counselled and comforted each other, will be mutually estranged, and catching the temper of their religious guides, will exchange fellowship for denunciation; and instead of delighting in each other's prosperity, will seek each other's destruction.-Again; in the same church, where Christians of different views have long acknowledged each other as disciples of our Master, and have partaken the same feast of charity, angry divisions will break forth, parties will be marshalled under different leaders, the sentence of excommunication will be hurled by the majority on their guiltless brethren (if the majority should be orthodox'), and thus anger, heart-burnings, and bitter recriminations will spread through many of our towns and churches.-Again; many of our religious societies will be rent asunder, their ministers dismissed, and religious institutions cease. It is well known, that many of our country parishes are able to support but a single minister. At the same time, they are divided in sentiment; and nothing but a spirit of charity and forbearance has produced that union, by which public worship has been maintained. Once let the proposed war be proclaimed, let the standard of party be raised, and a minister must look for support to that party only to which he is attached. An 'Orthodox' minister should blush to ask it from men, whom he denounces for honest opinions, and to whom he denies all the ordinances of the gospel. It surely cannot be expected that Liberal Christians will contribute, by their property, to uphold a system of exclusion and intolerance directed against themselves. What then will be the fate of many of our societies? Their ministers, even now, can with difficulty maintain the conflict with other denominations. Must they not sink, when deserted by their most efficient friends? Many societies will be left, as sheep without a shepherd, a prey to those whom we call sectarians, but who will no longer have an exclusive right to the name, if the system of division, which has been proposed, be adopted. Many ministers will be compelled to leave the field of their labors and their prospects of usefulness; and I fear the ministry will lose its hold on the affection and veneration of men, when it shall have engendered so much division and contention. But this is not all. The system of denying the christian name to those who differ from us in interpreting the scriptures, will carry discord not only into churches, but families. In how many instances are heads of families divided in opinion on the present subjects of controversy. Hitherto they have loved each other as partakers of the same glorious hopes, and have repaired in their domestic joys and sorrows to the same God, (as they imag

ined,) through the same Mediator. But now they are taught, that they have different Gods and different gospels, and are taught that the friends of truth are not to hold communion with its rejecters. Let this doctrine be received, and one of the tenderest ties by which many wedded hearts are knit together will be dissolved The family altar must fall. Religion will be known in many a domestic retreat, not as a bond of union, but a subject of debate, a source of discord or depression.

Now I ask, For what boon are all these sacrifices to be made ? The great end is, that certain opinions, which have been embraced by many serious and inquiring Christians as the truth of God, may be driven from the church, and be dreaded by the people as among the worst of crimes. Uniformity of opinion, that airy good, which emperors, popes, councils, synods, bishops, and ministers have been seeking for ages, by edicts, creeds, threatenings, excommunications, inquisitions, and flames,-this is the great object of the system of exclusion, separation, and denunciation which is now to be introduced. To this we are to sacrifice our established habits and bonds of union, and this is to be pursued by means, which, as many reflecting men believe, threaten our dearest rights and liberties.

It is sincerely hoped, that reflecting laymen will no longer shut their eyes on this subject. It is a melancholy fact, that our long established Congregational form of church government is menaced, and tribunals unknown to our churches, and unknown, as we believe, to the scriptures, are to be introduced; and introduced for the very purpose, that the supposed errors and mistakes of ministers and private Christians may be tried and punished as heresies; that is, as crimes. In these tribunals, as in all ecclesiastical bodies, the clergy, who make theology their profession, will of necessity have a preponderating influence, so that the question now before the public is in fact only a new form of the old controversy, which has agitated all ages; viz. whether the clergy shall think for the laity, or prescribe to them their religion. Were this question fairly proposed to the public, there would be but one answer; but it is wrapped up in a dark phraseology about the purity and order of the church, a phraseology, which, I believe, imposes on multitudes of ministers as well as laymen, and induces acquiescence in measures, the real tendency of which they would abhor. It is, I hope, from no feeling of party, but from a sincere regard to the religion of Christ, that I would rouse the slumbering minds of this comraunity to the dangers which hang over their religious institutions. No power is so rapidly accumulated, or so dreadfully abused, as

ecclesiastical power. It assails men with menaces of eternal wo, unless they submit, and gradually awes the most stubborn and strongest minds into subjection. I mean not to ascribe the intention of introducing ecclesiastical tyranny to any class of Christians among us; but I believe, that many, in the fervor of a zeal which may be essentially virtuous, are about to touch with unhallowed hands the ark of God, to support Christianity by measures which its mild and charitable spirit abhors. I believe, that many, overlooking the principles of human nature, and the history of the church, are about to set in motion a spring of which they know not the force, and cannot calculate the effects. I believe, that the seed of spiritual tyranny is sown, and although to a careless spectator it may seem the smallest of all seeds,' it has yet, within itself, a fatal principle of increase, and may yet darken this region of our country with its deadly branches.

The time is come, when the friends of christian liberty and christian charity are called to awake, and to remember their duties to themselves, to posterity, and to the church of Christ. The time is come, when the rights of conscience and the freedom of our churches must be defended with zeal. The time is come, when menace and denunciation must be met with a spirit, which will show that we dread not the frowns, and lean not on the favor of man. The time is come, when every expression of superiority on the part of our brethren should be repelled as criminal usurpation. But in doing this, let the friends of liberal and genuine Christianity remember the spirit of their religion. Let no passion or bitterness dishonor their sacred cause. In contending for the gospel, let them not lose its virtues or forfeit its promises.-We are indeed called to pass through one of the severest trials of human virtue, the trial of controversy. We should carry with us a sense of its danger. Religion, when made a subject of debate, seems often to lose its empire over the heart and life. The mild and affectionate spirit of Christianity gives place to angry recriminations and cruel surmises. Fair dealing, uprightness, and truth, are exchanged for the arts of sophistry. The devotional feelings, too, decline in warmth and tenderness. Let us then watch and pray. Let us take heed that the weapons of our warfare be not carnal. Whilst we repel usurpation, let us be just to the general rectitude of many by whom our christian rights are invaded. Whilst we repel the uncharitable censures of men, let us not forget that deep humility and sense of unworthiness with which we should ever appear before God. In our zeal to maintain the

great truth, that OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN is alone the Supreme God, let us not neglect that intercourse with him, without which the purest conceptions will avail little to enthrone him in our hearts. In our zeal to hold fast the word of Christ' in opposition to human creeds and formularies, let us not forget, that our Lord demands another and a still more unsuspicious confession of him, even the exhibition of his spirit and religion in our lives.

The controversy in which we are engaged is indeed painful; but it was not chosen, but forced upon us, and we ought to regard it as a part of the discipline to which a wise Providence has seen fit to subject us. Like all other trials, it is designed to promote our moral perfection. I trust, too, that it is designed to promote the cause of truth. Whilst I would speak diffidently of the future, I still hope, that a brighter day is rising on the christian church, than it has yet enjoyed. The gospel is to shine forth in its native glory. The violent excitement, by which some of the corruptions of this divine system are now supported, cannot be permanent; and the uncharitableness with which they are enforced, will react, like the persecutions of the church of Rome, in favor of truth. Already we have the comfort of seeing many disposed to inquire, and to inquire without that terror, which has bound as with a spell so many minds. We doubt not, that this inquiry will result in a deep conviction that Christianity is yet disfigured by errors which have been transmitted from ages of darkness. Of this, at least, we are sure, that inquiry, by discovering to men the difficulties and obscurities which attend the present topics of controversy, will terminate in what is infinitely more desirable than doctrinal concord, in the diffusion of a mild, candid, and charitable temper. I pray God, that this most happy consummation may be in no degree obstructed by any unchristian feelings, which, notwithstanding my sincere efforts, have escaped me in the present controversy.

OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 1819.

IT is due to truth, and a just deference to our fellow Christians, to take notice of objections which are currently made to our particular views of religion; nor ought we to dismiss such objections, as unworthy of attention, on account of their supposed lightness; because what is light to us, may weigh much with our neighbour, and truth may suffer from obstructions which a few explanations might remove. It is to be feared that those Christians, who are called Unitarian, have been wanting in this duty. Whilst they have met the labored arguments of their opponents fully and fairly, they have overlooked the loose, vague, indefinite objections, which float through the community, and operate more on common minds than formal reasoning. On some of these objections, remarks will now be offered; and it is hoped that our plainness of speech will not be construed into severity, nor our strictures on different systems be ascribed to a desire of retaliation. It cannot be expected, that we shall repel with indifference, what seem to us reproaches on some of the most important and consoling views of Christianity. Believing that the truths, which through God's good providence we are called to maintain, are necessary to the vindication of the divine character, and to the prevalence of a more enlightened and exalted piety, we are bound to assert them earnestly, and to speak freely of the opposite errors which now disfigure Christianity.— What then are the principal objections to Unitarian Christianity?

1. It is objected to us, that we deny the Divinity or Jesus Christ. Now what does this objection mean? What are we to understand by the Divinity of Christ? In the sense in which many Christians, and perhaps a majority, interpret it, we do not deny it, but believe it as firmly as themselves.. We believe firmly in the Divinity of Christ's mission and office, that he spoke with divine authority, and was a bright image of the divine perfections. We believe that God dwelt in him, manifested himself through him, taught men by him, and communicated to him his spirit without measure. We believe that Jesus Christ was the most glorious display, expression, and representative of God to mankind, so that in seeing and knowing him, we see and know the invisible Father; so that when Christ came, God visited the world and dwelt with men more conspicuously than at any former period. In Christ's words, we hear God speaking; in his miracles, we behold God acting; in his character and