions they frequently attach little importance, and in regard to which they almost

always employ the language of uncertainty and probability. They of the other class reject the term opinion as applied to truths which the Lord has revealed in his word; they profess belief, respecting which they express themselves with a conviction and a degree of certainty, which no human reasoning can shake, and which they never yield except to arguments drawn from the holy scripture itself. The first appear modest, and accuse the language which the others use, of senseless and insupportable pride. The latter reply, that true humility consists in subjecting their reason to revelation;* to revelation; a subjection from which is produced that certainty for which they are censured; and that real pride is that which wishes to subject revelation to reason, a proceeding from which nothing can ever be produced, except doubt and indecision.

Let us pursue this parallel, and from these differences we shall see others arise, which are the necessary consequences of the first, but of which we can only point out a few, without entering into developments which would draw us beyond the limits to which we must confine ourselves.

The evangelical party declare openly what they believe, and wherefore they believe: they are in this respect clear and precise; they attack by name such or such an error, they establish by name such or such a truth, and always by the positive declarations of scripture. The others repose in a vagueness with which they envelope themselves as with a mantle, from which it is almost impossible to drag them out, and which appears to us well calculated to impress every reflecting mind; they say not cate

It is scarcely necessary to remark that to subject reason to revelation, is not affected to represent it; but that, on the to renounce the use of reason, as some have contrary, it is to make the most reasonable use of reason that is possible.

gorically either what they believe, or what they refuse to believe, on controverted points; their replies are almost always confined to the same circle of ideas, more or less theoretical; and when without producing any other proof of it than their assertion, they have declared that such and such a doctrine is not important, that it is not clearly revealed, or that it shocks reasonwhen, in rising up against the evangelical faith, they have pronounced the words, now become in a manner mysterious and magical, methodism, mysticism, hatred of the light of reason-they appear entirely satisfied. But they are rather shy in defining in a positive manner, and intelligible to those who are not initiated into this species of cant, in what these fatal errors, these ridiculous and dangerous doctrines, which they pursue with sarcasm and sometimes with persecution, precisely consist. It is thus that they wrap themselves up, as we may say, in general considerations, and entrench themselves behind reasonings wholly human, more or less ably conceived and presented; but they rarely build upon the word of God, taken in its simple and natural sense. If they do speak of it, it is usually rather for the purpose of asserting the general spirit which according to them reigns in it, than in order to cite its express words as applicable to the point in question; or if they employ positive passages, these passages often prove nothing at all against the doctrine which they at

tack.*

For example, the Antitrinitarians almost always oppose to the doctrine of the divinity of the Saviour, the numerous passages in which his humanity is mentioned, without perceiving that these passages, which prove indeed that Jesus Christ was truly man, do not at all prove that he was not at the same time truly God, as another class of passages clearly show; and seemingly forgetful that the Trinitarians believe in the humanity of the Saviour, at the same time that they believe in his di

By a necessary consequence, the latter party fear discussions respecting faith, and almost refuse to render a reason of their belief; these doctrinal questions appear to them little important, and not worth the trouble of investigation; they generally banish them into the region of theoretick divinity; while the others, with the holy scripture in their hand, consider these doctrines as vital to practical Christianity; and even as our blessed reformers did in times past, they demand and challenge free and publick discussions, calculated to enlighten the minds of the hearers and bring them over to the gospel. But this ground is too slippery for their adversaries, and they are very careful not to follow them upon it. And why? cannot the disciples of Jesus Christ, in a brotherly manner and in a full spirit of peace and charity, discuss the grounds of their eternal hopes? All acknowledge that truth springs from the shock of opposite opinions; wherefore then should the one party constantly refuse to appear even once in this species of sacred arena, while the others show themselves constantly ready, and demand their descent into it with impatience?

A new consequence which might be foreseen a priori, and which experience fully confirms, is, that on one side, we find, as they say, quot capita tot sensus, as many different opinions, and as many different ways of expressing them, as there are individuals; they severally go various lengths-every one's reason being in some sort put as a last analysis, above the word of God, this divergency is unavoidable.

vinity. Thus the one party receives these two classes of scripture in their simple and natural sense; those of the other party are at much pains, and do not always succeed, in making the passages which establish the divinity of Christ, speak otherwise than they would speak, if the words were taken in their usual and ordinary acceptation.

Let any one, for example, compare together, Vernet's "Christian Instruction," the "Course of Study of the Christian Religion," by J. S. Anspach, Zollikofer's "Pious Exercises," the "Letters to Bettina on Religion," by Pfeffel, the "Preface" placed before the Bible published at Strasburg, written by Professor Haffner, and since suppressed, all the collections of sermons not orthodox, &c. &c. (we purposely cite works of different kinds); and our assertion will be found abundantly confirmed. On the contrary, Christian writers, defenders of the true faith, all agree concerning the fundamentals of their belief; from one end of the earth to the other, they hold the same language. They may differ respecting secondary and non-essential doctrines; but the fall of the first man, and the fatal consequences of that fall upon his descendants; the divinity, properly so called, of the Saviour, redemption by the blood of Christ, justification by faith, the regeneration and sanctification of the heart by the Holy Spirit, are articles of faith common to all these Christians, without exception. Let any one consult, upon these different points, writers and preachers truly evangelical, of all times and places, and he will be convinced that all have held the same language, and built upon the same foundation, Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And how should it be otherwise? All have drawn their faith from the same divine source; and we know that there is but "one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism." (Eph. iv. 4, 5.) It is in this, (to make a passing observation) and in this alone, that genuine

It is nearly superfluous to say, that when we speak of Christian faith, we do not mean a speculative faith, a faith of the head; but the faith of the heart, faith working by love, and having for its necessary fruit, the Christian life, and Christian works.

Christian unity is found: it is neither in a unity of indifference about doctrine, nor an external and material unity, imposed by authority, but unity in the revealed truth of God; unity of faith, hope, prayers, and salvation; the only possible, and the only desirable unity.

Among other differences existing between the adherents and the adversaries of the doctrine which we defend, it is to be remarked that not only is it rare that the latter publickly and fully avow their conviction, but that they are most usually disposed to be offended at the disclosures which others make for them in this respect; while a Christian, established in the true faith, "glories in the cross of Christ," according to the expression of Paul, and is willing to deserve still more the accusations and the mockeries to which his belief exposes him in every part of the world. Is it not true, in general, that if one say to a man who denies the divinity (properly so called) of Christ-"You do not believe in the divinity of Christ," instead of replying, "No, I do not believe, and I have reason not to believe in it," and of proving the correctness of his incredulity, he is rather disposed to be angry, to say that you attack him, and to entrench himself behind some general principle, the application of which is precisely the thing in question. It is necessary here wholly to except the English Unitarians;* they are in this respect wholly distinct from ours; they are Ŭnitarians openly-freely willing to be such, willing to be known as such, and glorying in the fact that they

militant brethren.-Translator.

As also the American, and their co

This remark of the translator is true, in regard to the greater part of American Unitarians, at the present time; but the time was, when there was the same want of explicitness among the Unitarians of the United States, as there is at present among those of France: and there are some instances of this kind still to be found among us.-Ed. Ch. Adv.