30 Vain attempts to remove the mysteriousness of the Atonement. while it is fearful from the hatred of sin implied in it, and most transporting and elevating from its display of God's love to man. But Rationalism would account for every thing. "Manifest Next it must be observed, as to Mr. Erskine himself, that he is of necessity forced by his hypothesis to speak of God's justice as if manifested to our comprehension in the Atonement, if he speaks of it at all, however extravagant it may be to do so. For unless this were the case, the dispensation would not be a ation," the revealed scheme would be imperfect, doctrines would be severed from ascertainable moral effects on the character,which the Catholic Church indeed has ever considered, but which Mr. E. pronounces in the outset to be contrary to reason, and fatal to the claims of a professed revelation. An additional remark is in place. The difficulty here pointed out has been felt by writers who agree with Mr. Erskine, and they have contrived to get rid of the remaining Mystery of the Dispensation, resulting from the question of justice, as follows. They refer God's justice to the well-being of His creation, as a final end, as if it might in fact be considered a modification of benevolence. Accordingly, they say GoD's justice was satisfied by the Atonement, inasmuch as He could then pardon man consistently with the good of His creation; consistently with their salutary terror of His power and strictness; consistently with the due order of His Government. This should be carefully noted, as showing us the tendency of the Rationalistic principle under review towards Utilitarianism. The following passage is given in illustration, from the Essays of Mr. Scott of Aston Sandford. "The story of Zaleucus, prince of the Locrians, is well-known to show his abhorrence of adultery, and his determination to execute the law he had enacted, condemning the adulterer to the loss of both his eyes, and at the same time to evince his love to his son who had committed that crime, he willingly submitted to lose one of his own eyes, and ordered at the same time one of his son's to be put out. Now what adulterer could hope to escape, when power was vested in a man whom neither self-love, nor natural affection in its greatest force, could induce to dispense with the law, or relax the rigour of its sentence?" Essay ix. True, this act would show intense energy of determination to uphold the existing laws, clearly enough; and so did Mucius Scævola show intense energy in burning off his hand; but what is this question to the question of justice? One more subject of examination, and that not the least important, is suggested by the foregoing passages. Mention has been made in them once or twice of the facts of revelation; the doctrines are said to be facts, and such facts to be all in all. Now according to Catholic teaching, doctrines are divine truths, which are the objects of faith, not of sight; we may call them facts, if we will, so that we recollect that they are sometimes facts of the unseen world, not of this, and that they are not synonymous with actions or works. But Mr. E., by a remarkable assumption, rules it that doctrines are facts of the revealed divine governance, so that a doctrine is made the same as a divine action or work. As Providence has given us a series of moral facts by nature, as in the history of nations or of the individual, from which we deduce the doctrines of natural religion, so Scripture is supposed to reveal a second series of facts, or works, in the course of the three dispensations, especially the Christian, which are the doctrines of religion, or at least, which together with the principle involved in them, are the doctrines. Thus CHRIST's death upon the cross is an historical fact; the meaning of it is what illustrates and quickens it, and adapts it for influencing the soul. Now if we ask, how on this theory the doctrine of the Trinity is a fact in the divine governance, we are answered that it must be thrown into another shape, if I may so express myself; it must be made subordinate, and separated into parts. The series of Christian facts is supposed to pass from the birth to the death of CHRIST, and thence to the mission of the HOLY GHOST. We must view the divinity of CHRIST in His death, the divinity of the SPIRIT in His mission. That they are therein exhibited, I grant; but the theory requires us to consider this the scriptural mode of their exhibition. This theory is supposed by some of its upholders to be sanctioned by Butler; for they seem to argue, that as the course of nature is a collection of manifested facts, so is the course of grace. But that great divine knew better than to infer, from what he saw, what was to be expected in a Revelation, were it to be granted. He asserts plainly the contrary; his whole argument is merely negative, defending Christianity as far as nature enables him to do so, not limiting the course of the revelation to the analogy of nature. Accordingly, the Church Catholic has ever taught (as in her Creeds,) that there are facts revealed to us, not of this world, not of time, but of eternity, and that absolutely and independently; not merely embodied and indirectly conveyed in a certain historical course, not subordinate to the display of the Divine character, not revealed merely relatively to us, but primary objects of our faith, and essential in themselves, whatever dependence or influence they may have upon other doctrines, or upon the course of the Dispensation. In a word, it has taught the existence of Mysteries in religion, for such emphatically must truths ever be which are external to this world, and existing in eternity;-whereas this narrow-minded, jejune, officious, and presumptuous human system teaches nothing but a Manifestation, i. e. a series of historical works conveying a representation of the moral character of GOD; and it dishonours our holy faith by the unmeaning reproach of its being metaphysical, abstract, and the like,-a reproach, unmeaning and irreverent, just as much so as it would be on the other hand to call the historical facts earthly or carnal. I will quote some passages from Mr. E.'s work, to justify my account of his view, and then shall be able, at length, to take leave of him. "It may be proper to remark, that the acts attributed to the Divine Government are usually termed 'doctrines,' to distinguish them from the moral precepts of a religion." p. 25. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity, as such, is not a doctrine of the Gospel. Again : "It is not enough to show, in proof of its authenticity, that the facts which it affirms concerning the dealings of GOD with His creatures, do exhibit His moral perfections in the highest degree; it must also be shown that these facts, when present to the mind of man, do naturally, according to the constitution of his being, tend to excite and suggest that combination of feelings which constitutes his moral perfection. But when we read a history which authoritatively claims to be an exhibition of the character of GOD in His dealings with men, if we find in it that which fills and overflows our most dilated conceptions of moral worth, &c. ; . . . . and if our reason farther discovers a system of powerful moral stimulants, embodied in the facts of this history; if we discern that the spirit of this history gives peace to the conscience, &c. ; . . . . we may then well believe that God has been pleased in pity, &c. to clothe the eternal laws which .... .... regulate His spiritual government, in such a form as may be palpable to our conceptions, and adapted to the urgency of our necessities." pp. 18, 19. "I mean to show that there is an intelligible and necessary connection between the doctrinal facts of revelation and the character of GOD . . . . and farther, that the belief of these doctrinal facts has an intelligible and necessary tendency to produce the Christian character, &c." p. 20, 21. "The object of this dissertation, is to analyse the component parts of the Christian scheme of doctrine, with reference to its bearings both on the character of GOD and on the character of man; and to demonstrate that its facts, not only present an expressive exhibition of all the moral qualities which can be conceived to reside in the divine mind, but also contain all those objects which have a natural tendency to excite and suggest in the human mind, that combination of moral feelings which has been termed moral perfection." p. 16. "GOD has been pleased to present to us a most interesting series of actions, in which His moral character, as far as we are concerned, is fully and perspicuously embodied. In this narration, &c." p. 55. "It [the Gospel] addresses the learned and the unlearned, the savage and the civilized, the decent and the profligate; and to all it speaks precisely the same language! What then is this universal language? It cannot be the language of metaphysical discussion, or what is called abstract moral reasoning ........ its argument consists in a relation of facts." p. 55. Now that in these passages, the doctrines of the Gospel are resolved into facts which took place in God's governance, and that its mysteries are admitted, only so far as they are qualities or illustrations of these historical facts, seems to me, not only the true but the only interpretation to be put upon his words. If they do not mean this, let this at least be proposed, as an approximation to the real meaning; in the meanwhile, let it be observed, that nothing which has been said in the former portions of this discussion is at all affected by any failing, if so, in having fully elicited it. VOL. III.-73. D 3. Remarks on Mr. Abbot's "Corner Stone." HERE then we have arrived at a point where we part company with Mr. Erskine, and join Mr. Abbott, who advances further in a most perilous career. The principle with which Mr. E. began has been above discovered to issue in a view of the Gospel, which may be contemplated apart from that principle. That the human mind may criticise and systematise the divine revelation, that it may identify it with the Dispensation, that it may limit the uses of the latter to its workings through our own reason and affections, and such workings as we can ascertain and comprehend, in a word, that the Gospel is a Manifestation, this is the fundamental principle of Mr. Erskine's Essay. Mr. Jacob Abbott seems so fully to take this principle for granted, that it would be idle to do more than notice his doing so; it will be more to the purpose to direct attention to his treatment of the theory, in which Mr. Erskine's principle seems to issue, viz. that the Gospel is a collection of facts. I am now referring to Mr. Abbott's work called " the Corner Stone," which I do not hesitate to say approaches within a hair's breadth of Socinianism : a charge which I would by no means urge against Mr. E., whatever be the tendency of his speculations. In the work in question, Mr. Abbott disclaims entering into theological questions, properly so called (Preface, p. vi.); nor is there any necessity for his entering into them, so that the line of discussion which he does take, does not intrude upon them or provoke them. "I have made this exhibition of the Gospel," he says, "with reference to its |