A UNITARIAN PROTEST.
[TO TR& EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
SIR,—It appears to me that your reviewer of the " Unitarian Preacher " has done injustice to his subject by laying down at the beginning what Mr. Drummond, who is presumed to be a Unitarian preacher, ought as a Unitarian to believe, and then testing his book by its agreement or non-agreement with these preconceived notions. This treatment is particularly unfortunate, since, as is well known, there is neither formal creed nor virtual consensus of theological belief among congregations popularly known as Unitarian,—and on the point by which the Spectator tries Mr. Drummond (Christ's nature) every complexion of faith consistent with a common worship may undoubtedly be found. Surely the Spectator might have expressed its sympathy with the first passage quoted without implying that Mr. Drummond has no right to pen it,—of which I submit that he is the best judge?
In the following words, too, "The Unitarian interpretation of the first chapter of St. John's Gospel is wonderfully loose and un- satisfactory," I see the same error lurking,—the disposition to believe that what one Unitarian has written is accepted by all, than which nothing can be more fallacious.
Let me also protest against the idea that Christ can only be a quickening Spirit to those to whom he is the Eternal Son. Surely the present time is penetrated, influenced, and inspired, beyond one's power to calculate, by the thoughts and lives of all the great and good who have gone before. In the fine arts we recognize this truth in its fullest extent. In history, and especially in reli- gious history, we feel it. Knox's and Luther's souls breathed upon their Churches long after their deaths ; and shall I be precluded from seeing a more intimate guidance, or from hearing a still small voice extending throughout the whole history of the Church, and coming direct from the Man of Nazareth,—because, forsooth ! I reject what is to me an unmeaning formula, the Eternal Sonship ? That the higher a human soul is in the scale of spirits, the more deeply and permanently it will influence other spirits, is surely a fact; and if so, a fact sufficient to explain the attraction of Christians to Christ.—I am, Sir, &C., RUSSELL MARMEAU.
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