the fruits of Christ's Spirit; that in their lives, and in what is truly their religion, i.e. in their prayers and hymns, there has been a wonderful unity; that all sects have had amongst them the marks of Christ's catholic church, in the graces of his Spirit, and the confession of his name; for which purpose it might be useful to give, side by side, the martyrdoms, missionary labors, &c., of Catholics and Arians, Romanists and Protestants, Churchmen and Dissenters. Here is a grand field, giving room for learning, for eloquence, for acuteness, for judgment, and for a true love of Christ, in those who took part in it; and capable, I think, of doing much good. DR. THOMAS ARNOLD:

Letters 94, 130; in Life and Correspondence, pp. 239, 275.

In the most comprehensive sense of the term, the Christian church includes all genuine saints or believers; all, in every land, who receive Jesus Christ as their Prince and Saviour, who submit to him as their supreme and infallible guide in matters of religion, who rely for pardon and salvation on his atoning sacrifice, and who sincerely consecrate themselves to his service. All such persons, however widely separated in respect of place, and however diversified by external circumstances, or even by minor distinctions in religion, are represented in Scripture as "being not of the world, but called out of the world,” and as component members of the same spiritual and heavenly association.DR. ROBERT BALMER: The Scripture Principles of Unity; in Essays on Christian Union, p. 21.

This definition of the "Christian church" is sufficiently wide to include all believers in Jesus as the Messiah, and, consequently, all Unitarians who recognize the special inspiration of the same holy Personage, if the phrase 66 atoning sacrifice" be understood to refer to the death of Christ as one of the means appointed by God to reconcile to himself his erring and sinful children. We know not what was Dr. BALMER'S conception of the atonement; but it is well known that the opinions of " orthodox" Christians differ much from each other on this point, some of them approximating to the views held by Unitarians.

I never can think of a narrow-minded Christian, ―a Christian who, instead of giving free scope to his Christian affections, opening and expanding his heart to the admission of the entire family of God, contracts his spirit, and limits his communion of love to the denomination with which he is connected, or of the man who actually imagines that family of God to consist of no more than those who assent to the shibboleth of his little party, I never can think of such a man otherwise than as one who, through the operation of a widely

mistaken principle, is cheating himself of pleasure, and of pleasure the highest, the richest, the most exquisite in its character. ... I would not for the world be the man who thus locks up his heart in an icehouse; who puts the short chain and the galling collar of bigotry on the neck of his Christian charity; who can look round, with a narrow sectarian satisfaction, on the members of his own little sect, and with cold indifference, or something worse, towards all beyond the pale, can count, one by one, the number of those whom alone he owns as his brethren, and expects to meet in heaven; who estimates the Christianity of his party, and the evidence of its being the true flock of Christ, by its diminutiveness; finding in this his solace for what others can trace to far different causes, to the wildness of its dogmas, and the uncharitable censoriousness of its members. WARDLAW, in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 291–3.

DR. RALPH

The true church, the invisible community, is really and indivisibly one. Amidst all this division and disruption, beneath these angry and contentious elements, there is an essential unity, which, though limited to no age, confined to no country, restrained to no party, and seen in its entireness by no eye but that which is omniscient, really and always exists; a unity which nothing can impair, and which, while it is ever gathering up into itself the redeemed of the Lord, of every age, country, and communion, equally rejects the unregenerate of all of them.... Divide as they may into separate, visible communions, they [believers] cannot break away from the fellowship of the one invisible communion of saints. Into whatever number of distinct churches they may arrange themselves, they are fellow-members of the holy catholic church; and in their holier and happier moments they feel it, and rejoice in it, when, from the exercise of that faith which unites them to Christ, there arises a love too fervent and expansive to be confined within the narrow limits of their own party, and which, bursting through all sectarian barriers, flows in one mighty stream of holy sympathy to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Union in relation to the Religious Parties of England; in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 148–50.

The true church is built on the foundation of the purest as well as most sacred liberty, and is cemented with unconstrained confidence and mutual love, the strongest of all bonds. It is a voluntary assemblage of equals, wherein every one obeys, and no one commands...... The voluntary association of a truly Christian brotherhood, where each one enters and retires freely, seeking individual enjoyment only in the

general welfare, according to the simple conditions determined by one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, is the most efficacious alleviation, if not cure, of the three grand evils of this world; penury, bondage, and corruption. — E. L. MAGOON: Repub. Christianity, pp. 165–6, 313.

We want, as the great Robinson believed, "more light to break forth from God's holy word," not from the formulas or the catechisms or the schools or the doctors, but from God's holy word, and especially from those parts of the word which represent the Christian truth as spirit and life, attainable only as our heart and spirit are configured to it, and able to offer it that sympathy which is the first condition of understanding, — attainable only by such as are in the Spirit themselves. This This... will bring us an era of renovated faith, spreading from circle to circle through the whole church of God on earth; the removal of divisions, the smoothing away of asperities, the realization of love as a bond of perfectness in all the saints. It will bring in such an era as many signs begin to foretoken; for it comes to me publicly, as relating to bodies of Christian ministers, and circles of believers in distant places, that they are longing for some fuller manifestation of grace, and debating the possibility of another and holier order of Christian life. It comes to me also privately, every few days, that ministers of God and Christian brethren, called to be saints, having no concert but in God, are hungering and thirsting after righteousness in a degree that is new to themselves, daring to hope and believe that they may be filled; testifying joyfully that Christ is a more complete Saviour, and the manifestation of God in the heart of faith a more intense reality, than they had before conceived. Meantime, as we all know, a feeling of fraternity is growing up silently in distant parts of the Christian world. Bigotry is tottering, rigidity growing flexible, and Christian hearts are yearning everywhere after a day of universal brotherhood in Christ Jesus. . . . Indeed, it is even a great maxim of philosophy, that, when we see men wide asunder beginning to take up the same thoughts and fall into the same sentiments, and that without concert or communication, we are generally to believe that something decisive in that direction is preparing; for it is the age that is working in them, or the God rather, probably, of all ages; and, accordingly, what engages so many at once is only the quickening in them of that seed on whose stalk the future is to blossom. Should we not, therefore, expect a gradual appearing of new life, which years only can prepare? Shall we not even dare to spread our Christian confidences by the measures of Providence, and in this

manner take up the hope that, when so many signs and yearnings meet in their fulfilment, we may see a grand reviving of religion, that shall be marked by no village-boundaries, no walls of sect or name, but shall penetrate, vivify, and melt into brotherhood, at last, all who love our Lord Jesus Christ on earth? - HORACE BUSHNELL: God in Christ, pp. 297-9.

The liberal sentiments expressed in this section are not concessions in favor of Unitarianism considered by itself, or as one of the numerous branches of the religion of Jesus. Indeed, some of their authors would refuse the name of “ Christian" to the worshipper of the Father only, whom Jesus addressed in prayer. But they are testimonies to the value and excellence of those great principles of charity and fraternal love, which, though constituting an essential and a prominent feature of Unitarianism, are more or less involved in every form of the Christian faith, and are deeply cherished by the truly catholic minds of every church, however they may be obscured, or impeded in their operation, by such dogmas of human conceit as belie the spirit of the gospel. According to these sentiments, Christianity was intended by its Founder, not for a few, but for all. His church embraces all, of whatever creed or denomination, who consecrate themselves to the service of God, Christ, and humanity. Individuals may err as to matters which are indifferent in themselves, or are obscurely set forth in Scripture; but, if they love goodness and reverence truth, — if they are faithful to the light which has been imparted to them, they may all bend with lowly minds and contrite hearts in the mighty temple which the Saviour has erected to the praise of the universal Father. Men and women are disciples of Christ, not because they are Calvinists or Arminians, Presbyterians or Congregationalists, Papists or Protestants, but because, believing in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, they have the spirit of his Son. They are members of Christ's church, not because they are orthodox, can utter the shibboleths of the parties to which they are attached,' or talk profoundly of the divine essence and decrees, but because in their words and their actions, in their lives and their deaths, they adopt and practise those common principles of the gospel, love to God, and love to man, which bigotry may mar, but cannot destroy; which superstition may blot, but never expunge; which error and sophisms may for a while hide from the view, but are unable wholly to conceal.

Wear myriad modes,

Contains all creeds within its mighty span, -
The love of God, displayed in love of man.'

The sentiments, indeed, which we have quoted in the preceding pages bear no proportion to the narrow-minded opinions laid down in many theological writings; but it would be an easy and a delightful task to make additional extracts of a similar character and tendency.

SECT. VIII. UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR THEIR WORTH, PIETY, INTELLIGENCE, AND LEARNING.

He who is truly a good man is more than half-way to being a Christian, by whatever name he is called. - SOUTH.

§ 1. INDIVIDUAL UNITARIANS.

The person of Arius was tall and graceful; his countenance calm, pale, and subdued; his manners engaging; his conversation fluent and persuasive. He was well acquainted with human sciences; as a disputant subtle, ingenious, and fertile in resources. H. H. MILMAN: History of Christianity, book iii. chap. 4.

Arius... said to have been... of a severe and gloomy appearance, though of captivating and modest manners. The excellence of his moral character seems to be sufficiently attested by the silence of his enemies to the contrary. That he was of a covetous and sensual disposition is an opinion unsupported by any historical evidence. DR. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, art. "Arius."

[Andrew] Dudith, who was certainly one of the most learned and eminent men of the sixteenth century, was born at Buda, in the year 1533.... He had, by the force of his genius and the study of the ancient orators, acquired such a masterly and irresistible eloquence, that in all public deliberations he carried every thing before him.... He was well acquainted with several branches of philosophy and the mathematics; with the sciences of physic, history, theology, and the civil law. . . . His life was regular and virtuous, his manners elegant and easy, and his benevolence warm and extensive. ARCHIBALD MACLAINE, as quoted by Dr. Murdock, in his translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, book iv. cent. xvi. sect. 3, part 2, chap. 4, § 9, note 20.

Dudith, an enlightened advocate for liberty of conscience, as well as an eminent scholar, was, in all probability, a Unitarian; but, as Maclaine and others speak doubtfully of this matter, the reader may, if he chooses, regard him only as a great and good man, belonging, without any peculiar designation, to the universal church of Christ.

Lælius Socinus was the son of Marianus, a celebrated lawyer; and to great learning and talents he added, as even his enemies acknowledge, a pure and blameless life... The affairs of the Unitarians