ART. III.—A VINDICATION OF UNITARIANISM. A Vindication of Unitarianism, in Reply to the Rev. Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. By James Yates, M.A., Fellow of the Royal Linnean and Geological Societies, &c., &c. Fourth Edition. London: Edward T. Whitfield, Essex-street, Strand. 1850. pp. 385. ONE of the best proofs of the intrinsic value of any work is its power of outliving the immediate circumstances in which it had its origin; its possession of something in staple or in manner, which interests and instructs long after its first purpose is served. This is especially the case with respect to controversial publications. The temptation to diversions, to side-fights and devious pursuits, to an oblivion of the main battle, and an attention to every petty provocation and ruse, is so great in this species of composition, that the general character of the subject, and the requirements of its treatment, are apt to be lost in the individualities of the respective combatants, and their peculiar modes of attack and of defence. It is the best testimony to the worth both of Mr. Yates's and of Dr. Wardlaw's works, that an interest in them spread at once far beyond the limits of the city and the country in which the controversy first arose, and in which the men were then best known; and the very general satisfaction which was felt by the two divisions of the Christian Church, whose tenets they respectively defended, with the skill and power of their representatives, occasioned their publications to be regarded as standard modern works on the subject. It was, we think, about the year 1813, that a Unitarian Chapel was built and opened in the midst of the hot Calvinism of Glasgow. Mr. Yates was at that time the Minister of the Congregation, and if we have not been misinformed, he must have preached and published with a halter round his neck-luckily only symbolical, but which an obsolete law at that time unrepealed in Scotland, if enforced might have made uncomfortably real. It was impossible that a man of so student-like a habit of mind, of such accurate and extensive information, and so much gathering learning, as Mr. Yates, could set himself for the defence of this nearly unheard-of heresy in the land of John Knox, without creating a considerable degree of alarm and apprehension. Accordingly, in 1814, Dr. Wardlaw, the Minister of an Independent Congregation in the same city, stepped forth to advocate the cause of orthodoxy in his "Discourses on the Principal Points of the Socinian Controversy." In 1815, appeared a reply from Mr. Yates, entitled, "A Vindication of Unitarianism." In 1816, Dr. Wardlaw rejoined with his "Unitarianism Incapable of Vindication," of which, in 1817, Mr. Yates took notice in his "Sequel." The two men thus put in opposition to each other had many other points of disparity besides that of their opinions. Dr. Wardlaw sent forth his arguments from the Pulpit, Mr. Yates his from the Study. Dr. Wardlaw came forward as the Rhetorician, Mr. Yates as the Scholar. The first exercised more sway over the feelings, the second was more perfectly master of his argument. The style of each was polished and entirely free from all vulgarity. Dr. Wardlaw amid many professions of candour, never misses an opportunity of calling to his aid, though in a gentlemanly manner, the "odium theologicum" against his opponent; and Mr. Yates, in the midst of much apparent meekness and real self-command, never fails to deal his adversary the very keenest cuts that can be inflicted. When Dr. Wardlaw thinks Mr. Yates in the wrong, it is generally on a matter of opinion, or a deduction; when Mr. Yates thinks Dr. Wardlaw in the wrong, it is not only on such matters, but on a point of fact and scholarship which he can prove. This distinction, though not so important in the pulpit or on the platform, is an exceedingly awkward one for the closet.* Notwith *The following may be taken as an example of Mr. Yates's contemptuous severity. "The only instances," says Dr. Wardlaw, "of BOL, when it signifies a husband, occurring in the plural, are, so far as I have been able to discover, two in number, viz. Isa. liv. 5, already quoted, and Jer. xxxi. 32, in both of which it is rather singular, the application happens to be to Jehovah." In commenting on this piece of criticism, Mr. Yates remarks, "In the latter of these passages, it is rather singular,' the substantive BOL does not occur at all, but the verb BOLTI, (first person sing. preter. tense,) which is properly translated in our common version, 'I was an husband.' If in a case where he professes to have used some diligence, Dr. Wardlaw cannot distinguish between a noun and a verb, he ought at least to be extremely cautious and diffident in opposing the decisions of all the most celebrated Orientalists. Dr. Wardlaw however thinks otherwise. [He says] 'The rule standing, however, that Dr. Wardlaw is often sore, and Mr. Yates often unsparing; as compared with many of the controversies on the same subjects, this may be implied as honourably distinguished for its temper, moderation, and good sense on both sides: characteristics which we think are shown to belong to them by the decided preference which the public has shown to take the question through the hands of these gentlemen, more than through those of any other controversialists that have appeared upon it. Dr. Wardlaw, we think, makes as good a defence of the views which he advocates as they are capable of, and Mr. Yates, we think, utterly, thoroughly, and hopelessly routs him. Indeed this is inevitable, where the combatants meet on the ground of Scripture and the earliest forms of opinion in the Christian Church. The present system of the popular faith is a growth, an ecclesiastical development and amplification of certain germs of opinion having their existence in Primitive Christianity, and its only defence lies in the fact, and in the supposed necessity, of that development admitted by the great majority of Christian writers for fifteen centuries. It is a perception of this that has occasioned the logicians among the Anglican Clergy to desert the ground of an appeal to the Scripture alone. On that ground they know that the views advocated cannot possibly be maintained, and that no defender of them is to be blamed (except in the selection of his (quoted from Wilson) supposing it to be one, is, beyond all doubt, stated in terms by far too general. If it were a rule of anything like common application, one should expect to find it in all the Hebrew Grammars. Now, although I find it in Wilson and in Robertson, I do not find it in Parkhurst nor in Pike, nor in an anonymous grammar used by the teacher from whom I got the rudiments of the language.' Dr. Wardlaw's description of the last of the three grammars to which he appeals, proceeds upon one out of these two suppositions-either that all the world knows who taught him Hebrew, and what grammar his teacher used; or that the grammar is so insignificant, that scarcely any one would have recognized it from the statement of its proper title. The mention of this anonymous grammar' may, however, serve to introduce us into the secret of Dr. Wardlaw's incompetency upon these subjects. Inferior teachers are often fond of using trifling novelties in grammar instead of employing the MASTERS of the language, and their suitableness to the defence of such a doctrine as the Trinity is frequently their chief recommendation. Leaving Dr. Wardlaw among the Pikes and the Parkhursts, I shall quote a fuller exemplification of the rule than I have before given, from MASCLEF (vol. i. p. 289), whose grammar during more than a century has been held in the highest reputation."-P. 329. Dr. Wardlaw tacitly corrected this inaccuracy in a subsequent edition, but without mentioning Mr. Yates's name. ground) for the defeat which he necessarily sustains. Soon after the Controversy in Liverpool, Dr. Hook, the Vicar of Leeds, in a sermon preached at St. Peter's Church, Liverpool, virtually made this admission, when in a note he observed:-" By contending with Unitarians' on their own system, instead of attacking the system itself, those who defend the cause of orthodoxy, but not on Church principles, are, in their public discussions with Unitarians,' sometimes apt to injure the cause to the defence of which they have rashly come." In this encouraging notice of the labours of his brethren, the Rev. Fielding Ould and his associates, the word "sometimes" might with truth to our minds have been changed into "always." The popular system may be true; many things are true, which are not noticed or at least not explicitly and fully laid down in the Scriptures. Orthodoxy may be a legitimate deduction from the truths and principles that are revealed in the Scriptures. We say, such may be the case, and the majority of Christians for fifteen centuries have believed it to be the case. But if it be so, the truth must rest first on metaphysical and logical processes, and next on ecclesiastical tradition and authority. Here the Trinity is found-as later on Transubstantiation is found. But no one can show that the Trinity, in any higher form than Sabellianism, which is only " Unitarianism in a mist," is taught in the Scriptures. Orthodoxy is, in truth, an enormous weight and growth, and it always must tumble down, when men attempt to rest it on the slender foundation which is supposed to exist for it in the Bible. It cannot stand except by means of the broad foundations of Creeds and Councils, and wide-spread long-existing opinion. Whether this is a sufficient or a consistent or satisfactory ground for Disciples of Jesus Christ to rest their faith upon, is a different question, but it is the only ground for those of them who choose to regard the existence of three Divine Beings in one Divine Being as a truth. Every fresh consideration of the question seems to bring out this fact more strongly, so that the far-seeing men of the orthodox world are wisely declining the controversial consideration of the matter as a question of Scripture and Primitive Christianity. Mr. Grundy, Mr. Wellbeloved, Mr. Acton, Mr. Porter, and Dr. Hutton, all left their opponents defeated. The doctrine of the Trinity is the chief one discussed in the work now under review, and we should wish our observations to be regarded as referring principally to it: for as far as words and phrases and forms of thought are concerned, some modified doctrine of atonement seems to us to have as large a foundation in the Epistles, as the doctrine of the Trinity has a small one anywhere in the Scriptures. We do not believe the doctrine of divine Pardon by substitution to have any foundation in the reality of things, in the teachings of Christ or in the spirit of Christianity: but we do believe that sacrificial language became by long usage so mixed up with all religious expression in the rabbinical mind, that it could not enter into any lengthened disquisition on any theological subject, without falling into it and in consequence, that while there is a manifest absence of all traces of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Scriptures, arising from the entire absence of the doctrine itself from the minds of the Jewish and the early Christian people, there is yet as remarkable a presence of sacrificial language, in the Scriptures, arising from the conspicuous part which a ceremonial and sacrificial system formed in the development of the religious idea among the Jews. In consequence, while the Trinity has neither phraseology nor spirit to support it in the Scripture, the Atonement has at least much of the former in its favour. : Those to whom charge and counter-charge, assault and defence, the impetuosity and unguardedness of attack, and the coolness and success of self-defence, have interest and charm, may prefer the discussion of the questions of orthodoxy in those controversial forms, to several of which we have alluded. More excitement and curiosity, more hope and fear, more pleasure and more pain, are called forth by such discussions, than by those of a more affirmative character, in which, as in Professor Norton's admirable "Statement of Reasons for not Believing the Doctrine of the Trinity," the author can choose his own path, and uninterruptedly pursue it. Of late years, and since the appearance of the earlier works, following |