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With regard to their moral code, the principles of the Unitarians do not seem to admit their loosening, in the least, the bonds of duty: on the contrary, they appear to be actuated by an earnest desire to promote practical religion. . . . Love is, with them, the fulfilling of the law; and the habitual practice of virtue, from a principle of love to God and benevolence to man, is, in their judgment, "the sum and substance of Christianity." ROBERT ADAM: Religious World Displayed, art. “Unitarians,” vol. ii. p. 173.

With surprise and

Extract from a Letter to Archbishop Magee. with concern, I observed that in one of them [one of the Charges] your Grace has spoken sweepingly of the Unitarians as illiterate. The expression, my Lord, astonished me.... In a dispute which, about one hundred and fifty years ago, was carried on with great violence, Bishop WETTENHAL wrote a very judicious, candid, and conciliatory pamphlet, which I found in a huge mass of controversial writings, in which he describes the Socinians as active, as zealous, as acute, as dexterous in disputation, as blameless in the general tenor of their lives, and, he adds, even pious, with exception to their own peculiar tenets. Every man of common sense, my Lord, will perceive that the qualifying words are the result of discretion and episcopal decorum, and were intended probably for a kind of sop to soften the Cerberean part of the priesthood. Be this as it may, the representation which Bishop WETTENHAL gave of his Socinian contemporaries corresponds nearly with my own observations upon my own Unitarian contemporaries.... Extract from a Letter to the Dissenters of Birmingham. — Though he [Dr. PARR, speaking of himself] does not profess himself an advocate of many of your tenets [the tenets held by the Birmingham Unitarians], he can with sincerity declare himself not an enemy to your persons. He knows only few among you, but he thinks well of many. He respects you for temperance and decency in private life; for diligence in your employments, and punctuality in your engagements; for economy without parsimony, and liberality without profusion; for the readiness you show to relieve distress and to encourage merit, with little or no distinction of party; for the knowledge which many of you have acquired by the dedication of your leisure hours to intellectual improvement, and for the regularity with which most of you are said to attend religious worship. As to some late deplorable events, he believes that you have been misrepresented: he knows that you have been wronged. DR. SAMUEL PARR: Works, vol. i. pp. 672-3; and vol. iii. p. 306.

The Unitarian teachers by no means profess to absolve their followers from the unbending strictness of Christian morality. They prescribe the predominant love of God, and an habitual spirit of devotion. WM. WILBERFORCE: Practical View of the Prevailing Religious Systems, chap. vii. sect. 3.

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So far, well. "But," this distinguished philanthropist adds, “it is an unquestionable fact, that this class of religionists is not in general distinguished for superior purity of life, and still less for that frame of mind which... the word of God prescribes to us as one of the surest tests of our experiencing the vital power of Christianity. On the contrary, in point of fact, Unitarianism seems to be resorted to, not merely by those who are disgusted with the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, but by those also who are seeking a refuge from the strictness of her practical precepts," &c. How easily, by adopting the same principles of reasoning, might Deists prove Christianity in general to be answerable for all the vices of her professed adherents! The sweeping charges, however, made here against the moral and religious character of Unitarians are refuted by the more candid statements of other opponents, quoted in our pages.

I cannot conclude without expressing the conviction, that much consideration is due, both of respect and of affectionate concern, to those who hold the sentiments which in these pages have been opposed. To the great talents and labors of many of them, the Christian world is under eminent obligations for some of the most valuable works on the evidences of revealed religion, and for their services to the cause of religious liberty and the rights of conscience. DR. JOHN PYE SMITH: Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 424.

In their [the Unitarian] body, I number many of the friends of my early days; and the recollection of the intercourse of the past is even now delightful:- men who dignify and adorn the stations which they occupy in society; some of whom will leave their names to posterity, identified with the improvements of science, the cultivation of the arts which embellish human life, and the grand schemes of philanthropy by which the present condition of man is elevated and purified, have I had the honor of numbering among my friends. DR. THOMAS BYRTH: Lecture on Unitarian Interpretation; in Liverpool Controversy, p. 159.

There can be no doubt, that, by the existing law, the sect of Unitarians is entitled to the fullest measure of toleration; and it would be absurd to hold, that there was any thing to corrupt virtue, or outrage decency, in tenets which have been advocated in our own days by men of such eminent talents, exemplary piety, and pure lives, as Price,

Priestley, and Channing, and to which there is reason to think neither Milton nor Newton was disinclined. — LORD JEFFREY; apud Christian Reformer, new series, vol. vi. p. 194.

At least three quarters of my time have been spent among writers of the Unitarian class, from whom I have received, with gratitude, much instruction relative to the philology, the exegesis, and the literary history of the Scriptures.-MOSES STUART: Answer to Chan-· ning, Let. iii.

This passage does not appear in the last edition of Stuart's Letters, published 1846, in a volume of his writings entitled "Miscellanies."

Many of the teachers of this [the Unitarian] heresy are thoroughly skilled in scholastic theology, logic, and metaphysics; in history, antiquities, philology, and modern science; well versed in the ancient languages; bold and subtle biblical critics; prepared to take advantage of an imprudent or incautious adversary; and thus to triumph over truth itself in the eyes of superficial observers, when their sophistry seems to get the victory over its unskilful defender. PHILIP LINDSLY: A Plea for the Theol. Seminary at Princeton, N. J., pp. 28-9, third edition; Trenton, 1821.

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Professor LINDSLY prefaces these remarks, which, despite of the latter portion, will be seen to be highly laudatory,—by saying that "Modern Unitarianism is exactly suited to the natural character of men," to the depravity of their hearts, and "is more to be dreaded than any species of infidelity ever yet avowed." That is to say, a religion which teaches that as a man soweth, so shall he reap," - which, in the name of the great Messenger of Heaven, assures us that we are responsible to God for every thought we think, every feeling we cherish, every word we utter, every act we perform, "is more to be dreaded" than the infidelity which disowns the God of nature and revelation, which ignores alike the gospel of Christ and the dictates of conscience, and which therefore makes no distinction between virtue and vice. The heretical teachers, however, whose belief in God and Christ, heaven and hell, is worse than any species of infidelity, are many of them," the writer in a note kindly says, "no doubt sincere in their profession" of Christianity.

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The defect of the liberal [the Unitarian] school is, that their religion is not moral. We mean not strongly and distinctively so. We know that none insist more earnestly than they on a good life, and on the vanity of all religious pretension without it. . . . We give them the highest praise for the estimate in which they hold the graceful amenities and the sweeter charities of social intercourse. We give them

the highest praise for insisting on kindness to all, as the only spirit which a Christian should cherish; courtesy, as the only externa. robe which he should wear; and good works, as the only results that should follow in the path in which he treads. We admire the high spirit of honor, the delicate sense of propriety, the stern commercial integrity, which are fostered and exhibited by so many who are trained under the influences of liberal Christianity. The intellectual spirit, the elevation above the vulgar gentility of mere wealth, which are diffused through many-not allnot all of its social circles; the truthfulness to nature, in manners and in taste; the high appreciation of intellectual and moral institutions; the public spirit which so lavishly provides for them; and, above all, the strict and careful conscientiousness which trains and moulds many an esteemed and honored friend,

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are virtues of no mean value, and are not the chance growth of nature. They show culture, intellectual, social, moral, — of the highest order. But these in themselves are not religion. . . . We cannot think of them as inheriting and upholding so many of the religious and social institutions founded by their and our honored sires of the Pilgrim stock, without caring for them for the fathers' sake. We honor, for its own, a religious community that embraces so much that is noble in cultivated intellect; so much that is high and honorable in its noble spirit; so much that is enlarged and generous in its social feelings. But, &c. New Englander for October, 1844; vol. ii. pp. 537, 539, 558.

In all ages, ever since the days of Celestius, Julian, and Pelagius, there have been, in large numbers, men highly estimable for intelligence and benevolence, and animated by a strong desire of urging society onward in the pursuit of moral excellence, who have, nevertheless, earnestly, perseveringly, and with deep emotion, opposed this system [the peculiar characteristic of which is the doctrine of a supernatural regeneration rendered necessary by the native and original depravity of man], as at war with the fundamental principles of honor and right, and hostile to the best interests of humanity. DR. EDWARD BEECHER: Conflict of Ages, p. 3.

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In this paragraph, Dr. BEECHER refers particularly to Unitarians; and afterwards, when quoting from some of their writers, he speaks of Judge Story as that great luminary of American jurisprudence;" of Channing as a “distinguished philanthropist; " and of "other eminent men" belonging to this denomination of Christians, such as Dr. John Taylor, Ware, Sparks, Norton, Dewey, Burnap, and E. H. Sears. Their opposition to Augustinian and Calvinistic theology he does not, as many of his orthodox brethren,

attribute to the depravity of man's heart, to human pride, carnal reason, or hatred to the truth, but, while dissenting from their views, candidly owns that "they were actuated by noble and sublime principles," and that "the existence of the Unitarian body is a providential protest in favor of the great principles of honor and right," on the part of God, towards the descendants of Adam. One of the great excellences of Dr. BEECHER's remarkable and paradoxical work is, that he avoids the dogmatizing and illiberal tone which is so common among controversialists, and throughout it demeans himself, not only as a scholar, but as a gentleman and a Christian.

You [Unitarians] are, I am aware, benevolent men, a great many of you eager for sanitary, social, political reformation. In so far as you feel—and I am sure many of you do feel—a sincere, fervent admiration and love for the character of Jesus Christ, in so far as you believe him to be the wisest, holiest, most benignant Teacher the world ever had, are not you in danger of setting a man above God? ... In the sad hours of your life, the recollection of that Man you read of in your childhood, the Man of sorrows, the great sympathizer with human woes and sufferings, rises up before you, I know: it has a reality for you, then; you feel it to be not only beautiful, but true.... While we are frivolous, exclusive, heartless, no arguments ought to convince us of Christ's incarnation: they would carry their own condemnation with them, if they did. When we are aroused to think earnestly what we are, what our relation to our fellow-men is, what God is, the voice which says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," "The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil," will no more be thought of as the voice of an apostle. We shall know that he is speaking to us himself, and that he is the Christ that should come into the world. - Let no Unitarian suppose that these last words are pointed at him; that I suppose he has greater need of repentance than we have, because some special moral obliquity has prevented him from recognizing the truth of the incarnation. I had no such meaning. I was thinking much more of the orthodox. I was considering how many causes hinder us from confessing with our hearts as well as our lips, that Christ has come in the flesh. The conceit of our Orthodoxy is one cause. Whatever sets us in any wise above our fellow-men is an obstacle to a hearty belief in the Man: it must be taken from us before we shall really bow our knees to him. I know not that, if he were now walking visibly among us, he might not say that many a Unitarian was far nearer the kingdom of heaven than many of us; less choked with prejudice, less self-confident, more capable of recognizing the great

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