XIV. Concerning the power of the Civil Magistrate, in matters purely religious, and pertaining to the Conscience. 'Since God hath assumed to Himself the power and dominion of the conscience, who alone can rightly instruct and govern it, therefore it is not lawful for any whatsoever, by virtue of any authority or principality they bear in the government of this world, to force the consciences of others; . . provided always, that no man, under the pretence of conscience, prejudice his neighbour in his life or estate; or do anything destructive to, or inconsistent with, human society; in which case the law is for the transgressor, and justice to be administered upon all, without respect of persons.' XV. Concerning Salutations and Recreations, &c. Seeing the chief end of all religion is to redeem man from the spirit and vain conversation of this world, and to lead into inward communion with God, before whom if we fear always, we are accounted happy; therefore all the vain customs and habits thereof, both in word and deed, are to be rejected and forsaken by those who come to this fear; such as the taking off the hat to a man, the bowing and cringings of the body, and such other salutations of that kind, with all the foolish and superstitious formalities attending them.'. . LECTURE VI. THE UNITARIANS. A.D. 17 19. Leading Idea :-The Intellectual Freedom of the Church. Method adopted :-Abolition of all engagements, which may fetter the free teaching of the Clergy. Ζητήσατε οὖν Αὐτὸν, καὶ κραταιώθητε! ζητήσατε τὸ πρόσωπον Αὐτοῦ, διὰ παντὸς, παντοίως ! πολυμερῶς γὰρ καὶ πολυτρόπως λαλήσας, οὐχ ἁπλῶς γνωρίζεται. (Clem. Αlex. Strom. vi. 1ο. 81.) CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. c. 100. The Ebionites,—an ultra-Judaizing sect. 381. Macedonius, Patriarch of Constantinople, condemned. c. 400. Arianism takes refuge with the Goths. Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia. 431. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, deposed. c. 800. Adoptionist controversies, in France and Spain. c. 1100. Abelard (rationalist): Roscelin (nominalist). 1300. Duns Scotus: William Occam. 1450. Nicolas of Cusa, ‘De doctâ ignorantiâ.' 1500. John Denck, professor at Basle. 1552. Servetus burnt by Calvin. 1562. Lælius Socinus died. 1604. Faustus Socinus died. 1647. John Biddle imprisoned for heresy. 1689. Toleration Act,'-Unitarians excluded. 1719. 'Salters' Hall controversy.' Unitarians a distinct Denomination. 1729. Dr. Samuel Clarke died. c. 1750. General Baptists' adopt Unitarian doctrines. English 'Presbyterians' adopt Unitarian doctrines. 1771. Feathers Tavern Petition,' against subscription. 1794. Priestley sails for America. 1811. Belsham's 'Calm Inquiry.' 1813. Laws against Unitarians repealed. 1827. Hicksite Quakers adopt Unitarian doctrines. 1842. Channing died. 1844. 'Dissenters' Chapels Act.' 1860. Theodore Parker died. 1869. J. J. Tayler died. LECTURE VI. THE UNITARIANS. 'If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him WE '-1 Cor. iii. 18. ́E have now passed under review and given some amount of careful and, I hope, not uncandid or unfriendly study to two successive pairs of Dissenting bodies; viz. those which broke off from the Church of England in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. And we have not failed to remark that the controversies which mainly characterized those two centuries were of a dissimilar type. The cause of divergence in the sixteenth century being the merely exterior question of Church-polity,-on which the Independents seceded, and drifted away in the direction of excessive liberty and of ultimate anarchy; while the Romanists broke off in the direction of excessive centralization, and have since drifted towards, and reached, an ecclesiastical despotism. In the seventeenth century, we have seen that the matters in dispute were of a more interior nature. The use or disuse of the Church's 'sacramenta,' or external means of grace, was the question mainly at issue. And here the Baptists represented one tendency of thought, and the Quakers the diametrically opposite one. -We now approach the controversies of the eighteenth century, and the two principal secessions in which those controversies terminated; viz. UNITARIANISM on the one hand, and WESLEYANISM on the other 1. The questions, on which those two controversies hinged, are of extreme interest and of paramount importance. But they are of a still more subtle nature, and belong (so to speak) to a still more interior department of the Church's life, than either of the questions which agitated the preceding centuries. They are, in a word, questions relating to the Church's system of doctrine, to her educational method of procedure, to her tactics, and to the way in which she should give battle to the frowning forces of ignorance and sin, which are still in possession of half the world. And here Unitarianism-interested mainly with the more thoughtful and educated classes - went off in the pursuit of an unlimited intellectual freedom; while Wesleyanism— interested rather in the lowest strata of society, the neglected, untaught crowds, whom commercial prosperity was at once engendering and disowning-seceded in search of more potent and immediately efficient methods of onset; handled, with an almost sublime self-confidence, the tremendous spell of an appeal to the mere feelings of half-taught and half-civilized men ; and buoyed itself unhesitatingly on the crest of a wave, whose swiftness and power might at any moment resolve themselves into a destructive fanaticism. 'It was a one-sided subjective tendency, which made its appearance in Socinianism. Here, it took the path of the understanding,—and led to Rationalism. But it could also take that of the feelings, and then it assumed the form of Mysticism.' (Neander, Hist. of Dogmas, ii. 630.) |