SECT. IX. UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME.

A.-I honor and admire Caius for his great learning.

B. The knowledge of the Sanscrit is an important article in Caius's learning. I have been often in his company, and have found no reason for believing this.

A.

B.-Oh! then you deny his learning, are envious, and Caius's enemy.

A. God forbid! I love and admire him. I know him for a transcendent linguist in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and modern European languages; and, with or without the Sanscrit, I look up to him, and rely on his erudition in all cases in which I am concerned. And it is this perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that is the appointed criterion of Caius's friends and disciples, and not their full acquaintance with each and all particulars of his superiority. S. T. COLERIDGE.

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There is another thing which... my censurer, and others such as he, generally stand by; to wit, if a person be any thing ingenious, or more learned than ordinary, and writes out of the common road, he is presently a Socinian; as if all men of sense must needs turn Socinians. If he will say that Socinus was mistaken in a great many things, I fully agree with him; but I can reckon up a great many worse errors than his, whereof I shall mention but one, out of respect to my censurer; that is, of those who think men deserve eternal torments, whom Christ never condemned; who by all means persecute those that differ from them, though they own themselves to be as liable to error as the very men whom they persecute; who, in a word, think they may, upon very slight suspicions, traduce men that are heartily devoted to Christianity, and sober in their lives, as a kind of plagues to be carefully shunned. He that does not ascribe to Christ what he thinks Christ never assumed to himself, if otherwise he perform constant obedience to all his precepts which he fully understands, may obtain the forgiveness of his ignorance from a most favorable and compassionate Judge; but he that breaks the command of loving his neighbor, which is as clear as the sun at noon-day, by slandering and bitterness and cruelty, and dies in those vices, shall never, unless a new gospel be made for him, be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. — LE CLERC : Preface to his Supplement to Hammond; as quoted in the Unitarian Miscellany for February, 1823.

It will appear that the several denominations of Christians agree both in the substance of religion, and in the necessary enforcements of the practice of it; that the world and all things were created by God, and are under the direction and government of his all-powerful

hand and all-seeing eye; that there is an essential difference between good and evil, virtue and vice; that there will be a state of future rewards and punishments, according to our behavior in this life; that Christ was a teacher sent from God, and that his apostles were divinely inspired; that all Christians are bound to declare and profess themselves to be his disciples; that not only the exercise of the several virtues, but also a belief in Christ, is necessary in order to their obtaining the pardon of sin, the favor of God, and eternal life; that the worship of God is to be performed chiefly by the heart, in prayers, praises, and thanksgiving; and, as to all other points, that they are bound to live by the rules which Christ and his apostles have left them in the Holy Scriptures. Here, then, is a fixed, certain, and uniform rule of faith and practice, containing all the most necessary points of religion established by a divine sanction, embraced as such by all denominations of Christians, and in itself abundantly sufficient to preserve the knowledge and practice of religion in the world. — BISHOP GIBSON: Second Pastoral Letter, pp. 20-1.

Unitarians acknowledge the truth of these primary principles, and are therefore entitled to the appellation of Christians.

Once I remember some narrow-minded people of his [Dr. DoDDRIDGE's] congregation gave him no small trouble on account of a gentleman in communion with the church, who was a professed Arian, and who otherwise departed from the common standard of orthodoxy. This gentleman they wished either to be excluded from the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, or to have his attendance upon it prevented; but the doctor declared, that he would sacrifice his place, and even his life, rather than fix any such mark of discouragement upon one who, whatever his doctrinal sentiments were, appeared to be a real Christian. Dr. Kippis, in Biographia Britannica, vol. v. p. 307.

Some of the Unitarian doctrines do, indeed, appear to many of us extremely unscriptural; and yet it must be acknowledged, however wide of the truth these doctrines may be, there is a very great and essential difference between them and Deism. . . . However mistaken these people may be, yet, while they continue to own Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, support his cause in general as the cause of truth, and lead pious and virtuous lives, we should not deny them the honor of the Christian name, rank them among absolute infidels, and consign them to eternal perdition, as too many do. They have still a right to a place in our fraternal affection; and we should pity and pray

for them, and by all rational means endeavor to reclaim them, but by no means revile and persecute them, or even hurt a hair of their heads.-D. TURNER, of Abingdon: Free Thoughts on Free Inquiry in Religion; apud Field's Letters, p. 67.

We and the Socinians are said to differ; but about what? Not about morality or natural religion, or the divine authority of the Christian religion: we differ only about what we do not understand, and about what is to be done on the part of God. . . . A heathen Socrates, I think, would be surprised at those who agreed in so many things requiring declarations and subscriptions, in order to exclude one another. . . . ... And my difficulty is increased, when I find that making this declaration [respecting the doctrine of the Trinity] separates me from Christians whom I must acknowledge to be rational and well informed; from those who have studied some parts of Scripture with singular success. — DR. JOHN HEY: Lectures in Divinity, vol. ii. pp. 41, 249.

I never attempted either to encourage or discourage his [the Duke of Grafton's] profession of Unitarian principles; for I was happy to see a person of his rank professing, with intelligence and with sincerity, Christian principles. If any one thinks that an Unitarian is not a Christian, I plainly say, without being myself an Unitarian, that I think otherwise. . . . . The Christian religion is wholly comprised in the New Testament; but men have interpreted that book in various ways, and hence have sprung up a great variety of Christian churches. I scruple not giving the name of Christian churches to assemblies of men uniting together for public worship, though they may differ somewhat from each other in doctrine and in discipline; whilst they all agree in the fundamental principle of the Christian religion, that Jesus is the Christ, the Saviour of the world. In this the Greek, the Latin, and all the reformed churches have one and the same faith. BISHOP WATSON: Life, pp. 47, and 412–13.

Oh that I could prevail on Christians to melt down, under the warm influence of brotherly love, all the distinctions of Methodists, Independents, Baptists, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, Arians, Unitarians, in the glorious name of Christians; men of large, generous, benevolent minds, above disputing for trifles; men who love one another as men, sons of the same Almighty Parent, heirs of the same salvation by Jesus Christ! Let us throw away our petty badges of distinction; distinction, where, in fact, there is no difference; and let us walk together, hand in hand, into the church, up to the altar, and give and

forgive, and love one another, and live in unity in this world, the few years poor mortals have to live, that we may meet in love, never again to be divided, in heaven; where will no more be found the narrow, dark, cold, wretched prejudices of little sectaries, cavilling at each other, stinging their opponents, venting the virulence of their temper in defence of a religion that forbids, above every thing, all rancor, all malice, all evil-thinking, and all evil-speaking. VICESIMUS KNOX: Sermons; in Works, vol. vi. p. 50.

With no ordinary pleasure have we made this extract from Dr. Knox. It is fraught with "thoughts that breathe" a spirit of divine love, with "words that burn" with all the fire of a catholic Christianity. These sentiments will not be deemed the less effective because they come from one who did not regard all opinions as of equal or of trifling importance, but who was a devoted admirer of the doctrines of the church of England, and who, as "a believer in the doctrine of the Trinity," lamented that Unitarians should, as he expresses it, "zealously lower our Saviour in the opinion of his followers.' See Preface to his Sermons as published in 1792, pp. vi. and vii.

I am no Socinian, I am no Arian, whatever the malice of others may have suggested, or your own suspicions allowed. And while I love Jebb as a man, while I defend him as a scholar, while I will assist him if injured, and vote for him if attacked, I can yet distinguish between him and his principles, between the license of ambition or novelty and the honest zeal of the well-meaning Christian. — WILLIAM BENNET (before he became Bishop of Cloyne), in Letter to Dr. Parr, dated Sept. 18, 1770; apud Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 77.

Though many of us differ from you [Dr. Priestley] in matters of religious faith, we trust that we have better learned the spirit of our excellent religion than not to esteem in you that character of piety and virtue which is the best fruit of every faith, and that ardor for truth and manly inquiry which Christianity invites, and which no form of Christianity ought to shrink from; as well as to admire those eminent abilities and that unwearied perseverance which give activity to the virtues of your heart, and to which, in almost every walk of science, your country and the world have been so much indebted. . . . Though your enemies have attacked you in that way wherein you feel perhaps most sensibly, yet we rejoice to find in you that decent magnanimity, that Christian bearing, which raises you superior to suffering; and that a regard to God, to truth, and to another world, have even from the bosom of affliction enabled you to extract a generous consolation. Whether in your religious inquiries you have erred or no, we firmly

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believe that truth and the best interests of mankind have been the object of your constant regard; and we trust that that God who loves an honest and well-meaning heart will dispense to you such protection as to his wisdom may seem most fit. To his benevolent and fatherly protection we devoutly recommend you through the remainder of your life; praying that you may be long preserved, that you may survive the hatred of your ungrateful country, and that you may repay her cruel injuries, by adding, as you have hitherto done, to her treasure of science, of virtue, and of piety. Extract from Address to the Rev. Dr. Priestley; apud Yates's Vindication.

This address was presented to Dr. Priestley by forty-three ministers of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, of the Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist persuasions, soon after the Birmingham riots in 1791, when the valuable property of that good and great man was destroyed, and his life endangered, by the outrages of a fanatical mob.

[1.] I shall ever think and ever speak of Mr. Wakefield as a very profound scholar, as a most honest man, and as a Christian who united knowledge with zeal, piety with benevolence, and the deep simplicity of a child with the fortitude of a martyr. . . .

[2.] He [Dr. James

Lindsay] had fine talents; he had a good store of ancient learning; and of modern literature his knowledge was various, extended, and well digested. Then, as to his moral qualities, there, we can scarcely say too much. He was pure in heart, social in temper, benevolent in spirit, most upright in conduct. Some would say there was a sternness about his integrity; and a vehemence, almost passionate, in urging the right and opposing the wrong, as it appeared to him, in sentiment or action. But, in reality, there was all the sweetness, as well as all the fairness, of candor. In debate, if he was sometimes warm, he was never overbearing; if there was pressing earnestness, there was no discourtesy in his manner. As a patriot and a philanthropist, the love of his country and of his kind was in him a glowing passion, as well as a steady principle. As a Christian and a preacher, religion was in him a subject of ardent feeling, as well as of honest profession; and, though destitute of the graces of elocution, yet he possessed, in no inferior degree, all the eloquence which sincere conviction, vivid conceptions, strong emotions, and great command of language, can supply. [3.] Extract from Letter to Archbishop Magee. And now,

my Lord, we are come to a point, upon which unreservedly I shall state to you my disapprobation of some passages in your Charges. It pained me exceedingly to find that your Grace adopted the invidious,