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Owen, in an elaborate and masterly work, called "Vindiciæ Evangelicæ," fully answered the arguments contained in the Racovian, as well as in Biddle's catechism.

In the reign of William and Mary, Thomas Firman, a celebrated citizen of London, who had distinguished himself by many acts of beneficence and charity, and who was therefore justly respected as a most useful member of society, spread tracts written against the Trinity, every where giving them freely to all who would accept of them. This occasioned several confutations of the Socinian doctrine. "A learned Deist," says Bishop Burnet, "made a severe remark on the progress of this dispute. He said he was sure the Divines would be too hard for the Socinians, in proving their doctrine out of Scripture ; but if the doctrine could be once laughed at, and rejectded as absurd, then its being proved, how well soever, out of Scripture, would turn to be an argument against the Scriptures themselves, as containing such incredible doctrines." Since the death of Mrr. Fiman, his labours have been little missed. A succession of men have risen up, equally hostile to the Divinity of our blessed Saviour. But a revolution having taken place in the sentiments of the Divines of this school, by which the simple humanity of Christ is more consistently held than it was by Socinus; and as Dr. Priestley, Mr. Belsham, and others, have disavowed the name of Socinians, and claimed that of Unitarins, it will be necessary that we attend to them, under the name they have adopted.

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• History of His Own Times, Vol. 11. p. 193.

UNITARIANS.

By advancing an exclusive title to this name, this sect has done injustice to the Arians and to the Sabellians, as well as to the Trinitarians; for all the three equally profess to believe in the Divine Unity. To the other modest appellations, by which they distinguish themselves, "Rational Christians," and "Rational Dissenters," they may, perhaps, have a better claim. As rationality is theirs by patent, it would be the highest arrogance in the orthodox members of the Established Church, or in the Dissenters, to invade their prerogative. Excluded from the hereditary possession of these sages, orthodox Churchmen and Dissenters must rest satisfied with the names of fools, visionaries, and fanatics. Mr. Lindsay, one of these Rationalists in religion, therefore, very properly observes, that his arguments are not likely "to have any effect upon those who are Tritheists, or orthodox, in the vulgar and strict sense; who can, with the same breath, and in the same sentence, without being astonished at themselves, assert that there are three Creators, and yet but one Creator. There is no arguing with men that can swallow without feeling, downright contradictions."

The doctrine of our Lord's miraculous Conception they do not believe; and Dr. Priestley has had the hardihood to reject the first two chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel, in which that doctrine is taught, and, by conse quence, the prophecy of Isaiah, of which it was the fulfilment. The worship of Christ, and the belief of his

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government of the universe, they have, very consistently, abandoned. Among his other apologies for not worshipping Christ, Mr. Belsham pleads our ignorance of the place where he is, and of his occupations. "Jesus," says he, "is indeed now alive, and, without doubt, employed in offices the most honourable and benevolent; but as we are totally ignorant of the place where he resides, and of the occupations in which he is engaged, there can be no proper foundation for religious addresses to him, nor of gratitude for favours now received; nor yet of confidence in his future interposition in our behalf."* Thus, is the Unitarian's intercourse with the Saviour entirely broken off, and come to an end; while the orthodox Christian has the happiness to know, that his Saviour is with him always, and will be with all that love him, to the end of the world.

Dr. Priestley not only supposes our Saviour to have been peccable, but (horribile dictu) supposes him to have sinned. What St. Matthew represents as the temptation of the Devil, to induce him to commit self-murder, and to worship that evil spirit, Dr. Priestley ascribes either to thoughts that occurred to our Saviour, in his own private meditations; or the suggestion of some other person.t The doctrine of the Atonement, the same writer pronounces to be, "One of the most radical, as well as one of the most generally prevailing corruptions of the Christian scheme."‡ He pronounces it "a disgrace to Christianity, and a load upon it, which it must either throw off, or sink under."§ Our own virtue is

• Review of Mr. Wilberforce's Practical View, p. 85.

+ Institutes, Vol. 1, p. 435.

Theological Repository, Vol. 1, p. 429.

Theological Repository, p. 124.

declared by Mr. Belsham to be the only ground of our acceptance with God; and faith in the Atonement of Christ he pronounces to be unscriptural and absurd.* The general principles laid down by Mr. B., Mrs. Barbauld, an elegant writer of the party, in her Defence of Public Worship, against Mr. Wakefield, applies to Dr. Price, and vindicates his claim upon his Maker in these words: "When a man like Dr. Price is about to resign his soul into the hands of his Maker, he ought to do it not only with a reliance upon his mercy, but his JUSTICE."- -p. 72. How unlike to this was the language of the pious and humble worshipper, who, with our Saviour's approbation, went up to the temple to pray, and who would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven; but smote upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me, a sinner."

Humility, the first of Christian virtues, if mentioned by Unitarians, is mentioned only to be discarded. The intercessions and prayers of devout men for pardon and sanctification, which the Scripture records, and which fill almost every page of it, are by one stroke dismissed, and instead of the language of penitence and prayer, we are presented with the magniloquence and the sesquipedalia verba of the old heathen stoics, Chrysippus, Seneca, and Epictetus. Eternal life, instead of being received as a boon, is claimed as a right, and God himself is taught to know, that for the exercise of his sovereignty, he is amenable at the tribunal erected by his own creatures. Should he finally condemn to everlasting wo,

• Mr. Belsham's Review of Mr. Wilberforce's Practical View, p. p. 104, 105, 172, 173.

the most hardened rebel of the sons of men, he is represented as " frowning over his works, and like a merciless tyrant, dooming his helpless creatures to eternal misery.”* This arrogance is an exact counterpart of that of Thomas Paine, who seems to challenge his maker to come to a settlement with him, and declares that he is not an outcast, or a beggar, or a worm; that he stands in the same relative condition with his Maker that he ever did stand, since man existed. He declares it rational to believe, that as the power who called us into existence, can call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here, he will do it. But, on after reflection, his heart begins to fail him, and he reduces his rational belief of a future judgment, to a bare possibility. For this he accounts,

by saying, "If we knew it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves of terror." No such retraction however escapes from the pen of Mr. Belsham. In hardihood, this rational Christian outbraves even Paine himself, the hero of infidelity.

Having dismissed from his Christianity the doctrine of Divine Influence, he provides for the conversion of the sinner, which character he softens into the person oppressed by the tyranny of evil habits, by the following course of discipline : "You are deficient in virtuous habits, you wish to form them; you have contracted vicious affections, you wish to exterminate them. You know the circumstances in which your vicious habits were originally contracted, and by which they have been confirmed. Avoid these circumstances, and give the mind a contrary bias. You know what impressions will produce

Mr, Belsham's Review of Mr. Wilberforce's Practical View, p. 20.

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