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restricting to one particular avenue its legitimate approach to them, he might, in some cases, throw up a barrier against their receiving it at all:and yet he blamed them for their unbelief.

Many of the most successful advocates of Christianity have taken broader ground, and appealed more directly to the moral consciousness of the universal heart. Baxter thought "the indwelling spirit" was "the great witness of Christ and Christianity to the world." "The great mystery of the Gospel," says Cudworth, "doth not lie only in Christ without us, (though we must know also what he hath done for us,) but the very pith and kernel of it consists in Christ inwardly formed in our hearts. Nothing is truly ours, but what lives in our spirits. Salvation itself cannot save us, as long as it is only without us." Channing too has spoken truly and eloquently of that "conviction of the divine original of Christianity, which results from the consciousness of its adaptation to our noblest faculties, as the evidence which sustains the faith of thousands who never read, and cannot understand, the learned books of Christian apologists, who want perhaps words to explain the ground of their belief, but whose faith is of adamantine firmness, who hold the Gospel with a conviction more intimate and unwavering than mere argument ever produced."

Dr. Priestley stretched the principle of com

bining the free exercise of reason on the contents of Scripture, with the recognition of an outward authority, making its acceptance as a divine rule obligatory on every unprejudiced mind-to its utmost point. Further progress in that direction was impossible. In his system we witness the last results of the rationalistic spirit in its application to the New Testament. The point

had been reached, at which, unless the mind chose to remain immovably, where he had left it-only one of two alternatives was possibleeither to go on into simple Deism, or to fall back on a broader and more spiritual conception of Christianity. That the latter has been almost universally adopted among the Churches, which were most deeply affected by his principles-is to be ascribed chiefly to the very seasonable influence of the writings of Dr. Channing.

I am anxious that the purport of these observations should not be misapprehended. While in common with many who hold the distinguishing tenet of Dr. Priestley's theology—the simple unity of the great Being who is revealed to us in the Gospel, as our Father-I cannot accept as alone conclusive, the grounds on which he placed the divine authority of Christianity, nor persuade myself that he either fully embraced its whole design, or rightly apprehended its relation to the human mind, and the expectations excited in us

by the constitution and visible tendencies of the Universe-it must not be imagined, that this expression of dissent from some of his views, implies any insensibility to the magnitude of his services in the cause of religious truth, or to the great and heroic qualities of his character. It is a strange fallacy to assume, that we must agree in all things with those whom we most profoundly revere as men. In steadfastness of Christian principle, in ardour for truth, in purity of life and simplicity of purpose, and in genuine magnanimity and disinterestedness of spirit, Dr. Priestley stands preeminent, and almost without a rival, among the philosophers and men of science whose names shed such a lustre on the close of the eighteenth century. His opinions on some points may be considered as a natural result and expression of the times in which he lived-supplying a link in that chain of connected thought which binds together with a mysterious affinity the successive generations of civilised men. His place was assigned him by Providence. It is his highest praise to have filled it nobly—to have lived for what he believed to be truth, and to have sacrificed wealth and ease and worldly reputation in its defence and pursuit.

The theological opinions of Dr. Priestley were adopted with no important modification by Mr. Belsham, a man of upright and truthful spirit, the

most eminent representative of his school among the English Unitarians in the generation that is only now passing away. (23) The controversy at the close of the last, and the commencement of the present, century, excited a very general interest.

Unitarianism was defended in various forms by men of learning and ability-by the mild and benevolent Lindsey, whose gentle spirit was sometimes disquieted at the startling suggestions of his great philosophic frienda-by the devout and contemplative Cappe, whose peculiar interpretation of Scripture, and cordial acceptance of natural religion, to which he considered Christianity itself as but a divinely-appointed means of return-struck out a system, differing in its whole character from that of Priestley-and by men connected with the Church and the Universities, such as Jebb and Tyrwhitt and Wakefield, who relinquished the hope of preferment, that they might by their writings and example more effectually serve the interests of religious truth. The great and good Dr. Price always retained his Arianism; but he was connected by many ties of sympathy and co-operation with the confessors and champions of Unitarianism. The distinguishing quality of all these men, who were the contemporaries and associates of Dr. Priestley, and shared in the intellectual and moral activity which he created around him-was a cer

• Belsham's Life of Lindsey, Ch. VIII.

tain simplicity and ingenuousness of mind, which sought for truth as the most valuable of human possessions, and believed that under its pure and stronger influence a new era of virtue and happiness would arise on mankind. With such tendencies, the feelings of hope inspired by the bright dawn of French liberty, naturally allied themselves, and gave birth to an enthusiasm, not always void of some extravagance, which was a new feature in the calm and intellectual faith of Unitarianism. But ever-honoured be the memories of the excellent and true-hearted men of those days! They lived in a generous faith, and their bosoms glowed with the purest love of mankind.

SECT. XI.

ORTHODOX DISSENT: POPULARITY OF CHANNING: INFLUENCE OF GERMANY: POWERFUL ORGANIZATION OF INDEPENDENCY.

The bold development of Unitarianism in that section of the Dissenters with which Dr. Priestley had connected himself, produced some reaction towards a more decided Orthodoxy among those Nonconformists who adhered to their traditional theology. Their condition, moreover, had been influenced by other causes, which drew them still

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