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But, if you adopt the Socinian view of things, your ideas of the heavenly state, compared with the above, will be miserably flat and cold; and consequently, your affections will be more set on things below, and less on things above. Dr. Priestley, in his Sermon on the Death of Mr. Robinson, is not only employed in dissuading people from too much thought and fear about death; but from too much hope respecting the state beyond it. He seems to fear, lest we should form too high expectations of heavenly felicity, and so meet with a disappointment. The heaven which he there describes, does not necessarily include any one of the foregoing ideas, but must exist if they were all excluded!

Take his own words: "The change of our condition by death, may not be so great as we are apt to imagine. As our natures will not be changed, but only improved, we have no reason to think that the future world (which will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this. And, indeed, why should we ask or expect any thing more? If we should still be obliged to provide for our subsistence by exercise, or labor; is that a thing to be complained of by those who are supposed to have acquired fixed habits of industry, becoming rational beings, and who have never been able to bear the languor of absolute rest, or indolence? Our future happiness has, with much reason, been supposed to arise from an increase of knowledge.But if we should have nothing more than the means of knowledge furnished us, as we have here, but be left to our own labor to find it out; is that to be complained of by those who will have acquired a love of truth, and a habit of inquiring after it? To make discoveries ourselves, though the search may require time and labor, is unspeakably more pleasing than to learn every thing by the information of others.* If the immortality that is promised to us in the gospel, should not be necessary and absolute, and we should only have the certain means of making ourselves immortal, we should have much to be thankful for. What the scriptures inform us concerning a future life, is expressly in general terms, and often

*Is not this the rock on which Dr. Priestley and his brethren split? Have they not, on this very principle, coined a gospel of their own, instead of receiving the instructions of the sacred writers?

VOL. II.

27

in figurative language. A more particular knowledge of it is wise

ly concealed from us.*

You see, brethren, here is not one word of God, or of Christ, as being the sum and substance of our bliss; and, except that mention is made of our being freed from "imperfections bodily and mental," the whole consists of mere natural enjoyments; differing from the paradise of Mahometans chiefly in this, that their enjoyments are principally sensual, whereas these are mostly intellectual. Those are adapted to gratify the voluptuary, and these the philosopher. Whether such a heaven will suit a holy mind, or be adapted to draw forth our best affections, judge ye,

*Page 18.

I am, &c.

LETTER XV.

ON THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN SOCINIANISM AND INFIDELITY, AND THE TENDENCY OF THE ONE TO THE OTHER.

Christian Brethren,

I SUPPOSE we may take it for granted, at present, that Christianity is favorable to true virtue, and that Infidelity is the reverse. If it can be proved, therefore, that Socinianism resembles Infidelity, in several of its leading features, and has a direct tendency towards it, that will be the same as proving it unfavorable to true virtue.

It has been observed, and I think justly, that "there is no consistent medium between genuine Christianity and Infidelity." The smallest departure from the one, is a step towards the other.There are different degrees of approach, but all move on in the same direction. Socinians, however, are not willing to own that their scheme has any such tendency. Dr. Priestley appears to be more than a little hurt, at being represented by the bigots, (as he politely calls those who think ill of his principles,) as undermining Christianity; and intimates that, by their rigid attachment to certain doctrines, some are forced into Infidelity, while others are saved from it by his conciliating principles. Many things to the

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* Here the late Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, is brought in as an example ; who, as some think, in an excess of complaisance, told the Doctor, in a private letter, that, "but for his friendly aid, he feared he should have gone from enthusiasm to Deism." Letters to Mr. Burn, Preface. To say nothing, whether the use Dr. Priestley made of this private letter was warrantable, and whether it would not have been full as modest to have forborne to publish to the world so high a compliment on himself; supposing not only the thing itself to have been strictly true, but that the conduct of Dr. Priestley was as strictly proper; what does it prove? Nothing, except that the region of Socinianism is so near to that of Deism, that, now and then, an individual, who was on the high road to the one, has stopped short, and taken up with the other.

same purpose, are advanced by Mr. Lindsey, in his Discourse addressed to the Congregation at the Chapel in Essex-Street, Strand, on resigning the Pastoral Office among them. We are to accommodate our religion, it seems, to the notions and inclinations of Infidels; and then they would condescend to receive it. This principle of accommodation has been already noticed in Letter III. And it has been shown, from the example of the Popish Missionaries in China, to have no good tendency. To remove every stumbling-block out of the way of Infidels, would be to annihilate the gospel. Such attempts, also, suppose what is not true; That their not believing in Christianity, is owing to some fault in the system, as generally received, and not to the temper of their own minds. Faults there are, no doubt: but if their hearts were right, they would search the scriptures for themselves, and form their own sentiments according to the best of their capacity.

The near relation of the system of Socinians to that of Infidels, may be proved, from the agreement of their principles, their prejudices, their spirit, and their success.

First There is an agreement in their leading principles. One of the most important principles in the scheme of Infidelity, it is well known, is THE SUFFICIENCY OF HUMAN REASON. This is the great bulwark of the cause, and the main ground on which its advocates proceed in rejecting revelation. If the one, say they, be sufficient, the other is unnecessary. Whether the Socinians do not adopt the same principle, and follow hard after the Deists in its application too, we will now inquire. When Mr. Burn charged Dr. Priestley with making the reason of the individual the sole umpire in matters of faith," the Doctor denied the charge, and supposed that Mr. Burn must have been " reading the writings of Bolingbroke, Hume, or Voltaire, and have imagined them to be his:" as if none but professed Infidels maintained that principle. This, however, is allowing it to be a principle pertaining to Infidelity; and of such importance, it should seem, as to distinguish it from Christianity. If it should prove, therefore, that the same principle occupies a place, yea, and an equally important place, in the Socinian scheme, it will follow, that Socinianism and Deism must be nearly allied. But, Dr. Priestley, as was said, denies the

charge; and tells us, that he "has written a great deal to prove the insufficiency of human reason:" he also accuses Mr. Burn, of "the grossest and most unfounded calumny," in charging such a principle upon him.*

If what Mr. Burn alleges be "a gross and unfounded calumny," it is rather extraordinary, that such a number of respectable writers should have suggested the same thing. I suppose there has been scarcely a writer of any note among us, but who, if this be calumny, has calumniated the Socinians. If there be any credit due to Trinitarian authors, they certainly have hitherto understood matters in a different light from that in which they are here represented. They have supposed, whether rightly or not, that their opponents in general, do hold the very principle which Dr. Priestley so strongly disavows.

But this is not all. If what Mr. Burn allows be a gross and unfounded calumny, it is not more extraordinary, that Socinian writers should calumniate themselves. Mr. Robinson, whom Dr. Priestley glories in as his convert, affirms much the same thing; and that, in his History of Baptism, a work published after he had adopted the Socinian system. In answering an objection brought against the Baptists, as being enthusiasts, he asks, "Were Castelio, and Servetus, Socinus, and Crellius, enthusiasts? On the contrary, they are taxed with attributing too much to reason, AND

THE SUFFICIENCY OF REASON IS THE SOUL OF THEIR SYSTEM.

If the last member of this sentence be true, and Dr. Priestley has maintained the same principle as much as any of his predecessors; then is what Mr. Burn alleges true also, and no calumny. Further: If Mr. Robinson's words be true, the system of a Socinus, and of a Bolingbroke, however they may differ in some particulars, cannot be very wide asunder. They may be two bodies; but the difference cannot be very material, so long as those bodies are inhabited by ONE SOUL.

But was not Mr. Robinson mistaken? has he not inadvertently granted that which ought not in justice to have been granted? suppose this to be a fact, why might not the same construction have

*Letters to Mr. Burn, Letter IV.
* Page 47.

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