Part 7

Thus then, by your avowal, that even miracles cannot prove inspiration, you are left in undisputed possession of the field of infidelity. We have no common property of reason with you, and without determining whether men who reject the evidence of miracles are of an order of beings above or below ourselves, we feel that discussion with them is impracticable.

While, therefore, we shall continue to use all lawful methods of argument and persuasion, in the hope of being useful to those who, though called Unitarians, are not so entirely separated from our common humanity as you seem to be, we have no hesitation in saying that, with regard to _yourselves_ as individuals, there appears to be a more insurmountable obstacle in the way of discussion than would be offered by ignorance of one another’s language; because the want of a common medium of language could be supplied by an interpreter, but the want of a common medium of reason cannot be supplied at all.

We remain, Gentlemen, yours respectfully,

HUGH M‘NEILE. FIELDING OULD. March 18th, 1839. THOMAS BYRTH.

Footnote 7:

_To grant that Paul reasons, and be startled at the idea that he may reason incorrectly—to admit that he speculates, and yet be shocked at the surmise that he may speculate falsely_,—to praise his skill in illustration, yet shrink in horror when something less apposite is pointed out,—_is an obvious inconsistency_. The human understanding cannot perform its functions without taking its share of the chances of error; nor can a critic of its productions have any perception of their truth and excellence, without conceding the possibility of fallacies and faults. We must give up our admiration of the apostles as men, if we are to listen to them always as oracles of God.—_Martineau’s Sermon_, pp. 34, 35.

Footnote 8:

I believe St. Matthew to have been _inspired_; but I do not believe him to have been _infallible_.—_Sermon_, p. 27.

Footnote 9:

All peculiar _consecration_ of miracle is obtained by a precisely proportioned _desecration_ of nature; it is out of a supposed contrast between the two, that the whole force of the impression arises.—_Sermon_, p. 24.

_To the Revs. H. M‘Neile, F. Ould, and T. Byrth._

Gentlemen,—We regret the misstatement of your question, which appeared at the commencement of our letter of the 13th instant. We regret still more that it did not occur to you to attribute it to its real cause,—the carelessness of a printer or transcriber. In the autograph manuscript which remains in our hands, your question is correctly stated thus—“Is our discussion to be upon a mutually-acknowledged standard _of truth_?” How the word “truth” became changed into “scripture,” we cannot tell; and not having read our letter after it was in print, we were unaware of the mistake until you pointed it out. Whatever “mystification” it introduced, you will consider as now removed.

Your letter announces your retirement from the promised controversy. Knowing that in taking this step you could not put yourselves in the right, it is only natural perhaps that you should resolve to set your opponents in the wrong, and to cover your own retreat by throwing scorn on their religious character. Theology appears in this instance to have borrowed a hint from the “laws of honour;” and as in the world a “passage of arms” is sometimes evaded, under the pretence that the antagonist is too little _of a gentleman_, so in the church a polemical collision may be declined, because the opponent is _too little of a believer_.

You refuse to fulfil your pledge to the public and ourselves on two grounds:—

I. Because we do not acknowledge the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.

II. Because we think it impossible to infer from miracles the mental infallibility of the performer. It is of no use, you say, to argue about divine truth with those who do not believe in “a written and infallibly accurate revelation from God to man.”

We will concede, for the moment, and under protest, your narrow meaning of the words “inspiration” and “revelation;” and without disturbing your usage of them, we submit that the reasons advanced by you afford not even a plausible pretext for having violated your pledge. First, as to the plea that we are put out of the controversy by our unexpected denial of the intellectual infallibility of the sacred writers; and that to argue about the meaning of the Bible is a waste of time, till its verbal inspiration is established. We reply,—

I. That it was you yourselves who started this very question of inspiration for argument between us. In his letter of February 18th, Mr. Ould gives this account of our projected controversy: “We proposed to discuss with you the EVIDENCE of the genuineness, authenticity, and INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES;” he taunts us with _reluctance_ to take up this “greatest of testimonial questions,” with “refusing to come forward boldly, and _debate it fairly before the church_.”[10] We _have_ come forward boldly, and this is now the alleged reason why there is to be _no debate at all before the church_. Moreover, at the time when you said “we accept your terms,” you regarded us as holding the very opinions which are now made the excuse for a retreat; in your first lecture they are made a chief ground of indictment against us, and pages are crowded with citations from Unitarian writers, expressing those same sentiments, which, when avowed by your own opponents, are to make them unfit to be addressed, and to exempt you from the duty of reply. Of the spirit of this proceeding, observers of honourable mind must judge; they, as well as you, are well aware, that to pronounce men unworthy of attack, is itself an attack of the last degree of bitterness.

II. Your refusal to settle with us the meaning of Scripture till the plenary inspiration is acknowledged, is in plain contradiction to your own principles. You fix the imputation of _deception_ on our statement, that “the process of interpretation may go on undisturbed by any reference to the theory of verbal inspiration.” Yet is this only a repetition of what Mr. Byrth himself says, “In whatever light the Christian Scriptures are regarded, whether as the result of plenary inspiration, as we Trinitarians believe, or as the uninspired productions of the first teachers of Christianity, or even as the forgeries of imposture, _the meaning_ of their contents is a _question apart from all others_.”[11]

Dr. Tattershall, in common with all sound divines, makes it the _first step_ of scriptural inquiry to “examine the contents” of the books under the guidance of the following principle: that “any message coming from God must be consistent with the character of the same holy being, as exhibited in his works,” and must have “consistency with itself:”[12] and he justly states, that whether we ought to take the _last step_, of admitting the divine authority of the doctrines, must still be contingent on those doctrines, “being themselves wise and holy,”—“lessons worthy of God.”[13] These principles are violated, unless our investigation into your doctrines is taken in the following order:—

I. Are your doctrines _true to the sense of Scripture_? If _not_, the controversy ends here; if they _are_, then,

II. Are they _self-consistent; reconcilable with the teachings of God’s works, pure and holy_? If _not_, the controversy ends _here_; if they _are_, then,

III. Do they come to us clothed with divine authority, and conveyed in the language of plenary inspiration?

Your system, then, must establish its _existence in the Bible_ (which is a matter of interpretation), and its _credibility in itself_ (which we presume there must be _some criterion_ to determine), _before_ the question of inspiration is capable of being discussed. We deny both these preliminaries; protesting that we cannot find your system in the Scriptures; and that if we could, it appears to us so far from “self-consistent,” “wise and holy,” and “worthy of God,” as exceedingly to embarrass the claims to divine authority, of any writings which contain it. It was then in implicit obedience to your own rules that we proposed to let the question of interpretation take the lead; and no less so, that we presume to form a judgment respecting the internal character of doctrines professing to be scriptural. Permit us to ask how, but by some “light in ourselves,” we are to determine whether doctrines are “wise and holy,” “self-consistent,” and “worthy of God?”

Secondly. You plead that we have forfeited our claim on the fulfilment of your engagement, by a statement of opinion in our second lecture, to this effect: that miracles do not enable us to infer the intellectual infallibility of the performer. This, it seems, is an unexpected heresy, and cancels all promises. You appear to be affected by the Popish tendencies of the age; and to have adopted the notion, that no faith is to be kept with heretics. On this point we remark as follows:—

1st. We are astonished at your assertion, that this idea about miracles deprives us of any “common medium of reason” with you. Did you not “propose to discuss with us” the “evidence of the plenary inspiration of the holy Scriptures,” under the persuasion that we should take the negative side? In such discussion, would you not have argued from the miracles to the inspiration? And how did you suppose that we should reply? You were well aware that we should _admit_ the miracles; and equally well aware that we should _deny_ the plenary inspiration of those that wrought them. It cannot be supposed that, at this point, you would have had no more to say; but you would have proceeded, as many able writers have already done, to seek some “common medium of reason,”—some considerations, that is, having force with both parties; by which you might hope to fasten the disputed connection between your premises and your conclusion.

2nd. We are still more astonished to hear that this sentiment puts us “a step beyond common Deism,” “in undisputed possession of the field of infidelity,” and even in “separation from our common humanity;” seeing that the opinion has been held by

BISHOP SHERLOCK:—Who says, “Miracles cannot prove _the truth_ of any doctrine; and men do not speak accurately when they say the doctrines are proved by the miracles; for, in truth, there is _no connection_ between miracles and doctrines.”[14]

JOHN LOCKE:—“Even in those books which have the greatest proof of Revelation from God, and the attestation of miracles to confirm their being so, _the miracles are to be judged by the doctrine, not the doctrine by the miracles_.”[15]

DR. SAMUEL CLARKE:—“We can hardly affirm, with any certainty, that any particular effect, how great or miraculous soever it may seem to us, is beyond the power of all created beings (whom he explains further to be, ‘subordinate intelligences, _good_ or _evil_ angels,’) in the universe to produce.” He believes the Devil to “be able, by reason of his invisibility, to work _true and real miracles_;” and “whether such (_i.e._ miraculous) interposition be the immediate work of God, or of some good or evil angel, can hardly be discovered merely by the work itself.”

He accordingly lays down _the conditions under which_ the miracles will prove the doctrine.[16]

BISHOP FLEETWOOD:—“Spirits may perform most strange and astonishing things,—may convey men through the air, or throw a mountain two miles at a cast.”[17]

The notions expressed by the last two writers, respecting the superhuman agency of good and evil spirits, evidently destroy, no less than the more philosophical principle of Sherlock and Locke, all power of reasoning from miracles, as such, to the divine authority and inspiration of the performers. You cannot be ignorant of the fact, that these notions prevailed among all the Fathers of both the Greek and Latin churches; that they were almost universal among Christians till very recent times; and that your own church lodges with the Bishop of the Diocese a discretionary power to license clergymen to cast out devils.[18]

Nor need we remind you that, by yet another process of thought, the Society of Friends assigns to miracles the rank which you think so profane. “We know,” says Barclay on this subject, “that the devil can form a sound of words, and convey it to the outward ear; that he can easily deceive the outward senses, by making things appear which are not. Yea, do we not see that the Jugglers and Mountebanks can do as much as all that, by their legerdemain? God forbid then that the saint’s faith should be founded on so fallacious a foundation as man’s outward and fallible senses.”[19] And he urges, “that there must be other ways of ascertaining divine truth; for as to miracles, John the Baptist and divers of the Prophets wrought none that we hear of, and yet were both immediately and extraordinarily sent.”[20] By different modes of thinking, all these (Christians?) have arrived at the sentiment in question, so that we occupy “the field of infidelity,” without being “separated from” at least a goodly portion of “our humanity.” That this sentiment should be of so deep a dye of Deism is the more remarkable, because it is advanced and vindicated as a _scriptural sentiment_,—a plea which, however foolish, can be shown to be so, only by discussing _the interpretation_ of the New Testament. You have proposed no explanation of the state of the Apostles’ minds before the day of Pentecost. On that day they either did, or they did not, become more enlightened than before. If they did not, the gift of the Holy Spirit conferred no illumination; if they did, they were deficient in light before; and the miraculous powers they had possessed and exercised did not imply infallibility. We thought, indeed, that the comparative narrowness of their views before this period had been universally admitted. With respect to the appeal which in the presence of the Baptist’s disciples our Lord makes to his miraculous acts, you are quite aware that we do _not_ regard it as “worthless,” though you say we “_must_” do so. These acts (the _climax_ of which, however, was no miracle at all,—“the poor have the Gospel preached to them,”) fully answered _the purpose for which they were appealed to_, viz., to determine whether Jesus was “He that should come,” or whether John was “to look for another;” for as Bishop Sherlock remarks though miracles may not (he says “_cannot_) prove the _truth_ of any doctrine,” they “prove _the commission_ of the person who does them to proceed from God.”[21] We repeat, then, that we have started no topic which you did not invite; we have taken up no method of discussion which your own rules did not prescribe; we have advanced no idea for which your own Church should be unprepared. You have quitted this controversy without any justification from the unexpected nature of _our sentiments_, and we are persuaded that you can plead no discourtesy in our proposals respecting the _mechanical arrangements_. On this point we think it right to state thus publicly the overtures which we made to you, through the excellent clergyman who communicated with us as your representative. An objection having been urged by Mr. Ould to discussion through the newspapers, on the ground that they are read by “the ignorant scoffer, the sceptical, the profane,” we proposed the following plan:—That for twelve or any limited number of weeks, a joint weekly pamphlet of thirty-two pages should be published, each party furnishing sixteen pages; that the first number of the series should contain a positive statement, _from each party_, of its fundamental principles in religion, of that which it undertook to assail, and that which it undertook to defend; and that within the limits of this programme, the replies in the subsequent numbers should confine themselves. Thus each party would have chosen its own ground, at first; and both would have disappeared from the public view together, at last. This proposal was rejected without any reason being assigned, except that there were “too many difficulties in the way;” and though all preliminaries were to be settled “by previous agreement,” we were told that in the following _Courier_ we should find a letter addressed to us, which we might answer in whatever way we thought proper. The public who have watched the proceedings in this matter will bear witness, with our consciences, that we were _not the first_ to enter this controversy; that we have _not been the first_ to leave it; and that, in its progress, we have departed from no pledge, and been guilty of no evasion.

And now, Gentlemen, accept from us in conclusion, our solemn protest against the language of unmeasured insult, in which, under the cover of sanctity, the associated clergymen whom you represent, have thought proper to speak of our religion; against the accusations personally addressed to us, in the presence of 3,000 people, by the Lecturers in Christ Church, of “mean subterfuges,” “of sneering,” of “savage grins,” of “damnable blasphemy,” of “the greatest imaginable guilt,” of “doing despite to the Spirit of Grace,” of “the most odious of crimes against the Majesty of Heaven,” and in common with all Unitarians of forming our belief, from “the blindness of graceless hearts,” too bad “to have been touched by any spirit of God,” and against the visible glee, fierce as Tertullian’s, with which “the faithful” are reminded that ere long, _we must and shall_ bow our proud knees, whether we like it or not, to the object of their peculiar worship;—so that they are sure of their triumph in heaven, however questionable it may be on earth. You began the controversy by ascribing to us one shade of “infidelity;” you end it by ascribing to us a blacker. Beneath “the lowest deep,” there is it seems “a lower still.” We have sat quietly under all this, bearing the rude friction upon everything that is most dear to us, assured that if anything in heaven or earth be certain, it is this;—that no spirit of God ever spake thus, or thus administered the poison of human passions, falsely labelled as the medicine of a divine love. What is the difference between your religion and ours, that this high tone (than which, to a pure moral taste, nothing surely can be _lower_) should be assumed against us? We believe, no less than you, in an infallible Revelation (though had we the misfortune to doubt it, we might be, in the sight of God, neither worse nor better than yourselves); you in a Revelation of an unintelligible Creed to the understanding; we in a Revelation of moral perfection, and the spirit of duty to the heart; you in a Revelation of the metaphysics of Deity; we in a Revelation of the character and providence of the Infinite Father; you in a Redemption which saves the few, and leaves with Hell the triumph after all; we in a Redemption which shall restore to all at length the image and the immortality of God: we _do_ reserve, as you suggest, “_a sort of inspiration_” for the founders of Christianity, “a sort” as much higher than your cold, dogmatical, scientific inspiration, as the intuitions of conscience are higher than the predications of logic, and the free spirit of God, than the petty precision of men. We believe in a spiritual and moral Revelation, most awakening, most sanctifying, most holy; which _words_, being the signs of hard and definite ideas, could never express, and which is therefore pourtrayed in a mind divinely finished for the purpose, acting awhile on Earth and publicly transferred to Heaven. All men may see that such a Revelation corresponds well with the medium which conveys it; but a set of scholastic propositions, like Articles and Creeds, might as well have been written on the sky; and many a bitter doubt and bitterer controversy might have been spared.

We believe, Gentlemen, that the minds of serious and considerate persons are weary of the aggressions of Churches upon the private and secret faith of the individual heart; that they will not long be forced to live on the dry husks of Creeds which have lost the kernel of true life; nor accept mere puzzles as divine mysteries. It is at the peril of all religion that its illimitable truths are embalmed in definite formulas, and the abyss of God confidently measured by thrusting out the foot-rule of ecclesiastical wisdom. The things most holy cannot without injury be thus turned from the contemplation of the affections, to the small criticism of the intellect; and the acute and polished dividing-knife of dialectics, when applied to cut theology into propositions, is apt to leave scarce a shred of faith.

That all professing ministers of the Gospel may speedily turn from their divisions of belief to a hearty union of spirit, is the desire and prayer of

Us, who in this temper, and in better times, might have been owned as

Your fellow-labourers,

JAMES MARTINEAU. JOHN HAMILTON THOM. March 25th, 1839. HENRY GILES.

Footnote 10:

Rev. F. Ould’s Letter of February 11.

Footnote 11:

Rev. T. Byrth’s Lecture, Part I. p. 114.

Footnote 12:

Rev. Dr. Tattershall’s Lecture on the Integrity of the Canon, p. 69.

Footnote 13:

“Whatever lessons of instruction or doctrines they teach us, _these doctrines being themselves wise and holy_, must have been delivered under a divine sanction, and therefore possess divine authority.

“If he (that is, the person who performs miracles) also teaches lessons,—_lessons worthy of God_,—these lessons undoubtedly come to us clothed with divine authority.”—_Dr. Tattershall’s Lecture_, pp. 70, 71.

Footnote 14:

Sherlock’s Discourses, No. 10, Hughes’s edition, Vol. I. p. 197, and No. 15, Vol. I. p. 278.

Footnote 15:

Lord King’s Life of Locke, p. 125.

Footnote 16:

Sermons at the Boyle Lecture, Prop. xiv.

Footnote 17:

Essay on Miracles, p. 99, _seq._, as quoted by Farmer in his Dissertation on Miracles, chap. i. § 3.

Footnote 18:

“No minister or ministers shall, _without the licence and direction of the Bishop of the Diocese_, first obtained and had under his hand and seal, ... attempt, upon any pretence whatsoever, either of possession or obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cozenage, and deposition from the ministry.”—_Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical_, lxxii.

Footnote 19:

Apology for the True Christian Divinity, Prop. ii, pp. 35, 36.

Footnote 20:

Ibid. Prop. x. p. 296.

Footnote 21:

Discourses, No. 10, Hughes’s edition, vol. i. p. 197.

THE

PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE

OF THE

UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.

An attempt has been made, in a preface to the Lecture to which the following pages are a reply, to break the force, by anticipation, of the statements they contain. The Answerer, however, evidently did not hear the statements; and the preface proceeds upon some rumour of what was said. If Clergymen are conscientiously prevented from going to hear Unitarians, they ought also to be conscientiously prevented from answering what they did not hear. I am represented as saying that Trinitarians do not gather, but _lecture_: I said Trinitarianism does not gather, but _scatters_. I am represented as arguing the tendency of Trinitarianism to Popery from the recent movement of the Oxford Tract divines in that direction: I argued the tendency of Trinitarianism to Popery _from its fundamental principles_, and I referred to the Oxford movement as one of the visible manifestations of the demonstrated tendency.

I shall notice the instances in which the Preface proceeds upon anything like a true apprehension of what was said—