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allied to the last stages of the corruptions of Christianity. At all times, the Socinians have been the friends and patrons of the theory of Epicurus, a system which sprung from atheism, and which, strictly reasoned upon, and fully developed, leads back to atheism again. In ethics an equally low, cold, and calculating tone is taken; the noble incentives deduced by the apostles from the deity and death of Christ, of course, must be discarded; and an attempt is made to revive the morals of the Gentile philosophers, but which, deprived of the peculiar motives which gave them force and influence, fall spiritless and lifeless on the inattentive ear. Heterodoxy is but the dregs of what once was religion and knowledge. savours of nothing generous, spirit-stirring, or ennobling. Socinianism is in no respect the heresy of genius; it presents no views that can inform the understanding, enliven the imagination, or warm and elevate the heart. Of all such it seeks to deprive us, and, in return, would present us with nothing but a garbled religion and a beggarly philosophy.

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XII. Rational theology is in every respect untenable; it has no definite form, and it rests upon no foundation; the reason which it appeals to is a counterfeit. It is merely ignorance and presumption under the disguise of reason. True reason is the disciple of revelation and of inductive philoso

phy; it admits no tenets which are contrary to facts, or to truths divinely inspired. The spurious reasoning of the Socinians is contradicted alike by facts, and by Christianity; the principles which it opposes are not only proclaimed by revelation but displayed in the government of the world. The analogy between nature and grace, so ably set forth by Bishop Butler, is equally strong against the Socinians, as against the infidels. The principles of vicariousness and original sin everywhere present themselves in the constitution of the moral world, and the Latitudinarian is opposing the information derived from the senses, as much as the inspired communications of the Bible, when he asserts, that these principles are contrary to the divine justice, and impossible to be believed.

The Bible is addressed to sinners, and it is a want of a deep conviction of sin which chiefly prevents us from understanding its communications. The natural and carnal mind of man cannot discern spiritual things, for these must be spiritually discerned. Unless the Holy Ghost, with his own effectual and divine instruction, bring home the word of truth, which he once imparted to prophets and apostles, to each individual mind, not with new information, but with new energy, the truth will never be received in the love of it, and if not received in the love of it, will never be rightly apprehended, or even long retained. Inadequate no

tions of sin necessarily give rise to inadequate notions of the atonement. The atonement being undervalued, the proper Deity of Christ is naturally disallowed also. Each peculiar truth of Christianity is linked with all the rest, and they all stand or

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But though the heart is the original cause of all departures from the faith, and the place where unbelief has its chief seat, yet an intellectual process is also necessary, by which the peculiar doctrines of Christianity may be explained away, and by which an erroneous system of religion may be formed, more palatable to the corrupt inclinations of fallen man, than the uncompromising purity of the Gospel. The intellectual process by which a false religion is shaped out, is the very same by which a false system of philosophy is formed. In both cases our errors proceed from preconceived opinions, or partial induction. Genuine and inductive philosophy is the true cure of both. Let truth be impartially and universally sought; let all dogmas founded upon ignorance, and the presumptuous conjectures of a priori reasoning, be discarded, and proportioning our belief to the degree of evidence, which in every case is presented to us, false systems of divinity will disappear, with vain theories in philosophy, and we shall behold, with child-like and teachable minds, the wisdom of God manifest alike in his word and in his works.

While all other rational heresies rapidly fall into Socinianism, Socinianism itself, with still greater rapidity, terminates in Deism. And the cause of this is obvious. For if the sophism, that no doctrine is to be admitted contrary to reason, authorises us at pleasure to reject any one truth from the Scriptures, it leads us with much more consistency to cease from the garbling of particular texts, and to throw aside the whole Scriptures at once. It is evident at a glance, that the Scriptures are contrary to reason, falsely so called. They set at nought all the preconceived opinions of mankind. They exhibit the purity of the divine character in a light very different from the conjectures which those would form who had never been favoured by a divine revelation; and if whatever truths transcend our narrow intellect are to be rejected, the mere pruning away of this or that tenet is not sufficient, the whole Scriptures must be cast aside, as infinitely superior to the wisdom of man.

Infidel writers, while they acknowledge the Socinians as their near of kin, form a just estimate, both of their emendations of the Scripture, and of the ultimate result of all their labours. Speaking of the Latitudinarian divines of Geneva, the French Encyclopédie says, "Ils expliquent le moins mal qu'ils peuvent les passages formels de l'Ecriture qui sont contraires à leur opinion"- "On se plaint moins à Genève qu'ailleurs des progrès de l'incré

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dulité; ce qui ne doit pas surprendre la religion est presque réduite à l'adoration d'un seul Dieu, du moins chez presque tout ce qui n'est pas peuple : le respect pour Jésus Christ et pour les Ecritures sont peut-être la seule chose qui distingue d'un Déisme le Christianisme de Genève." The only difference between the Deist and the Socinian, is placed by these accomplished infidels in the respect which the Socinians bear to the Scriptures and the Saviour. Now the Socinians believe the Saviour to be "fallible and peccable," and the Scriptures to be full of "inconclusive reasonings," and if the difference between them is to be measured by the respect of the Socinians, and the reverence they bear to things sacred, it must be minute indeed. Accordingly, the same writers elsewhere observe. "Du Socinianisme au Déisme il n'y a qu'une nuance très imperceptible." And so slight and imaginary is the boundary between them, that the Socinians are continually passing over to Deism, without any one being able to say at what moment they ceased to be Socinians, and became decidedly Deists.

Thus one step of error leads to another, nor is there any rest to those who depart from the faith. Those who deny the absolute Deity of Christ have only to be consistent in their opposition, and they will proceed without delay or cessation from Arianism to Socinianism. Nor does the downward path

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