can be no essential harm in telling the world what we believe in our own way, provided we are disposed to go no farther. But, unfortunately, no one is contented to stop here; nor have creeds ever been made for the purpose alone of expressing what their makers believed. They have invariably been designed to operate on the minds of others; they have been thrust forward as tests of a true faith; they have been imposed as conditions of christian fellowship. In this consists their mischief, in their usurpation, their encroachment on right, their assault on conscience, their exclusive, intolerant tendency.

*

The argument of this letter conducts us to a single result, which is, that by far the largest portion of divisions, disorders, and wickedness prevalent in the christian church since the Reformation, may be distinctly referred to causes in all respects opposed to the principles of Unitarianism. With Unitarians the

* The following are the pertinent remarks of Dr. Chandler, in alluding to the persecuting habit of dictating articles of faith.

"As ecclesiastical history gives us so dreadful an account of the melancholy and tragical effects of this practice, one would think, that no nation, who knew the worth of liberty, no christian protestant church, that had any regard for the peace of the flock of Christ, should ever be found to authorize and continue it.

we can.

"What security, then, shall we have left us for truth and orthodoxy, when our subscriptions are gone? Why, the sacred Scriptures, those oracles of the great God, and freedom and liberty to understand and interpret them as The consequence of this would be great integrity and peace of conscience, in the enjoyment of our religious principles; union and friendship amongst christians, notwithstanding all their differences in judgment. We shall lose only the incumbrances of religion, our bones of contention, the shackles of our consciences, and the snares to honesty and virtue; whilst all that is substantially good and valuable, all that is truly divine and heavenly, would remain to enrich and bless us." Introduction to a Translation of Limborch's History of the Inquisition, p. 110.

Bible is paramount to all other authority; they account it a sacred duty to maintain a perfect liberty of thought, inquiry, and judgment. They do not admit, that any one, with justice to himself, and integrity to the christian cause, can transfer this prerogative to another. Religion connects every man with his Maker by personal responsibility and obligations of duty, and not through the medium of other men's thoughts and advice. The welfare of his soul depends on what he shall alone think, resolve, and do. All the opinions of all the world would not make him a christian, nor bring him one step nearer to his God, unless he were faithful to his own understanding and conscience.

The slightest attempt to bind him to a particular notion, or to make him turn traitor to the unbiassed reflections of his own mind, is an insult to his nature, and a presumptuous attack on his moral freedom. To attempts of this sort, as we have seen, are to be ascribed almost all the evils, which, in one shape or another, have spread devastation and misery over the christian world, and counteracted the benign influence of a holy religion. And they have been started and prosecuted in violation of the spirit of Unitarianism.

This is no less true in principle, than fact. Unitarians have not participated in the causes, which have produced these disasters. One reason is, to be sure, that the smallness of their numbers has prevented their having power to do much good or harm. But this does not weaken the argument. It only

lays the burden more heavily on the orthodox themselves, and compels them to admit, that the persecutions, and violence, and enormous wickedness, which every serious heart deplores, have actually grown out of their sentiments. Unitarians have had no agency in the affair. The spirit of orthodoxy has reigned triumphant; it has done all, that has been done.

Now, whatever charges may be advanced against the particular opinions of Unitarians, it must at all events be granted, that experience and the history of the church exhibit effects of orthodoxy quite as terrible as any, which the most vivid imagination has pictured to itself in the train of these opinions. While engaged in examining particular sentiments in regard to their moral tendency, it is proper to keep this fact in mind, and also to remember, that the principles of orthodoxy have been thoroughly tried in all their varieties, and under every circumstance of place, time, government, laws, forms of discipline, and ecclesiastical order. They have been tried and found wanting. Not that I would use this as a proof of the truth, or perfection, of Unitarian sentiments; these must stand on their own merits; but I do contend, that this fact, so broad and well established, is a strong evidence against the moral influence of orthodoxy, as opposed to Unitarianism. It is a practical demonstration in respect to the combined action of a system, and ought to have much weight in confirming the coincident results of theory and argument,

as applied to the individual parts of which that system is composed.

ges

I shall now proceed to the specific charges, which you and others have made against the character and opinions of Unitarians. I hope to make it appear from fact, and reason, and Scripture, that these charhave been thrown out with more haste than discretion, more zeal than knowledge, more vehemence than judgment. The spirit and latitude of your charges naturally draw me into somewhat of an extended view of the subject. You attack character and principles. These shall be defended both on their own grounds, and by comparing them with the character and principles of the orthodox. This is the only mode in which the subject can be fully and fairly examined.

The task, I am aware, has its difficulties. Nothing is more easy, than for the mind to run into extremes in pursuing a favourite train of thought or investigation. This is particularly true in following what we deem false opinions to their results. Imaginary consequences thicken around us as we advance; we soon persuade ourselves that they are real; and then we are ready to charge them to the account of our opponents. "How often," says Watts, when alluding to this mode of inquiry, in his admirable Essay on Uncharitableness, "how often do we put their opinions upon the rack; we torture every joint and article of them, till we have forced them to confess some formidable errors, which their authors never knew or dreamed of. Thus the original

notions appear with a frightful aspect, and the sectators of them grow to be the object of our abhorrence, and have forfeited their right to every grain of our charity." This is no doubt a natural tendency of our zeal for cherished opinions, and an eagerness to spy out something alarming in those of an opposite kind. It can hardly be hoped, perhaps, that this zeal will be entirely extinguished in prosecuting such an investigation, as the one on which we are now entered. Let a knowledge of its existence and bearing teach us a lesson of caution, moderation, candour, and charity, if it do no more.

LETTER III.

On Charges against the Character of Unitarians.

SIR,

I HAVE read your Ordination Sermon, preached some time since at Baltimore, and propose offering for your consideration a few remarks on that part particularly, which relates to Unitarians. Many persons have been at a loss to conjecture, what evil star could induce you to select that occasion for making so violent and unprovoked an attack on a class of christians, who have shown no disposition to molest you, nor the society, which you had the honour to address. And I confess myself among the number