self-denial should be entitled to declare, uncontradicted, that he never before had seen so well. He should, in consequence of the superiority of this new sight, be chosen leader of other men who still kept those delusive organs, the eyes*. The sacrifice of the eyes would be offered up as a testimony of reverence to the Creator of Light, as that of reason is now considered an appropriate tribute to the Fountain of it. Of two men who looked, apparently with the same intensity, at a remote and indistinct object, he who asserted that he saw even the minutest parts, and denied the possibility that any good and honest person could differ from himself in the description, should be declared thereby to possess the virtue of humbleness of sight: he, on the contrary, who confessed that his eyes could not discover what the other man said he saw, but granted that he might be allowed to enjoy his view without blame, should be charged with pride of sight in a most offensive degree. Though both were exerting their power of vision under the light of the same sun, and had their eyes equally open, the latter should be accused of despising and hating the light of heaven, and be strongly suspected of winking : if this could not be proved externally, it should be firmly believed that he had an internal power of paralyzing his optic nerve, and making himself stone-blind. The happy observer of such parts of the remote object, as he, in the same breath, declared to be invisiblet, should earnestly call upon the other, as if he would save him from death and infamy, to renounce his pride of sight, and agree to see the same things which he (the adviser) had, in his great humility of vision, firmly determined to discover. Such should be the moral law of the PRIDE OF SIGHT.

I confess to you, my dear friend, that, when combating such pitiable delusions as occur at every step in theological controversy, I have often felt a despondency, which tempted me to throw away the pen, never to employ it again upon such sub

* Il est vrai que de notre temps une personne de la plus grande élévation disait, qu'en articles de foi, il fallait se crever les yeux pour voir clair.— Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais, quoted by Victor Cousin.

+ Thus the Deity is declared to be incomprehensible in the minutest description of his mode of being that ever was attempted in human language.

jects. Nothing, indeed, but my deep felt conviction of the enormous evils which intolerance, in this its last disguise, is producing in the world, has supported my determination to oppose it to my last breath. Among the hopeless cases of that fever of religious feeling which creates a lamentable confusion of thought upon these subjects, there may be patients who possess natural candour and intellectual strength sufficient to extricate them, I do not say from the doctrines of Orthodoxy,-for that is to me a minor point, but from the mischievous error of taking their own sense of Scripture for the word of God itself; and from the essentially intolerant belief, that any man who opposes that sense, is betrayed by his pride of reason into rebellion against God.

Will any candid and reasonable man deny that articles of religion, or creeds, are only explanations of Scripture ?—I ask, then, are these explanations the work of reason, or the result of inspiration?-My question is addressed exclusively to Protestants; for it is their inconsistent and contradictory intolerance which I am opposing. That of the Roman Catholics must be opposed by disproving the inspiration of their authoritative expounder-whether the church, or the Pope, or both. But the Protestants have no alternative: either they must admit that the exposition of the Scriptures, given in their respective creeds, is a work of reason, or they must embrace the Popish principle of infallibility. That kind of unauthoritative tradition to which some Protestant writers have fondly clung*, especially in the Church of England, makes not the least difference. To ascertain that tradition, is a work of reason assisted by learning; and the most successful search of the views and opinions of ancient days in some churches, can give to the result no higher character than that of a very questionable historical probability. But if, in the formation of all creeds whatever, the reason of the framers, as employed in finding the sense of Scripture, is the ultimate support, the real foundation upon which their articles stand; what instance of pride of reason can be more glaring than that of attributing some kind of guilt to the rejection of that purely human commentary on the Bible? Whether few or many

* See a Discourse on Unauthoritative Tradition; a very able work of Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford.

men combined for the purpose of passing the work of their reason for the only true sense of the Scripture,-thus encroaching upon the rights of other men's reason,-can make no difference, unless it be that of aggravating their guilt. If many combine to do an unjust and illegal act, they are guilty, not only of the individual wrong committed, but add to it that of conspiracy. Let all the bishops and priests in the world unite, to awe other men's reason into submission to the inferences which the council (as such assemblies have been called) suppose they have drawn from the Scripture; their multitude only shews that the pride of THEIR reason is attended by a consciousness of its weakness. Reason does not derive strength from crowds. The reason of the most obscure individual, be it but true reason, is sufficient to subdue the world, if fairly left to take its course.

It is remarkable that Christians are accused of pride of reason in proportion as their view of Christianity contains fewer doctrines of inference than that of the accusers. Compare the Creed of the Trinitarian with that of the Unitarian. The former may be true, and the latter erroneous, though I adhere to the latter; but, unquestionably, the Trinitarian Creed is nearly made up of inferences-it is almost entirely a work of reason, though, in my opinion, sadly misapplied. Why, then, is the Unitarian accused of pride of reason, when he only employs it to shew that the Trinitarian has not any sound reason to draw those inferences? Which of the two is guilty of encroaching upon another man's rights of reason? Is it not he who claims for his inferences-the work of his own reason—an authority above human reason?

It is not, however, to inferences alone (the work of logical reason) that the Trinitarian creed owes its existence, and, more than its existence, its popularity. My observation has shewn me, and that of every competent judge will find, that the strongest hold which that creed has on the minds of its supporters, consists in preconceived theories concerning the nature of God and of sin, and of some necessity which places the Divine Nature in a state of difficulty in regard to the pardon of sin. The work of saving the race of man from a most horrible fate depends (according to this theory) not only on a very mysterious method of overcoming the difficulty which prevents pardon by an act

of mercy, on repentance, but also on the acknowledgment of the mystery by the sinner. The remedy prepared by the wisdom of God is (according to this theory) totally powerless, unless we believe a certain explanation of the manner in which it acts. Now, people who cordially embrace this view very naturally work themselves into a state of the most agonizing excitement : for if the whole world is to perish, because it does not know how the saving remedy acts, or because its activity is explained in a wrong way, benevolent men, who think themselves in possession of that important secret, must burn with zeal to spread it, and with indignation against those who propagate an explanation which deprives the remedy of all its power. Believing," says an orthodox writer*, though a dissenter from the Orthodoxy of the Church of England, "the doctrine (of the divinity of Christ) to comprehend within itself the hopes of a guilty and perishing world, while I would contend meekly, I must be pardoned if, at the same time, I contend earnestly." It is this preconceived theory (one of the strangest that was ever founded on reasonings à priori) that guides most Christians in the exposition of the New Testament, and even in that of many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures. The notion that sin could not be pardoned unless a person equal to God suffered for it, is the deeply-coloured glass through which the orthodox read the Scriptures. I do not blame them for this extraordinary conception. What I earnestly wish is, that their religious fears may allow them to perceive that this theory of redemption is made up of preconceived notions and inferences. Even if that theory were true, it would be unquestionably a work of reason working by inference. Can, then, the attempt to make it the very soul of the Gospel be acquitted of the charge which is constantly in the mouth of the orthodox? Are they not guilty of the pride of reason?

But here the orthodox (I mean the man who considers all that dissent from him necessarily in error) escapes again into the mist of ideas, which hovers always at hand in the field of theological controversy. That the multitude will follow him into the darkness is natural and certain. Reluctance to believe what

* Mr. Wardlaw, quoted by the Rev. Mr. Yates in his Vindication of Unitarianism, p. 41, American edit.

is directly against the first principles of reason, appears to the mass of unthinking Christians as intellectual pride. Readiness to believe what cannot even be propounded in uncontradictory words, is the purest faith. Considering this popular feeling, if two views of Christianity, the Athanasian and the Unitarian, are brought before that mass of Christians who have been assiduously taught, that the efficacy of faith (as it is vulgarly supposed of medicines) is proved by the offensiveness of what is to be believed, nobody can doubt to which they will give the preference. The Unitarian creed will be rejected, upon the ground that it raises no dislike or reluctance: the other will be embraced, because it produces the expected effect of faith. Credo quia impossibile. The plain Christian, who entertains these notions (and those who are educated according to the orthodox system entertain them in proportion to their want of intellectual activity), cannot fail to discover the clearest proofs of pride of reason in a view of Christianity which does not bewilder him; for "if it were not the work of that pride (he will say), how could it be so agreeable to reason—so reasonable?

I would, however, earnestly recommend to persons of this description to examine whether, in point of reasonableness, the New Testament (take it all in all) is not more in agreement with reason, with the plain Unitarian statement, than with the complicated creeds of the orthodox churches? I do not speak of three or four texts (excluding the evident interpolations, which, curiously enough, are all on the Trinitarian side); for those texts, owing to our early imbibed notions, create at first sight some perplexity: I speak of the tone of instruction which prevails in those writings. Let the impartial inquirer observe the absence of all metaphysical speculation in the Gospels, and compare it with the abundance of scholastic philosophy in the orthodox confessions. Let him remark that the New Testament presupposes no previous knowledge in the persons whom the authors addressed; for those holy men well knew that they were sent principally to preach the Gospel to the poor and uneducated. On the other hand, let him reflect on the mass of strange ideas which are necessary as a preparation, in order to understand