Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

world.-Natural conscience, a mere faculty of the fleshly mind, is, it is true, getting enlightened on its own principles, through the medium of the Scriptures, understood as a divine law, or series of divine laws. But it is merely natural conscience which under such circumstances is enlightened. And the whole of its illumination, such as it is, consists in a complete perversion, on its part, of the meaning and object of God's word."-Pp. 475–477.

The third and final grand exhibition of human enmity commenced, we are told, at the destruction of Jerusalem; it is still in progress, and will continue till the end of time. It is the characteristic, we learn, of the dispensation of grace that its benefits are strictly and in every sense of the word gratuitous. Law, we are told, has now passed away; the gospel is simply the publication of a fact revealed by God concerning himself and his intentions towards the human race, the knowledge of which, as divine by man, is in him the earnest of life everlasting. This is a gift perfectly free and unconditional. But man, proud man, refuses to receive it on these terms, and must needs make it out that he has certain conditions to fulfil, in virtue of which he can make a claim to it in the light of wages for work done. This, at least, we conceive may possibly be the purport of our author's lengthened and somewhat vague and indefinite statements. If so, however, we contend that there are large and numerous parties against whom the charge is very unjustly brought. Certainly, we believe him who said, "They that have done good shall rise to the resurrection of life; they that have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." But this is because the cultivation of good habits and dispositions in this life is necessary to form that state of heart and mind which alone is fit or competent to taste the joys of a heavenly state. The nature of things, therefore, renders it necessary that the promise of future happiness should be made dependent upon this condition. And we allege that it is the natural tendency of the present state of things to furnish a mental and moral discipline which shall form such dispositions in our original human nature, training it by degrees to the knowledge, the love and the resemblance of its Maker. But we disclaim the idea of merit in the sight of God, if by this term be meant any intrinsic quality in good works which authorizes man to demand any thing at the hand of his Maker. According to this view of it, we humbly conceive that the present life, considered as a preparatory state of existence for creatures destined for immortality, exhibits a more striking proof of the Divine wisdom and goodness, than if, with our author, we suppose it to have no efficacy imparted to it for the promotion of this great and final object, and to be intended for no other purpose than to display in the clearest light the strange fact, that man, the creature of God, as the result of that human nature with which God had endowed him, is and must of necessity be in a state of utter and irreclaimable enmity to his Maker.

The penalty denounced against those enemies of God who persist in believing that the dead shall be judged according to their works, is nothing less, we are told, than the utter and everlasting destruction of that human nature, which is thus demonstrated to be in a state of entire and hopeless enmity, incapable of any amendment or change. Though the work of God, it should seem to have been a complete failure, and there is nothing to be done but to abandon it altogether as such.

Let us not, however, be too much appalled by this alarming prospect. The system provides a way of escape. It pronounces a sentence of destruction upon human nature, not upon the individuals who bear this nature. They, it seems, are to be at once regenerated by taking up a new and divine nature.

"At the consummation of all things, Christ will be revealed in all the fulness of his glory as spiritual Adam; placing all human beings, as descendants of Adam and as actuated by a principle of enmity to God, in periods numbered by succession, or on his left hand; and placing the same beings, as descendants of and as new-created in himself and as actuated by the principle of love to God, in eternity proper, or on his right hand; punishing the nature of the former, or human nature, by swallowing it up eternally in the nature of the latter, or the divine nature. Here is at once the endurance of everlasting punishment and the enjoyment of everlasting life. Adam's nature is eternally punished, by being eternally destroyed; and yet, O wondrous love! the punishment is inflicted through the medium of conferring upon those whose creature nature is thus destroyed, the gift of life eternal. Thus is eternal punishment inflicted on human beings as a whole, through the medium of conferring upon them, as a whole, eternal life; and God thus rewards men's enmity to himself by such a display of enmity to them in return, as consists, not in his returning evil for evil, as if he had been overcome by their evil, but in his giving them to live with himself for ever, and thereby overcoming their evil with good.”— Pp. 512-514.

We have thus endeavoured to give a sort of outline of the leading features of this singular scheme, without attempting to enter into the variety of minuter details as they are exhibited at great length in the work before us. The author's style, though tolerably perspicuous, abounds of course with strange and revolting expressions, founded on his peculiar views. It is, besides, exceedingly prolix and diffuse, so that it would be difficult to compress an entire statement of his principles in his own words within any moderate compass. While expressing our own entire dissent from his doctrine, as inconsistent with what we think a rational interpretation of Scripture, we are not disposed to question that, like many others whose opinions appear to us both erroneous and of dangerous practical tendency, he may nevertheless have succeeded in so reconciling it in his own mind with sound views of Christian morality, as to enable him duly to present it to the minds and enforce it on the consciences of his hearers. We have no doubt that he contrives, in some way satisfactory to himself, to make even these principles the basis of practical instruction and exhortation; for, with all its extravagance, the book evidently proceeds from a pious, honest and conscientious mind. It has been well said, that God has laid the foundation of virtue so deep in our hearts, that it is scarcely possible for any error in our heads to overturn it.

W. T.

WHY THEOLOGIANS DISPARAGE REASON.

SHREWD men do not substitute any thing in the place of reason, so long as reason will serve them. It is when the eye of the spectator must not be too prying, that the conjuror envelops himself in smoke. Some men play the conjuror consciously, some unconsciously.-British Quarterly Review, No. VI.

VOL. III.

G

A NEW-YEAR'S CAROL.

SING in melancholy chorus,
Sing the dirge of the Old Year;
Bring the sorrows that he bore us,
Lay them down upon his bier;
Softly sing how we remember

All our weeping, past and gone,
How from June to bleak December
Still we loved and trusted on;
Stifling the indwelling sorrow,
Hoping on with patient love,
Looking for a brighter morrow,
Rest and comfort from above;
Till the changing seasons bore us
Softer memories of the past,
And with brighter hopes before us,
Peace of spirit came at last.
Louder now, in gladder chorus,
Sing the joys of the Old Year;
Bring the happy hours he bore us,
Cast them not upon his bier.
Let the memory of their gladness
Still be bright in hours to come,
Helpers in an hour of sadness,
Memories of a cheerful home,
Thoughts of "old familiar faces,"

Lighted by love's happy smile,
Sister's gentle household graces,
Mother's love in time of trial;
Visions, too, of one yet dearer,
Nearer, far, than all the rest,-
These will make the future clearer,
These will make the present blest.

Sing, in ever louder chorus,

Welcome to the Coming Year!
Sing of all the hopes before us,
Raise your carol, glad and clear!
Let us gird ourselves, light-hearted,
For the labours yet in store,

Still remembering the Departed,

With the looks of love they wore;

Looks of love that will incite us

To the solemn way of Duty,

And through earth's dark paths will light us,
By their calm and holy beauty.

Sing in ever louder chorus,

Welcome to the Coming Year,
Sing of all the hopes before us,
Raise your carol, glad and clear!

Christmas, 1846.

C.

CORRESPONDENCE.

ON THE INTERMENT OF DISSENTERS BY THE CLERGY.

SIR,

ON the case of the Vicar of Warminster and the poor Unitarian pew-opener (see C. R. for Nov., p. 698), your intelligent correspondent, "A Unit," founds some remarks which the circumstances of that case seem to me hardly to

warrant.

Knowing nothing of the parties, I cannot even guess how far Sarah Garrett's connection with the Warminster chapel was a matter of conscience or convenience; it might be the former, or it might be the latter. In either case, I venture, with all deference to him, to demur to the reasoning of your correspondent in this matter. If the poor woman were conscientious, why should her conscientiousness in life be visited with insult in death? If, with the mass of people in her situation in life, she really had no particular theological opinions, simply because she did not understand them,—if she troubled herself little about such matters, and was content to be honest, well-conducted and industrious,-why, in defiance of law-of that law which a clergyman swears to obey-should her remains be treated with less respect than clergymen are accustomed to observe towards the worst of our species,-if only they have moved in a certain sphere of society, and their friends can afford to pay a good price for the prayers which these conscientious clergymen say over them? If, instead of being the poor pew-opener of a Dissenting chapel, Sarah Garrett had happened to be the patroness of the living of Warminster, and at the same time made open profession of the most unorthodox opinions, does "A Unit" imagine the Vicar's conscience would have stood in the way of his burying her? Your correspondent's amiable temperament may perhaps induce him to doubt. For myself-judging of the Vicar of Warminster by what I have seen of other Vicars-I confess I entertain no doubt whatever.

How far it may be proper for living Unitarians, entertaining all the objections urged by your correspondent to the Church-of-England service, to insist on the performance of that service over their deceased friends, also Unitarians, is a point I care not to go into. That is a question fairly open to discussion; but it is not exactly the one before us. I have as yet nowhere seen it stated that Sarah Garrett's children and connections are Unitarians. Probably they are not. If it be so, why were the feelings of these poor people to be outraged, in order that a Vicar's conscience, or his spite, might be gratified?

That thing conscience, as found in not a few persons, seems to me the most incomprehensible of all things I ever tried to comprehend. The Vicar of Warminster's conscience, it would appear from the statement given in your work, refused last year to bury in the usual way Sarah Haines, a member of the Presbyterian congregation there. A noise having been made about this case, his conscience has since relented in favour of two other members of the same religious society, who have been buried with the ordinary forms. Now his conscience seems to have changed again, and towards Sarah Garrett he is as relentless as he was towards Sarah Haines. Can "A Unit" understand this sort of conscience? I can't. Does he think it entitled to much consideration? I don't. And I confess that, for anybody's conscience, when it is pleaded as a justification for disregarding the common claims of humanity, for closing the heart to the holy promptings of Charity, and for setting at naught the kindly feelings of affection, at a time when they are most entitled to sympathy,─I have no respect whatever.

To ask a clergyman to do that which he cannot do with a "safe conscience," is, "A Unit" says, unchristian. There is a very straightforward way, your correspondent must allow me to remind him, for the conscientious clergyman to keep his conscience unsinged, without wounding the consciences or the feelings of others. If he cannot honestly discharge duties which he has vowed

he will discharge, which by virtue of his office he is bound to discharge, why then let him retire from his office, and give up its profits to somebody whose conscience will allow him to perform its duties.

When a Vicar's conscience shall prompt him to forego some pecuniary claim on the living, I shall be disposed to regard charitably any harsh treatment he may observe towards the dead, heretic-but not till then.

The course suggested by "A Unit" as the more consistent and devout, would probably often be so; but of that, I hope, Unitarians will always judge for themselves-not permit the clergy to judge for them. To secure the respect of others, they must shew that they respect themselves. The world will not give them credit for the possession of much self-respect, if, whenever a bitter clerical conscience may wish to gratify itself, they quietly submit to what the law and feeling of the country regard as the greatest affront that can be put upon a human being.

London, Dec. 14, 1846.

ANOTHER UNIT.

[Since the foregoing was in type, we have received a communication from the minister of the Warminster Presbyterian chapel, the Rev. T. J. Read, in which he states that "none of the children of the deceased attend the place of worship at which their mother acted as pew-opener;" and also that "the case has been submitted to the Poor-law Commissioners, and by them to the Secretary of State." ED. C. R.]

MR. JAMES HAUGHTON IN REPLY TO STRICTURES IN THE CHRISTIAN REFORMER.

SIR,

I DID not see your strictures on my letter to the Irish Unitarian Magazine of September last (C. R., II. 587), until within the last few days. They are severe. But I do not find fault with this. When a man is in earnest, he will write in language that will always appear severe to those whom he

censures.

I beg to express my thanks for your courtesy in not giving my name to your readers, because of the reasons which induced you to withhold it. But I have now to beg you will publish my letter in your Magazine, so that your readers may see it and judge for themselves whether the sentiments it contains are worthy of praise or blame. I am not ashamed of them; there is not one of them that I would wish to withdraw. If you had published my name, I would ask you to publish my letter as an act of justice. I now ask you to publish it, because I think the matter it contains is of great importance to the spread of Christianity, and that it behoves Unitarians, in an especial manner, to look well to the paths of their feet on that great question of human rights, Slavery.

We cannot, my dear Sir, honestly take any middle course on the question. We must be either Anti-Slavery men or Pro-Slavery men. If we be the former, we will stand boldly for the rights of the Slave; we will demand for him instant and unconditional emancipation; we will deny the humanity or the Christianity of the man-stealer; we will make no excuse for, no compromise with, the iniquity of him who holds, or who maintains the right to hold, a Man as a chattel-as an article of merchandize. Whether the man be treated kindly or cruelly, is of no importance as regards the principle. It is with the horrible act of transforming the "image of God" into a brute, that we have to do. However we may personally abhor Slavery, we shall yet be the friend of the man-stealer, and the sustainer of his injustice, if we in any manner palliate his crime-if we allow that he may be a Christian while he stands in the relation of owner of his fellow-creature.

You are dissatisfied with my logic and my charity. I never learned the "Art of Logic." In speaking of Mrs. Dana's position as a resident in a Slave State, I took common sense and the evidence of experience as my guides; and I do repeat, what no intelligent man will deny, that no one living in a Slave

« PředchozíPokračovat »