Ignatius; the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians; and the Martyrdom of Polycarp.

Mr. Whiston objected to the baptism of infants, till they were of sufficient age to be instructed, confirmed, and admitted to commuion. He held that the candidate for baptism should first be anointed with oil; then three times immersed in water; then sealed with ointment; and, lastly, be clothed in a white garment, in token of purity. In the Eucharist, he believed that the wine should be mixed with water; and that, both in the communion and burial service, there should be prayers for departed saints.* He speaks of baptism and the Lord's supper (without confining them, however, to his own singular mode of administration) as "necessary to salvation." p. 489. He firmly believed that "Adam and Eve both died on the same day or year in which they fell, according to the Divine malediction, Gen. ii. 17. and were in no very long time raised again from the dead.” p. 662. He asserted that "neither a Bishop, a Presbyter, nor a Deacon ought to be more than once married;" that "primitive Christianity forbad either Bishops, Presbyters, or Deacons to marry at all after their ordination ;" and that, "in the days of the apostles, a fourth marriage was entirely rejected, even in the laity." p. 467. He held that the message of the apostles to the Gentile converts, requiring them to abstain "from things strangled and from blood," Acts xv. 29. is "one of the plainest laws in either the Old or the New Testament," and is still binding upon all Christians, p. 471. He believed that the passage, James, v. 14, directing that the sick should be anointed with oil by the elders of the church, is "a certain law of the Gospel;" that this anointing is "an eminent branch of the duty of Christian presbyters at this day;" and that where it is administered and received in faith, it almost invariably results in a cure. Indeed he urges the cures which he thought had been effected among the Arminian Baptists by this means, as one of the reasons for connecting himself with them. pp. 356,

474.

Mr. Whiston believed that the introduction of the Trinitarian doctrine, with other superstitious notions, into the church, was the occasion of the cessation of miracles; and that when the church is once purged of these errors, the gift of miracles will be again imparted.* He discovered to his entire satisfaction that the Millennium would commence in 1766. So confident was he of this, that in 1749 he published a chronological table, stating the progress of events from year to year, down to the beginning of

* Memoirs, p. 424. The Rev. Mr. Pierpont of Boston agrees with Whiston as to the propriety of praying for the saints in heaven. See his Sermon on the Intercession of Christ, p. 12.

† Account, &c. p. 17. The Unitarians of Massachusetts are so thoroughly purified from Trinitarian delusions, that, according to Whiston's theory, one would think the gift of miracles might now be daily expected,

this happy period. He "foretold" that, previous to the appointed year, "the Turkish Empire, the House of Austria, the German Emperors, and the Popes of Rome," would be "suddenly destroyed;" that the "two witnesses" (the Vaudois) would mystically ascend; that the Jews would be literally restored; that "the temple of Ezekiel would be built upon mount Zion, as the former had been upon mount Moriah;" that the Messiah would appear personally upon earth; that the first resurrection would take place; and that the saints would commence their happy reign of a thousand years. pp. 334, 636. Mr. Whiston believed, with Mahomet, that there were seven heavens; and he even went so far as to publish "a scheme of the heavens," describing the seven apartments, and showing how far they were asunder.

But the most remarkable of his opinions, and that which I most regret to expose, remains yet to be noticed. It was imbibed in the latter part of his life, and he seems to have been forced into it by his Unitarian, Pelagian theology. After having added almost thirty books to the New Testament, he virtually denied the inspiration of nearly the whole of it. That I may do him no injustice, I shall here give his own words. "What Paul says to the Jewish converts, in his Epistle to the Romans, about eriginal sin; about the prevalency of that original sin or corruption in himself, at least while he was unregenerate; and about election and reprobation, in his fifth, seventh, and ninth chapters, seems to have been no part of Christ's revelation to him, but rather certain strange and weak reasonings of his own, accommodated to the weak Roman Jews of that time only." After offering eight distinct reasons in support of this opinion, he concludes by saying, "If, after all, any think that this my opinion takes away the strict inspiration of Paul's Epistles, which they suppose of dangerous consequence to Christianity, I confess it does imply, that under what degree of Divine conduct or wisdom soever Paul wrote his Epistles, yet is that degree to be esteemed inferior to what ought to be properly called inspiration, such as the prophets were under in the reception of their prophecies; which proper inspiration I take to be here groundless, and never pretended to by any writers of the New Testament, excepting the prophetic parts of Hermas in his admirable visions, and the prophetic parts of St. John, in his no less admirable Revelation." pp. 638-642.

We here come to the end of the chapter in regard to Whiston -the same end to which we may trace almost every other person who, with equal ardor and presumption in the search of truth, has suffered himself to wander from the perfect standard,---INFIDELITY. Not that Whiston avowed himself an infidel, or thought himself one; but he virtually was one. A certain part of a canonical book of the New Testament-an acknowledged Epistle of Paul, is "no part of Christ's revelation to him," but

"Proper

"certain strange and weak reasonings of his own." inspiration was never pretended to by any writers of the New Testament, excepting," forsooth, "the prophetic parts of Hermas, and the prophetic parts of the Revelation of John."

Whiston is not the only man who, having swerved from the infallible standard of truth, has been blown about by every wind of doctrine, till at length dashed upon the desolate shores of a virtual, if not an avowed, infidelity.-Look at Chillingworth ;— and I here quote Whiston's own account of him. "This Mr. Chillingworth had a strange diffidence and mutability of temper, which made him, when first a Protestant, to turn Papist; and when a Papist, to turn Protestant again: then to favor Arianism, and on that account, by refusing to sign the thirty-nine articles, to lose some expected preferment; then to sign the thirty-nine articles, and accept of preferment; and, after all, to defend Socinianism itself;-which is such a round of contrarieties, as is hard to be paralleled in any other learned man whomsoever. To be sure," says Whiston, "he at first wanted my darling motto, Consider well, and act steadily; nor had he the Apostolical Constitutions for his immoveable guide and standard, as I have now had near forty years, which would have prevented all this uncertainty of conduct." p. 389.

Matthew Tindal was for many years a member of the church of England. He afterwards turned Catholic, and then Unitarian, -at which time he was regarded with much favor by the celebrated John Le Clerc. In 1730, he published his "Christianity as old as the Creation," and he died—an infidel.

John Toland was born, a Papist, in 1670. In early life, he turned Protestant, and connected himself with the English Dissenters, by whom he was supported, while pursuing his theological studies at Leyden. He was known as a Unitarian, and published his treatise entitled "Christianity not mysterious," in 1696. Like Whiston, he was at much pains to invalidate the canon of the New Testament, by adding to it a great variety of apocryphal books. He became at length a Deist, a Pantheist, and died most probably an Atheist.

In 1714, Thomas Chubb was an Arian, and published a work entitled "Eight Arguments on the Supremacy of the Father." In 1718, he avowed himself a Socinian, though "he owned that the New Testament favored the Arians." He soon became a confessed infidel, and so continued to the end of life.*

The infidel Morgan appeared first in public, as a Presbyterian minister. In a short time, he became an Arian, left the ministry, and devoted himself to the study of medicine. He afterwards turned Quaker, and Deist, and, "with very little knowledge of the Scriptures, fell upon them outrageously.'

* See Whiston's Memoirs, pp. 276, 318. Anthony Collins, a celebrated infidel, commenced his career as an author, in 1707, by writing against the doctrine of the Trinity.

A similar course of apostacy and error was traversed by the German Semler. From being the pupil and admirer of the Orthodox Baumgarten, he passed through all the descending grades of professed Unitarianism, until, though nominally a teacher of theology, he really was no better than an infidel. He had studied the Scriptures more than some of the English Deists, but it may well be doubted whether he regarded or treated them with any more respect.

An instance of the same kind, we have in the late Dr. Priestley. He was once, as he himself informs us, "a Calvinist, and that of the straitest sect." Afterwards, says he, "I became a high Arian, next a low Arian, and then a Socinian, and in a little time a Socinian of the lowest kind, in which Christ is considered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and naturally as fallible and peccable as Moses, or any other prophet." He further tells us, as well he might, that he "does not know when his creed will be fixed." He adds, "I have frequently declared myself not to be a believer in the inspiration of the Evangelists and Apostles,

as writers."*

As instances equally in point, I might mention Wakefield, Lindsey, Belsham, and several others, who, having swerved from the perfect standard of truth, and from the sacred principles of the Gospel, came, at length, to deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, and "fell endlong" into the "Serbonian bog" of a virtual infidelity. But enough, I hope, has been said to show the danger of the course pursued by these men, and to impress upon all my readers, especially those in youth, the importance of clinging to the Bible as the word of God-as itself a revelation from heaven -as an infallible standard both of doctrine and duty. "Trust in the Lord at all times, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

Unitarians profess to believe that the Bible is clearly in their favor that the plain, common reader, who goes to it without prejudice, and studies it with diligence and candor, will inevitably leave it a Unitarian. But, if this is true, why have Unitarians always taken such unwarrantable liberties with the Bible? What necessity, if this is true, for their new and free translations; for conjectural emendations; for adding or taking away, as their system requires; for their making so frequent allowance on account of the ignorance, the prejudice, and the artful accommodations of the sacred writers; and especially for their denying that the Scriptures are the word of God. That all these things

Lord Bolingbroke, too, was a great enemy to the doctrines of the Trinity, and of atonement by the blood of Christ. See Leland's View of Deistical Writers, vol. i. p. 94. vol. ii. pp. 224, 234.

Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, Part ii. pp. 33-35. Def. of Unit. for 1787, p. 111. Letters to Horsely, Part i. p. 132.

have been done, and are now doing, by Unitarians, is unquestionable. But what necessity for doing these things, if the Bible, as it stands, is all in their favor? If the Bible, as it is, does not ascribe Divine names, attributes, works and worship to the Saviour of men; what need of so much effort to translate and explain away the various passages which treat of this subject? If the Bible, as it is, does not teach the doctrines of human depravity, of atonement, of regeneration, of justification by faith, of the election and perseverance of saints, and of eternal punishment; what need of so much learned labor to get these doctrines out of the Bible? If the Bible, as it stands, does not teach the separate existence of the soul, and the existence of angels, fallen and unfallen; what need of sliding over such a multitude of passages, by referring to the alleged superstitions of ancient times?

Whiston found certain "vexatious passages" (to borrow an expression from Mr. Dabney*) in the Epistle to the Romans, which he was constrained to consider as 66 no part of Christ's revelation" to the apostle, but "rather certain strange and weak reasonings of his own." The German Unitarians regard the accounts given us of the miracles of our Saviour as mere popular language, which was never intended to be literally understood. The English Unitarians set aside whole verses and even chapters, because they cannot interpret them consistently with their opinions. Professor Norton not only rejects, as uncanonical, the entire Epistle to the Hebrews, but says that "the canonical books of the New Testament are not the revelation which God made by Christ.+ And Dr. Ware directs us "to distinguish between the doctrines delivered by the apostles and primitive teachers, and the arguments, illustrations, and topics of persuasion, which they employed to enforce them. The former," says he, "we are to consider as given them by revelation; the latter were THE SUGGESTIONS OF THEIR OWN MINDS, in the exercise of their respective talents, and the kinds and degrees of knowledge they possessed."*-But how is this and such like treatment of the Bible to be accounted for, on the supposition that the Bible is a Unitarian book, and that, in its plain, obvious meaning, it goes to favor the Unitarian cause? Are men accustomed to take so much pains, and resort to such a variety of expedients, to get rid of testimony which makes entirely in their own favor?

Evangelical Christians have ever been distinguished, as those who venerate the Bible. They regard it, not as containing a revelation, but as being itself a revelation. They hold its writers to have been supernaturally inspired, and that what they wrote is truly the word of God. Going to the Bible in this view, under a

* Annotations, p. 409.

+ Chris. Exam. for July, 1829, p. 344. Sermon at the Ordination of Mr. Lamson, p. 13.