writers whose names have been mentioned; but they have adopted the same principles, are driving at the same result, and ought, in all reason, to be classed together. How, then, (to repeat the question,) do leading standard Unitarian writers, in Europe and America, regard and treat the Holy Scriptures? One tells us, that "the prophets may have delivered the offspring of their own brains as divine revelations."* Another says, that "the narrations," (in the New Testament,) "true or false, are only suited for ignorant, uncultivated minds, who cannot enter into the evidence of natural religion."+ A third speaks of St. John's portion of the New Testament, as written with "concise and abrupt obscurity, inconsistent with itself, and made up of allegories." A fourth glories in having given "a little light to St. Paul's darkness; a darkness, as some think, industriously affected."|| A fifth represents the history of the fall as a fable; and though there is much truth in Moses' history, the dress is poetic. In Joshua, the circumstances of the conquest of Canaan are fictitious. The books of Samuel contain a multitude of falsehoods. There are no prophecies in the Psalms. Daniel is full of stories, contrived or exaggerated by superstition. phets, Christians have no concern."S With the other pro A sixth insists, that "the Godhead could not have required of Abraham so horrible a crime, [the offering of his son,] and there can be no justification, palliation, or excuse, for this pretended command of the Divinity."T A seventh explains the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost as an electric gust, and the effects which followed, as enthusiasm.** An eighth suggests, that Peter stabbed Ananias, "which," says he, "does not at all disagree with the vehement and easily exasperated temper of Peter."++ A ninth teaches, "that the Pentateuch was composed about the time of the captivity; that the Jewish ritual was of gradual formation, accessions being made to it by superstition; and that the book of Chronicles (which is filled with scraps and inconsistences) was foisted into the canon by some of the priesthood, who wished to exalt their own order."‡‡ Let us next hear some of the English Unitarians, on the same subject. PRIESTLEY. "I have frequently declared myself not to be a believer in the inspiration of the evangelists and apostles as * Semler. See Magee on Atonement and Sacrifice, p. 106. + Steinbart; ibid. + Engedin; ibid. || Gagneius; ibid. § Extracted from Danem, in Erskine's Sketches of Church Hist., vol. i. p. 84. Eichhorn. See Stuart's Letters to Channing, p. 163. tt Heinrichs; ibid., p. 166. ** Thiess; ibid. p. 165. writers.""The Scriptures were written without any particular inspiration, by men who wrote according to the best of their knowledge."-" Not that I consider the books of Scripture as inspired, and, on that account, entitled to this high degree of respect."--"That the books of Scripture were written by a particular divine inspiration, is a thing to which the writers themselves make no pretensions. It is a notion destitute of all proof, and that has done great injury to the evidence of Christianity,"---Dr. Priestley also charges the sacred writers with publishing "lame accounts, improper quotations, and inconclusive reasonings."* BELSHAM. "The Scriptures contain a very faithful and credible account of the Christian doctrine, which is the true word of God; but they are not themselves the word of God, nor do they ever assume that title; and it is highly improper to speak of them as such, as it leads inattentive readers to suppose they are written under a plenary inspiration, to which they make no pretensions."+ EVANSON. "The evangelical histories contain gross and irreconcileable contradictions." GILBERT WAKEFIELD. Mr. Wakefield tells us that his Essay on Inspiration was "intended, by a variety of arguments, to prove such a gift," [inspiration,]" as commonly understood, not resident in the Gospel writers." Again: "Some qualifications and softenings, in the case of many relations and occurrences in the Bible history, may be very properly applied," " upon the ground of exaggeration, national vanity, and the pride of individuals."|| IMPROVED Version. "The account of the miraculous conception of Jesus was probably the fiction of some early Gentile convert, who hoped, by elevating the dignity of the Founder, to abate the popular prejudice against the sect." p. 2. MONTHLY REPOSITORY. "The historical books" [of Scripture]" are to be considered merely as human testimony, as depending for the whole of their authority on the high credibility which we justly ascribe to them, from the approved sanctity and veracity of the writers." "In favor of this opinion" are urged "the contradictions which not unfrequently occur."§ CHRISTIAN PIONEER.T "The evangelists were only the historians of an inspired person, and of a Divine revelation made by him; they were not, in their capacity of historians, inspired themselves." "The idea of the evangelists being inspired writers is quite inconsistent with what Luke says," chap. i. 3.---Mark's *See Letters to Horsely. P. i. p. 132; Hist. of Early Opinions, vol. iv. p. 4; Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, Part ii.; Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France, p. 38; Twelfth Letter to Mr. Burn. + Review of Wilberforce, p. 19. Memoirs, vol. i. p. 233. vol. ii. p. 28. Dissonance, p. 1. TA Unitarian periodical published in Scotland, and highly esteemed in this country. vol. i. p. 262. authority, as a writer, is just equivalent to that of a short-hand writer or reporter, of modern times."---" Inspiration has nothing to do with the composition of his" (Matthew's) "history." The following quotations are from Le Clerc on Inspiration, a work published, a few years since, under the editorial inspection of Professor Norton of Harvard University. The learned Professor does not "vouch for the correctness of every opinion and expression," but adds, that "the general views are believed to be correct." "It may be doubted," says he, "whether there is anywhere to be found a more perspicuous and satisfactory statement on the subject in question," (inspiration,) "than what this tract presents." Let us, then, give attention, for a moment, to the very "satisfactory" views of Mr. Le Clerc. "The apostles had no need of inspiration to tell what they had seen, and what they had heard Christ say." p. 63. "It is very plain that the historians of Scripture were not inspired, by the CONTRADICTIONS that are found in the several circumstances of their histories." p. 66. "Neither the words nor the things have been inspired into those who have given us the sacred history; although, in the main, that history is very true, in the principal facts." p. 70. "There is no proof that what is contained in the Proverbs was inspired to Solomon." "There are very many of them that are but vulgar proverbs." p. 102. "There was no inspiration in this book," (Job,) "more than in the three foregoing." "It is likely there was such an one as Job, and that he met with great afflictions, which afforded subject to some Jew of the captivity to exercise his wit upon." pp. 108, 109. "There are other things which the apostles speak of their own heads, or which they draw by divers consequences from the Old Testament;" because, having no extraordinary inspiration for writing their epistles, they insert in them divers things that concern their own designs, or their particular affairs." inspiration is attributed to the apostles to which they never pretended, and whereof there is not the least mark left in their writings." pp. 121, 123. "An So much for what Professor Norton thinks the "satisfactory statement" of Le Clerc, on the subject of inspiration. I shall now present some extracts directly from American writers. DR. WARE. "We must distinguish between the doctrines delivered by the apostles and primitive teachers, and the arguments, illustrations, and topics of persuasion, which they employed to enforce them. The former we are to consider as given them by inspiration; the latter were THE SUGGESTIONS OF THEIR OWN MINDS, in the exercise of their respective talents, and the kinds and degrees of knowledge they possessed."* * Sermon at the Ordination of Mr. Lamson. PROFESSOR NORTON. "The writings thus characterized" (as given by inspiration of God,) "may have been the works of prophets who received direct, miraculous communications from God; or they may have been nothing more than the works of men, whose minds were acted upon by the motives which he presents, and who had that sense of religion and duty which his dispensations to the Jewish nation were adapted to produce;" i. e. a part of the sacred writings (how great a part we are not told) is nothing more than the work of good men, without any special divine assistance. Professor Norton represents it as doubtful, whether even so much as this can be said for the Song of Solomon.* In an article in "the General Repository," of which Professor Norton has avowed himself the author, he says, "Those are to be considered as liberal Christians, [Unitarians,] who believe that Christianity, in respect to its main design, is a revelation from God." He mentions it as one of the "characteristic differences " between Unitarians and the Orthodox, that "the Orthodox believe the writings of the evangelists and apostles to have been composed under God's immediate and miraculous superintendence ;" and "that no allowance is to be made for the inadvertence of the writer, and none for the exaggeration produced by strong feelings."+ Unitarians then, in the recorded judgement of Professor Norton, "believe the writings of the evangelists and apostles NOT to have been composed under God's immediate and miraculous superintendence," and that allowance is to be made for the inadvertence of the writers," and "for the exaggeration produced by strong feelings." CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. A writer in this work, having represented the Bible "as containing a revelation from God," adds, "It is also to be regarded in another light, as consisting wholly of HUMAN COMPOSITIONS, like other writings of equal antiquity, the fair subjects of criticism," &c. Another writer tells us, that "the sacred documents of our faith" were "prepared for temporary use," and are "filled with subjects of local interest, or popular accommodation." "The scheme of preparation which led the way to Christianity” (in the Old Testament) "is, for the most part, but dimly discerned, and unsatisfactory even in what is plainly to be perceived, mixed with the doubtfulness of old traditions, and with systems of SUPERANNUATED ERRORS. They" (the Scriptures)" contain the treasures of a various wisdom, which are to be estimated according to their respective values; according as they are in harmony with 66 that supreme and original law of reason and the soul,* which is not so much a written, as an inbred law."+ "There was a time, in the dark ages and afterwards, when it was maintained, we cannot say believed, for the proposition does not admit of being believed, that the whole Bible, including the historical books of the Old Testament, was a revelation." "The words of Christ were reported from memory by the evangelists, and not always with perfect accuracy. This is evident from the fact, that in recording the same discourse, or saying, the first three evangelists differ from each other, not unfrequently as to the words themselves, and occasionally also as to their sense and bearing" i. e. the evangelists occasionally contradict one another. "Now all the evangelists being themselves allegorists"—which term the writer defines to mean those who quote the scriptures in "imaginary, secondary senses," which are "in their nature arbitrary and fanciful"-"ALL the evangelists being," in this sense, allegorists, it would not have been strange, if, unconsciously, and through inadvertence, they had given an allegorical turn to words, which were used by our Saviour only by way of application." In plain English, the evangelists have probably misrepresented their Master!! 66 "The reasoning of St. Paul will not always bear a philosophical scrutiny." "The canonical books of the new Testament are not the revelation which God made by Christ." "They are nothing more than the best records which remain to us of the revelation." "Neither the teaching of our Saviour, nor the influence of God's Spirit in enlightening the minds of the Apostles, preserved them from all the errors of their age, from the influence of all human prejudices and feelings, from all inconclusive reasoning, or from all ambiguity, impropriety, and insufficiency in the use of language."|| CHRISTIAN REGISTER. "The parenthesis, I speak as a man,' is very often to be understood in the sacred writings, especially in those parts which do not profess to be a revelation."T MR. DABNEY. "The opinion that Paul and the Apostles generally cherished the belief" that the second coming of Christ was near at hand "does not at all affect their inspiration, which secured them from error only on what belonged to the system of Christian doctrine."** At the close of this array of quotations, which might be enlarged almost indefinitely, I feel as though little need be said. I have previously pointed out the distinction between a believer and an in *Reason, then, is the standard by which the Scriptures are to be tried; and not the Scriptures the standard by which our reasonings are to be tried. So said Robinson, an English Unitarian: "The sufficiency of reason is the soul of our system." History of Baptism, p. 47. And so say all the Deists. Vol. iii. pp. 19, 106. Vol. v. pp. 59, 69. |