head of that class, calls himself "one of the old school." But, Sir, he does not object to unite with new Unitarians, both for "preaching and praying," and "eating and drinking," and on such occasions delights them in his "eloquence, whether sacred or convivial," by a warmth and flow of feeling, which I fear your Correspondent would trace to the German drama. I have, indeed, heard something, and seen something of another description of persons called Old Unitarians, who deem an avowal of their opinions unwise because it may expose them to inconvenience, and proselyting sinful because the attempt may excite bad passsions; who give liberally at Calvinistic collections, and let their own institutions and academies languish or perish for want of support; who cau overlook speculative differences, such as worshipping an additional God or two, &c. and attend the services and even the sacraments of the church in preference to mixing with trades-people and such folks at a country Unitarian chapel; who object to evening lectures because the smoke of the candles would soil the ceiling of their chapel, or its floor be dirtied by the vulgar feet of the hearers who might be attracted on such occasions; who are vexed that Unitarianism should be spoilt for a refined and genteel religion, by its communication to poor and ignorant people, who had better been left to the Church or the Methodists. I hope your Correspondent does not belong to this class of Old Unitarians. If he does, he has no reason, in my opinion, to be proud of his associates, though they are certainly very respectable, (using that word in its common acceptation of very rich). His Letter is, however, strongly tainted with that fictitious candour for which these people are so clamorous-a candour more absurd in the view of none than of its objects, and to them ridiculous enough. When they receive guineas, withheld from Unitarian buildings, to raise chapels in whose pulpits they pronounce the damnation of the donors; when they insert names, -withheld from Unitarian publications, among the subscribers to their books about dying Deities; when they obtain donations, withheld from Unitarian academies and missionaries, to teach Hottentots the Assembly's Catechism-they must laugh at this Satan with an angel's vizor among the sons of God; they must think it good to sojourn amongst these Egyptians who so readily despoil their own temples to furnish out the faithful Israelites. Whether these Old Unitarians agreed with Mr. Belsham in thankfulness for the Trinity Bill, I do not know. I met with no public expressions of their gratitude on that occasion, but with many from the persons whom they censure. I cannot, however, deny their joining with Mr. B. in that particular; but I wish they would join with him in some others-in his manly statements of the whole truth of God; in his powerful and incessant efforts for the destruction of AntiChristian error; in his justice and candour to friends as well as adversaries; and in his liberal support of the Unitarian Fund, the Unitarian Academy, "the Societés Ambulantes of our modern heretics," and similar institutions. The most definite characteristic of those whom your Correspondent calls New Unitarians, is his identification of them with the provincial societies for the diffusion of religious knowledge and virtue-a circumstance very unfortunate for his first charge against them, of ingratitude for Mr. Smith's bill because it took away their chance of being persecuted, inasmuch as those societies, I believe without an exception, and some at extraordinary meetings called for the purpose, passed resolutions of thanks both to the Mover of the Bill and the Government. How could such a charge be made in the face of such a fact? Where are the proofs by which the public and unanimous language of these truly respectable societies is convicted of hypocrisy? Doubtful as it now is, and must be till the next Lancashire assizes, whether that bill affords us any efficient protection, I do not believe there is a New Unitarian in the kingdom who is not ready, even at the present moment, to do honour to the liberality of the Govern ment in permitting it to pass without opposition. The men who wish to be persecuted have escaped my notice; but as your Correspondent knows where to find them, and acts as At torney-General in taking cognizance of all our offences, I deliver them over to his castigation, that they may learn not to blaspheme. He has advanced his accusation, I suppose, knowing that he can prove it; or at any rate knowing that he and the Old Unitarians are secure from its being retorted upon them. It may not be amiss to remind your Correspondent of the fact, that Mr. Smith's bill originated in the Committee of the Unitarian Fund. They are, I suppose, New Unitarians, and therefore not entitled to either candour or gratitude. And yet surely he might bestow on them the crumbs which fall from the table, on which so plentiful a feast of those dishes is set out for the Government and the Bishops. The New Unitarians, we are next told, are "not at all averse to manifest that degree and measure of intolerance which they have it in their power to exercise." I would not stoop to the degradation of implying, by a defence, that there was some plausibility in such an accusation, were it not that this unfounded charge is propped up by an unfounded assertion. He states as a general fact, what I verily believe is not true of a single individual, that the New Unitarians" are disposed to contend that the only morality and piety deserving regard is inseparably connected with their own views of religious truth." I challenge him to produce a single writer, amongst the whole body that he has arraigned, who denies to his opponents such morality and piety as will not merely deserve regard, but ensure salvation! I defy him to produce a single preacher by whom the position has been advanced which he ascribes to the whole party. There is none such but in the writer's imagination.. And on the deposition of this phantom-witness, which none but he can hear, we are all to be convicted of "the most intolerable species of intolerance!" Some young minister, it appears, to whom rather an equivocal compliment is paid, has offended by asserting that "unless Christianity be professed under some particular form, it is in itself but a name." If the minister alluded to be a reader of the Repository, he will probably animadvert upon this passage himself. I must be permitted, however, to observe that, in my opinion, the Old Unitarian is not quite regular in this attack upon an individual who, if the obnoxious assertion was made in the pulpit or in public, will of course be recognized by many of his hearers, and thus, perhaps, without being aware of it, become personally charged with the follies and vices ascribed to the New Unitarians; with a love of persecuting and being persecuted; with inculcating a lax and false morality, and being careless about the character of his associates; with fondness for convivial meetings, and disaffection to the Government. Now, though a whole party may laugh at these imputations, yet to an individual they may be of serious consequence, and should not have been advanced by an anonymous writer. If the military practice be imitated in controversy, of aiming at officers from behind bushes, let it be remembered that riflemen have been judged not entitled to quarter. The proposition itself is not very clearly or happily expressed; but, if I understand it, is much nearer the truth than your Correspondent is willing to admit. By calling himself a Christian, a man does not inform me whether he worships the Father only, or two other divine persons in addition to him, or some hundreds of saints and angels in addition to this Trinity; whether the moral government of the world be for the good of a whole, a part, or none of its inhabitants; whether the terms on which sinners may be reconciled to God are repentance and reformation only, or faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, or whether it be not independent of any terms; whether the redemption that is in Jesus Christ be his purchase of our salvation by his merits and suffering, the procurement of the influences of the Holy Ghost for believers, a change of our relation to God by moral means, or a confirmation of our immortality; whether a resurrection from the dead be a revival of existence, or merely its continuation in another mode; or, whether future retribution be reward and punishment for our own offences and obedience, or punishment for the sin of Adam, and reward for the merits of Christ. How much more than a name is the profession which leaves all this ambiguity! Now, this list of topics on which Christians differ, is precisely your Correspondent's list of those on which they agree. These are our common Christianity! And why are they not our common Islamism? For, with the exception of one point, the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, on which no Calvinist or Ar minian will allow that he has more than a verbal agreement with us, they are subjects on which the Mahometan is "under no uncertainty." I am no advocate for restricting the name of Christian to a party; let all who claim it, have it in peace. But to talk of its representing a common faith, of unrivalled importance, and then to give a list of topics on which it communicates nothing, and discriminates nothing, is as much like "quackery" as any thing which has been detected in the New Unitarians. Your Correspondent is, I think, under no great obligation to the late worthy Bishop for the loan of his very correct statement, and very laudable indignation, on the present subject. They are articles, too, which he seems to have more ability to lend than uecessity to borrow. The New Unitarians inculcate "a system of ethics drawn from the German drama!" This is gratifying intelligence, as it was apprehended that their sermons were so stuffed with controversy as to leave no room for any morality at all. And as the Old Unitarians argue, when they support Calvinistic missions, &c. that a corrupt religion is better than no religion, why should not a corrupt morality be better than no morality? How uncharitable of them, thinking the morality of the Gospel a good thing, to contend "that there is nothing good besides!" How improper to use language "producing irritation," when by gentle and gradual means these German moralists might be brought to the English and Gospel standard; and though this, from the nature of the thing, must be a process requiring time, moderation and caution," it is a task on that account so much the more suited to the Old Unitarians. Your Correspondent is doubtless a good judge of the source and standard of our morality; for his rapid transi tions from what irresistibly produces laughter to what excites a very opposite emotion, shew an intimate acquaintance with the German drama, and a happy imitation of its structure. Such is the connexion of the foregoing charge with that of indifference to the moral character of proselytes, palliating "licentiousness both in priuciples and practice," &c. a charge which, to use the softest applicable word in the dictionary, is as unfounded as the other is ridiculous. Unitarian congregations and societies will not suffer by a comparison with those of any other denomination. In their individual associations there is generally (I imagine, universally,) a power, by written law or allowed practice, to exclude from their lists any improper persons who may have volunteered their names and subscriptions — a power which your Correspondent on inquiry will find, as I hope and helieve, has not laiu dormant when immorality called for its exercise. I have always been disgusted with that cant of candour which talks of the momentous topics on which the Christian world is divided as "speculative opinions,” “subjects of doubtful disputation," "matters about which its votaries have always disagreed, and will probably always disagree," and "opinions merely speculative." What is the object of this mock liberality? Or is the writer in good earnest? Does he really mean to assert that there is only an unimportant and speculative difference between his system and that which, by his own account of it, leads its professors to deny his “claim to the appellation of Christian;” “indisposes them to set a proper value on moral qualities and distinctions;" makes them not likely to furnish their pupils' minds" with any very correct or vivid ideas of moral truth and beauty;" makes the "from principle intolerant;" and consists of "absurdity and intolerance,” of “rubbish and defilements?" Separation from a communion is justifiable on the ground of practical differences, but not on that of merely speculative differences. As those of the Old Unitarian with us are of the former de scription, and with Trinitarians, of the latter, he should, I think, prefer their worship, and not desert those who hold" the institutions of their forefathers in great veneration" from such trivial and abstract reasons. Why does he not, like a good Christian, overlook such doubtful and merely speculative differences, and join with one class in beseeching God by his "holy nativity and circumcision," his agony and bloody sweat," his "precious death and burial;" or with others who sing of him, the rich drops of whose blood calmed the Father's frowning face, "This infant is the mighty God Come to be suckled and ador'd!" drama, as your Correspondent may or with the thousands who devoutly prosperity of different congregations: vociferate, "The Unitarian fiend expel, And send his doctrines back to hell." Indeed there are some who are too candid to be kept from the worship of believers in our common Christianity, by these petty diversities; but their reasons always appeared to me more weighty in the commercial than in the theological scale. the publication of useful works has been facilitated: and to many the intercourse thus occasioned with the ministers and members of other societies has been both pleasant and beneficial. Poor societies have been cheered by the countenance of their wealthier brethren; and the solitary professor of Unitarianism been animated by becoming acquainted with As your Correspondent's residence numbers of similar faith and disposiwould appear to be in London, I may tions. I am sorry that to the Old perhaps be able to inform him better Unitarian the expense of this appaabout the provincial sociétés ambu- ratus is "much more obvious than lantes, which I do the more readily the utility;" his diminished estimate as he cannot have learned much from of the latter arises perhaps from the his Old Unitarian friends in the coun-infirmity' lamented at the comtry, they being generally kept away, by unforeseen accidents, from such meetings. Sometimes they are appointed for the same day as the Bishop's dinner party, which it would be illiberal not to attend, or they are held at the very moment that the sacrament is administered at church as a qualification for office, or just when it is indispensably necessary to visit a neighbouring town, where the meeting was held the preceding year, just when it was indispensably necessary to remain at home. These unfortunate coincidences have prevented your Correspondent's obtaining such accurate information of this as of our other faults and follies. The object of these societies is the distribution of books, controversial and moral. The former written by Priestley, Lindsey, Law, Hartley, Cogan, Belsham, and other zealots; the latter by Lardner, Mason, Wellbeloved, Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. H. More, Mrs. Hughes, and other advocates for licentiousness and the ethics of the German mencement of his letter; and the habits of some of his brethen make it not very uncharitable to surmise that their extravagant idea of the expense may be accounted for by his remark that "an attention almost exclusive to any particular object-necessarily enlarges its dimensions, enhances its importance, brings it forward into the strongest light, and throws every thing else into the shade.” Worthless as our peculiar opinions are represented, it is nevertheless admitted to be desirable that they should be propagated; and this it seems would be done by the "moderation and caution" of the Old Unitarians, were they not obstructed by the "intemperate zeal" of the New. And what have these moderate men done, that they are entitled to sneer and hint away the multiplied proofs which recent institutions and efforts have given of their efficacy? Let them take the range of fifty years, and what have they to throw into the balance against a single report of the Unitarian Fund? Why, they have conjectures and suspicions that this success has been overrated. 66 It is a pity that all proper tenderness should not have been shewn towards the "worthy but mistaken individuals," who, holding the institutions of their forefathers in great veneration, are afraid to inquire, lest they should find cause to give them up as indefensible." Not to respect their failing shews certainly a gross departure from the morality of the German drama, which is known to be particularly lenient towards aniable weaknesses. Notwithstanding their disgust at the boisterous honesty of men who profess what they ascertain to be truth, and propagate what they believe to be important, it is my couviction that such are most likely to win over men of principle from all parties. I know that those amongst us who are most esteemed by the Calvinists, are not the timid men who profess nothing but our common Christianity; not the mere moralists whose ethics (not German) have no intermixture of that truth, which alone gives virtue a foundation and a motive; not the second Lardners, as spruce academics call one another, who speak contemptuously of popular preaching and seem to think the tree of life only planted for critical squirrels to crack nuts in its branches; not the men of ultra-candour who dismiss questions on the object of worship, the work of Christ, and the terms of salvation, as merely speculative points; but those who seem in earnest about Divine truth; who are manly in its profession, and laborious in its diffusion. To such is frequently rendered unasked a candid judginent, which the liberality of those who are illiberal to their brethren fails of purchasing. To defend the Monthly Repository is your business, Mr. Editor; and I shall leave you to rebut as you can, the charge of partiality for two personages, of political notoriety, whom you, of all men, ought to have detested, as each of them is an irrefragable proof of an orthodox doctrine; it being ascertained that one is an incarnation of the devil, and the other a striking demonstration of the total depravity of man. How grateful must the friends of order, property and loyalty, be to your Correspondent, for his acute penetration into the latent design of the New Unitarians, to employ the "dint of numbers and physical force!" From what an explosion has he preserved us by this timely discovery of the plot! Why, but for him they might ere this have risen in arms to massacre all the friends of war and bloodshed; to hang all the advo cates for capital punishments; to liberate Bouaparte; to crown Cobbett King of England; and to divide the estates of the Old Unitarians between themselves and their brethren the Luddites. After which they would probably have changed the standard of faith and morality, by solemnly canonizing the German drama in place of the Holy Scriptures! At a time when political offences are heavily visited; when the suspicious of government are awake, and its power uncontrolled; it is no friendly work to give those suspicions a new direction. Especially did this not become a brother, though he were an offended and an elder one. He might not rejoice at the birth of New Unitarianism, nor like its features; but they might have been criticised without holding it up to be blasted by the lightnings of authority. What is this accuser about? If he possess the feelings of humanity, there can no bitterer curse befal him, than the accomplishment of that which it is the obvious tendency of his charge of disaffection to produce. I, Sir, for one, have always spoken my political opinions the more freely because on many points they were so unlike those of many of my brethren, that none could connect them with our religious tenets. Those opinions are at the service of the Old Unitarian, or any body else, but I shall not make you responsible for their publication. Gladly, however, would I avow, and take the consequences of political heresies, much more obnoxious than my own, rather than have penned the following paragraph: "If, as has been suspected, certain Unitarian ministers of the modern school, and of its latest discipline, have been desirous of propagating their religious faith with a view more widely to disseminate their political principles among the inferior classes |