like many others, which I have not had time to notice. But it is hardly of this character, for it gives the impres sion, 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 is correct in point of fact, and here I apprehend you will be found to have spoken quite as loosely as in any thing we have yet had under review. 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 your remarks applied.

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 this sentiment is conveyed, asserts it "always to have been the opinion of this 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.*

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

* 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 Walzogenius 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.

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 it is similar to that of the churches last men

suppose

tioned.

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 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 secure."†

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 scrip.

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

+ Christian Disciple, No. 70, for March and April, 1819.

tures, and in proportion to the sins of each individual. After these facts, what shall we think of your bold and unqualified assertion above noticed?

But even admitting it to be the faith of any number or a majority of unitarians, that all men will finally be saved, why should they be selected as singular in this belief, and exposed to censure as if they maintained a doctrine, which has not been advocated by many pious men in all ages of the church? It is no more essential to unitarianism, than it is to trinitarianism, and I am fully convinced, that by far the greater number of those who have embraced it have been trinitarians. In its essential character, it is just as closely allied to one faith as the other. Origen of old is well known to have preached this doctrine, and Augustine tells of certain divines, who held it in his time. It was common in Germany before the Reformation, especially among the Baptists; and since that period, it has been received by numerous persons in every sect of Christians. It was countenanced by Archbishop Tillotson, of whom Whiston remarks, that "he chose rather to give up the veracity of God in these his threatenings, than to defend this eternity" of punishment. Both Dr. Bennett and Bishop Burnet, in their respective treatises on the Articles of the Church of England, express a belief, that eternal death made no part of the sentence against Adam. The doctrine in question was maintained by Bishop Newton, Dr. Rust, Bishop of Dromore, Dr. T. Burnet, Dr. Cheyne, Mr. White, William Law, the pious and intellectual Hartley, and the equally pious Lavater, by Dr. Chauncy, Chevalier Ramsay, and numerous others, who have written with great ability and learning in explanation and defence of their views, and who, it is believed, were all trinitarians. And if you will examine the sub

ject, you will unquestionably find the number of treatises written by trinitarians in support of this doctrine, to be to those written by unitarians, in a ratio of at least ten to one. And what is still more remarkable, the sect itself, which has taken its distinctive name from this tenet of its faith, has, till very lately, been composed entirely of trinitarians. And even now, the number of those of this sect, who have become unitarians, is undoubtedly small.

Considering these things, it will not readily be seen upon what principles of justice this doctrine is thus made to settle on unitarians, and adduced as an evidence of the immoral tendency of their preaching. The excellent men, whose names are mentioned above, have been eminent examples of christian piety and character, nor have we ever heard, that others among trinitarians holding the same faith have, on this account, been noted for defects of morals. Why then drag unitarians forward, and exhibit them as worthy of reprobation for entertaining a sentiment in common with many other christians of various denominations, whose reputation for morals and piety has never been impeached on account of this tenet?

The doctrine of universal salvation is in very close accordance with high calvinistic principles. If you take away the notion of election and reprobation, it becomes a necessary part of the system which remains. If Christ has made an atonement for the sins of the whole world, or in other words, if his sufferings were taken as a substitute for the sins of men, his righte ousness being imputed to them and their sins to him, it follows, that all men will attain salvation through him. The benefits of his substitution cannot be restricted, because, according to the calvinistic plan, he was, in

S*