30

Evangelical Terms.

ly awakening so much solemnity and fear in the minds of hearers, that a greater number of them have beencompelled to leave their place of worship and seek relief to their disturbed consciences from evangelical ministers, than has been the case under the more liberal and tasteful exhibitions of the Gospel. The author in the book before us, uses intimations of the future eternal punishment of the wicked, which we must presume grew out of his actual belief in that awful truth, and were not inserted merely to make the style pathetic and impressive. He says, for instance, as the effect of irreligion, "the soul enters eternity without having secured its salvation." p. 14. "They wish to be assured that their souls are safe." p. 25. "Will be left to perish in their sins." p. 30. "Speechless and hopeless," in the judgment. p. 35. "You will do your soul an everlasting injury." p. 41.-It is well known that the great majority of this denomination reject the doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked. We must conclude from these expressions, which no considerate or serious man would use lightly, that the author differs from his brethren upon this point. If this be the case, and the reader is

Unitarianism without a Saviour. 31

made to believe that the soul who goes into eternity" without having secured its salvation" must be "hopeless" forever, how affecting is it to find that the book provides no Saviour from this wrath to come but moral culture, and, to him who is without Christ, the uncovenanted mercy of God.

We come now to state our great objection to this book, and to the system of religion upon which it is based, viz, that it contains no Saviour. We feel it to be without Christ. We were astonished to find how few allusions there were in this book to the Saviour. Nothing is said of Christ, as we have shown, at the time when the soul oppressed with guilt and danger feels its need of a friend. The sinner is directed to be a philosopher, and by retiring into himself and forming good resolutions, to fix the religious principle deeply, and attain to a spiritual mind. Socrates perhaps might have appreciated these directions, had he been in such a state of mind, and might have practised upon them; or any one else, who had habituated himself to reflective acts, and by discipline had become esoteric in his mental habits, provided, however, that his conviction

32

Unsuited to the Poor.

of his inability to work out his own righteousness were not so great as to force from him the pathetic cry, 'O that there were a days-man or Mediator betwixt us, who might lay his hand upon us both! If we have not mistaken the prevalent character of our world, and the wants of human nature, such a religion is not adapted to be universal. When Christ, said, "To the poor the Gospel is preached,” he had in mind, without doubt, the schools of philosophy, in which the benefits of wisdom were shut up from common people; and the excellency of his religion, and the great sign by which he gave the Baptist to know that it came from heaven, was, that it was suited to the apprehension of the uninstructed. We defy an angel from heaven so to preach this system to a poor man scripturally convinced of his sins, as to dry one tear, light up one ray of hope on his face, or put the new song into his mouth. It is a cold abstraction. We have ourselves proved its inability to bless the soul. If any one says that it has made him happy, we will engage to produce the same sensations which he calls happiness, by reading to him from the Theory of Moral Sen

The Religion of the Few.

33

timents, or from the Excursion, or by showing him the sunset, or procuring the performance of his favorite music. The sublime contemplation of God is not religion; nor the philosophical admiration of the character of Jesus; nor the sentimental love of virtue, more properly called pride of character. The world at large are not capable of such happiness. Now if Paley's grand a priori argument for a revelation be true, namely, that we may suppose that a benevolent God would have given that which men so much needed, we may with strict propriety extend it and say, If a benevolent God gave a revelation, it must be one which is adapted to the majority of mankind. But the majority of men cannot, and (so long as the pursuit of the arts of life is necessary) will not intellectualize or be sufficiently contemplative, or so refined in their perceptions of moral beauty, as to understand and feel this religion. It needs incarnation. Man wears flesh and blood, and is not capable of being so etherealized out of those principles which belong to his compound nature, as to be affected by those truths and sentiments alone which have experienced a moral sublimation. We see this in the ap

34 Need of Appeals to Human Nature.

pointment of the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion, which were in merciful condescension to that principle of our nature, which requires sensible objects to make an impression upon us. It is a very illiberal notion of Judaism, that its ritual was wholly of a gross and low nature, because it was addressed to sense. We need it. Else why did the visible symbol of the Almighty's presence rest at the door of the tabernacle? Why was not the moral law written in the stars and flowers, and breathed into the soul by summer winds, like this modern religion, instead of the glory of God descending upon Sinai, with the voice of a trumpet and the sound of words? It will be said, perhaps, that such manifestations were necessary in the infancy of the world, and amongst a rude people. But mankind, with all their improvements in knowledge and cultivation, have not lost their susceptibility to im pression through the senses; else the voice of the living preacher, and dramatic representations, and the thousand ceremonies which men throng to behold, had given place to silent contemplation.

Is it still said that it was the object of the