cal speculations as the condition of his recognizing another man for a disciple of Christ. Thus in regard to the question about the person and natures of Christ. Christ is unquestionably a Man, and a Man, in as much as he is man, cannot be God; the subject (ĺ speak logically) of the proposition "Christ is God," seems alternately to reject the predicate and to be capable of it. If it is made to mean the man Jesus, the predicate becomes contradictory; if it means any other Being, the proposition, though apparently one, becomes two; and it has two subjects. It is here that theological logic becomes bewildered. The unity of Person which has been invented to save this difficulty is a mere quibble. A perfect Man who is not a person, is a strange contradiction. There are minds that will not submit to the pain of enduring this Theological jargon. Were it not for the theological rage of raising a physiological theory on such points, all those who worship God in Christ might hold communion together, in silence about the manner in which Christ is one with God. A. Can you propose any means of putting an end to such evils? B. The only one is to cease to consider Theology as a science. A. Strange! What! the Queen of Sciences to be dethroned? The whole body of Doctors of Divinity-those very persons who stand at the head of every University in Europe, to be stripped of their honours, and declared to know nothing at all! B. Except in Roman Catholic countries, that change has taken place in a great degree. Who indeed ever imagines at Oxford or Cambridge that a D.D. must necessarily know even the rudiments of general literature; and what is more, who takes it for granted that such a personage knows anything about the religion he professes? It is indeed a secret conviction of the futility of the studies called Divinity, that chiefly has put an end to the existence of a regular course of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. A. But do you mean that there is nothing to be learnt in connection with religion? B. By no means.-But what is to be learnt is exactly that which must in course of time banish the Logical Divinity from the face of the civilised world. A. I wish you would explain yourself more clearly. B. I will. There are a great number of facts connected with Religion: there is also an enormous mass of Philological knowledge which is inseparable from it. The only true Theology would therefore consist in a thorough knowledge of the two languages in which the different portions of the Bible were ori ginally written; and in antiquarian and historical researches into every fact relating both to true and pretended revelation. Such studies, indeed, have already shaken Logical Theology, and everything built upon it, in the whole of Germany. The cry of selfish interest, policy, and superstition has given a respite to the old speculative Divinity; but its days are counted wherever free criticism is not so severely punished by public opinion as it is in England. And, indeed, fierce and powerful as English bigotry is still, it will not be able to keep its ground much longer. Political changes are impending, and have already begun, which will deprive British intolerance of its sting. A. Am I therefore to understand that critical and historical knowledge are the enemies of what you call speculative Theology? B. Certainly. Speculative Theology is essentially connected with, and dependent on, church infallibility. No Protestant church can pretend to cultivate the Theology which produces speculative Articles, without the most palpable inconsistency. To deduce speculative theorems upon supernatural subjects is madness, except on the supposition of a supernatural guide. A. Well then: have we not the Bible? Is not the Bible a supernatural source of knowledge? B. The origin of the Bible is indeed supernatural; but, as it speaks the language of men, it cannot convey its meaning with any degree of that accuracy which is absolutely necessary for scientific inference. Theology, therefore, or any theoretical system which pretends to sanction its doctrines by divine authority, is a delusion. A. You puzzle me extremely. According to you I should believe that the Bible is of divine origin: in other words, that the Bible is one of the miracles of the system of revelation,—a book produced, at the least, with the assistance of supernatural causes. Yet this miracle is so insufficiently provided with means of producing its effect, that people might as well have been left without it. B. You misunderstand me. I never said anything that can justify your last sentence. The Bible is a supernatural book, addressed to every Christian. Whoever reads it with an earnest desire of profiting by its contents, rises a better man from its study. In regard to the hopes of man after death,-to the trust of man in his Maker, in spite of moral and physical evil,—to the special grounds of that trust, arising from the unity of Christ with God, his mission, his death, and resurrection,-lastly, in regard to the moral duties of man, and, above all, in regard to his moral tone of mind, his principle of moral action, and the means of keeping up and improving it, there is a practical agreement among earnest Christians, which shows how much may be learnt from the Bible, without an unerring rule of interpretation. Instead, therefore, of trying to discover an authority to settle the meaning of the written revelation of God-or, what is the same, instead of inventing a method of giving certainty to the sense of the Scripture-men should consider that it is implicitly revealed in the whole Bible that no such authority can be found-and that no such authority is wanted. The Romanists urge the Protestants with the argument that the Scriptures are useless if there is not an unerring interpreter of their sense. I have always answered that, in a similar manner, the supernaturally-endowed interpreter can do no good, unless his supernatural appointment is unquestionable. A. I believe I have heard you say that at one time of your life you drew an argument against Christianity from these very premises. It was this-the Catholics prove that Revelation is useless without an infallible interpreter; the Protestants prove that there is no such interpreter: therefore the Protestants prove that Revelation is useless; in other words, that there is no Revelation. How do you now answer your own argument? B. I deny that the Catholics prove that Revelation is useless without an infallible interpreter. They prove indeed that proposition to such Protestants as believe that saving faith consists in assenting to certain theorems; but they do not prove it to me who know the contrary. A. So you would wish the Christian world to be without any creed. B. I wish every Christian to study the Scriptures with humble prayer, and to believe whatever he thinks he finds in them; but I also wish him to keep his theorems and explanations to himself. Whether he is a Christian or not, his conduct, and the spirit or tone of mind shown in his life, will decide. Christians might thus recognize each other not by watch-words but by character. Congregations or churches might be formed, with the object of mutual improvement, under the Christian sympathy of trust in God (Faith), of hope of eternal happiness, of charity and love to each other and all mankind. Misconduct should subject the erring member to admonition. If he went away, the charity of his deserted friends should try to reclaim him; if he wished to remain, and yet continued to offend, he should be excluded. A. But what would the spiritual instructors preach? B. The practical spirit of the Gospel. A. Do you not see that every one would narrow or enlarge that word, according to his views? B. I do see it; but do you wish me to set up the VOL. VI. No. 26.—New Series. 2 c very thing I condemn? I certainly do not intend to make myself a Pope, or to help any man into such an office. The check to enthusiasm and metaphysics, which in time I hope will become effectual, is that of experience. Experience of the absurdity and evils of church infallibility produced the Reformation. Experience of the insufficiency of a Reformation which still makes salvation to depend on logical inference deduced from any language, and especially the figurative language of the Scriptures, will abolish metaphysical creeds among all sensible men, till Church Articles (unless they be practical) will be among the curiosities of litera ture. A. I wish you would give me a specimen of your practical articles. B. I will; but only as a specimen of the sort of thing I mean. To lay down the rules for a Christian Church or Association would require more labour than I can now afford, and more talent and power than I ever did or shall possess. But I must premise that by Church I understand a small company of Christians. There should be thousands of these voluntary Associations, all united by Christian benevolence, and all enjoying the most perfect Christian liberty. Here, however, is my specimen. "The Members of the Christian Church of N. acknowledge the whole Bible as the highest authority on religious subjects. The New Testament is their rule of morals. "They acknowledge Christ as the Son of God, in whatever sense Christ himself appropriated that title to himself. But, although they will endeavour to find the sense of those words for themselves, they will neither teach nor condemn the sense in which other individuals understand them. 66 They will observe the same rule in regard to all other disputed doctrines which have no external and perceptible conse quences. "They admit Infant Baptism, with solemn prayer for the infant. "They celebrate the Lord's Supper by eating bread and drinking wine, in commemoration of Christ's death, and in hope of salvation through him. "Their rules of conduct are chiefly reduced to this passage of St. Paul's Ep. to the Philippians (iv. 8.): 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.' A. All this is very good, but very vague. B. Certainly not more (I will not say vague, but) unconfined than the Scriptures. Why should we attempt to mend God's works? Why should we demand technical accuracy where God has purposely left us without the means of attaining it? A. Why do you say purposely? B. Because it would be absurd to suppose that in the plan of Revelation there was an important omission, by chance. A. Allow me to ask one question more. B. What is it? A. Shall you have no article on the Atonement? B. I have already included it in the hope of Salvation through Christ. A. But do you say nothing about the manner of the Atonement? B. I beg you to remember what I have said already. Yet allow me to repeat that I do not consider the Atonement in the light of a phenomenon which men can explain in the way of cause and effect. I cannot approve of the established explanations that God could not pardon, without inflicting pain on some one-that the sufferer must be of such or such nature, else the payment, in pain, would not be sufficient, &c. &c. Of all Theological metaphysics, or physics, this demonstration is to me the most odious. A. But still you hope to be saved through Christ? |