AN INQUIRY INTO THE COMPARATIVE MORAL TENDENCY OF TRINITARIAN AND UNITARIAN DOCTRINES. PART I. CHARGES AGAINST UNITARIANS. LETTER I. Value and Objects of Controversy in advancing Truth and Practical Religion. SIR, THE advantages of controversy in promoting religious truth, and practical goodness, have been variously estimated. Some persons have imagined, that the mischief is greater than the benefit, and that piety loses more than truth gains. It was a saying of Dr. Young, that "the dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together." In a limited sense this but in no sense does it be true; may afford an argument against the use of controversy, nor any proof of its inutility. The fault is not in the dispute, but in the manner of the dispute; not in the nature or tendency of controversy, but in the temper of the persons concerned. No one needs be made worse by having his opinions opposed; if they are false, the quicker they are confuted and abandoned the better. And how can their truth be established, if never questioned ? Every man may add to his wickedness by suffering his passions to gain the mastery over his reason; but no one can be in the way of danger, who is induced to examine the foundation of his opinions, give up his errors, and thus cling more closely to truth, as every man will do, who makes a right use of controversy. If it appears, that controvertists themselves are less improved than they ought to be, by a mutual investigation of religious subjects; if, as in the time of Austin, tempestate contentionis, serenitas charitatis obnubilatur, in the tempest of contention they suffer the serenity of charity to be obscured; if they too often substitute loud talk for plain facts, and vain declamation for sound argument; the public will nevertheless derive an advantage. Nothing is so much to be dreaded in religion, as ignorance and apathy. Faith will have no value, and the commands of God no power, where there is not intelligence to direct, and energy to execute. Credulity, superstition, bigotry, prejudice, may grow up in the desert soil of a prescribed and unex plored faith; they may flourish there in sickly luxuriance, till they overshadow every generous virtue and pious sentiment. But if you would see the christian character in its excellence and strength, you must rouse every faculty, and bring into united action the best powers, principles, and affections of the human mind. The best mode, if not the only mode, of creating a desire of knowledge, a fondness for studying the Scriptures, and a wakeful spirit of inquiry, is to engage in amicable discussions of such doctrines, as are differently understood, by persons equally zealous for the cause of pure religion, and earnest in the search of truth. Whoever will go back to the origin of christianity, and follow its progress down to the present time, will do little else, than read a continued history of religious controversy. Much the largest part of our Saviour's teaching was employed in controverting the opinions of his adversaries. He argued with the Jews, exposed their false interpretations of the law, met their objections, and confuted their reasonings. The Apostles were controvertists; they preached to convince the world of errors, to eradicate deep impressions, to pull down an old religion and set up a new one. They were assailed by Jews and Gentiles, the learned and the unlearned, the wise and the simple, the powerful and the weak. They maintained themselves against all parties, and every where "contended earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." They combated the enormities of heathen idolatry; they attacked the prejudices of the Jews, proved the nullity of their burdensome ritual, and the fulfilment of their prophecies in the coming of the Messiah. Such were the labours of the Apostles, and they were all performed in the field of controversy. The same process was continued for three centuries afterwards. The christian scheme was attacked by many learned men, and defended by as many others. Preachers were still raising the banner of controversy, and by argument and persuasion making new converts. At length councils were convened, and the fiery spirits of a few ambitious men, kindled by the love of temporal power and worldly glory, did much to retard the progress and mar the purity of the christian doctrines. But these doings ought not to be dignified with the name of controversy. They were furious contests stirred up by motives of secular concernment, in which no one appears to have cared for truth or religion. Articles of faith were debated, or not debated, as the case might be, and then decided by a plurality of voices. Creeds were made by acclamation, and that was declared to be a sound doctrine, which comported with the selfish views of the ruling party. Religion suffered by these contentions, which were equally an outrage on good sense and correct principle, yet no doubt some good was done. A new impulse was given to inquiry, and the knowledge of christianity was extended. The time at length came when controversy nearly ceased. And what was religion then? The history of a benighted world for ten centuries will tell; the black records of the Inquisition will tell; and so will the bloody traces of a spiritual tyranny, and wicked persecution. Piety was no more; it had degenerated into a set of outward, slavish, unmeaning ceremonies. Truth was no more; it was lost amidst the barbarous jargon of a false philosophy, and a more false theology. The Scriptures were virtually no more; they were concealed from the public eye and forgotten. Religion was no more in its original brightness and purity; it was built on another foundation; it was literally a human invention, a fiction of popes, and councils, and priests. The world submitted to the imposition and was satisfied with the counterfeit. Inquiry was no more; the powers of intellect were benumbed, reason dethroned, and the moral sense depraved. No energy was left for thought or action, no light to guide, no principles to ennoble, no spirit to animate. You look back on a melancholy scene of ignorance, stupidity, oppression, servitude, darkness, and death.* The Reformation broke the spell, and then controversy revived. The early Reformers, with the *There was logomachy enough, it is true, in the darkest periods of the church, but it was a battle of words fought about shadows. The long war between the Dominicans and Franciscans concerning the merits of their tutelar doctors, Thomas and Scotus, was of this sort. They contended warmly and bitterly in the region of dreams and fiction, but they rarely came down to the humble sphere of common sense and rational discussion. Years were spent and volumes writen on the nature of the divine co-operation with the will of man, and on the unity of form in man. Nay, the subtle dispute about universal ideas, or the solution of the famous question, whether universal ideas belonged to the class of objects, or of mere names, bewildered the most erudite doctors, |