the Son himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all.*

In support of these peculiar and fundamental do trines of the Gospel, we think it incumbent on us, as wemust answer for our deportment as Christians to our righteous judge, to dissent from all forms and modes of worship in which they are either not acknowledged or are subverted: Believing that Christ's kingdomis not of this world, agreeably to that good confession which he witnessed before Pontius Pilate, and not da- ring in the face of his prohibitions, to call any man upon earth father or master, in a religious sense, we protest against the interference of the civil power in affairs of conscience, and reprobate the alliance of church and state as a wide departure from the obvi-ous design of christianity; yet if we thought it lawful, as the subjects of the King of kings and Lord of lords, to obey magistrates in the pale of the church · when they command things indifferent, (if any thing in such a case can be indifferent) we cannot so far forfeit our allegiance to our one only master as to be◄ lieve on any authority, what is not revealed, or what is contradictory to revelation, or to profess what we do not and cannot believe. Here we know our duty, and are prepared at any risk to obey God, rather than man. Hence springs our dissent from the Church of Scotland, and other Protestant churches, whether national or congregational, supported by public au

1 Tim. ii. 5.

Rom. x. 8, 9.

Acts xxiv. 15. 2 Cor. v.10. 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, 26, 28.

thority or purely voluntary. We dissent however in peace and charity: We pursue no political, no worldly object. Our aim is single and direct. We strive to be perfect in our imitation of Christ, and our obedience to him, that we may be found of him in peace at his coming.

The scriptures being the true source of our opinions, we cannot feel shame on account of them, how unpopular or obnoxious soever they may be. We would make no unseemly boasts, and advance no arrogant pretensions; but we feel a holy constraint upon us, obliging us to assert the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. We court not censure, much less violence, but we cannot, consistently with our views, shrink from notice, and hide ourselves in a corner.

It has indeed been urged, that we should not dissent from the majority, for that they are more likely to be correct than ourselves. To this objection we would reply, that it is because mankind in general never think for themselves that they are perpetually falling into error. It is because we are contented to surrender our minds to the multitude, and to lose our reason in the clamour of the general throng, that we never act with the dignity which becomes the possessors of an individual nature, of an immortal and heavenly principle. It is because we never exercise our own powers, but suffer them to sink into the tor, por and nervelessness of general opinion, that our minds forget their native vigour and our conduct

loses the name of action. For what person ever soared above the humbling level of life, and, assuming the majesty of his nature, acted with the elevation. and views which that majesty inspired, without trans-gressing the public opinion and incurring the public censure? What enterprise of greatness and of glory. has ever been proposed, which has not raised against it the voice of the multitude, and excited the universal cry of, away with it, away with it? And yet this multitude truly, is to give the general and unal-terable law of conduct; this multitude is to prescribe the limits of the mind-to mark its passless boundary -and to say, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; This multitude is to chain down to its ownlittleness and degradation every thing that is exalted in thought, every thing that is grand in action, and every thing that is sublime în feeling.

True, we may err. We are ready to confess our fallibility; there is no practical truth which we are more accustomed to press home upon our own minds; and least of all persons should we be excuseable if by any uncharitable sentiments or deeds we brought upon ourselves the charge of bigotry; but we may be permitted to say, that if we err it is not wilfully, nor altogether through negligence. There are some

there are many amongst our body, who might, without affectation, adopt the language of the ever memorable John Hales, of Eaton, in his letter to Archbishop Laud; "The pursuit of truth hath been my only care, ever since I first understood the mean

ing of the word. For this, I have forsaken all hopes, -all friends, all desires which might bias me, and hinder me from driving right at what I aimed. For this I have spent my money, my means, my youth, my age, and all I have. If with all this cost and pains my purchase is but error; I may safely say, to err hath cost me more, than it has many to find the truth;→→ and truth itself shall give me this testimony at last, that if I have missed her, it is not my fault, but my misfortune."*

But it must not be concealed that we have, as a religious body, something whereof to glory. It is not that we are considerable and increasing in numberit is not that we are respectable according to the standard by which society measures respectabilityit is not that we are of long standing in the christian world-but it is this glorious peculiarity, which I' pray to God we may never forfeit, that we allow unbridled liberty of conscience. The page of history informs us of a Grecian robber, who having taken travellers, measured them by his bed, and if too long cut them shorter, and if too short stretched them lon ger;-a fit type of the invaders of Christ's jurisdiction, the violators of Christian liberty-the framers and imposers of human creeds and articles of faith; engines to rack and torture the freeborn mind. O my. soul, is the exclamation of us all, come not thou into their secret; and unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united. Delivered from the house of bondage

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Hales's Works, Vol. 1st page 138.

ourselves, we abhor the thought of enslaving others. We hold no creed but the New Testament; every man's interpretation of which is to himself the true standard of orthodoxy. Our communion is open to all that are sound-in character. We think that vir tue is of more importance than speculative belief, and that the worst heresy is a wicked life. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound of gospel freedom.Happy is that people that is in such a case; yea, happy is that people whose God is Jehovah.

I shall now adduce some of the arguments from Reason and Scripture, generally brought forward by Unitarian Christians, to prove the truth of the principles they profess.

The first article of our belief then, for which we suffer so much calumny and reproach is, as has already been stated, that there is but one only God; and that this one God can in no proper sense, be three; that the doctrine of three persons in one God, is a doctrine of which there is no indication in nature, and no trace from Genesis to the Revelations; that after all which has been written in its defence, not a single passage, nor even a single expression has been or can be adduced, which affirms that there is a plurality of persons in one undivided essence, and therefore that this doctrine, in whatever light it be viewed, is inconceivable and contradictory.

1st. Admitting the existence of One uncaused selfexistent intelligent Being, it is the duty of those who assert that there are Three persons in the Godhead, the same in substance, equal in power and glory, to