es?

INSPIRATION AND THE SCRIPTURES. Channing and Dewey have held loftier
views of the Bible and its divine origin than their less devout
brethren. The latter has said that, "The matter is divine, the miracles
real, the promises glorious, the threatenings fearful; enough that all
is gloriously and fearfully true to the divine will, true to human
nature, true to its wants, anxieties, sorrows, sins, salvation, and
destinies; enough that the seal of a divine and miraculous communication
is set upon that holy Book."[245] But reverence for the Scriptures is
rapidly on the decline among the Unitarians,--the direct result of the
influence of the German and English Rationalists. They call all
believers in orthodox opinions, "Bibliolaters." They spurn the thought
of an infallible Bible. "No wonder," they say, "that the Bibliolaters
quail before the iconoclasm of Bishop Colenso, and, in their rage, call
aloud for his excision from the Church; for, if a single one of the
difficulties he accumulates can be proved a reality, the whole edifice
of their faith topples to its fall.... We believe that safety and sense
can alone be found in our theory, which regards Scripture as credible
though human, as inspired not in its form, but in its substance, of
various and, in many cases, of unknown authorship, and representing
different stages of culture. We cannot accept all its documents as of
co-ordinate authority; nor in every one of its statements can we
recognize a product of inspiration. We do not conceive ourselves bound,
therefore, to defend the geology of Moses, or to admire the conduct of
the Israelites in the extermination of the Canaanites; or to infuse a
recondite spiritual meaning into the amatory descriptions and appeals of
the Song of Solomon."[246]

GOD AND CHRIST. God is the Universal Father. It must be forgotten that
he is king; his paternal character alone must be borne in mind. He is a
God of one person, not of three, and the doctrine of the Trinity is
nowhere hinted at in the Bible, but is of Platonic origin. The Christian
Fathers did not contend that it was contained therein. The view of three
persons in one God is "self-contradictory, opposed to all right reason,
positively absurd."[247] Christ is inferior and subordinate to God. He
is God in the same sense as the angels, Moses, Samuel, the Kings and
Judges of Israel. They were gods in one respect,--the word of God was
spoken to them. Christ is the chief one "to whom t