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his words are not a dead letter, but are full of spirit and of life unto those who are receptive of such spirit and life. His commandments unto us are filled with the same omnipotence that cast out devils; that healed the sick; that stilled the raging sea; that fed the five thousand upon five loaves and two fishes; and that made the hearts of the disciples burn within them while he opened to them the scriptures. And his words operate as powerfully now, as they did then, with those who, believing in him, receive and obey them. They operate in producing obedience. They operate in removing evils and the inclination to evil. They operate in giving a new heart and a new spirit. All the miracles which he visibly performed, are representatives of those spiritual miracles which he was then, and is ever, performing in every man that is willing, but which the world was not then prepared to suffer. He could raise the dead; he could heal diseases; he could cast out devils; he could do all the good that man would permit him to do; all that was not inconsistent with man's free will, which it is contrary to the divine will to violate; but he could never cast out devils from those who were in league with the devil; nor evils from those who loved their evils; nor unbelief from those who sought honour one of another. All that could be done with such was, to unite their falses with their evils, and thus take away their power of doing evil.

But unto those who believe in him, and follow him in the regeneration, he is the Immanuel-he is God with us. They feel his presence. They feel that they are not orphans. They feel his influence working within them to will and to do. They perceive his spirit working a redemption corresponding to that which he wrought in his own humanity. They perceive that it is not of themselves that they are or can be, induced to obey the commandments, and to shun evils as sins. They perceive that they are not left as orphans to do this of themselves; but that his spirit does it in them and for them; that his spirit is the living lawthe fulfilled law working within them-conquering their evils for them-raising them up-drawing them unto himself. They perceive that of themselves they have no power to save themselves, but that all redeeming and saving power is of that goodness and truth which flows in from the glorified humanity-that he is the living bread which came down from heaven-that he who eateth of this bread shall live forever. For verily, verily, saith the Lord, whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

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REVIEW.

1. Discourse, preached at the Dedication of the Second Congregational Unitarian Church, New York, December 7, 1826. By William Ellery Channing. New York. 1827. 8vo. pp. 57.

2. A Review of the Rev. Dr. Channing's Discourse, preached at the Dedication of the Second Congregational Unitarian Church, New York, December 7, 1826. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, & Wilkins. 1827. 8vo. pp. 91.

3. A Review of the Rev. Dr. Channing's Discourse, preached, &c. First published in the "Rhode Island Religious Messenger." By a Layman. Providence. 1827. 12mo. pp. 57.

(Continued from page 31.)

We should exceedingly regret to awaken a spirit of angry controversy, or to indulge such a temper. Believing that unitarianism and orthodoxy have been permitted, for purposes which they have answered, we have certainly no disposition to find fault with those, through whom or for whom these purposes have been effected. We believe these doctrines were suited to those circumstances in which they prevailed, and belonged to a condition of human nature that will not be again a common condition. We also believe that they are passing away, and obviously helping each other to pass away. We have little expectation that any

thing would materially affect the sentiments of those who are bound to either system, by custom, interest, or pride; but are not without hope, that in this season of general awakening, there may be those to whom we may suggest some useful thoughts respecting both these systems.

A Review of Dr. Channing's sermon, published in Boston, stands second upon our list of titles, and is, we belieye, the principal reply that it has received. It begins with a history of the unitarian controversy in this country; stating that unitarianism was first defended by arguments derived from biblical criticism, which being defeated, those resting on philosophical principles were resorted to with no better success; and now, an appeal is made to the tendency of the system in support of its truth. On this ground, the reviewer proceeds to meet Dr. Channing. His statement may be true, but not being corroborated by proofs and instances, will be received exactly according to the previous opinions of the reader. We should also object to the reviewer,

that he treats Dr. Channing's arguments, whether good or bad, in an unsatisfactory manner. Dr. C. takes up the doctrines of orthodoxy, and argues that certain sentiments, opinions and feelings are necessarily consequent upon them. The reviewer replies to this, that many eminent men who were orthodox, have asserted the contrary; and he cites many passages to prove this; but he does not examine these doctrines in his turn, and shew that the consequences charged against them may be avoided. He accuses Dr. C. of misrepresentation. But Dr. C. never charged, for instance, Calvin or Edwards with declaring that the doctrine of predistination utterly destroyed man's responsibility; but he endeavours to shew that this doctrine has this effect, of necessity, by the laws of reason. It is obviously no answer to this, to shew, by a multitude of quotations, that Calvin or Edwards declare the doctrine to be innocent of such evil; or that with the doctrine of predestination they held the doctrine of human responsibility. In the way of argument, therefore, he does little to refute Dr. Channing's views of orthodoxy.

But it is not very easy to get an exact idea of the subject matter in dispute. In this day of universal, free, and far-reaching inquiry, old party names have lost their meaning, or rather their exactness and identity of meaning. As opinion becomes free, it becomes changeful and various; and with its fluctuations, the landmarks of division move to and fro, until it is difficult to tell where they were planted or what limits they define. Creeds have lost much of their power; for assent to words and adoption of family names, are found neither to require nor prove a close affinity of opinion. Perhaps we could shew this by almost any term of description or classification; but by none so well as by that word which has been a spell, "orthodoxy." Who will be bold enough, now, to tell what orthodoxy is? There are many churches clinging together in support of orthodox doctrine, and they all have their creeds, erected and guarded as boundary walls ; and there are very many individuals who are banded together to defend the orthodoxy they all love, against that unitarianism they all hate. But what then? Both of these words have meanings of great width and elasticity; and we suppose it to be notorious and acknowledged, that they both comprehend things as diverse as the clean and unclean animals who once came trooping from earth and sky to that ark, which, for a season, held them all. Are there many, who will not say with us, that of those who call themselves orthodox, some at least differ far less from opponents whom they would brand with the stigma of unitarianism, than from members of their own household of faith, who stand with them in the same array, and do battle to the sound of the same trumpet? And it must be so: before the

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structures fall, the principle of adhesion, which holds their parts together, decays and dies. These temples were builded by the hands of man, and not one stone of them will be left standing upon another. They will pass away; but the steadfast earth, their common foundation, will remain. The factitious principles which men have cherished and loved because they were their own, will disappear and be forgotten, and good men, of every name, will find that their differences were unreal, when their affinities were close and true. The common truths, on which all religion must rest-those truths which every thing within and without us teaches-those truths to which a strong and steadfast testimony is borne, alike by hope and by fear; by joy and by sorrow; by the firm hills and the faint shadows fleeting o'er them; by the things of earth, which speed most swiftly through their moments and by the hosts of heaven, whose fires gather no dimness on their appointed way from the boundaries to the bounderies of space; those truths, finally, which men believe because it is difficult so to cloud the mind and harden the heart as not to see and acknowledge them,-will not partake of the darkness and desolation impending over the structures that have long cumbered them.

As yet, it is not probable that the creeds, the defining expressions of orthodoxy, are materially changed. They were fixed with so much both of difficulty and solemnity, that we should not expect them to be avowedly touched, until they were wholly abandoned in spirit. There are doubtless, at this time, among those who listen to preaching called orthodox and subscribe to creeds bearing that name, persons of every grade of opinion, from that "antinomianism," which relies upon the sufficiency of mental belief, for salvation,—to a simple faith in the authority of Christ, coupled with a supposition that the expressions of orthodoxy contain some real but inscrutable meaning. In our remarks upon this subject, we may, therefore, be thought harsh, by some who fall into the easy and pardonable mistake of thinking that all who use a similar language with themselves, use it to express similar opinions and feelings. We can only hope that such persons will extend their observation a little beyond the circle immediately around them, and form their opinions of the sentiments of others by general and public expositions of those sentiments.

To those who understand orthodoxy literally, we cannot speak. If faith is, indeed, to be sundered from life, and alone held to justify or make just the sinful; if there are three persons, and each of these three is God; if the atonement was the suffering of one of these three, endured to satisfy the infinite anger of another of these three, in order that yet another of these three might be

free to come and assist man; if, we say, these words are to be understood in their common and only legitimate acceptation, we cannot meet those who use them, for we have no common ground to stand upon, no common principles to go forward from. They or we deny the unity, the love, the wisdom and the power of God; and what with them are primal, fundamental truths, are, with us, falsehoods of unspeakable malignity. We hold their first principles of faith to be those untruths, the nature and action of which is represented in the word of God, by Cain in his murderous conflict with Abel; by evil wherever struggling with good. But while we say, that we cannot meet such believers in these dogmata, we do not know that there are any such believers. The day certainly has been, when these doctrines were in this sense avowed, preached, acted upon; and the creeds, a subscription to which was held to confess them in this sense, are still the muniments of faith for many churches. But in the progress of these creeds from actual and avowed reception, to actual and avowed rejection, they pass through a period in which the acknowledgment of them by assertion, and the abandonment of them by explanation, go together. We believe, that at the present day, the great body of the orthodox, and especially of those who have formed their religious opinions recently, receive these doctrines only in the belief that they may be so understood, or, to speak more correctly, construed, as to admit into conjunction with them, what they feel to be the essential elements of religious truth and feeling. To such persons we would suggest a few topics, which may seem to them worthy of consideration.

It may be worth while to look a little at an error, and a fertile source of error, which we believe to be by no means rare: we mean the mistaking an assent to words, for an understanding and belief of the propositions they express. It may seem unnecessary for us to suggest precaution against this error; but we should feel no surprise, if many of those who think, perhaps, that none could fall into this error, should discover, upon reflection, that they themselves were not free from its operation. The difference between assent and belief, may be best illustrated by some instance which can have no influence to sway the judgment. Thus, the mathematical proposition, that an hyperbola and its assymptote, if indefinitely produced, continually approach and never meet, may be enunciated by some one who understands it, and has passed through the process of proof which leads to it ;-he will say he believes it; and another, who receives no idea from the expressions, trusts to the intelligence and honesty of him who uses them, or finds them in a book of authority; and he too says, perhaps with no abuse of language, that he believes the proposition. But how absolute a difference exists between the beliefs of these two

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