CORRESPONDENCE ON THE TRINITARIAN AND UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY AT LIVERPOOL. (continued 2)

Or, you so admit a part, and reject a part. You will be so good as to state clearly how this matter stands.

Are you believers in a WRITTEN and infallibly-accurate Revelation from God to man?

If so, what is that Revelation?

If you admit only parts of our Bible as inspired, you will oblige us by stating what parts.

The character of the discussion must obviously depend upon this: is it to be a discussion upon EVIDENCE or upon INTERPRETATION? It would be manifestly a waste of time in us to enter upon the interpretation of what you might afterwards get rid of, (so far, at least, as you are concerned,) by declaring it only the opinion of a fallible man.

We remain, Gentlemen,

Yours, for the sake of truth,

Hugh M‘Neile,

Fielding Ould,

March 4th, 1839. Thomas Byrth.

To the Revs. H. M‘Neile, F. Ould, and T. Byrth.

Gentlemen,—You ask us, Is our discussion to be,

1. “Upon the meaning of a mutually-acknowledged standard of TRUTH?” Or,

2. “Upon the question, Is there any such standard? And if so, what is it?”

We answer, distinctly, that our controversy is upon the meaning, ascertained by INTERPRETATION, of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Should any questions of criticism arise respecting what is the text to be interpreted, these must, of course, be argued separately, upon purely critical grounds.

We conceive that the real controversy between us respects the nature of Christianity itself;—you holding the Revelation to consist in doctrines deducible from the written words; we holding the Revelation to be expressed in the character and person of Jesus Christ, and to be conveyed to us through a faithful and authentic record. Which of these two ideas is Scriptural?—that is our controversy.

Of course, “the standard” by which we must test “the truth” of these ideas is the New Testament, and the Hebrew Scriptures, so far as they throw light on its contents. Whichever view of Christianity is supported by the meaning of this standard, is the true one. The method of ascertaining the meaning of any writings is the same, whether those writings are of natural or supernatural origin; so that the process of interpretation may go on, undisturbed by any reference to the theory of verbal inspiration. The admission of an “infallible truth” in the Bible (which, however, is known with certainty only to God; for you, after admitting it, are disputing with heretics of your own communion what it is), cannot alter, in any respect, the true grounds of our controversy. It is a controversy of interpretation, and no theory of verbal inspiration can make it anything else.

This theory, however, we conceive to be altogether fallacious, both in its principles and its results; and if you wish to make it the subject of our controversy, we have no objection. We leave it to your choice, whether we are to discuss the theory of verbal inspiration, or whether we are to discuss the meaning of the original Scriptures, as ascertained by the acknowledged principles of interpretation.

We confess to not a little surprise that three clergymen, coming forward to discuss Unitarianism, should be found to express themselves so inaccurately, or from such defective information, as to speak of “the Unitarian or Improved Version,” and to represent the work, thus falsely described, as acknowledged by Unitarians generally to contain the New Testament as inspired by God. The theory of verbal inspiration, which we deny altogether, we are not likely to claim in favour of a Unitarian translator. We have repeatedly stated, that the “Improved Version,” is not the “Unitarian Version;” nor is it “commonly” so “called.” And now we say, once more, that our controversy is not about the Improved Version, but about the Greek Testament.

When you accepted our invitation, with its terms, it was understood that all the preliminaries of our controversy were to be arranged by mutual agreement. You were aware, and we have in our letters distinctly stated, that the theory of verbal inspiration stood as a part of that controversy; you knew, also, that in a few days a distinct statement of our opinions upon the nature of the Bible, in the form of a printed lecture, would be before the public. We therefore look upon your letter, in the Courier of Wednesday last, as altogether unnecessary; and we answer, thus publicly, what ought to have been matter of private communication, only because we are resolved not to allow any informalities, on your parts, to prevent our coming to a public discussion of our respective views of Christianity.

We are, Gentlemen,

Yours respectfully,

James Martineau.

John H. Thom.

March 11, 1839. Henry Giles.

To the Revs. J. Martineau, J. H. Thom, and H. Giles.

Gentlemen,—In our last letter we gave up the “Improved Version,” so far as you, as individuals, are concerned, because, as individuals, you disclaimed it. We are surprised, therefore, that you should revert to it, and the more so, because you have now ventured to say, not only that you disclaim it, but also, in the face of known facts, that it is not “the Unitarian version,” nor is it “commonly so called.” When you disclaimed it for yourselves, we did not demur. But when you go on to disclaim it for the Unitarian body, (for which, by the way, you have no authority,) we strenuously deny your assertion, and call in evidence the language of all the best writers upon the controversy.

You have misstated our question. We did not ask, “Is our discussion to be upon the meaning of a mutually-acknowledged standard of Scripture?” We did ask, “Is it to be upon the meaning of a mutually-acknowledged standard of truth?” We receive the Scripture as a standard of truth. The substitution of the one word for the other, in this question, has mystified your whole letter.

We collect, however, from your letter, and from Mr. Martineau’s sermon, to which you refer us, (and which we consequently conclude contains the sentiments of you all,)

1. That you do not believe in a written and infallibly-accurate Revelation from God to man.

2. That Paul the apostle may have “reasoned inaccurately,” and “speculated falsely.”^[7]

3. And that, consequently, you feel yourselves at liberty to judge his statements (and all the statements of Scripture) as you do those of any other books.

You seem to think that this is of little consequence, and say that “the process of interpretation may go on, undisturbed by any reference to the theory of verbal inspiration.”

We reply that such a process can lead to nothing but waste of time. For when we shall have proved some great truth, or condemned some fatal error, upon the authority of Paul, or some other inspired writer, you have kept an open door for yourselves to escape from the whole force of our demonstration, by saying that, in the words on which we rely, the sacred writers “reasoned inaccurately,” or “speculated falsely,”—while, if any passages in those writers seem to favour your views, you have adroitly retained the privilege of ascribing to them a sort of inspiration.^[8]

No, gentlemen, we are not to be deceived so, into an attempt to fix the chameleon’s colour. If the apostles may “reason inaccurately,” and “speculate falsely;” if the inspiration under which they wrote did not infallibly preserve them from error, then there is no standard of truth upon earth. Of what avail is it, then, to refer to the Greek Testament, or the Hebrew Scriptures? The Scripture, instead of being (what David called it, speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost) “a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path,” degenerates into a mixture of light and darkness, which we dare not implicitly follow, but of which we must judge by some superior light in ourselves.

We observe, further, that, according to the light that is in you, historical proof of miracles having been wrought in attestation of what the writers of Scripture say, would NOT be proof against inaccuracy in their reasonings, or falsehood in their speculations.

This notable conclusion you come to, by elevating nature into the miraculous, and thus depressing the miraculous into the natural; since you say that the whole force of the impression made by proofs from miracles arises from a “SUPPOSED contrast” between miracle and nature.^[9]

You have thus advanced a step beyond common Deism, and rendered yourselves inaccessible even by miracles. This is conclusive, and demands the serious attention of all who have hitherto been disposed to receive instruction from you. We confess that we can go no further! for, if there be only a supposed contrast between miracles and nature, we cannot prove the attesting interposition of God on behalf of the statements of Scripture, and must give up as worthless the appeal which Jesus makes to his miracles, in answer to the inquiry of John’s disciples: “Go,” said he, “and show John again those things which ye do see and hear; the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”—Luke vii, 22. Upon your principles, gentlemen, this appeal is worthless; for even if the wonderful things here stated be established as historical facts, still they contain no proof, because between these wonders and the course of nature there is only “a supposed contrast.”

Thus then, by your avowal, that even miracles cannot prove inspiration, you are left in undisputed possession of the field of infidelity. We have no common property of reason with you, and without determining whether men who reject the evidence of miracles are of an order of beings above or below ourselves, we feel that discussion with them is impracticable.

While, therefore, we shall continue to use all lawful methods of argument and persuasion, in the hope of being useful to those who, though called Unitarians, are not so entirely separated from our common humanity as you seem to be, we have no hesitation in saying that, with regard to yourselves as individuals, there appears to be a more insurmountable obstacle in the way of discussion than would be offered by ignorance of one another’s language; because the want of a common medium of language could be supplied by an interpreter, but the want of a common medium of reason cannot be supplied at all.

We remain, Gentlemen, yours respectfully,

Hugh M‘Neile.

Fielding Ould.

March 18th, 1839. Thomas Byrth.

To the Revs. H. M‘Neile, F. Ould, and T. Byrth.

Gentlemen,—We regret the misstatement of your question, which appeared at the commencement of our letter of the 13th instant. We regret still more that it did not occur to you to attribute it to its real cause,—the carelessness of a printer or transcriber. In the autograph manuscript which remains in our hands, your question is correctly stated thus—“Is our discussion to be upon a mutually-acknowledged standard of truth?” How the word “truth” became changed into “scripture,” we cannot tell; and not having read our letter after it was in print, we were unaware of the mistake until you pointed it out. Whatever “mystification” it introduced, you will consider as now removed.

Your letter announces your retirement from the promised controversy. Knowing that in taking this step you could not put yourselves in the right, it is only natural perhaps that you should resolve to set your opponents in the wrong, and to cover your own retreat by throwing scorn on their religious character. Theology appears in this instance to have borrowed a hint from the “laws of honour;” and as in the world a “passage of arms” is sometimes evaded, under the pretence that the antagonist is too little of a gentleman, so in the church a polemical collision may be declined, because the opponent is too little of a believer.

You refuse to fulfil your pledge to the public and ourselves on two grounds:—

I. Because we do not acknowledge the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.

II. Because we think it impossible to infer from miracles the mental infallibility of the performer. It is of no use, you say, to argue about divine truth with those who do not believe in “a written and infallibly accurate revelation from God to man.”

We will concede, for the moment, and under protest, your narrow meaning of the words “inspiration” and “revelation;” and without disturbing your usage of them, we submit that the reasons advanced by you afford not even a plausible pretext for having violated your pledge. First, as to the plea that we are put out of the controversy by our unexpected denial of the intellectual infallibility of the sacred writers; and that to argue about the meaning of the Bible is a waste of time, till its verbal inspiration is established. We reply,—

I. That it was you yourselves who started this very question of inspiration for argument between us. In his letter of February 18th, Mr. Ould gives this account of our projected controversy: “We proposed to discuss with you the EVIDENCE of the genuineness, authenticity, and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures;” he taunts us with reluctance to take up this “greatest of testimonial questions,” with “refusing to come forward boldly, and debate it fairly before the church.”^[10] We have come forward boldly, and this is now the alleged reason why there is to be no debate at all before the church. Moreover, at the time when you said “we accept your terms,” you regarded us as holding the very opinions which are now made the excuse for a retreat; in your first lecture they are made a chief ground of indictment against us, and pages are crowded with citations from Unitarian writers, expressing those same sentiments, which, when avowed by your own opponents, are to make them unfit to be addressed, and to exempt you from the duty of reply. Of the spirit of this proceeding, observers of honourable mind must judge; they, as well as you, are well aware, that to pronounce men unworthy of attack, is itself an attack of the last degree of bitterness.

II. Your refusal to settle with us the meaning of Scripture till the plenary inspiration is acknowledged, is in plain contradiction to your own principles. You fix the imputation of deception on our statement, that “the process of interpretation may go on undisturbed by any reference to the theory of verbal inspiration.” Yet is this only a repetition of what Mr. Byrth himself says, “In whatever light the Christian Scriptures are regarded, whether as the result of plenary inspiration, as we Trinitarians believe, or as the uninspired productions of the first teachers of Christianity, or even as the forgeries of imposture, the meaning of their contents is a question apart from all others.”^[11]

Dr. Tattershall, in common with all sound divines, makes it the first step of scriptural inquiry to “examine the contents” of the books under the guidance of the following principle: that “any message coming from God must be consistent with the character of the same holy being, as exhibited in his works,” and must have “consistency with itself:”^[12] and he justly states, that whether we ought to take the last step, of admitting the divine authority of the doctrines, must still be contingent on those doctrines, “being themselves wise and holy,”—“lessons worthy of God.”^[13] These principles are violated, unless our investigation into your doctrines is taken in the following order:—

I. Are your doctrines true to the sense of Scripture? If not, the controversy ends here; if they are, then,

II. Are they self-consistent; reconcilable with the teachings of God’s works, pure and holy? If not, the controversy ends here; if they are, then,

III. Do they come to us clothed with divine authority, and conveyed in the language of plenary inspiration?

Your system, then, must establish its existence in the Bible (which is a matter of interpretation), and its credibility in itself (which we presume there must be some criterion to determine), before the question of inspiration is capable of being discussed. We deny both these preliminaries; protesting that we cannot find your system in the Scriptures; and that if we could, it appears to us so far from “self-consistent,” “wise and holy,” and “worthy of God,” as exceedingly to embarrass the claims to divine authority, of any writings which contain it. It was then in implicit obedience to your own rules that we proposed to let the question of interpretation take the lead; and no less so, that we presume to form a judgment respecting the internal character of doctrines professing to be scriptural. Permit us to ask how, but by some “light in ourselves,” we are to determine whether doctrines are “wise and holy,” “self-consistent,” and “worthy of God?”

Secondly. You plead that we have forfeited our claim on the fulfilment of your engagement, by a statement of opinion in our second lecture, to this effect: that miracles do not enable us to infer the intellectual infallibility of the performer. This, it seems, is an unexpected heresy, and cancels all promises. You appear to be affected by the Popish tendencies of the age; and to have adopted the notion, that no faith is to be kept with heretics. On this point we remark as follows:—

1st. We are astonished at your assertion, that this idea about miracles deprives us of any “common medium of reason” with you. Did you not “propose to discuss with us” the “evidence of the plenary inspiration of the holy Scriptures,” under the persuasion that we should take the negative side? In such discussion, would you not have argued from the miracles to the inspiration? And how did you suppose that we should reply? You were well aware that we should admit the miracles; and equally well aware that we should deny the plenary inspiration of those that wrought them. It cannot be supposed that, at this point, you would have had no more to say; but you would have proceeded, as many able writers have already done, to seek some “common medium of reason,”—some considerations, that is, having force with both parties; by which you might hope to fasten the disputed connection between your premises and your conclusion.

2nd. We are still more astonished to hear that this sentiment puts us “a step beyond common Deism,” “in undisputed possession of the field of infidelity,” and even in “separation from our common humanity;” seeing that the opinion has been held by

Bishop Sherlock:—Who says, “Miracles cannot prove the truth of any doctrine; and men do not speak accurately when they say the doctrines are proved by the miracles; for, in truth, there is no connection between miracles and doctrines.”^[14]

John Locke:—“Even in those books which have the greatest proof of Revelation from God, and the attestation of miracles to confirm their being so, the miracles are to be judged by the doctrine, not the doctrine by the miracles.”^[15]

Dr. Samuel Clarke:—“We can hardly affirm, with any certainty, that any particular effect, how great or miraculous soever it may seem to us, is beyond the power of all created beings (whom he explains further to be, ‘subordinate intelligences, good or evil angels,’) in the universe to produce.” He believes the Devil to “be able, by reason of his invisibility, to work true and real miracles;” and “whether such (i.e. miraculous) interposition be the immediate work of God, or of some good or evil angel, can hardly be discovered merely by the work itself.”

He accordingly lays down the conditions under which the miracles will prove the doctrine.^[16]

Bishop Fleetwood:—“Spirits may perform most strange and astonishing things,—may convey men through the air, or throw a mountain two miles at a cast.”^[17]

The notions expressed by the last two writers, respecting the superhuman agency of good and evil spirits, evidently destroy, no less than the more philosophical principle of Sherlock and Locke, all power of reasoning from miracles, as such, to the divine authority and inspiration of the performers. You cannot be ignorant of the fact, that these notions prevailed among all the Fathers of both the Greek and Latin churches; that they were almost universal among Christians till very recent times; and that your own church lodges with the Bishop of the Diocese a discretionary power to license clergymen to cast out devils.^[18]

Nor need we remind you that, by yet another process of thought, the Society of Friends assigns to miracles the rank which you think so profane. “We know,” says Barclay on this subject, “that the devil can form a sound of words, and convey it to the outward ear; that he can easily deceive the outward senses, by making things appear which are not. Yea, do we not see that the Jugglers and Mountebanks can do as much as all that, by their legerdemain? God forbid then that the saint’s faith should be founded on so fallacious a foundation as man’s outward and fallible senses.”^[19] And he urges, “that there must be other ways of ascertaining divine truth; for as to miracles, John the Baptist and divers of the Prophets wrought none that we hear of, and yet were both immediately and extraordinarily sent.”^[20] By different modes of thinking, all these (Christians?) have arrived at the sentiment in question, so that we occupy “the field of infidelity,” without being “separated from” at least a goodly portion of “our humanity.” That this sentiment should be of so deep a dye of Deism is the more remarkable, because it is advanced and vindicated as a scriptural sentiment,—a plea which, however foolish, can be shown to be so, only by discussing the interpretation of the New Testament. You have proposed no explanation of the state of the Apostles’ minds before the day of Pentecost. On that day they either did, or they did not, become more enlightened than before. If they did not, the gift of the Holy Spirit conferred no illumination; if they did, they were deficient in light before; and the miraculous powers they had possessed and exercised did not imply infallibility. We thought, indeed, that the comparative narrowness of their views before this period had been universally admitted. With respect to the appeal which in the presence of the Baptist’s disciples our Lord makes to his miraculous acts, you are quite aware that we do not regard it as “worthless,” though you say we “must” do so. These acts (the climax of which, however, was no miracle at all,—“the poor have the Gospel preached to them,”) fully answered the purpose for which they were appealed to, viz., to determine whether Jesus was “He that should come,” or whether John was “to look for another;” for as Bishop Sherlock remarks though miracles may not (he says “cannot) prove the truth of any doctrine,” they “prove the commission of the person who does them to proceed from God.”^[21] We repeat, then, that we have started no topic which you did not invite; we have taken up no method of discussion which your own rules did not prescribe; we have advanced no idea for which your own Church should be unprepared. You have quitted this controversy without any justification from the unexpected nature of our sentiments, and we are persuaded that you can plead no discourtesy in our proposals respecting the mechanical arrangements. On this point we think it right to state thus publicly the overtures which we made to you, through the excellent clergyman who communicated with us as your representative. An objection having been urged by Mr. Ould to discussion through the newspapers, on the ground that they are read by “the ignorant scoffer, the sceptical, the profane,” we proposed the following plan:—That for twelve or any limited number of weeks, a joint weekly pamphlet of thirty-two pages should be published, each party furnishing sixteen pages; that the first number of the series should contain a positive statement, from each party, of its fundamental principles in religion, of that which it undertook to assail, and that which it undertook to defend; and that within the limits of this programme, the replies in the subsequent numbers should confine themselves. Thus each party would have chosen its own ground, at first; and both would have disappeared from the public view together, at last. This proposal was rejected without any reason being assigned, except that there were “too many difficulties in the way;” and though all preliminaries were to be settled “by previous agreement,” we were told that in the following Courier we should find a letter addressed to us, which we might answer in whatever way we thought proper. The public who have watched the proceedings in this matter will bear witness, with our consciences, that we were not the first to enter this controversy; that we have not been the first to leave it; and that, in its progress, we have departed from no pledge, and been guilty of no evasion.

And now, Gentlemen, accept from us in conclusion, our solemn protest against the language of unmeasured insult, in which, under the cover of sanctity, the associated clergymen whom you represent, have thought proper to speak of our religion; against the accusations personally addressed to us, in the presence of 3,000 people, by the Lecturers in Christ Church, of “mean subterfuges,” “of sneering,” of “savage grins,” of “damnable blasphemy,” of “the greatest imaginable guilt,” of “doing despite to the Spirit of Grace,” of “the most odious of crimes against the Majesty of Heaven,” and in common with all Unitarians of forming our belief, from “the blindness of graceless hearts,” too bad “to have been touched by any spirit of God,” and against the visible glee, fierce as Tertullian’s, with which “the faithful” are reminded that ere long, we must and shall bow our proud knees, whether we like it or not, to the object of their peculiar worship;—so that they are sure of their triumph in heaven, however questionable it may be on earth. You began the controversy by ascribing to us one shade of “infidelity;” you end it by ascribing to us a blacker. Beneath “the lowest deep,” there is it seems “a lower still.” We have sat quietly under all this, bearing the rude friction upon everything that is most dear to us, assured that if anything in heaven or earth be certain, it is this;—that no spirit of God ever spake thus, or thus administered the poison of human passions, falsely labelled as the medicine of a divine love. What is the difference between your religion and ours, that this high tone (than which, to a pure moral taste, nothing surely can be lower) should be assumed against us? We believe, no less than you, in an infallible Revelation (though had we the misfortune to doubt it, we might be, in the sight of God, neither worse nor better than yourselves); you in a Revelation of an unintelligible Creed to the understanding; we in a Revelation of moral perfection, and the spirit of duty to the heart; you in a Revelation of the metaphysics of Deity; we in a Revelation of the character and providence of the Infinite Father; you in a Redemption which saves the few, and leaves with Hell the triumph after all; we in a Redemption which shall restore to all at length the image and the immortality of God: we do reserve, as you suggest, “a sort of inspiration” for the founders of Christianity, “a sort” as much higher than your cold, dogmatical, scientific inspiration, as the intuitions of conscience are higher than the predications of logic, and the free spirit of God, than the petty precision of men. We believe in a spiritual and moral Revelation, most awakening, most sanctifying, most holy; which words, being the signs of hard and definite ideas, could never express, and which is therefore pourtrayed in a mind divinely finished for the purpose, acting awhile on Earth and publicly transferred to Heaven. All men may see that such a Revelation corresponds well with the medium which conveys it; but a set of scholastic propositions, like Articles and Creeds, might as well have been written on the sky; and many a bitter doubt and bitterer controversy might have been spared.

We believe, Gentlemen, that the minds of serious and considerate persons are weary of the aggressions of Churches upon the private and secret faith of the individual heart; that they will not long be forced to live on the dry husks of Creeds which have lost the kernel of true life; nor accept mere puzzles as divine mysteries. It is at the peril of all religion that its illimitable truths are embalmed in definite formulas, and the abyss of God confidently measured by thrusting out the foot-rule of ecclesiastical wisdom. The things most holy cannot without injury be thus turned from the contemplation of the affections, to the small criticism of the intellect; and the acute and polished dividing-knife of dialectics, when applied to cut theology into propositions, is apt to leave scarce a shred of faith.

That all professing ministers of the Gospel may speedily turn from their divisions of belief to a hearty union of spirit, is the desire and prayer of

Us, who in this temper, and in better times, might have been owned as

Your fellow-labourers,

James Martineau.

John Hamilton Thom.

March 25th, 1839. Henry Giles.