moral effect on human hearts, and not for the purpose of taking sides in a controversy between different parties of Christians."
Again,
"A system of theology is a map or plan, in which every feature of the country must be laid down in its proper place and proportion; this work is on the other hand a series of views, as the traveller sees them in passing over a certain road. In this case, the road which I have taken, leads indeed through the heart of the country, but it does not by any means bring to view all which is interesting or important. The reader will perceive that the history of Jesus Christ is the clue which I have endeavoured to follow; that is, the work is intended to exhibit religious truth, as it is connected with the various events in the life of our Saviour. In first introducing Him to the scene, I consider His exalted nature as the great moral Manifestation of the Divinity to us. Then follows a view of His personal character, and of His views of religious duty, &c." pp. vi. vii.
Let us observe here the similarity of language between the two writers I am speaking of. They are evidently of the same school. They both direct their view to the Gospel history as a Manifestation of the Divine Character; and though, in the above extracts, Mr. Abbott speaks more guardedly than Mr. Erskine, there will be found to be little or no practical difference between them. But there seems this most important distinction in their respective applications of their theory, though not very distinct or observable at first sight; that Mr. E. admits into the range of divine facts such as are not of this world, as the voluntary descent of Christ from heaven to earth, and his Incarnation, whereas Mr. A. virtually limits it to the witnessed history of Christ upon earth. This, so far as it exists, is all the difference between orthodoxy and Socinianism.
For this encroachment Mr. E. indeed had prepared the way; for he certainly throws the high doctrines of religion into the background; and the word "Manifestation" far more naturally fits on to a history witnessed by human beings, than to dispositions belonging to the unseen world. But Mr. E. certainly has not taught this explicitly.
If we wish to express the sacred Mystery of the Incarnation accurately, we should rather say that God is man, than that man is God. Not that the latter proposition is not altogether Catholic in its wording, but the former expresses the history of the Economy, (if I may so call it,) and confines our Lord's personality
