Preface

Andrews Norton

In the year 1819, I published an article in a periodical work,[1] of which a number of copies were struck off separately under the title that I have given to this volume. I have since been requested to reprint it, and some years ago undertook to revise and make some additions to it for that purpose. Being, however, interrupted, I laid by my papers, and had given up the intention, at least for an indefinite time. But having lately received an application from a highly esteemed friend, strongly urging its republication, I resumed the task; and the result has been, that I have written a new work, preserving indeed the title of the former, and embodying a great part of its contents, but extending to three times its size. I have said, "I resumed the task;" and the expression is appropriate, for the discussion is one in which no scholar or intellectual man can, at the present day, engage with alacrity. To the great body of enlightened individuals in all countries, to the generality of those who on every subject but theology are the guides of public opinion, it would be as incongruous to address an argument against the Trinity as an argument against transubstantiation, or the imputation of Adam's sin, or the supremacy of the Pope, or the divine right of kings. These doctrines, once subjects of fierce contention, are all, in their view, equally obsolete. To disprove the Trinity will appear, to many of whom I speak, a labor as idle and unprofitable as the confutation of any other of those antiquated errors; and to engage in the task may seem to imply a theologian's ignorance of the opinions of the world, and the preposterous and untimely zeal of a recluse student, believing that the dogmas of his books still rule the minds of men. It would be difficult to find a recognition of the existence of this doctrine in any work of the present day of established reputation, not professedly theological. All mention of it is by common consent excluded from the departments of polite literature, moral science, and natural religion; and from discussions, written or oral, not purely sectarian, intended to affect men's belief, or conduct. Should an allusion to it occur in any such production, it would be regarded as a trait of fanaticism, or as discovering a mere secular respect for some particular church. It is scarcely adverted to, except in works professedly theological; and theology, the noblest and most important branch of philosophy, has been brought into disrepute, so far, at least, as it treats of the doctrines of revealed religion, by a multitude of writers, who have seized upon this branch of it as their peculiar province, and who have been anything but philosophers.

Why, then, argue against a doctrine, which among intelligent men has fallen into neglect and disbelief? I answer, that the neglect and disbelief of this doctrine, and of other doctrines of like character, has extended to Christianity itself. It is from the public professions of nations calling themselves Christian, from the established creeds and liturgies of different churches or sects, and from the writings of those who have been reputed orthodox in their day, that most men derive their notions of Christianity. But the treaties of European nations still begin with a solemn appeal to the "Most Holy Trinity;" the doctrine is still the professed faith of every established church, and, as far as I know, of every sect which makes a creed its bond of communion; and if anyone should recur to books, he would find it presented as an all-important distinction of Christianity by far the larger portion of divines. It is, in consequence, viewed by most men, more or less distinctly, as a part of Christianity. In connection with other doctrines, as false and more pernicious, it has been molded into systems of religious belief, which have been publicly and solemnly substituted in the place of true religion. These systems have counteracted the whole evidence of divine revelation. The proof of the most important fact in the history of mankind, that the truths of religion have not been left to be doubtfully and dimly discerned, but have been made known to us by God himself, has been overborne and rendered ineffectual by the nature of the doctrines ascribed to God. Hence it is, that in many parts of Europe scarcely an intelligent and well-informed Christian is left. It has seemed as idle to inquire into the evidences of those systems which passed under the name of Christianity, as into the proof of the incarnations of Vishnu, or the divine mission of Mahomet. Nothing of the true character of our religion, nothing attesting its descent from Heaven, was to be discovered amid the corruptions of the prevailing faith. On the contrary, they were so marked with falsehood and fraud, they so clearly discovered the baseness of their earthly origin, that, when imposed upon men as the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, those who regarded them as such were fairly relieved from the necessity of inquiring whether they had been taught by God. The internal evidence of Christianity was annihilated; and all other evidence is wasted when applied to prove that such doctrines have been revealed from Heaven.

It is true that in England, in some parts of Continental Europe, and in our own country, a large majority still desire the name of Christians, and have a certain interest in what they esteem Christianity. Notwithstanding much infidelity and skepticism, more or less openly avowed, and notwithstanding that many who call themselves Christians regard the teaching of Christ only as containing, when rightly understood, an excellent system of doctrines and duties, without ascribing to it more than human authority, yet there still exists much sincere and enlightened, as well as much traditionary faith in Christianity, as a revelation from God. In the Protestant countries to which I have referred, there has been great freedom of inquiry into its character. Wise and good men have labored to vindicate it from misrepresentations. Its evidences have been forcibly stated. The more obnoxious doctrines connected with it in the popular creeds have not of late, except in this country, been zealously obtruded upon notice. The moral character required by it has been partially at least understood and inculcated. And imperfectly and erroneously as our religion may have been taught, it has still been a main support of public order and private morals. Many enlightened men, therefore, who have taken only a general view of the subject, and have never given their time or thoughts to determine what Christianity really is, regard the prevailing form of religion with a certain degree of respect. Though they may disbelieve many of its doctrines, and have never separated in their own minds what is true from what is false, they think it, notwithstanding, the part of a prudent and benevolent man to let the whole pass in silence. They either do not advert to Christianity at all; or if they do, it is in ambiguous, though respectful terms, and they refrain from implying either their belief or their disbelief of what are represented as its characteristic doctrines. There is also another class of able and intellectual men who, perceiving the value of religion in general, sincerely embrace the popular religion as they find it in the creed of their church or sect, being bound to it, perhaps, by strong sentiments and early associations, and believing that he who quits this harbor must embark upon a sea of uncertainties. They form a small exception to the remarks with which I commenced, respecting the prevalent disbelief of the doctrine of the Trinity, and other similar doctrines, by the more intelligent classes of society, an exception which does not extend to the ignorant, or bigoted, or mercenary defenders of a church or sect.

But admitting these facts, what, after all, is the prevailing state of opinion and feeling respecting Christianity in Protestant countries. It is indicated by their literature. With some considerable exceptions, the productions of the English periodical press may be divided into two great classes. In one of them, you rarely find anything implying a sincere belief and interest in Christianity; you find much that an intelligent Christian could not have written, and in some of the publications to be arranged in this class, you find many thinly veiled or naked expressions of scorn and aversion for what passes under its name, and especially for the established religion and its ministers. In the other class, you observe a party and political zeal for religion, the religion established by law, "the religion of a gentleman," to borrow an expression from Charles the Second, a zeal for the church and its dignities and emoluments, a zeal that accommodates itself easily to a lax system of morals, and which rarely displays itself more than in its contempt for those who regard religion as something about which our reason is to be exercised. But beside these two classes of publications, there is still another, extensively circulated, below the notice, perhaps, of those who belong to the aristocracy of literature, but which is sapping the foundations of society—a class of publications addressed to the lower orders, in which Christianity is openly attacked, being made responsible for all the wickedness, fraud, oppression, and cruelty that have been perpetrated in its name, and for all the outrages upon reason that have appeared in the conduct of its professors, or been embodied in creeds. There are other proofs equally striking of the very general indifference that is really felt toward Christianity; of the little hold it has upon men's inmost thoughts and affections. The most popular English poet of the day, who has been the object of such passionate and ill-judged admiration, appeared, not merely as a man, but as a writer, under every aspect the most adverse to the Christian character; yet the time has been, when his tide of fashion was at its height, that one could hardly remark upon his immorality or profaneness without exposing himself to the charge of being narrow-minded or hypocritical. I observed not long since, in a noted journal, the editor of which is said to be a Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, that he was spoken of by a writer, fresh from the perusal of his life by Moore, as having been throughout his whole course "a noble being," "morally and intellectually," as all but "the base and blind" must feel.[2] The patriarch of German literature has just left the world amid a general chorus of applause from his countrymen, to which a dissentient voice has for some time scarcely been tolerated among them. His popularity may be compared with that which Voltaire enjoyed in France during the last century. There may be different opinions respecting his genius. He has nothing of the brilliant wit of Voltaire, nor of his keenness of remark, and nothing of the truly honest zeal in the cause of humanity, which is sometimes discovered by that very inconsistent writer. No generous sentiment ever prompted Goethe to place himself in imprudent opposition to any misuse of power. The principles, which are the foundation of virtue and happiness, were to him as though they were not. His strongest sympathies were not with the higher feelings of our nature. In his mind Christianity was on a level with the Pagan mythology, except as being of a harsher and gloomier character, and possessing less poetical beauty. In the Prologue to his Faust, he introduces in a scene, meant to be ludicrous, the Supreme Being as one of his dramatis personae, with as little reverence as Lucian shows toward Jupiter. I cannot say what there may be in his voluminous works, but in those of the most note I have never met with the strong, heartfelt expression of a high moral truth or noble sentiment. In reading some of his more popular productions, it may be well to recollect the words of one incomparably his superior: Cynicorum vero ratio tota est ejicienda; est enim inimica verecundie, sine qua nihil rectum esse potest, nihil honestum.[3] As regards the productions of such writers, it has become the cant of a certain class of critics to set aside the consideration of their influence upon men's principles and affections and to consider them merely as productions of genius. In this mode of estimation it is forgotten that there can be no essential beauty opposite to moral beauty, and that a work which offends our best feelings can have no power over the sympathies of a well-ordered mind. The same absence of religious principle and belief, which characterizes so much of the popular literature of the day, appears also in the speculations of men of a high order of intellect. It is but a few years since that the author of the "Academical Questions"[4] was praised as a profound thinker, in the most able and popular of modern journals, with scarcely a remark upon the fact that his speculations conducted directly to the dreary gulf of utter skepticism. That work had its day, and is forgotten. I have just been turning over the leaves of another, "On the Origin and Prospects of Man," by one of the most powerful writers of our times, the author of "Anastasius."[5] To me it appears only a system of virtual atheism. It excludes all idea of God, according to the conceptions formed of him by a Christian. The Father of the Universe equally disappears from the later systems of the most celebrated German metaphysicians. That which affects to be regarded as the higher philosophy of the age is as intelligible upon this point, though upon few others, as the system of Spinoza. Though all-seeing in its mists, it does not discern the God who MADE the world and all things therein, and whose mercy is over all his works. In a large proportion of writings which touch upon the higher topics of philosophy, we perceive more or less disbelief or disregard of what a Christian must consider as the great truths of religion. No one can read without interest the work which, just as he was terminating his brilliant career, Sir Humphry Davy left as a legacy, containing the last thoughts of a philosopher. Yet in this work, written as life was fast receding, instead of the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the conscious individual, we find that his imagination rested on a dream, borrowed from Pagan philosophy, of the pre-existence and future glories of the thinking principle, assuming new modes of being without memory of the past. It is not simply to the appearance of such speculations that we are to look as characteristic of the age, but to the fact that their appearance excites so little attention, that they blend so readily with the prevailing tone of its literature. I should not be surprised if some intelligent readers of the work last mentioned should even have forgotten the passage referred to.

Such being the state of things, we are led to inquire, Who are the expositors and defenders of religion, and what influence do they exert upon public sentiment. In England the science of theology, so far as it is connected with revealed religion, has fallen into general neglect. Of those who treat its subjects, few deserve a hearing, and the few who deserve cannot obtain it. A few professedly learned works have of late appeared; but for the most part they are mere compilations, made without judgment or accuracy, and conformed to the creed of the Church. There have been some bulky republications of old divines little suited to the wants of the age. Most other religious works that appear are evidently intended only for "the religious public," a phrase that has become familiar, and marks in some degree the character of the times. Should they pass beyond this narrow circle, they would, I fear, contribute nothing to render Christianity more respected. A very different class of writers is required to assert for religion its true character and authority. In Germany there is a large body of theologians, of whom the most eminent have been able and learned critics. They have thrown much light upon the history, language, and contents of the books of the Old and New Testament. They have released themselves from the thraldom of traditionary errors. But they have, in many cases, substituted for these errors the most extravagant speculations of their own. Nor, with some exceptions, does the power of Christianity show itself in their writings. On the contrary, many of them, being infected with the spirit of infidelity that prevails over the continent of Europe, have regarded Christianity, not as a divine revelation, but merely as presenting a system of doctrines and precepts, for the most part probable and useful, when relieved from the mass of errors that have been added to what was originally taught by its founder. Christianity thus becomes only a popular name for a certain set of opinions. Its authority and value are gone. The whole proof of the doctrines of religion, as taught by Christ, consists solely in the fact that he was a teacher from God. He did not reason; he affirmed. He adduced no arguments but his miracles. Considered as a self-taught philosopher, he did nothing to advance human knowledge, for he brought no new evidence for any opinion. But considered as a teacher from God, he has provided the authority of God for the foundation of our faith.

In our country, if I am not deceived by feelings of private friendship, true Christianity has found some of its best defenders. But the forms in which it is presented throughout a great part of our land, and the feelings and character of many who have pretended to be its exclusive disciples, are little adapted to procure it the respect of intelligent men. They are producing infidelity, and preparing the way for its extensive spread. They are giving to many a distaste for the very name of religion, and leading them to regard all appearance of a religious character with distrust or aversion. In no other country is the grossest and most illiberal bigotry so broadly exhibited as among ourselves. Nowhere else, at the present day, have so many partisans of a low order of intellect risen into notice, through a spurious zeal, not for doctrines, for these are changed as convenience may require, but for the triumph of a sect; and no other region has of late been ravaged by such a moral pestilence as, under the name of religion, has prevailed in some parts of our land, an insane fanaticism, degrading equally the feelings and intellect of those affected by it.[6]

In past times, the false systems of religion that have assumed the name of Christianity, and ruled in its stead, have had a certain adaptation to the ignorance, the barbarism, the low state of morals, and the perverted condition of society, existing contemporaneously with them. They were some restraint upon vice. They led man to think of himself as something more than a mere perishing animal. Mixed up with poison as they were, they served as an antidote to other poisons more pernicious. Though Christianity was obscured by thick clouds, yet a portion of its light and heat reached the earth. But the time for those systems has wholly passed. A wilder scheme could not be formed than that of reestablishing the Catholic religion in France, or calling a new Council of Dort to sanction Calvinism in Holland, or giving to Lutheranism its former power over men's minds in Germany. Their vitality is gone, except that it now and then manifests itself in a convulsive struggle. Yet zealots are still claiming for them the authority which belongs of right to true religion; and to the inquiry what Christianity is, the public, official answer, as it may be called, is still returned that it is to be found in the traditionary creed of some established church, or of some prevalent sect, that it is to be identified with the grim decrepitude of some obsolete form of faith. We are referred back to some one of those systems that have dishonored its name, counteracted its influence, perverted its sanctions, inculcated false and inadequate conceptions of the religious character, and formed broods of hypocrites, fanatics, and persecutors, that have been made to minister to the lust of power, malignant passions, and criminal self-indulgence, and that have striven, if I may so speak, to retard the intellectual and moral improvement of men, seeing in it the approach of their own destruction.

What, then, is to be done to give new power to the great principles of religion? What is to be done to vindicate its true influence to Christianity? We must vindicate its true character. It must be presented to men such as it is. The false doctrines connected with it, in direct opposition to the truths which it teaches, must be swept away. It is not enough that they should be secretly disbelieved; they must be openly disavowed. It must be publicly acknowledged that they are utterly foreign from Christianity. It is not enough that those who defend them should be disregarded or confuted. They must be so confuted as to be silenced. Those who would procure for Christianity its due supremacy in the hearts of men should feel that their first object is so to operate upon the convictions and sentiments of men, that the public sanction which has been given to gross misrepresentations of it shall be as publicly withdrawn. In promoting the influence of Christianity, the main duty of an enlightened Christian at the present day is to labor that it may be better understood. Till this be effected, all other exertions, it may be feared, if not ineffectual, will be mischievous, as prolonging the authority of error, rather than establishing the truth.

But what interest can a philosopher or a man of intellect be expected to take in the squabbles of controversial divines? What impression is to be produced upon indifference, ignorance, traditionary faith, bigotry, and self-interest by one who has nothing to conjure with but his poor reason? Why be solicitous to cure men of one folly on the subject of religion, since it is sure to be replaced by another? To him who should propose such questions, I might answer that I do not so despair of mankind. I compare the nineteenth century with the fifteenth, and I perceive that many hard victories have been won, and much has been permanently secured in the cause of human improvement. Truth and Reason, though they work slowly, work surely. An abuse or an error, after having been a thousand times confuted or exposed, at last totters and falls, abandoned by its defenders; and then

"One spell upon the minds of men Breaks, never to unite again."

The disputes of controversial divines, however mean the intellect or vile the temper of many who have engaged in them, do in fact concern the most important truths and the most pernicious errors. Having given these answers, I might then ask in return: Why should a Christian, with a deep-felt conviction of the efficacy of his religion to promote the best interests of mankind, be earnestly desirous that its influence may not be superseded and opposed by any of those false systems of doctrine that have been substituted in its place? Why should one, not devoid of common sympathy with his fellow-men, care whether they believe the most ennobling truths, or some pernicious creed, respecting their God and Father, their nature and relations as immortal beings, their duty, motives, consolations, and hopes.

We know the efforts that are making by enlightened men in Europe, particularly in England, to spread intellectual cultivation among the uneducated classes of the Old World. So far as the knowledge thus communicated is what may be called secular, it is beneficial in enlarging and exercising the mind, affording innocent entertainment, and, in some cases, furnishing the means of advancement in life. But to the poor, as to every other class, it is not the knowledge of most value. Without the equal diffusion of religious truth, it may become an instrument of evil rather than of good. Mere intellectual cultivation is as likely to be a source of discontent and disquietude as of happiness. An access of knowledge may tend little to reconcile a man to his situation. The new power it affords will be used according to the disposition of him who possesses it. But you can impress no truth, you can remove no error, respecting the duties and hopes of man as an immortal creature of God, you can impress no truth, you can remove no error, concerning religion, without surely advancing men in morals and happiness. This is the instruction most needed for all classes, but especially for the least informed. Among the highly educated, and those accustomed to the refinements of life, there are certain partial substitutes for religious principle—the feeling of honor, the desire of reputation, delicacy of taste, the force of public opinion, and a more enlarged perception of the sentiments of their fellow-men, which, when they act on the conduct of others, are generally on the side of virtue. The levities or the business of life, a ceaseless round of trifling or serious occupation, which hurries them on with little leisure to think or feel deeply, may have prevented them from becoming acquainted with the essential wants of our nature. But in preaching to the poor, not the heartless, revolting, debasing absurdities of some established creed, but the doctrines of Jesus Christ, we may give them consolations and hopes to be most intimately felt, new views of their nature, new motives and principles. It is on the diffusion of this sort of instruction among all classes that the prospects of society now depend. Changes are coming fast upon the world. In the violent struggle of opposite interests, the decaying prejudices that have bound men together in the old forms of society are snapping asunder one after another. Must we look forward to a hopeless succession of evils, in which exasperated parties will be alternately victors and victims, till all sink under some one power whose interest it is to preserve a quiet despotism? Who can hope for a better result, unless the great lesson be learned that there can be no essential improvement in the condition of society without the improvement of men as moral and religious beings, and that this can be effected only by religious TRUTH. To expect this improvement from any form of false religion, because it is called religion, is as if, in administering to one in a fever, we were to take some drug from an apothecary's shelves, satisfied with its being called medicine.

That a people may be happy in the enjoyment of civil liberty, a certain degree of knowledge and culture must be spread through the community. A general system of education must be established. Self-restraint must supply the place of external coercion. The legitimate purpose of government is to guard the rights of individuals and the community from injury; and the best form of government is that which effects this purpose with the least power, and is least likely therefore to afford the means of misrule and oppression. But the power not conceded to the government must be supplied by the force of moral principle and sentiment in the governed. What education, then, is required? What knowledge is to be communicated? What culture is necessary? I answer, not alone, nor principally, that education which the schoolmaster may give, but moral culture, the knowledge of our true interests and relations. There may be much intellectual culture which will not tend even indirectly to form men to the ready practice of their duties, or to bind them together in mutual sympathy and forbearance, unless it be united with just conceptions of our nature and the objects of action. Let us form in fancy a nation of mathematicians like La Place or La Lande, ostentatious of their atheism, naturalists as irreligious and impure as Buffon, artists as accomplished as David, the friend of Robespierre, philosophers, like Hobbes and Mandeville, Helvetius and Diderot, men of genius, like Byron, Goethe, and Voltaire, orators as powerful and profligate as Mirabeau, and having placed over them a monarch as able and unprincipled as the second Frederic of Prussia, let us consider what would be the condition of this highly intellectual community, and how many generations might pass before it were laid waste by gross sensuality and ferocious passions. So far only as men are impressed with a sense of their relations to each other, to God, and to eternity, are they capable of liberty and the blessings of social order. The great truths that most concern us are those on which our characters must be formed. But religion is the science that treats of the relations of man as a responsible, immortal being, the creature of God. By teaching the truth concerning them, religion, properly so called, discloses to us the ends of our being, preparing men, by virtue and happiness here, for eternal progress in virtue and happiness hereafter. So far as what bears the name of religion teaches falsehoods concerning them, it becomes the ally of evil, counteracting the improvement of our race. False religion has been the common sign, and often the most efficient cause, of the corruption and misery of nations. All great changes in the constitution of society for the purpose of delivering men from traditionary abuses must be accompanied with a correspondent advance in religious knowledge, or they will be made in vain. Where the principles of Christianity are operative, there only can men be released from the strong control of some superior power, which, however profligately exercised, may find its own interest in preserving quiet among its subjects. True Christianity urges the performance of the duties of man to man, by the noblest and most effectual motives; and in a community where its influence were generally felt, how little would there be to apprehend from public oppression or private wrong. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” [2 Cor. 3:17]. I apply the words of the Apostle in a different sense from that in which he used them, but in one, the truth of which he would have recognized. In regarding the condition and changes of societies and nations, we are apt to look rather to the immediate occasions of events than to their radical and efficient causes. A mere worldly politician, for instance, might think it scarcely worth consideration that the established church should impose a creed which a majority of its clergy do not believe, or that oaths, not meant to be regarded, but enforced as a traditionary ceremony, and subscriptions, to which the conscience can hardly be cheated into assenting, should stand in the path of advancement in church and state. To a philosopher it may appear of far greater moment. Other topics, more exciting to the generality, he might deem of secondary importance. This he might view as a deep-seated evil, working at the core, the natural progress of which would leave but a false and hollow show of religion and morals. Who is there that will deny the influence of true religion to promote the happiness of individuals and the good order of society? Who is there that will deny the mischiefs of superstition, false notions of God and our duty, bigotry, and what is produced as their counterpart, irreligion and atheism? Why is it, then, that many are so little solicitous to discriminate, on this most important subject, truth from falsehood, that they fancy they are giving their countenance to the former, while supporting the latter, and that, if they aid the cause of what is called religion, they do not stop to inquire whether it be the religion that exalts, or the religion that degrades?

In the present state of information and public sentiment, it will be vain to attempt to give authority to false religion. The zeal of partisans, or the power of the state, will be equally ineffectual. The only important consequence of such attempts will be to disgust men with all religion. The experiment has, in one instance, been carried through. In France, the forcing of the Roman Catholic faith upon the nation ended in the overthrow of all belief in Christianity. The consequences that ensued had the effect, elsewhere, of frightening infidels into hypocrites and bigots, and a sudden show of religion followed the French Revolution. But from this, had it continued, as little was to be hoped, as from a procession with relics and images going forth to stop a stream of lava in its course. It is only to true religion that we must look for aid in the cause of human happiness. This alone, being in accordance with reason and with our natural sentiments, will find its way to the hearts of men.

The tract which follows in relation to some of those false doctrines that have prevailed, though it will give no new conviction to the great body of enlightened men, may perhaps awaken the attention of some to the grossness of those corruptions that have been connected with Christianity, and to the necessity of presenting it in a purer form, if its influence is to be preserved. It may tend a little to swell the flood of public sentiment by which they must be swept away. It may perhaps serve to convince some who have looked with offense upon the absurdities taught as Christian doctrines, and mistaken them for such, that one may be a very earnest believer, whose respect for such doctrines is as little as their own. But, especially, it may serve to spread a knowledge of the truth among those who, from their habits of life, have wanted leisure to think and examine for themselves upon subjects of this nature, and who are obliged, as all of us are in a greater or less degree, to take many opinions upon authority, till they see reason to distrust the authority on which they have relied. In addressing myself to such readers, I may take the credit (it is but small) of having avoided a fault common in theological writings intended for popular use. I have not presumed upon their ignorance of the subject. I have not made statements which in a more learned discussion I should be ashamed to urge. I have given no explanations that I knew to be unsatisfactory, because they might seem plausible. I have made no propositions which I do not fully believe. I have urged no arguments but what have brought conviction to my own mind. I have written as one who, being fully persuaded himself, and regarding his subject as free from all doubt and difficulty, is satisfied that nothing more is to be done than to explain to others in intelligible language the views which are present to his own mind.

I have given one reason why it is little to my taste to discuss this doctrine of the Trinity. Whoever treats of the subject is liable to be confounded with a class of writers with whom an intelligent Christian would not willingly be thought to have anything in common. By many who look with indifference on the whole discussion, he who contends for the truth will be placed on a level with those who defend error. Others will think that he is agitating questions which might better be left at rest; and those who hold the traditionary belief will regard him as a disturber of the Christian community. It may, however, be a consolation to him to remember that even Socrates—the great opposer of the sophists and false teachers of his day—was called λαλος και βιαιος, prating and turbulent,[7] and that the very same epithets, by a singular coincidence, were applied to Locke,[8] the most enlightened theologian of his age and nation. The feeling, however, naturally arising from the causes I have mentioned, might prevent one from engaging in this controversy, were it not for the deep sense which a sincere Christian must have of the value of true Christianity, and of the necessity of redeeming it from the imputations to which it has been exposed. "'Love,' says one of our old poets,' esteems no office mean,' and, with still more spirit, 'Entire affection scorneth nicer hands.'"[9]

But there are other causes which make this an unpleasant subject. It presents human nature under the most humiliating aspect. The absurdities that have been maintained are so gross, the zeal in maintaining them has been so ferocious, there is such an absence of any redeeming quality in the spectacle presented, that it spreads a temporary gloom over our whole view of the character and destiny of man. We seem ourselves to sink in the scale of being, and it demands an effort to recollect the glorious powers with which God has endued our race. While inquiring concerning the truths of religion, we appear to have descended to some obscure region where folly and prejudice are the sole rulers. We may remember, with a feeling of painful oppression, the mortifying language of Hume, in one of those tracts in which he speculates as coldly upon the nature and hopes of mankind as if he were a being of another sphere, bound to us by no common sympathies: "All popular theology, especially the scholastic, has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction. If that theology went not beyond reason and common sense, her doctrines would appear too easy and familiar. Amazement must of necessity be raised, mystery affected, darkness and obscurity sought after, and a foundation of merit afforded to the devout votaries, who desire an opportunity of subduing their rebellious reason by the belief of the most unintelligible sophisms." "To oppose the torrent of scholastic religion by such feeble maxims as these, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, that the whole is greater than a part, that two and three make five, is pretending to stop the ocean with a bulrush."[10] And is this all that mankind have to hope? Must this dreary prospect forever lie before us? Is this all that religion has been, and all that it is to be? We trust not. Still, in the confutation of such doctrines as have been taught, the triumph, if it may be so called, is humbling. It is a triumph over our common nature reduced to imbecility. We discover not how strong human reason is, but how weak. That it can confute them implies no power; that it has been enslaved in their service makes us feel, almost with apprehension, how far it may be debased. But the hold which the doctrines of false religion have had upon the hearts of men has never been proportioned to the extent in which they have been professed. The truths of Christianity have maintained a constant struggle with the opposite errors that have been connected with them. At the present time there are many who acquiesce in these errors, and who even regard them with traditionary respect, in whose minds they lie inert and harmless.

But the very circumstance last mentioned adds to the unpleasant character of the discussion that follows. Every one in his writings sometimes turns his thoughts to those individuals whose approbation would give him most pleasure, and whose good opinion he would most desire to confirm. Among those to whom my thoughts recur, there are friends from whom I can hope for no sympathy in my present task. A difference of opinion upon this or any other subject cannot lessen my respect or love for them, and should the present work chance to fall in their way, I could almost wish to know that this were the only paragraph that had fixed their attention. I beg them to believe that I am no zealot, no partisan of a sect, no disturber of social intercourse by a spirit of proselytism, and that where I see the fruits of true religion, I have no wish to conform the faith from which they proceed to the standard of my own. The same opinions, true or false, may be held in a very different temper, with very different associations, and with very different effects upon character. The doctrines most pernicious in their general results may be innoxious in many particular cases. The same system of faith which established its autos de fe in Spain, numbering its victims by tens of thousands and sinking that country to the lowest debasement, may have been consistent in Fénelon with every virtue under heaven.

I have but a few words more to say in this connection. The tract that follows relates only to one class of those false doctrines that have been represented as doctrines of Christianity. There are others equally or more important. To reestablish true Christianity must be a work of long and patient toil, to be effected far more by the general diffusion of religious knowledge, than by direct controversy. The views and results to which a few intelligent scholars may have arrived must be made the common property of the community. Essential and inveterate errors present themselves in every department of Christian theology. False religion has thrown its veil over the character, and perverted the meaning, of the books of the Old and New Testament. Of the immense mass of volumes concerning revealed religion, there is but a scanty number in which some erroneous system does not form the basis of what is taught. In many of the most important branches of inquiry, a common Christian can find no trustworthy and sufficient guide. Of the multitude of topics more immediately connected with Christianity, there is scarcely one which does not require to be examined anew from its foundation and discussed in a manner very different from what it has been. Religion must be taken, I will not say out of the hands of priests—that race is passing away—but out of the hands of divines, such as the generality of divines have been; and its exposition and defense must become the study of philosophers, as being the highest philosophy. Some degree of attention to the fact is necessary, to be aware of the general and gross ignorance that exists concerning almost every subject connected with our faith. But they who would communicate the instruction, which is so much needed, must expect to be continually impeded and resisted by prejudice and misapprehension. Let them, however, understand their task and qualify themselves for it. In the present state of opinion in the world, it is evident that he is assuming a responsibility for which he is wholly unfit, who comes forward as a teacher or defender of Christianity without having prepared himself by serious thought and patient study. The traditionary believer, if he has taken this responsibility upon himself, should stop in his course, till he has ascertained whether he is doing good or evil. A conflict between religion and irreligion has begun, which may not soon be ended; and in this conflict, Christianity must look for aid, not to zealots, but to scholars and philosophers. Our age is not one in which there can be an esoteric doctrine for the intelligent, and an exoteric for the uninformed. The public profession of systems of faith by Christian nations and churches, which are not the faith of the more enlightened classes of society, has produced a state of things that, it would seem, cannot long continue. We may hope that in Protestant countries its result will not be, as it was in France, general infidelity. We may hope that it will not end in a mere struggle between fanaticism and irreligion, as seems to be the tendency of things in some parts of our own country. But these results can be prevented only by awakening men's minds to inquire what Christianity is. How far it has been misrepresented? What are its evidences? What is its value? And what is to be done to remove those errors which now deprive it of its power?

Andrews Norton

Cambridge, 1833.