1848.] Analogues of Christ. 353 boundless realms he governs is but that of a grain of sand on the sea-shore ! In this connection, the Trinitarian doctrine may be viewed in another and more decisive light. This doctrine stands in direct opposition to the Unitarian belief. The one asserts the equal and essential Godship of three; the other, that God the Father alone is the Omnipotent God, of whom Christ is a creature, subject to the disposition and government of his Creator. These doctrines, which cannot both be true at the same time, are both deduced from the same inspired sources, and sustained by reference to the same records. Men of equal Biblical learning, sagacity, and honesty of purpose are found among the believers and supporters of each. Hence it may be argued, that, to an impartial mind, the testimony of the Scriptures on the point at issue cannot be entirely decisive. A person truly unprejudiced would not, therefore, pronounce either doctrine inadmissible, except for some extraneous reason. Now suppose a mind perfectly free. from all bias of education on this subject, perfectly honest, and only inquiring which doctrine is true. In want of positive proofs, it would naturally investigate the relative a priori probability of the two propositions, and adopt that which has the greater probability with a proportionate force of belief. As the balance of probabilities against the truth of a proposition prevails, it becomes more difficult of belief; the more decided this preponderance becomes, the greater is this difficulty, and hence the more irresistible must be the testimony necessary to claim belief. When this predominance is infinite, the proposition becomes absolutely incredible. To apply this. Suppose that this earth constituted the entire universe, and that both doctrines were then equally credible. Let another world, similarly constituted and inhabited, now be added, and how stands the case? In the universe, as it is, analogous circumstances lead us to suppose analogous inhabitants in other worlds. On our hypothesis, the second world would stand in the same need of a Christ as our own, as also the third, the fourth, and so on to infinity. This supposition would require, then, an infinite number of Christs, unless God be unjustly partial to this earth, which is not supposable. That Jesus is successively dying in these countless worlds is an intolerable thought. But unless this be so, or God be unjust, there must be, on our hypothesis, as many analogues of Christ as there are worlds to be saved. These, having all the same office, must all require the same nature; hence, if Christ be God in the Trinitarian sense, there must be an infinity of Gods in the same sense, which is positive contradiction. But in the Unitarian sense there may, without conflict, be as many analogues of Christ as there are worlds to be saved. Thus, on the hypothesis that the universe abounds in worlds and races like our own, the Trinitarian doctrine is entirely untenable, while the Unitarian remains unshaken. But this hypothesis has all the weight of analogies, general and minute, in favor of its truth; thus certainly inclining the balance of probabilities vastly in favor of the Unitarian doctrine. The only remaining hypothesis is, that all the races inhabiting other worlds are above the need of a Saviour like Christ. Of course, we can know nothing positive in relation to the moral state of the inhabitants of other spheres; but we can show the vast improbability of the hypothesis in question. All worlds are subject to the same physical laws; hence we should infer the control of the same moral laws. Analogy of physical states renders probable like moral states. Hence, in our want of positive knowledge, we must suppose that the inhabitants of Mars are as likely to require a Saviour as man ; the same of Venus, and so of the infinite multitude of worlds. Hence the hypothesis, that, contrary to all these probabilities, man alone requires a Saviour, is, a priori, exceedingly improbable. Again if a pile contain a million white balls, and only one black one, the chance that a blind man in his first choice will select the black one is one against a million. So the chance, a priori, that you or I should be born into the only black-balled world in the universe is one against the whole number of other worlds, or infinitely small; yet here we are. Now the actual occurrence of an event of such vast hypothetical improbability throws the weight of that improbability on the hypothesis itself. Hence we may say, that to suppose our moral state entirely singular in the universe is to indulge a vastly improbable conjecture; so we must recur to our first hypothesis, and regard that as a highly probable fact. Its necessary consequence was, that Christ is not equal in exaltation to God the Father. The previous reasonings lead to a conception of Christ's nature which has removed from our mind all the rational and Scriptural difficulties before encountered. Just as there are grades of magnitude in the physical universe, such as satel 1848.] Christ the Guardian Angel of Earth. 355 lites, planets, suns, nebulæ, etc., may there be grades of moral beings between us and God. Grade may rise above grade, with towering moral majesty, in an infinite progression, terminating at last in God, one and undivided, God the Father. Our conceptions become quickly confused and inadequate in this Godward struggle; the obscure of sublimity checks our lofty soarings. Long before we reach the infinite head of this progression we are overwhelmed by powers and attributes which to us are those of God. There are those among our fellow-mortals so exalted by intellectual and moral greatness, that we feel in their presence a profound veneration. This feeling, in its most elevated and purified form, is that which so draws and binds the righteous soul to Christ and God. Divested of the infirmities of human nature, they claim, by reason of their own purity and greatness, the highest homage of man's veneration. Intermediate between us and God, in the ascending scale, but holy and glorious and God-like far beyond what our hearts have conceived or can conceive, we see Christ, ever living to judge us by the precepts and example of his own life on earth; God to us, far above our loftiest conceptions of God; yet not God truly, not God to Him who made and whose laws sustain all things. In the moral universe, he may have compeers or superiors; but to us he alone is God's immediate agent, and our Mediator through whom to approach, in prayerful thought, the Omnipotent Jehovah. The guardian angel of this bright and beautiful world, we see him presiding over man's destinies; now striving, by becoming a sojourner with man, to exalt his moral nature; leaving precepts and an example which shall render each faithful follower so pure, so beautiful, that when death presents his gleanings to Christ the judge, he may bear them to some happy home among his Father's many mansions. E. B. H-t. ART. III. - LEAGUE OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.* THE movement to which we now call the attention of our readers is, perhaps, unknown to many of them, and probably comparatively few have given it serious attention. It does not come within the pale of party politics, and the newspapers of the day are silent about it; it enters not the field of theological controversy, and the pulpit and the religious press announce it not; but the Pledge on which the League is founded has been signed by about thirty thousand persons in the British islands and America, and has thus acquired an importance not to be overlooked. Viewing its past rate of progress, therefore, we only anticipate a public interest in it, which must ere long be felt. It claims, also, to be considered a religious movement, whose principles are founded on the Gospel, and hence is entitled to notice in our pages. Presuming our readers have but little information on this subject, we think it not amiss to give a brief statement of the origin and operations of this philanthropic combination. The name of Elihu Burritt, or, as he has been called, the Learned Blacksmith, is famous. He acquired celebrity by the acquisition of over thirty languages while working at the anvil, and in this character of a linguist he is yet chiefly known to the political and literary public. But his future eminence will rest on a higher aspiration, for which he has, in a great measure, deserted the dictionary and the grammar. A lecture delivered by him in Boston, in June, 1843, exposing the folly of preparation for war, attracted the attention of the friends of peace in that city, who immediately engaged him in their cause, to which he has since been principally devoted. He became a member of the Executive Committee of the American Peace Society; edited the "Advocate of Peace" for 1846; issued from Worcester, his place of residence, a multitude of small papers, extensively republished, under the titles of "Olive Leaves" and "Bonds of Brotherhood"; and is still the chief editor of the "Christian Citizen," published at Worcester, the only weekly paper devoted principally to the cause of peace. *First Quarterly Report of the Corresponding Secretary of the British Branch of the League of Universal Brotherhood. Read by ELIHU BURRITT at the Meeting of League Delegates at the White Hart, Bishopsgate-StreetWithout, London, October 13th, 1847. Christian Citizen, Worcester, Mass., 1847, Nos. 49-52. 1848.] History of the League. 357 In the summer of 1846 he departed for England; and there, in concurrence with those friends who sympathized with him, formed the "League of Universal Brotherhood,' of which he was appointed Secretary; and we now give from the Report his own account of its commencement, and the introduction of the Pledge. Our first extract shows the conception of the plan. "The plan of a League of Universal Brotherhood, then, was suggested by the inception and issue of the Friendly International Addresses interchanged between the people of England and the people of the United States during the Oregon controversy. Your Secretary, pro tem., who had the happiness to procure a wide publicity for these Addresses in the United States, embarked for England on the 16th of June, 1846, in the very packet which brought to this country the news of the amicable settlement of the question referred to. As an humble member of an active Peace band in America, it was the chief object of his errand to propose to the friends of Peace on this side of the Atlantic an expansion, or a new application, of the principle involved in the Friendly International Addresses; or, in other words, to associate permanently the friends of humanity in both hemispheres, for the prevention of all dangerous international controversies; to propose an international organization upon one integral platform, which should not only embrace the whole basis of the Peace Society, but that of the Antislavery Society, and of every other association for the elevation of man and the equalization of human happiness." A little farther on we have the origin of the Pledge. "On the evening of the 29th of July, the pledge received its first signatures in Pershore, a small town in Worcestershire. Here, on his way to London, whither he was travelling on foot, your Secretary accidentally met a company of twenty individuals in a private room, to whom he presented the pledge in its original and manuscript form. After a discussion of its principles, which lasted from six o'clock until nearly midnight, in which every person present took a part, seventeen of the number present attached their names to the covenant of brotherhood, with a full and serious sense of the responsibility of the transaction, which was manifested in a season of religious devotion, with which the company separated." Still farther on we find its confirmation by the sanction of some names which, we trust, are familiar to our readers. "On the evening of the 6th of August, at a meeting of the VOL. XLIV. -4TH S. VOL. IX. NO. III. 32 |