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make faith in Christ of very little importance, and that the direction to believe in him has in great measure, disappeared from our sermons. This announcement will be news, as false as it is startling, to the great body of our orthodox preachers and congregations. We do indeed, as the apostles did, direct the sinner to " submit to God," to "lay aside his rebellion," and "begin to love and serve his Maker; but our prominent direction—that most frequently given and most earnestly insisted on is precisely that of Paul to the jailer: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." So persistent have we been in giving this simple direction, as to incur the reproach of theologians of another school, who, regarding the sinner as physically impotent, and wholly unable to believe, have urged him to use means, and do what he can, with the heart that he has, hoping that God may at some time interpose, and give him a better heart. The controversy in respect to what was called "the doings of the unregenerate," which raged among us near the close of the last century, is not yet forgotten by our older ministers and Christians.

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We are told, finally, that Dr. B.'s view of the atonement has "done more to corrupt religion and promote Socinianism, than any other of the vaunted improvements in American theology" (p. 116). This is the old and oft-reiterated objec tion: "It is your New England theology which has wrought so much mischief in your churches, which has led so many of them to renounce the faith of their fathers, and relapse into Unitarianism." But a little inquiry will satisfy any one, that the very opposite of what is here stated is the truth. It is historically certain, and is susceptible of the fullest proof, that what of Unitarianism there is in New England came in upon us, not from our particular explanations of the established faith, but from a perverted view and application of old-school Calvinism. As men could not make to themselves new hearts and new spirits, they were taught to do what they could with such hearts as they had. They must read and pray, and attend public worship, and join the church, and go to the sacrament, in hope that through these

pipes of God's own providing, they might receive an infusion of living water; in hope that in a diligent use of means, God would meet them, and bestow upon them converting grace. In consequence of instructions such as these, the churches came to consist very considerably, in many places, of unconverted members, - of those who regarded themselves as unconverted, and who came to the Lord's table as a means of regeneration. And when the door was once opened for persons without piety to enter the church, there was no let or hindrance to their entering the ministry. And unconverted ministers (whatever creed they may profess for a time) are prepared, in the spirit and temper of their minds, for just such errors as ere long began to show themselves in New England.

There was no marked division among our ministers till near the close of the Whitefieldian revival, somewhat more

than a hundred years ago. The revivalists of that day were those who imbibed the views and adopted the explanations of President Edwards. And their pupils and successors constitute at this day, and have ever constituted, the great body of the orthodox Congregational clergy of New England. While those in general who opposed the revival,- old Calvinists at the time by profession, but holding a lifeless and perverted Calvinism, and giving little evidence of true spirituality, ere long came to be known, first as Arminians, then Arians, and then Socinians or Unitarians of the lowest stamp.1

Such, in brief, is the manner in which Unitarianism gained footing in New England. Its course can be traced as surely, from step to step, as any historical sequence whatever. We see, then, how unjust it is to ascribe its entrance and prevalence here to what has been called the New England theology. It entered in spite of this theology, rather than by its means. The advocates of this theology constituted

The late Dr. Chauncy, for some sixty years pastor of the first church in Boston, was the great opponent of Whitefield and the revival. At the close of the revival he professed to be a Calvinist; but he lived to become an Arian and a Restorationist. A similar course was pursued by many others.

the chief barrier which opposed it. They are the men, almost without an exception, who have withstood its progress, obstructed its influence, and brought it, under God, into its present disorganized and decaying condition.

From the want of a thorough acquaintance with our religious history, the reviewers of Dr. B. may be sincere in what they have said as to the influence of our particular views of the atonement in promoting the spread of Unitarianism in New England. But can they be justified in affirming, as they repeatedly do, that our doctrine "is even below that of Socinus," and that "the Socinian view is, in some respects, much easier reconciled with scripture than that of Dr. Beman" (pp. 95, 113). We hold all the great facts of the atonement as firmly as these reviewers themselves; as firmly as any class of Christians have ever done, since the crucifixion of Christ. Socinians reject the atonement in everything, unless it be the name. We build upon the atonement all our hopes of justification and final salvation. They build their hopes on an entirely different ground. We differ from our brethren at Princeton, as has been proved in the foregoing discussion, in very little except the meaning of words. Socinians differ from us both in everything that is essential to the gospel of Christ. And now in view of these facts, which the reviewers understand as well as ourselves, we ask again whether they can think themselves justified in representing the faith of Socinians in this most important article of our religion—which really is no faith at all—as in some respects better and more scriptural than our own? The answer to this inquiry we leave to their own consciences; and conclude with suggesting, whether it may not be better for both of us to unite in defending this fundamental article of our creed against those who deride and oppose it, rather than waste our energies in magnifying differences and widening divisions between those who agree in this life, in everything essential to the doctrine, and who expect to rest upon it the salvation of their souls forever.

ARTICLE II.

THE APOSTOLIC SALUTATIONS AND BENEDICTIONS.

BY JOHN J. OWEN, D.D, FREE ACADEMY, NEW YORK.

FROM the earliest days of the Christian church, widely different views have been taken respecting the meaning of the apostolic salutations and benedictions, and their significancy in the position assigned them in public worship. They who invest Christ's ministers with sacerdotal powers and functions, regard these formulas as the actual conferral from priestly lips of spiritual blessings; and by implication, if not by express statute, they argue that the power to pronounce maledictions belongs in like manner to the ministerial office. Others go to the opposite extreme, and consider them mere expressions of earnest desire that blessings may descend upon God's people, and implying no such official power or prerogative, as to render them unsuitable to be uttered by private Christians at the opening and close of religious services. Between these extremes lies a third view, that they are solemn declarations of the permanent possession and enjoyment of the grace of God by all who are embraced in the covenant of redeeming love.

We believe that very few persons in evangelical churches are disposed to attach a priestly significance and potentiality to these sacred formulas, and we dismiss therefore, as irrelevant to the special object of this Article, any refutation of this belief, and confine ourselves to the simple question, whether they are to be regarded as expressive of strong desire, or as declarative of a great truth, applicable to all of Christ's family, and in all time. That they are not prayers, in the proper acceptation of the term, is quite evident from the fact that they are not addressed to God, and have not the usual form of supplication. But as might be expected from such short, elliptical, and independent formulas,

it is a matter of doubt whether they are to be interpreted as earnestly expressed wishes or positive declarations.

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That a difference of opinion exists on this point, is manifest from the variety of form employed by ministers of the gospel in pronouncing the benediction. It is the practice of some to say: May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all;" others adopt the same form, but substitute "us" for "you." Many drop the potential form, but, nevertheless change the pronoun from the second to the first person plural: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all." Another class adhere precisely to the language of scripture, and say: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."

It is our present purpose to inquire, whether the last-mentioned form of the benediction does not express its true and only meaning, or, in other words, whether the official act is not nuncupative of that which really exists, rather than the expression of a wish that the blessing of God may be bestowed upon his people. To maintain the former of these views is by no means to deny that a strong and earnest desire, on the part of the person who pronounces the benediction, may accompany this official annunciation of the abiding grace of Christ with believers. But our design is to show that the benediction is an announcement of the possession of a blessing promised in perpetuum to the church of Christ, and not a simple wish or desire, as some think it to be. The same sense we would also assign to the salutations when employed according to apostolic usage.

The usual form of salutation in Paul's epistles, is xápis ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. This is the form employed in the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, and Philemon. In the Epistle to the Galatians, ἡμῶν is omitted after πατρός, and supplied with Κυρίου. In the First Epistle to Timothy, uv is found in both clauses, and exeos is added to xápis kaì eipývŋ, in the order Xápis, eλeos Kai eipývn. The form in 2 Timothy is the same,

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