Philosopher, or the splendid writer and high-souled man,' who stands at the head of Unitarianism in this country? They are dwarfed in the comparison, and their works appear like huts at the base of ancient temples, built of the scattered fragments of decay. Surely, there is more deep thought in a solitary leaf of one of John Howe's sermons, than in all Dr. Priestly's, Belsham's, and Channing's works put together, adding even Miss Martineau's to the collection." pp. 25-27. Dignified and appropriate language this for a public religious celebration of our national independence in such a community as that of Salem! So much for what our author, not less amiable for his modesty than venerable for his years, denominates the "superficiality," and, we suppose we must say after his own happy manner, wrap-rascality of the literature and religion of such men as Milton, Newton, and Locke, Lardner, Priestley, and Cappe ! Leaving the Address for the present, we open the other pamphlet before us, called a "Review of Professor Norton's Statement of Reasons for not believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians concerning the Nature of God and the Person of Christ.' Before we begin to make extracts, we have to notice two instances of bold injustice, pervading the whole. First, though this is called a "Review of a Statement of Reasons," and is published and circulated as such, it does not so much as examine or profess to examine a single one of those reasons. Nay, the writer expressly disclaims any intention of reviewing Mr. Norton's book, or of answering or attempting to answer his statements, criticisms, or arguments. But there is another instance of deception, on the first and whole face of this production, still more remarkable. Our readers will remember the title of Professor Norton's book. Mr. Cheever calls it, in his first paragraph and through his whole Review, Reasons for not believing. We italicize it ourselves, and we wish it to be marked. Seven or eight times does this veracious reviewer refer to it in that way, sometimes giving it in capitals and with quotation marks, thus declaring that it is the real title of the book. In fact, we do not remember that in the body of the tirade, he once gives it its true title. We say, therefore, that this Review comes before the world with a lie in its right hand, and one by no means light either in its character or its intended effects. It not only says, that Unitarianism is a religion, whose whole existence is manifested in unbelief, and whose very creed consists in statements of reasons for not believing," (p. 8,) but it virtually says, that Mr. Norton and his brethren acknowledge this, and aver it in the very titles of their books. Nor is Mr. Cheever content with saying this in the Review. In his Fourth-of-July Address, delivered two months before the Review appeared, we find him talking of a "system of negations, with its whole statement of reasons for not believing." (p. 26.) We know not, and we hope never to know, with what feelings a man of honor, or a man without honor, resorts to such pitiful shifts. While he declares our system to be "of its Father, the Devil," and distorts to his own purpose a garbled passage from Mr. Norton, that "the language of error may be used, in order powerfully to affect the feelings," he appears to use, in the most literal and liberal way, the strange liberty which he says that passage implies. The Review opens upon us thus: "In the appearance of this volume, we have another significant token, that Unitarianism, on this side of the Atlantic as well as on the other, is rapidly fulfilling the predictions of the friends of the Bible. It is advancing, in the full blazonry of unbelief, to destruction. It was necessary that, before its final death-struggle, it should for a while assume its true character; as the Evil Spirits are said, in God's word, to have torn the men possessed, before they came out. Here is another stride towards the gloomy gulf of open infidelity; and this volume might more appropriately have been entitled, A Statement of Reasons why Unitarians ought to be considered as Infidels and not Christians. We are glad, on the whole, that the work of making this statement has fallen into the hands of so genuine a Neologist, and rejecter of God's word, as Professor Norton. We call him a rejecter of God's word; nor will our readers esteem the phrase inappropriate, if they open his book, and behold the cool indifference with which he strikes out epistle after epistle from the sacred canon, whenever its richness and fullness of heavenly places in Christ Jesus,' are too powerfully contrasted with the meagre, death-like phantom of his own 'Reasons for not believing.' He has treated the Bible, and the character of Jesus with such cool, anatomizing infidelity, that all but those initiated and confirmed in the heathen irreligion of the sect, must, we think, be startled into salutary reflection. Such, if we are rightly informed, is already the case with some; and we hope the extent of infidelity, to which he has proceeded in his Statement,' may prove the means of awakening to a conviction of their error a multitude of others, who have hitherto slumbered in the dreadful delusion of Unitarianism." p. 3. Again, after quoting a passage in which Mr. Norton states what he conceives to be the leading principles of Unitarian belief, though with the express declaration, "I speak in the name of no party," Mr. Cheever goes into a flourish of charges which we would gladly abridge, if we could do it with justice to him or ourselves. "Here is the creed of Unitarians: let all the world hear. They say WE BELIEVE! In the very Statement of Reasons for not Believing, they have at length uttered a believing affirmation ! The oracle has spoken. 'Leave, oh leave me, to repose ! ' And what has it spoken? Most lame and impotent conclusion! Not one solitary syllable in regard to a SAVIOUR, nor the most distant intimation that in all God's plan there is one! If we could not select from the works of Plato, a creed at least equal in richness and elevation of sentiment, and more nearly approximating to divine truth, we are sadly mistaken. We say, more nearly approximating to divine truth, for we could find in Plato no doubtful recognition of the truths of man's depravity, the malignity of sin, and the certainty of a future retribution. But these are things which Unitarians do not love to dwell upon. The shrinking soul, oppressed with a sense of guilt, looks round in anguish for a MEDIATOR between God and man; but the idea of a mediator, is one which the Unitarians seem perfectly to abhor. They thank God they can come into God's presence without a mediator. No wonder, then, that their system excludes every thing which would lead the soul to the conviction of its guilt, and the search for an atonement, and therefore every thing peculiar to the gospel; the depravity of man, the infinite evil of sin, the great day of judgment, an Almighty Saviour. It would task the critical ingenuity of Professor Norton himself, to discover in this creed of Unitarianism, the slightest traces of these fundamental truths. Indeed, its poverty is such as Plato would have pitied, and the very deist, in reference to its pretensions to have come from revelation, would scorn. "And yet this stale and lifeless creed, which Paine himself would probably have accepted without the slightest amelioration either in his intellect or heart, from which all mention of VOL. XV.-N. S. VOL. X. NO. II. 23 a Saviour is studiously excluded, and which, even as an exposition of natural religion is ineffably weak and soul-less, this is the vaunted remedy for infidelity! This is to be substituted for Jesus Christ and him crucified, and offered to the expecting nations as the sole product of all the wonders of revelation! But no we mistake: it will not be offered to the nations: Unitarianism has no missionaries, cannot support one. We are thankful that it is impossible for this delusion and the missionary spirit to live together. It is not strange that the admirers of this system think it will suit infidels. Voltaire himself would have received it as the only creed for a gentleman, ridiculing nothing about it but its pretensions to revelation. It does suit infidels. It is a creed which the unregenerate, unbelieving heart craves. Mr. Norton is perfectly right in believing, that when all the peculiar doctrines of the Bible are blotted out, and its spirituality explained away, there will then no longer be infidels. True; there will be nothing left to disbelieve, nothing for infidelity to fasten on. There will no longer be any opportunity for exercising the power of dissent. And when this is the case, what will become of that religion whose whole existence is manifested in unbelief, and whose very creed consists in Statements of Reasons for not believing? The millenium of release from the bondage of orthodoxy, to which the Professor so devoutly aspires, will be the signal for the extinction of a sect that lives by disbelieving; since there will then be no proposition to reject or contend against, and therefore no one principle of union or life. Other principle they have none, than that of negation. Antagonism to orthodoxy is their sole principle of vitality."-pp. 7-9. Again, he says, or rather he raves: "Their whole system, if system it can be called, "The other shape, If shape it might be called, that shape had none Or substance might be called, that shadow seemed, is like a palsy to the intellect, withering, stagnant, unthinking, superficial; and all the forms of literature itself, under that system must be superficial and soul-less. There is nothing in it to stir either the mind or the heart. In order to exist, they must keep, as to the knowledge of God's word, in an everlasting moral twilight, where the mind dares not move; for the noonday blaze of God's word expels and purges off such error; and then the mind encounters moral principles, instead of the flimsy sentimentalism of their speculations. Like the fiend floundering through chaos, and bent to reduce the world to her 'original darkness,' they ask, 'Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies, and having found this region they rest contented; for a step on the other side into the full light of the Bible would utterly blind and confound them." P. 16. Sir James Mackintosh, noticing a gross attack made upon Robert Hall, says, "The black and fell malignity which pervades this man's attack on Mr. Hall, raises it to a sort of diabolical importance, of which its folly, and ignorance, and vulgarity cannot entirely deprive it. This must be our excuse for stooping so low as to examine it." The spirit, the language, the purpose, the whole imagery and aspect of Mr. Cheever's assault, seem specially fitted to give it a "diabolical importance." Yet we do not believe him guilty of "black and fell malignity." If we have used or should use any language seeming to imply that, we wish to be understood as referring to the moral aspect and influence of his writings, rather than his motives or the impulse of his heart at the time. We do not suppose his heart had much to do with this outrage. He does not write as if in passion or malice. He never loses his balance. Every thing is cool and measured. There is indeed a studied elegance in the midst of his vituperations, a choice of words, a looking for quotations and epithets, and a discursive play of the imagination, quite inconsistent with strong passion, we had almost said with strong feeling, or a sincere belief in the vileness of those whom he calmly consigns to the ice of "cold-blooded infidelity" and the fire of perdition. We are not without doubts whether he himself thinks they deserve this doom, though he is resolved upon doing his utmost to make others think so. It is not passion, but policy. The powers that nerve his arm to give the deathblow, if he can, are more of the head than of the heart. It is far-sighted, or as it may prove, very short-sighted calculation. He had lived among Unitarians, had courted and professed to enjoy their society, had honored them and himself by freely using their writings in his published compila |