Bible is wrong, they are each in the right! And yet they fail to agree among themselves! The views of Parker differ much from those of Mr. Martineau, and Miss Martineau's again are very different from those of either. Her brother would, no doubt, repudiate his sister's atheism, and Parker, we presume, would reject much that is maintained by them both. If the respective creeds of the three could be written down, each would be found, in many respects, destructive of the others. It is clear, therefore, that they, at least, are not inspired by the Spirit of Truth. Truth is always consistent with herself, and could not possibly lead those who follow her to conclusions so opposite, so contradictory, and so mutually destructive, as those at which they have arrived.

To our minds, with the exception, indeed, of the corruption of human nature, nothing so convincingly proves the necessity for some standard of moral and spiritual truth, external to the human reason, as the endless contradictions to which the exercise of the human reason is constantly leading its votaries. On these points, the reason of one man differs from that of almost every other. My mind embraces as truth what the mind of another rejects as error. That which to me appears to be the very perfection of what is consistent and reasonable, seems to my neighbour to be the height of unreasonableness and folly. It must be obvious, therefore, that if there be such a thing as a standard of moral and spiritual truth, it cannot be the human reason, but must be something apart from it. It cannot be anything in ourselves, but must be something out of ourselves. We believe that we have this standard in the Bible. The human reason, indeed, has been concerned with the production of the Bible, but it has been the human reason enlightened, purified, and guided by the Spirit of the living God Hence the harmony of the sacred

writers one with another; and hence it is that, while each retains his own individuality, their separate individualities merge into a higher individuality, in which we find them to be one. We discover nothing of this kind in connection with the sceptical writers of the present day. How can we account for its existence among prophets and apostles, if not by the fact, that they were each inhabited and influenced by the same Spirit? Hence their wondrous unity, in spite of their remarkable diversities.

But, to return to the point from which we set out,-it seems to us very easy to account for the infidel sympathies and tendencies of Socinianism. Those who embrace this system will invariably be found to entertain light views of sin. By them, sin is regarded as a trifle-rather a misfortune than a fault-a peccadillo to be pardoned, than a crime to be punished. Blind to the infinite excellence and stainless purity of the Divine nature, with no right conception of the spirituality of the law, and of its high, and holy, and unalterable requirements, they cannot imagine God as regarding sin with abhorrence, and hence as concerned to keep himself in entire and everlasting separation from it, and to manifest his displeasure against all who love and practise it. With this mental- we should rather say-this moral defect, the doctrine of atonement appears to them an incongruity, an utter absurd. ity, and the cross of Christ is foolishness. With the doctrine of Christ's atonement there goes, of course, the doctrine of Christ's Divinity; for why should God become "manifest in the flesh," to effect a work which might as easily be accomplished by man? Thus, rejecting the two cardinal doctrines of Christianity-doctrines which are interwoven with the whole texture of revelation-no wonder that the Bible becomes to them a book full of inconsistencies and contradictions, and that

they feel an utter want of sympathy with the spirit of the men who wrote it. On their own principles, they are as little able either to comprehend or explain the Bible, as the man who rejects the Copernican theory is able to account for the apparently erratic and contradictory motions of the planetary bodies. They reject the only clue that can guide them through what they find to be the intricacies of the Bible; and the book being thus to them, in consequence of their rejection of its fundamental doctrines, a mass of confusion and contradiction, their only consistent course is, either entirely to reject it as a Divine revelation, or else to regard it as containing, with somewhat that comes from God, much more that originates with man.

We consider Dr. Channing, however, to have been, in a great measure, an exception to these remarks. He was, certainly, no Socinian. We find him saying, vol. ii. pp. 105, 106, "With Dr. Priestley I have less sympathy than with many of the orthodox.' I am little of a Unitarian, have little sympathy with the system of Priestley and Belsham, and stand aloof from all but those who strive and pray for clearer light and look for a purer and more effectual manifestation of Christian truth." Regarding our Saviour, we find him writing as follows:-" Jesus Chist is the Son of God in a peculiar sense, the temple of the Divinity, the brightest image of his glory. In seeing him, we see the Father." (Vol. i. p. 222.) The following paragraph expresses his views regarding the atonement.

"In the language of Scripture, men, having sinned and become subject to death, are represented as enslaved to sin and to death. In this wretched and hard bondage, their Heavenly Father pitied them, and desired their release; desired that they might be rescued from this cruel oppression, and restored to his easy and happy service; that they might enter his family, and become his property in the

* See Memoir of William Ellery Channing, with Extracts from his Correspondence and Manuscripts. 2 vols. 8vo. Routledge.

sense of yielding him cheerful obedience and enjoying his love. To effect this most happy deliverance he sent his own Son; and as the wisest, most suitable, and effectual means to this end, he gave this Son to die the bitter death of crucifixion. According to the customs of the age when the Scriptures were written, it was very common to redeem men from captivity by paying a price. The blood or death of Christ, which is the instrument of our deliverance from the influence of sinful affections and of death, is there called a by it. This is the plain, obvious meaning of price, a ransom, and we are said to be bought Scripture, and so far from representing our blessings as bought for us from God by another, it represents God as buying or purest blessings. The mercy of God has not chasing us, that he may shed on us his richbeen excited towards us by the mediation of the Son; but his mercy preceded, appointed this mediation, and gives it its efficacy." (Vol. i. p. 221.)

Reserving for a little our observations on this passage, we beg to remind our readers, that though Dr. Chauning could write thus, he was far, very far, from being orthodox in sentiment. It is abundantly evident from the volumes before us, that he was an Arian; that he regarded Christ as a super-human being, who existed prior to his incarnation, but as essentially distinct from, and inferior to the Father. He seems through life to have held on by a system which but few have been able long to regard as tenable; for in most cases Arianism proves but a stepping-stone to Socinianism, as Socinianism does to Infidelity. It would be easy to show that Dr. Channing's views are as inconsistent with themselves as they are with Scripture. Indeed, he never seems to have ventured to bring them fairly to the test. We look in vain in his Memoir, and in his other writings, for anything like an exposition and defence of his sentiments regarding either the person or the work of Christ. He seems always to have shrunk from the argu

ment.

To the admirable letters addressed to him by Moses Stewart, on the Divinity of Christ, he never attempted an answer.

Here, as it seems to us, was the great

defect in the mind of Channing. With much natural amiableness, quick sensibilities, powerful feelings, strong moral sympathies, and not a little of the poetic temperament, he yet seems to have been deficient in vigorous mental grasp, and also in that peculiar intellectual capacity which enables one to survey a subject on all sides, and in all its varied bearings, before coming to a conclusion. We often find him reasoning rather with his feelings than with his intellect; and, not unfrequently, under the influence of antipathies which he had unhappily acquired, shrinking back from inferences to which his premises would fairly have led him. It seems to have been rather the cold formalism of his father, than any examination of the subject in the light of Scripture, that led at first to his defection from orthodoxy.

The passage which we have quoted above, regarding the atonement, supplies us with some questions which we think Dr. Channing would have felt it impracticable satisfactorily to answer. Of course, we are quite at one with him in believing that the mercy of God towards us was not excited by the mediation of Christ, but preceded and appointed it. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." The atonement of Christ was the fruit of the love of God. But when he speaks of "God as buying or purchasing us" with "the blood or death of Christ," we might ask, From whom does God thus buy or purchase us? To whom does God pay this ransom price for our redemption? Not certainly to Sin or to Death, which are not real, but only imaginary beings. Nor would Dr. Channing have said that it was paid to Satan. To whom then was it paid? We should say, that if it were not, in some sense, paid to God, it was not paid to any But Dr. Channing seems to deny that there is any sense in which this

one.

ransom-price can be regarded as having been paid to God, which is tantamount to affirming that no atonement was necessary to vindicate the Divine character in forgiving sin. This view takes away all substantiality from the atonement, and reduces it to a mere sham. If there was not a need for the sufferings of Christ, arising from the character of God-if they were not needful in order to the full vindication and perfect display of that character, where was the need for them at all? We cannot see how, on Dr. Channing's principles, the death of Christ can be regarded as having been necessary; and we are at a loss to know how he would have vindicated the rectitude of the Divine procedure in sending even a merely superhuman being into our world, that he might pay, in agonizing sufferings and an ignominious death, an unnecessary price to some imaginary power, for man's redemption. If, on the other hand, a ransom-price was necessary, as a vindication of the Divine character, he would have found it equally difficult to show how a creature, who possesses nothing of his own, could have paid anything to the Creator. While we cannot see the consistency of Dr Channing's views on this subject, we find no such difficulty with those of Paul. He writes under the guidance of the highest reason, as well as the highest inspiration, when he represents God as "setting forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins, that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus." Rom. iii. 25, 26. Dr. Channing's views on redemption were evidently not identical with those of the Apostle Paul.

We have said that Dr. Channing often reasons rather with his feelings than with his intellect. We give the following passage as a specimen of this. It has reference to Calvinism. Our readers will see that, while he was influenced by a sort of instinctive

"If I and my beloved friends, and my whole race, have come from the hands of our Creator wholly depraved, irresistibly propense to all evil, and averse to all good,-if only a portion are chosen to escape from this

miserable state, and if the rest are to be consigned, by the Being who gave us our depraved and wretched nature, to endless torments in inextinguishable flames, - then I do think that nothing remains but to mourn n anguish of heart;-then existence is a curse, and the Creator is

"O my merciful Father! I cannot speak of thee in the language which this system would suggest. No! thou hast been too kind to me to deserve this reproach from my lips." (Vol. i. p. 267.)

We need hardly say, that this is not Calvinism, but a caricature of it. That he could have been capable of writing such a passage as this, has greatly lowered our opinion of Dr. Channing's judgment. It shows to how great an extent his reason might be swayed by his feelings. Had he given a fair view of the sentiments of those who call themselves Calvinists, in their own language, and then set himself calmly to refute them, if he could, this would have been something to the purpose. But, instead of this, we find him, under the influence of strong and excited feeling, drawing a distorted and exaggerated portraiture of their system; and endeavouring thus to excite the mind he is addressing to sympathy with his own. He gives birth to a monster, and calls on us to be horrified at the sight of it!

Let us see, however, whether Dr. Channing does not himself, when in other moods, admit all the fundamental points which, in the passage we have quoted, he assails with such an overflow of indignant emotion.

He admits, then, we nced hardly say, that man did receive his existence,

not have said that human nature was "wholly depraved, propense to all evil, averse to all good," he admits, as we shall see, what is fairly tantamount to this. In speaking of spiritual influences, he says (p. 332, vol. i.), “There is another class of Christians" (he means his own) "who believe that God constantly operates on the human mind, and that without his operation no fruits of goodness are produced." Dr. Chan ning here affirms of our nature, that without the operation of God on it, it would produce no fruits of goodness. Now, if such a nature be not "wholly depraved," we do not know what depravity means. When he affirms that no good can come from man without the operation on him of God, he is, in effect, telling us that man is, in himself, hopelessly, incurably depraved. Dr. Channing is here a stiff Calvinist, without being aware of it. Nay, he is more terribly Calvinistic, and goes to a greater extreme on this point, than those whose Calvinistic system he is so indignantly repudiating. For he does not mend the matter for himself, but only makes it worse, when he goes on to say, "They" (he means himself and his own school) "they believe that God does not in any manner compel men to follow the light and motives which he presents-does not force them to use the strength which he bestows. It depends on themselves whether they con cur with, or resist his grace; whether they will use, or neglect the powers which he gives; whether they will serve God, or disobey him." We are not aware that those usually called Calvinists maintain that God in any way compels or forces men to follow the light, or use the strength which he bestows. They believe that when men comply with the intimations of God's Spirit, they do so most freely. They are willing in the day of God's power with them. But let our readers judgo whether, on Dr. Channing's system,

man's nature is not represented as being even more hopelessly depraved, than it is on the system generally maintained by those whom he opposes. Dr. Channing maintains that God operates on the minds of all men, but that many resist his operation, and perish in their sin. The view generally maintained amongst ourselves is, that God operates by his Spirit only on the minds of his own people-those to whom he becomes a reconciled Father, while they become his loving and obedient children, Such, then, is our view of human nature; it is so bad, that, when left to itself, it goes wholly wrong, and produces no fruits but those of sin. Dr. Channing, on the other hand, goes much farther than we do, inasmuch as he represents human nature, in innumerable instances, as going wholly wrong, and producing no fruits but those of sin, in spite of God's constant operations on it. We appeal to our readers, then, if, on Dr. Channing's own principles, our nature is not represented as being even more desperately depraved than it is on our principles. We believe that it goes wrong without spiritual influences, but that spiritual influences invariably bring it right. He believes that it goes wrong with spiritual influences, and in spite of them; and that in the vast majority of instances, those influences utterly fail to bring it right. Surely Dr. Channing wrote the above passage "understanding neither what he said, nor whereof he affirmed."

As to the future punishment of the impenitent, we find him going almost as far as the system which he repudiates. He merely hesitates to employ Scripture language with reference to it, and intimates his impression that possibly it may not be eternal:—

"It is true, as many assert, that the word everlasting, when applied to punishment, does not necessarily mean without end; and that it is often applied to denote limited duration; but still, that there will be a limit to future punishment, that it will operate to reform us, or that there will be bounds to the consequences of unfortunate guilt, the Scriptures nowhere declare. God's mercy, if it shall be extended to the impenitent, is not yet revealed. The future is filled with awful gloom to those who are now living without Gcd; and it is but kindness towards them to encourage no delusive hope. Such a hope forms no part of my message, for, in my view, it forms no part of revelation."

We commend this passage to the consideration of those who maintain that the Scriptures teach that future punishment will not be everlasting.

was

We now take leave of Dr. Channing by expressing our regret, that while his sympathy with the "orthodox" sufficiently strong to prevent him from passing to the extreme of Socinianism, it was not strong enough to have drawn him from a system which is at once shallow in its philosophy, inconsistent with itself, and opposed to Divine revelation, to one in which he would have found inspiration, reason, and the highest philosophy, harmoniously blended.

there are many who know not how to reconcile the two in which they have been educated. Meanwhile, studious attempts are being made to show that Christianity cannot stand the light of the age we now live in. The impression left is very painful, when the mind imagines that it discovers a discrepancy