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nal? Could Religion leave the people neglected and without education, practical Heathens, while she is settling her creeds, if her aims were spiritual and not doctrinal? Could Religion have left unpurified the streams and sources of public morality, if her aims were spiritual and not doctrinal ? Could she have suffered War still to disgrace the world, and not long since have extinguished the Earthborn passion by the Heavenly spirit and the moral instrument, if the direction of her energies had been spiritual and not controversial? Could she have shown so little interest in the great mass of the people? Could she have abandoned them to ignorance and grinding oppressions and not raised her omnipotent voice on their behalf? Could she have so separated herself from the real business of life and left the moralities of intercourse unsanctified whilst she remained unsympathizing and cloistered? Every friend to practical religion has an interest in destroying this exclusive Theology, which turns away from the works of love to the war of creeds.

If then we preach Unitarianism, it is that we may win men's hearts to the one Spirit who pervades all things, and harmonizes all things, and sends all blessings, and sanctifies all thoughts, all duties, and all times. If we preach the man Christ Jesus, the word made flesh, it is that we too may our nature, and make it a temple for the living God,

sanctify

and grow up into him in all things who is our head even Christ. If we preach Salvation, not by creeds, but by the spirit of Christ in us, the hope of glory, it is that our fitness for Heaven may commence on Earth; that we may as those who when they have slept the brief sleep of death shall awake in the presence of Christ and God, and find them

live now

selves in that Heaven wherein dwelleth righteousness. And if

we

preach not indiscriminate happiness and indiscriminate tortures in futurity, but the just retributions of God, it is that we may redeem the time, remembering that each moment lost throws us back on the heavenly way, that there is an in

finite perfection before us, providing work for our infinite capacities through an immortal life; that God is faithful and inflexible in his retributions; that no virtue shall be without its reward, no sin without its woe; that we shall be judged according to our works, and reap what we have sown.

To sum up, the two great principles of Unitarianism are these:

I. Spiritual allegiance to Christ as the image of God. "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."

II. Spiritual Liberty from ought besides; Creeds, Traditions, Rituals, or Priests. "False brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you."

APPENDIX.

NOTE 1, page 14.

"The free and unprejudiced mind dwells with delight on the image of the universal church or convocation of Christ, as it would naturally have grown into the fulness of the body' of its

glorious founder

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view into a mocking dream,-a dream that deludes by images which are "And what (let me earnestly and solemnly ask) has hitherto turned this the very reverse of the sad realities which surround us? ORTHODOXY the notion that the eternal happiness or misery of individuals is inti

system of metaphysics; a system perplexing in the extreme to those who

are

best

acquainted with its former technical, now obsolete language,

and perfectly unintelligible to the rest of the Christian world; a system which, to say the least, seems to contradict the simplest and most primitive notions of the human mind concerning the unity, the justice, and the goodness of the Supreme Being; a system which, if it be contained in the Scriptures, has been laid under so thick and impenetrable a veil, that thousands who have sought to discover it, with the most eager desire of finding it, whose happiness in this world would have been greatly increased by that discovery, and who, at all events, would have escaped much misery had they been able to attest it, even on the grounds of probability sufficient to acquit themselves before their own conscience, have been compelled, by

truth.

to confess their want of success. Yet Orthodoxy declares

this very system identical with Christianity-with that Gospel which

was

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preached to the poor,' and 'revealed unto babes :' such a system, we are told, is that faith which, except every one keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.'"-Heresy and Orthodoxy by Rev. J. Blanco White.

NOTE 2, page 18.

"What do divines understand by Christian Truth? The answer at first, appears obvious. 'Christian truth (it will be said) is what Christ and his apostles knew and taught concerning Salvation under the Gospel.' Thus far we find no difficulty; but (let me ask, again) where does this exist as an object external to our minds? The answer appears no less obvious than the former: In the Bible.' Still I must ask, Is the MATERIAL Bible the Christian truth about which Christians dispute? No: it will be readily said not the MATERIAL Bible, but the SENSE of the Bible. Now (I beg to know) is the SENSE of the Bible an object external to our minds? Does any Sense of the Bible, accessible to man, exist anywhere but in the mind of each man who receives it from the words he reads? The Divine mind certainly knows in what sense those words were used; but as we cannot compare our mental impressions with that model and original of all truth, it is clear that by the SENSE of the Bible we must mean our own sense of its meaning. When therefore any man declares his intention to defend Christian truth, he only expresses his determination to defend his own notions, as produced by the words of the Bible. No other Christian truth exists for us in our present state."-Heresy and Orthodoxy.

NOTE 3, page 22.

“If different men in carefully and conscientiously examining the Scriptures, should arrive at different conclusions, even on points of the last importance, we trust that God, who alone knows what every man is capable of, will be merciful to him that is in error. We trust that He will pardon the Unitarian, if he be in error, because he has fallen into it from the dread of becoming an idolater-of giving that glory to another which he conceives to be due to God alone. If the worshipper of Jesus Christ be in error, we trust that God will pardon his mistake, because he has fallen into it from the dread of disobeying what he conceives to be revealed concerning the nature of the Son, or commanded concerning the honour to be given him. Both are actuated by the same principle-the fear of God; and though that principle impels them into different roads, it is our hope and belief, that if they add to their faith charity, they will meet in Heaven."

Tillotson.

wer

"

We should learn to be cautious, lest we charge God foolishly, by ascribing that to him, or the Nature he has given us, which is owing wholly to our own abuse of it. Men may speak of the degeneracy and corruption of the world, according to the experience they have had of it; but human nature, considered as the divine workmanship, should, methinks, be treated as sacred: for in the image of God made he man.”—Bishop Butler.

NOTE 4, page 23.

"But, if ORTHODOXY cannot be the principle of union among

Christians,

upon

what are men to agree in order to belong to the

CONVOCATION, or people of Christ? I believe that the Apostle Paul has said enough to answer this question. When by using the word anathema, he rejects from his spiritual society even an angel from Heaven, were it possible that such a being should "preach another gospel," he lays down the only principle, without which there can be no communion among Christians. Unhappily the word GOSPEL, like the word FAITH, is constantly understood, as expressing a certain number of dogmatical articles. Owing to this perversion of the original meaning, these very passages of Paul are conceived to support the long-established notion that Orthodoxy is the only condition

of

Christian

communion; and want of it, a sufficient cause for

thema. I have, however, already proved, that Orthodoxy, without a supreme judge of religious opinions, is a phantom; and since it is demonstrable that no such judge has been appointed, it clearly follows that the Apostle Paul, by the name of Gospel, could not mean a string of dogmatic assertions. It is necessary, therefore, to ascend

to the original signification of the word Gospel, if we are not to misunderstand the reason of the anathema pronounced by Paus. Let such as wish to rise above the clouds of theological prejudice, remember that the whole mystery of godliness is described by the expression glad tidings.' Sad, not glad tidings, indeed, would have been the Apostles' preaching, if they had announced a salvation depending

been

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on Orthodoxy, for (as I have said before) it would have salvation depending on chance. But salvation promised on

condition of a change of mind from the love of sin to the love of

God, (which is repentance); on a surrender of the individual will to the will of God, according to the view of that divine will which is obtained by trust in Christ's example and teaching, which is faith; a pardon of sins independent of harassing religious practices,

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