ties, and being righteous overmuch." Nothing can be more unfair, I will say, indeed, unfounded, than this insinuation. If it were an innocent mistake, it might be passed over, like many others, which I have not had time to notice. But it is hardly of this cha, racter, for it gives the impression, that Unitarians preach immorality; that they not only avoid what is good, but inculcate what is bad. The wicked practices, from which other christians are warned by their leaders to abstain, are said to be represented by unitarian preachers as austerities to which their hearers need not submit, and as requiring an unnecessary degree of righteousness. Of this statement I can

only say, it is one for which you cannot bring a shadow of proof, and is as opposite to the reality, as darkness to light. Unitarian preaching is distinguished for nothing more, than its rigid practical tendency. It requires men to be christians in the entire spirit of the Gospel, and to seek the favour of God by an unremitted obedience to his laws.

Your next charge is, that, according to this preaching, all men, whatever may be their character, will finally be saved, or annihilated. This is a subject of importance, and claims to be examined with attention. We have first to ascertain whether your position be correct in point of fact. It must be kept in mind, that you are professedly talking of doctrines "inculcated by unitarian preachers all over the world." This you have repeated, seemingly to prevent any mistake in regard to the limits to which you would have remarks applied.

your

It would be a laborious, and perhaps a fruitless task, to carry back our inquiries to the primitive Unitarians. We must be contented to commence with the churches in Transylvania and Poland, where Unitarianism was revived in modern times, and flourished under various fortunes for many years. The Racovian Catechism, although it was never adopted as a system of faith, is well known to express in very full terms the doctrines of those churches, and was drawn up by Socinus, aided by others among the most learned theologians of the fraternity. This Catechism teaches, by implication at least, the eternity of future punishment; and B. Wissowatius, in a note on the passage in which the sentiment is conveyed, asserts it " always to have been the opinion of the church, that the wicked will be doomed to punishment, and cast into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” And again, after referring to the principal authors among the Fratres Poloni, and other eminent writers of the unitarian faith, he says, it is evident they "constantly maintained, that there will be a resurrection both of the just, and of the unjust, and that the latter shall be consigned to everlasting punishment, but the former admitted to everlasting life." Such was the opinion of the numerous Unitarians, who spread over Europe in the sixteenth century.*

Wissowatius refers to Simplicius and Volkelius-to Crellius's Commentary on Matth. iii. 10; 2 Thess. i. 8, 9; Heb. x. 27-to Slichtingius on John v. 29-to Wolzogenius on Matth. iii. 12; x. 28; xxv. 41, 46; John v. 29—and to A. Wissowatius on Acts xxiv. 15. See Racovian Catechism, translated by Dr. T. Rees, p. 367. Note.

You will meet with the same sentiment in the Swiss and French churches, which have more recently come over to this faith. In the Catechism of these churches, which is called the Geneva Catechism, it is said of the wicked, that "they will be tormented with remorse and abandoned to despair, because they have lost eternal happiness by their own misconduct."* The belief of the unitarian churches in Holland on this subject, I have no means of ascertaining, but there is reason to suppose it is similar to that of the churches last mentioned.

In England opinions respecting this point are various among Unitarians, as they are with most other denominations. It is certain, however, that they universally believe in the future punishment of the wicked; but not many, probably, believe in the eternity of this punishment, at least in the sense of Calvinists. They do not pretend to define its precise duration, but hold that it will be in such degree and extent, as God in his justice and mercy shall see, fit to inflict on the wicked.

The following extract is from the Christian Disciple, a work conducted by a number of clergymen in Boston and its vicinity, and may be supposed to convey the prevailing sentiment of the Unitarians in this country. "We cannot but wonder and lament, that any should so far pervert the oracles of God, as to persuade men to believe, that there is no punishment hereafter, an

* Geneva Catechism, p. 105. The texts quoted are Mark ix. 43; Matth. xxiii. 13.

error, we repeat, most dangerous to the interests of society; it breaks down the barriers of conscience, and removes those salutary restraints, without which neither virtue, nor reputation, nor property, are se

The true state of the case is, then, that Unitarians as a body universally believe in the future punishment of the wicked. By a very large number this punishment has been considered eternal. By others it is supposed to be limited in duration, but to be severe and dreadful, according to the representations of the scriptures, and in proportion to the sins of each individual.

But even admitting it to be the faith of any number, or a majority, or the whole denomination of Unitarians, that all men will finally be restored to the favour of God, and saved, why should they be selected as singular in this belief, and exposed to censure, as if they maintained a novel doctrine, and one which has not been supported by many pious christians in all ages of the church? It is no more essential to Unitarianism, than to Trinitarianism, and it is a fact which will not be contested, that by far the greater portion of those, who have embraced it, were Trinitarians. In its essential character it is just as closely allied to one of these general modes of faith as to the other.

Church history represents the doctrine of restora

* Christian Disciple, No. 70, for March and April, 1819. See also Dr. Ware's Letters, p. 130.

tion, or of the final salvation of all men, as prevailing from the first age of christianity. It was a favourite tenet with the great and learned Origen ; and it is frequently mentioned in the writings both of the earlier and later Fathers. Some avow it to be their faith, and others introduce such allusions, as to show, that it was a tenet common to many christians at the time they wrote. Clemens Alexandrinus, who flourished in the latter part of the second century, and who was the preceptor of Origen, says, "The Lord is not a propitiation for our sins only, that is, of the faithful, but also for the whole world. Therefore he indeed saves all universally, some being converted by punishments, and others by their spontaneous inclination."* Gregory Nazianzen expresses his doubts of endless punishment, and intimates, while speaking of the supposed scripture sense of the doctrine, that we are to understand it in a milder form, and one more worthy of the Being that punishes.† Gregory Nyssen holds, "that it is absolutely necessary that evil should be removed out of the circle of being, and so entirely abolished, that nothing shall remain, which can be a receptacle of it." Sulpitius Severus exhorts the Devil to cease from tempting and persecuting man, and tells him, that he could with perfect confidence in God pro

*Non solum autem pro nostris peccatis Dominus propitiator est, hoc est fidelium, sed etiam pro toto mundo. Proinde universos quidem salvat; sed alios per supplicia convertens, alios autem spontanea assequentes voluntate. Adumbrat. in Ep. 1 Johan. ver. 2.

† See preface to White's Restoration of All Things, p. ix.

Ibid. p. x.