Nonconformist sects, tends to confirm or refute the notion that the Calvinistical principle is a sufficient foundation for a universal Church, and the notion that that principle can be safely preserved in a Calvinistic system?

III. As the Zuinglian doctrine was not able to work out a system or church for itself, and as I have already noticed, while speaking of the Lutherans and Calvinists on the Continent, how faith in the Bible, which was the strongest element in that doctrine, fared under the protection of those who put it forward as their exclusive profession, I may here close my remarks upon pure Protestantism. Our next duty is to trace the characteristics of that system, of which Zuinglianism has often been called the parent, and in which, as we have already seen, all the Protestant systems in the last century showed a tendency to merge.

CHAPTER III.

UNITARIANISM.

Connexion of Unitarianism with pure Protestantism, with Natural Philosophy, and with the System of Locke-Its positive sideIts negative side-Final results.

I SAID that the early Quakers acknowledged many of the doctrines which other Christians acknowledged, but that the sense in which they received them was determined by the nature of those tenets which were specifically theirs. It would be incorrect to apply a precisely similar observation to the Reformers. The doctrines which were not characteristic of them, but which were professed by their Romanist opponents, and under certain important modifications by the Eastern as well as the Western Church-the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation-stood prominently forward in the Protestant confessions. Luther at least looked upon them as the primary doctrines of Christianity, and upon his own great principle as the link which connected them with the distinct personality of each man.

But what was not true, or but partially true, of the founders, was emphatically true of the successors, whether they belonged to the spiritual or the dogmatic school. The former uniformly spoke of Election,

Justification by faith, the authority of the Written Word, as the vital, essential truths of Christianitythose which belonged to personal religion. When they alluded to the doctrine of the Trinity it was in some such language as this-Every true Christian, they said, must needs recognise a Creator, a Redeemer, and a Sanctifier. These offices were necessary to the accomplishment of his salvation, and he must attribute them to distinct agents. Hence the necessity of admitting this principle. But the thought would present itself: "these offices are undoubtedly distinct; but does it follow necessarily that there is a distinction of persons? May not that notion be a mere effort to explain a diversity of operations, which is capable of being accounted for upon some less difficult hypothesis?" The suggestion might be repelled by the humble and pious, but bolder spirits would broach it, and that which was dreaded by the fathers as a temptation, would be welcomed by the sons as a discovery.

The Dogmatic school used a different language. They maintained that this doctrine was taught in Scripture; it formed part of the confessions, and was just as necessary as any other part. But here another kind of difficulty presented itself. Were the texts alleged in behalf of a doctrine so very strange and incomprehensible, adequate to the support of it? Had not the Romanists done something to keep alive the belief of it by their traditions? Was it quite consistent with Protestantism to own such help? These questions were asked, and the answers to them. from the doctors of the Evangelical and of the Reformed Churches became daily more faint and incoherent.

I have shown already how in the Calvinistical bodies from the first, and in the Lutheran so far as they caught the purely Protestant complexion, the idea of the Incarnation was deposed from the place which it had occupied in the older divinity of the Church. The state and constitution of humanity was determined by the fall; it was only the pure, elect body, which had concern in the Redemption; that redemption therefore could only be contemplated as a means devised by God for delivering a certain portion of His creatures from the law of death, to which the race was subjected. In endeavours to explain the mode of this redemption, and to justify the limitation of it, consisted the divinity of the most purely Protestant writers, and for this end they resorted to those arguments from the schools, and illustrations from the market-place, of which I spoke in the last chapter.

Meantime a great change had been effected in men's notions upon several subjects not obviously theological. The experimental philosophy in physics held out to students the hope of attaining an actual knowledge of things, by delivering them from the impressions of the senses, and from the notions which the understanding generalises out of those impressions. Already this philosophy had borne its noblest fruits, and the Astronomer had asserted a principle as true, which was the most contradictory to sense and to all conclusions from sense.

But if this experimental philosophy were the great means of leading to such discoveries, did it not follow that Experience was the one source of knowledge? The conviction became stronger and stronger, "There

is no other, there can be no other."

Then clever

men began to explain how many false schemes and systems had their origin in the notion that there was some other foundation of knowledge than this, and each fresh exposure drew from the enlightened and philosophical world a fresh peal of laughter at the absurdities of their forefathers. There were indeed various thoughtful men in different parts of Europe who were struck with the reflection, that the new doctrine, which seemed to have grown up side by side with the great experiments in natural philosophy, had led to exactly the opposite result. Physical science had advanced, or rather had been found to be possible, just so far as it had set itself free from sensible impressions, and the notions deduced out of them. Moral science was advancing, it was believed, to its perfection, by acknowledging these impressions and notions as the only standard of truth. But such suggestions were little heeded at the time. It became the first tenet of philosophical orthodoxy, which it was most dangerous to dispute, that sensible experience is the foundation of all belief and of all knowledge.

The rise of this philosophical theory is historically connected with that of a great political theory, which was also to displace all that had gone before it. In order, it was said, to make men tremble at certain doctrines or notions which contradicted their experience, it was necessary to make them tremble also at the authority by which these notions and doctrines were communicated. A mystery was supposed to attach to the origin of society as well as to the origin of knowledge. The one opinion was as fallacious as the other. As knowledge comes in the simplest and