inquirers into the language; how is it then, that he was worshipped as the Son of God, unless a divine character was present to the minds of the worshippers? How was it that Caiaphas rent his clothes in abhorrence of supposed blasphemy, when Jesus adjured to declare if he were the Christ, the Son of God (ó viòs, not simply viòs), the one peculiarly so, as none other ever has been or can be, in reply used the words of Daniel, and proclaimed himself the the Incarnate God the Son of Man, who coming on the clouds of heaven, should hereafter judge the world. Will God commit the future judgment to a mere man ? The reply of our Lord to Saul journeying to Damascus, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest, is cited as an argument in favour Unitarianism; and it is clumsily required, that if Jesus were God he should have stated that he was God the Son, or the second Person in the Trinity. The requisition is too ridiculous to merit attention. On the other hand, the appearance of Christ, as it were an earnest of his future judicial appearance on the clouds of heaven, attended by that celestial light, which the Jews and many other nations attributed as accompaniments to Divine manifestations, directly proves his superhuman power existing in indefectible vigour after his crucifixion-a self-willing, independent authority, which can in no way be assigned to a mere mortal. According to the Unitarian system of simple manhood, it remains to be explained to our satisfaction, why Jesus, rather than John the Baptist, and the ancient Prophets, should have been so honoured for their jejune creed creates an insurmountable difficulty. But we may suppose from Christ's word to Saul, that the latter, though he acted in unbelief, had occasional misgivings of conscience respecting the course which he was pursuing. Saul was a polished scholar; and the same phrase continually occurs in the writings of the Greeks. : It is also as uncritically deduced from Heb. xii. 22-24, that Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant is distinguished from God, the Judge of all here kai means even not and, and thus Jesus is identified as the future Judge, in harmony with every other passage which assigns this office to him. But if he be identified with God, the Judge of all, his Divinity is fully asserted; and if we do not interpret this Scriptural passage correctly, how can Acts xvii. 31. be understood? where, in allusion to Daniel's words and his own title, he is styled the man appointed for this solemnity, of which his resurrection from the dead is eited in evidence. The title of Son of God was declarative of Christ's Divinity; the title of Son of Man of his incarnate character. Some of the early Unitarians endeavoured violently to explain away the miraculous conception but the latter deny it altogether, and without any reason approaching to common sense, treat the passages in St. Matthew and St. Luke as interpolations. They clearly saw the fallacies of their earlier brethren, and as they could neither prop them, nor gainsay the regular argument arising from them, cut at once the Gordian knot by averring the passages to be spurious. Such is Unitarian honesty in Theology! Now, as St. Mark epitomised St. Matthew's Gospel, occasionally furnishing it with additions, as any one who will compare the Greek of the two will immediately perceive; and as St. John supplied : what the preceding Evangelist had omitted, it is not at all strange, that the miraculous conception should not have occurred in these two Gospels; for St. Mark took his beginning from the Baptist, and St. John explained the Divinity of Christ in opposition to the Gnosis, as a proæmium to his sequel. We might as well refuse to believe events recorded by some historians, but omitted by others: yet, if such were the canon of authenticity, what would become of history? And shall we apply to the word of God a false canon, which we would not apply to profane authors, merely because that word of God is opposed to certain sectarian views? One of the writers who gave credence to the miraculous conception admits, that Christ was called the Son of God, and the only begotten Son of God, because God formed no other of his creatures in a similar manner. This manner having been recorded by St. Matthew can only receive the explanation, which the orthodox Church has always attributed to it. How Christ, if a mere man, should have arisen from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion-how as a mere man he should be exalted to the right hand of God, and be appointed the Judge of quick and dead-how he should have been called the Image of the Invisible God, the brightness of Divine Glory, the upholder of all things by the word of his Power, the beginning of the Creation of God, we cannot understand on the Unitarian scheme; but can most fully comprehend on the Christian, which acknowledges him to be essentially God. These expressions, even with the admission of the miraculous conception, without a confession of the Divinity, become totally incomprehensible, as interpreted by the Unitarians, and present to us difficulties exceeding all that can arise from our creed. It is bad to neologize and wrest the Scriptures from their obvious sense; but far worse to mislead others by untenable expositions, which the slightest knowledge of the text will refute. Is he not Antichrist, who denieth the Son? 1 John ii. 23. THE DISSENTERS' POLITICAL CLAIM OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. THE wars and fightings, which the Dissenters have, for years past, waged against the Church, come, as St. James says, from their coveting that, which they have not: viz. temporal pre-eminence; for equality is but a nom de guerre, which, as in the French revolution, would soon, if obtained as really desired, manifest itself in tyranny. We cannot conceive, how their unwearied struggle for religious distinction accords with that humility and conformity to Christian principles which they affect:how their factious spirit can be conducive to that increase of vital religion at which they pretend to aim. We really live in sad times, in which men whose claim to the ministry, to speak mildly, is disputable, arrogate as much to themselves as the ancient heretical Dissenters from the Church; and we doubt not that they have acquired boldness from the foolish pretensions of the new sect at Oxford, and the disgust which that sect have occasioned in every soberly reflecting mind. The Dissenters perchance feel that, numerically powerful, they can take advantage both of this schism in our own body, which is daily rending us more and more, and of the presumptuous demands which the Roman Catholics, holding much in common with the others, are continually making but in proportion as they may make such calculations, they recede from the characteristic principles of Christianity; and preach Christ out of mere contention. The first fundamental resolution of the provisional committee for the promotion of Religious Equality is, that it is every one's paramount duty and inalienable right to worship God according to his convictions of the Divine will, as expressed in the Scriptures. Unless, however, the Scriptures be rightly understood and interpreted, the convictions of the Divine will, will be contrary to that which the Scriptures express; and this may be proved to be the case, if many of the doctrines of the leading sects be examined by that test. But supposing a man to have certain convictions, and to worship God according to those convictions, he has no right to intrude publicly on others until he be duly ordained to the office; or even in a more private sphere until he be well qualified to prove that he has not erred in investigating the minds of the sacred writers. For instance, if episcopacy be asserted in the Scriptures, presbyterianism must be wrong: and in our article on Mr. Head (Nov. 1838, p. 392), we have shewn that by the former, an office was intended too high in its nature to be discharged by presbyters in common. An examination of antiquity, (we mean not such an examination as that of the new school at Oxford), will also put in jeopardy the integrity of many other objections to our principles and practice; consequently we are authorized in our opposition to those things, which, though vindicated by the Scriptures, we account contrary to them. The next resolution involves the questions, whether any one attaching himself to a separate party, as those of old to Apollos and Cephas, has a right to disturb the unity of Christ's Church-whether such an one really stands in a better light than the advocates of the Gnosis and other heresies, in the days of the Apostles; and whether as those who serve the altar should live by the altar, Christianity affords any sanction to to altars of separate service, and to the transference of the things due to the legitimate altar to those erected by leaders of new sects? No one reading his 'Testament in a proper spirit, will deny that it is opposed to these proceedings. The third resolution is an inference from the preceding; and until the denominations of Christians differing from the Established Church can prove that they have a better claim to equality than the various sects and parties which differed from the ancient Church had to demand parity with it, their claim will not rank more highly than those of Hymenæus and Philetus, and other ancient sectagogues who perverted the Apostolic doctrines. As to the exclusive rights and secular preeminence of the Clergy producing social discord (expressions involving a contradiction and impossibility), the causes of discord lie not in the Church, but in those who, schismatically seceding from it, seek to establish their own peculiar notions of the faith and unless the Dissenters can prove the Church unscriptural, and themselves sounder B expositors of the original texts than the Clergy, which they never will accomplish, their present agitation can only be regarded as that of men seeking temporal power, and preparing to grasp that pre-eminence which they denounce in the regular ministers of God's holy word. The general objects are manifestly political: religious liberty being no where coerced, the purpose of which it forms the plea must therefore in reality be something different. The co-operation desired throughout the British empire, must then be solicited for more than what the circular developes; for as there is already an equality of religious liberty, the equality coveted can only be referred to secularities, which these same Dissenters object to us. The tenor of these objects is decidedly political, and interfering with the State, between which and the Church these men deny any connection :-why otherwise should they seek to enrol themselves under an ensign?-to collect, arrange, and preserve statistical returns? To promote petitions to Parliament ? To afford legal aid and advice? To correspond with Missionaries and others who may require the interposition of the Government or the Parliament? and forgetful of that super-abounding sanctity which they arrogate to themselves most unduly, wish to intermeddle with the returns of members to the House of Commons? Do they think that there exists any one so dense as to be unable to penetrate their secret motives? or that the Church is yet so powerless as to allow this demonstration of schismatical, strife-stirring, and most ungodly feeling, to be portentously embodied in an existent reality? We are bound to reject heretics on the first and second admonition: how many admonitions have been wasted on these aspirers after dominion?—these desolators of God's heritage? Ought we not, then, seeing them thus throwing off the mask of hypocrisy-establishing central and local committees providing themselves with funds by wary rules-and unblushingly directing their efforts against the Church, as if it belonged not to Christ, and professed a different religion, to flock around our proper standard -to betimes quit ourselves like men, as worthy of the faith-to arouse ourselves, and by energy repel the unchristian attacks which are made upon us? The treason within the camp, dividing our holy house against itself, and aiming to enshroud us in the darkness of past ages, has doubtless been hailed as an opportune aid, by distracting the attention of our defenders. Whilst the Papists, on the one, side are seeking the extinctiou of Protestantism, these falsely-called Protestants hesitate not to side with them on questions of temporal aggrandizement, and to press us who are as averse to them as they themselves ostensibly affect to be in their religious principles, little foreseeing that they are abetting the Popish cause, which allows no toleration, and foolishly aiding men to power, who, that power once obtained, would overwhelm their unworthy instruments. May we not judge the motives of the Dissenters by their actions? and do not these actions proclaim their motives to be not a real disinterested regard for religion, but a self-interested cupidity of influence and political authority? THE OXFORD TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. WHILST, as we have remarked in our December number, Tradition is rendered equipollent with the Scriptures by the writers who are busily employed in subverting the established opinions of the Church, and the Fathers are quoted in defence of the supposed authority of Tradition, care is taken not to bring forwards those traditionary remains which are manifestly of wilful invention, and self-refuting absurdity, apparently, lest the readers should judge of the comparative authority of those who could record such childish nonsense. Yet is it from these men that we are required to receive a traditionary standard of faith, to be elevated to a rank equal to that of the Scriptures! On the other hand, we have not seen those passages in the Fathers, which refer to the Scriptures as the all-sufficient rule and test of faith boldly produced; and as these are numerous, it is evident that the Fathers could not have entertained the notions concerning Tradition which are ascribed to them; also, that if our former observation, that by this name they often designated the Scriptures, be not correct, their works will display a contradiction which must take away their authority. Some of these Traditions, even some in Irenæus, decidedly have a rabbinical origin, and have all the appearance of having been appended to Christianity by the Judeo-Christian school and some of the early heretics, and having been recorded in the patristical works without the writers knowing that they did not belong to the orthodox Church. When we consider the difficulty of multiplying copies of books in those early times, the marginal emendations and additions of successive copyists and libraii, whether on the faith of different codices or not, and the evidence which we have that these marginal annotations were often by still later copyists inserted in the text, we shall have no difficulty in accounting for the appearance of such legends, even if we exempt the authors from the charge of having written them-but we must remember what will hold good respecting one class of Traditions, will be equally valid respecting the other. We are now only making remarks preliminary to others contemplated in our future numbers. We are convinced that assertions may be made by us, and may be contradicted by our antagonists; and that between the opposite declarations, the uninformed may remain in doubt about the truth. As defenders of the Church, we shall therefore leave every one to judge for himself, in a way in which he cannot be mistaken. We shall submit certain of the Greek and Latin Fathers to an examination, on the one part bringing to light some of their wild legends, on the other quoting them where they mention the Scriptures as the rule of faith. There will be no need to extend the inquiry into doctrinal questions, because the authority of the Fathers will be fully determined by the process which we meditate. At the same time we would be understood, not as writing these papers in a spirit of controversy, but in a spirit of zeal, and desire to preserve the Church in her integrity. If we thus destroy the premises of the system, the influence must fall with them; and it will be very clear, that men who can record the absurdities which we shall produce as facts, can only be trusted in their other affirmations, as a critical judgment may conceive them to be trustworthy; yet the critical judgment of one or more individuals will be no final decision, taking away the right of exercising a similar judgment from others. For it must be plain, that men who have thus admitted nonsense for truth, could not separate truth from nonsense; yet these are the custodiers of Tradition ! A curious comparison between the doctrine of these Tracts and the Roman Catholic doctrine of Dr. Wiseman, has been made in Fraser's |