controversy, we are grieved to have to complain of injustice, and of a
disregard to the true meaning of words, at its very opening. We must
protest against the exclusive usurpation of the title “Protestant
Churches,” by a class of religionists who practically disown the
principle of Protestantism: who only make the Church (or themselves),
instead of the Pope, the arbiter of truth; who hold error (that is, an
opinion different from their own,) to be fatal to salvation: and who
allow the right of individual judgment only with the penalty of
everlasting condemnation upon all whose individual judgment is not the
judgment of their Church. We take objection also to the spirit that
creeps out in the expression, “_(so called) Unitarians_,” maintaining
that the word does not “impute to others ‘a polytheistic creed;’” but
that as “Trinitarian” denotes one who worships the Godhead in _three_
“persons,” _Unitarian_ fitly describes one who worships the Godhead in
_one_ person. And, above all, we protest against the resolution of our
case into “dishonest or uncandid criticism;” that is the wilful
maintenance of error, knowing it to be such, the Charybdis which one of
your lecturers proposes for us, if we should be fortunate enough to
escape the Scylla of “defective scholarship.” We are deeply concerned
that so much of the “_acetum theologicum_” has mixed thus early in an
invitation, characterized by the chief inviter as “a sweet and pleasant
thing;” and this, too, after a public announcement of having purged the
mind of every feeling but the pure love of the pure truth.
And to you, reverend sir, in whose letter to the Unitarians of this town
and neighbourhood the announcement in question occurs, it is incumbent
on us to address a few remarks, with a special view to acquaint you with
the feelings awakened by your earnest invitation.
The anxiety which that letter manifests to convince us that, in seeking
our conversion, you are actuated by no “base and worldly motive,” is, we
can assure you, altogether superfluous. Of the purity and
disinterestedness of your intention we entertain no doubt; and we regard
it with such unaffected respect, as may be due to every suggestion of
conscience, however unwise and fanatical. If, with the ecclesiastics and
philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, you esteemed
the denial of witchcraft as perilous a heresy as Atheism itself, we
should feel neither wonder nor anger at the zeal with which you might
become apostles of the doctrine of sorcery. Any one who can convince
himself that _his_ faith, _his_ hope, _his_ idea of the meaning of
Scripture, afford the only cure for the sins and sorrows and dangers of
the world, is certainly right in spending his resources and himself in
diffusing his own private views. But we are astonished that he can feel
himself so lifted up in superiority above other men, as to imagine that
Heaven depends on their assimilation to himself,—that, in
self-multiplication, in the universal reproduction of his own state of
mind, lies the solitary hope of human salvation. We think that, if we
were possessed by such a belief, our affections towards men would lose
all Christian meekness, our sympathies cease to be those of equal with
equal, the respectful mercy of a kindred sufferer; and that, however
much we might indulge a Pharisaic compassion for the heretic, we should
feel no more the Christian “honour” unto “all men.”
You ask us, reverend sir, whether it is not “a sweet and pleasant
thing,” “to tell and hear together of the great things which God has
done for our souls.” Doubtless, there are conditions under which such
communion may be most “sweet and pleasant.” When they who hold it _agree
in mind_ on the high subjects of their conference, it is “sweet and
pleasant” to speak mutually of “joys with which no stranger
intermeddleth,” and to knit together the human affections, with the
bands of that heavenly “charity,” which, springing from one faith and
one hope, is yet greater than them both. Nay, when good men _differ from
each other_, it is still “sweet and pleasant” to reason together, and
prove all things, and whatsoever things are pure, and true and lovely,
to think on these things, provided that both parties are conscious of
their liability to error, and are anxious to learn as well as to teach:
that each confides in the integrity, ingenuousness, and ability of the
other; that each applies himself with reasons to the understanding, not
with terrors to the will. But such conference is not “sweet and
pleasant” where, fallibility being confessed on one side, infallibility
is assumed on the other; where one has nothing to learn and everything
to teach; where the arguments of an equal are propounded as a message of
inspiration; where presumed error is treated as unpardonable guilt, and
on the fruits of laborious and truth-loving inquiry, terms of
reprobation and menaces of everlasting perdition are unscrupulously
poured.
You announce your intention to set apart, on our behalf, a day of
humiliation and prayer. To supplicate the Eternal Father, as you
propose, to turn the heart and faith of others into the likeness of your
own may appear to you fitting as an act of prayer; it seems to us
extraordinary as an act of humiliation. Permit us to say, that we could
join you in that day’s prayer, if, instead of assuming before God what
doctrines his Spirit should enforce, you would, with us, implore him to
have pity on the ignorance of us all: to take us all by the hand and
lead us into the truth and love, though it should be by ways most
heretical and strange; to wrest us from the dearest reliances and most
assured convictions of our hearts, if they hinder our approach to his
great realities. A blessed day would that be for the peace, brotherhood,
and piety of this Christian community, if the “humiliation” would lead
to a recognition of Christian equality, and the “prayer,” to a
recognition of that spiritual God whose love is moral in its character,
spiritual, not doctrinal in its conditions, and who accepts from all his
children the spirit and the truth of worship.
We fear that you will consider it as a mark of great obduracy, that we
are not more affected by that “purest love” for “those in the extreme of
peril,” which your letter expresses. Let us again assure you that we by
no means doubt the sincerity of that affection. However pure in its
source, it is ineffectual in its result, simply because no one can feel
his heart softened by a commiseration which he is wholly unconscious of
requiring. The pity that feels _with_ me is, of all things, the most
delicious to the heart; the pity that only feels _for_ me, is, perhaps,
of all things, the most insulting.
And, if the tenderness of your message does not subdue us, we trust its
terrors will prevail still less. We are not ignorant, indeed, that, in
dealing with weak minds whose solicitude for their personal security is
greater than their generous faith in truth and God, you enjoy an
advantage over us. We avow that we have no alarms whereby to urge men
into our Church; that we know of no “terrors of the Lord” by which to
“persuade men,” except against sin; nor do we esteem ourselves exclusive
administrators of any salvation, except that best salvation, which
consists in a free mind and emancipated heart; reverencing Christ as the
perfect image of the Father, listening to the accents of reason and
conscience, as to the breathings of God’s spirit, loving all men as his
children, and having hope in death, of a transference from this outer
court into the interior mansions of His house. For this reason, imbecile
souls, without Christian trust and courage, may think it _safer_, at all
events, to seek a place within your Church; but we wonder that you can
feel satisfied, retaining your Protestantism, to appeal thus to fear and
devout policy, rather than to conviction, and that you cannot discern
the mockery of first placing us on the brink of hell and lifting up the
veil, and then bidding us stand there, with cool and unembarrassed
judgment to inquire. Over converts, won by such means, you would surely
have as little reason to rejoice as had the priests of Rome to exult on
the recantation of Galileo. Our fellow worshippers have learned, we
trust, a nobler faith; and will listen to your arguments with more open
and tranquil mind than your invitation, had it attained its end of fear,
would have allowed. They will hold fast, till they see reason to abandon
it, their filial faith in a Divine Father, of whom Jesus, the merciful
and just, is _indeed_ the image; and who, _therefore_, can have neither
curse nor condemnation for “unwitting” error, no delight in
self-confident pretensions, no wrath and scorn for any “honest and good
heart,” which “brings forth its fruit with patience.”
To this God of truth and love, commending our high controversy, and all
whose welfare it concerns, we remain your fellow-labourers in the
Gospel,
JAMES MARTINEAU,
Minister of Paradise-street Chapel.
JOHN HAMILTON THOM,
Minister of Renshaw-street Chapel.
HENRY GILES,
Minister of the Ancient Chapel, Toxteth Park.
Liverpool, Jan. 26, 1839.
---------------------
_To the Reverend James Martineau, J. H. Thom, and Henry Giles._
Gentlemen,—As Christian courtesy seems to require a reply to your
address, published in the _Albion_ of this day, I hasten to furnish it,
though unwilling, for many reasons, to enter into a newspaper discussion
with you on the important subjects which just now engage our attention.
I shall, therefore, (without intending any disrespect,) pass by
unnoticed your critical remarks on certain portions of my recently
published invitation to the members of your body to attend and give a
patient hearing to the lectures about to be delivered at Christ Church,
and confine myself altogether to those points of inquiry to which it is
but reasonable that you should receive an answer. And,
1. You ask, whether I will recommend my congregation to attend (I
presume, in your respective chapels) to hear the replies which you
intend making to our proposed lectures. To this I am compelled to reply
in the _negative_. Were I to consent to this proposal, I should thereby
admit that we stood on the terms of a _religious equality_, which is,
_in limine_, denied. As men, citizens, and subjects, we are doubtless
equal, and will also stand on a footing of equality before the bar of
final judgment; I therefore use the term “_religious equality_” in order
to convey to you the distinction between our relative position as
members of the community and as religionists. Being unable (you will
excuse my necessary plainness of speech) to recognize you as
_Christians_, I cannot consent to meet you in a way which would imply
that we occupy the same _religious_ level. To _you_ there will be no
sacrifice of principle or compromise of feeling, in entering our
churches; to _us_, there would be such a surrender of _both_ in entering
yours, as would peremptorily prohibit any such engagement.
2. You next inquire how early an appearance of our printed lectures may
be expected. In answer to this I have only to say, that arrangements
have been made for publishing each lecture as soon after its delivery as
may be practicable. Within what time this practicability may be found to
coincide, it is of course impossible precisely to determine. It will be
obvious, that I cannot answer for my brethren upon this point; but shall
only observe for myself, that I should hope a week or ten days will be
sufficient for the necessary revisal of proofs, arrangement of
authorities, and other business connected with a careful and correct
publication.
3. Your third inquiry respects a proposal to have an epitome of each
lecture, and its reply, published weekly in the columns of some
previously selected newspaper. Not having as yet had the opportunity of
collecting the sentiments of my reverend brethren, I can only, as
before, give the view which suggests itself to my own mind. I am
inclined to think it would be unfair to the respectable bookseller, who
has undertaken to publish the course _at his own risk_, to expect him to
concur in a proposal which could not but materially injure his sale. As
it is our intention to publish each lecture separately, as well as the
whole collectively, at the close of their delivery, and that in the
cheapest possible form, with a view to the most extensive circulation, I
cannot but hope and believe that our united object will be equally, if
not better, answered, than by resorting to a process which should
necessarily so condense and curtail the matter as to present a very
meagre and insufficient exhibition of the arguments, reasonings,
references, and authorities, on which so much of the value of the
lectures will depend.
4. And, finally, as to your proposal of making some public journal the
vehicle of a discussion independent of the lectures, I regret that I
feel again obliged to decline pledging myself to concur in it. While I
reserve to myself the right of noticing and replying to any
communication which may appear, in a duly authenticated form, in any of
the public journals, I must at the same time express my conviction, that
a newspaper is not the most desirable medium for disquisition on the
deep and awful subjects which must pass under review in a controversy
like that in which we are about to engage. The ordinary class of
newspaper readers, including too frequently the ignorant scoffer, the
sceptical, and the profane, is not precisely that whose attention we
desire to solicit to our high inquiry into the laws of Scriptural
Exegesis, and our application of these laws to the elucidation of the
profound mysteries of the Book of Revelation. I feel no doubt that all
who feel interested on the subject, will contrive to hear or read what
we shall preach and publish; and will thus be furnished with more solid
and suitable materials for forming a correct judgment, than could be
afforded by the casual study of the ephemeral pages of the public press.
Having thus distinctly replied to the several points of your letter, on
which you may have reasonably expected to hear from me; and trusting
that you will not attribute to any want of respect to you the omission
of all notice of the remainder; and congratulating you with all
sincerity on your avowed intention of coming, with your respective
congregations, to hear the exposition which we are about to give of what
we believe to be _fatally false_ in your system, as contrasted with what
we think _savingly true_ in our own; and praying with all fervency, to
the great Head of the Church, to bless and prosper the effort about to
be made for the promotion of his glory, through the instruction of those
who are “ignorant and out of the way,”
I remain, Gentlemen,
Yours for the Lord’s sake,
January 28, 1839. FIELDING OULD.
---------------------
_To the Rev. James Martineau, J. H. Thom, and Henry Giles._
Gentlemen,--I owe it to you and to myself to state, that no offence was
intended, either by me, or, as I conscientiously believe, by my clerical
brethren, in the title of the subject to which my name stands affixed in
the Syllabus of the Lectures on the Unitarian Controversy. I am also
bound to acknowledge, that your letter, on the subject of the lecture,
is written in a style of calmness and courtesy, of which, I trust, you
will have no reason to complain of the absence in the statements which I
shall have to submit to your attention. Of course, this is not the time
for the vindication of the view which I adopt on the great question: I
content myself, therefore, with this public disclaimer of any desire to
substitute irritating language for sound argument.
I remain, Gentlemen,
Yours, with all due respect,
THOS. BYRTH.
---------------------
_To the Reverend Fielding Ould._
Rev. Sir,—We beg to offer you our thanks for your prompt and distinct
reply, in the _Liverpool Courier_ of yesterday, to the proposals
submitted to you in our letter of Monday. We are as little anxious as
yourself for the prolongation of this preliminary newspaper
correspondence; and however much we may regret the negative character of
your answers to our questions, we should have reserved all comment upon
them for notice elsewhere, if you did not appear to us to have left
still open to consideration the proposed discussion (independent of the
lectures) through the press. That the pulpit controversy should be on
_unequal terms_, is, we perceive, a matter of conscience with you; but
your objections to a newspaper controversy seem to arise, not from any
desire to withhold your readers from our writings, as you would your
hearers from our preaching, but from the unfitness of a political
journal to be the vehicle of religious argument. Permit us, then, to
say, that we have no preference for this particular _medium_ of
discussion; that we are wholly indifferent as to its _form_, provided
the substantial end be gained of _bringing your arguments and ours
before the attention of the same parties_, and that _any_ plan which you
may suggest, affording promise of the attainment of this end, whether it
be the _joint_ publication of the lectures in your church and those in
our chapels, or the appearance in the pages of a religious journal
(either already established, or called into existence for the occasion,
and limited to this single object), will receive our welcome acceptance.
Had we any desire to see a theological opponent in the wrong, we should
leave the case between us in its present position, and should not
persevere thus in opening the way towards a fair adjudication of it; but
our reverence for the religion of which you are a representative and
symbol before the world, transcends all paltry controversial feelings,
and we should see, with grave sorrow, the honour of Christianity
compromised by the rejection, on the part of its authorized ministers,
of the acknowledged principles of argumentative justice. You will not,
we trust, incur the reproach of inviting a discussion _with_ us, and
then changing it into an indictment _against_ us. _You_ have originated
the appeal to the great tribunal of public opinion in this Christian
community; _you_ are plaintiff in this controversy; you will not, we
feel assured, so trifle, in things most sacred, with the rules of
evidence, as to insist that your case shall be heard in one court, and
before one jury, while your defendant’s case is banished to another, and
the verdict pronounced without balancing the attestation and comparing
the pleadings. Should you, moreover, succeed in convincing your readers,
that this is a discussion not (as we submit) between church and church,
but (as you contend) between Christianity and No-Christianity, the
effect will be yet more to be deplored, for, in such case, Christianity
will appear to claim from its votaries the advantage of an exclusive
hearing for itself, and, while challenging, by the very act of
controversy, the appeal to argument, to leave, for those who are
stigmatized as unbelievers, the honour of demanding that open field
which, usually, truth is found to seek, and falsehood to avoid. We trust
that you will not thus inflict a wound on a religion which, in all its
forms, we deeply venerate.
You deny our _religious equality_ with _you_. Is it as a matter of
_opinion_, or as a matter of _certainty_, that such equality is denied?
If it is only as an opinion, then this will not absolve you from fair
and equal discussion on the grounds of such opinion. If it is with you
not an _opinion_, but a _certainty_, then, Sir, this is Popery. Popery
we can understand,—we know, at least, what it is,—but Protestantism
erecting itself into Romish infallibility, yet still claiming to be
Protestantism, is to us a sad and humiliating spectacle, showing what
deep roots Roman Catholicism has in the weaker parts of our common
nature.
We confess ourselves at a loss to comprehend your distinction between
_civil_ equality and _religious_ equality. We claim equally as
fellow-_men_, as partakers of a common _nature_; of that nature the
religious elements are to us incomparably dearer and more elevating than
the elements that make us merely citizens; and the equality that is
conceded in regard to all our lower attributes, but denied in regard to
those that are spiritual and immortal, is such an equality as you might
concede to the brutes, on the ground of their animal nature, without
injury to the maintenance of your religious superiority. What is meant
by our equality at the bar of final judgment, as citizens, but not as
religionists, we do not know; or, if we can detect a meaning in it, it
is one which we should have supposed belonged to our faith rather than
to yours.
In reference to your repugnance to enter our chapels we say no more,
reserving our right of future appeal in this matter to those members of
your church who may be unable to see the force of your distinction
between religious and social equality. But we are surprised that you
should conceive it so easy a thing for us to enter your churches: and
should suppose it “no sacrifice of principle and compromise of feeling”
in us to unite in a worship which you assure us, must constitute in our
eyes “the most heinous of all sins—Idolatry.” _Either_ you must have
known that we did _not_ consider your worship to be idolatry, _or_ have
regarded our resort to it as a most guilty “compromise of feeling;” to
which, nevertheless, you gave us a solemn invitation; adding now, on our
compliance, a congratulation no less singular.
We thought you had been aware, that, while our services must be, in a
religious view, _painfully deficient_ to you, those of your church are
_positively revolting_ to us. Still as our presence, on such passing
occasions as the present, does not, in our opinion, involve any
“sacrifice of principle,” we shall set the example to our friends of
attending; not making our desire that they should be just dependent on
the willingness of others to be so too. And we shall have this
satisfaction, that, whether you “win” them, or whether we retain them,
the result will be a faith held, not on the precarious tenure of
ignorance or submission, but in the security of intelligent conviction,
and the peace of a just and enlightened conscience.
We remain, reverend Sir,
Yours, with Christian regard,
JAMES MARTINEAU.
JOHN HAMILTON THOM.
Liverpool, January 31st, 1839. HENRY GILES.
---------------------
_To the Trinitarians of this Town and Neighbourhood who may feel
interested in the approaching Unitarian Controversy._