TWO DISCOURSES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 UNION BETWEEN GOD AND CHRIST, 
 
 AND THE GROUNDS OF 
 
 UNITARIAN NONCONFORMITY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 / 
 
 WITH 
 
 A PREFATORY ADDRESS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANS. 
 
 BY THOMAS MADGE, 
 
 MINISTER OF ESSEX-STREET CHAPEL. 
 
 " Would to God that Christians would be content with the plainness and simplicity 
 of the Gospel, and be persuaded to make no other terms of communion than what 
 Jesus himself hath made!" DR. SYKES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 R. HUNTER, 72 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. 
 
 1835.
 
 PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR, 
 RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
 
 PREFATORY ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANS. 
 
 1 HESE two Discourses, in vindication of the 
 principles generally entertained by us, are pub- 
 lished in compliance with wishes to that effect re- 
 peatedly expressed. In what I have said of the 
 grounds of our separation from the Established 
 Church, I have aimed to distinguish our reasons 
 for Dissent, from those which are commonly ad- 
 vanced by most other classes of seceders. In- 
 deed, with the opinions and conduct of many of 
 them, our principles and practice are still more 
 at variance than with those of the Church of En- 
 gland. For, though with some of the creeds and 
 articles and various portions of the liturgy of that 
 Church we entirely disagree, yet practically there 
 is often displayed by its members a spirit of libe- 
 
 a 2 
 
 2066929
 
 IV 
 
 rality, of kindness, and of charity, which is very 
 rarely to be met with in those with whom, except 
 a general belief in Christianity, we have scarcely 
 anything in common save the name of Dissenters. 
 Those of our arguments which may be thought to 
 tell most against the Established Church, accord- 
 ing to its present constitution, apply with still 
 more effect to the narrow and exclusive princi- 
 ples too frequently set up by the Churches among 
 the Nonconformists. Professing to rely solely on 
 Scripture, and to maintain and uphold the right of 
 every individual to interpret that Scripture for 
 himself, affecting to reject the bondage of sub- 
 scription to articles of faith, and to allow full and 
 perfect freedom of conscience, they yet impose 
 tests and terms of membership founded upon mere 
 human authority, and exclude from their com- 
 munion all those whose opinions happen not to 
 symbolize with their own. They demand that the 
 endowments of the Universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridge should be laid open to them, while, 
 without scruple, they not only shut up their own 
 foundations within the circumscribed boundaries 
 of their own sect, but are strenuously labouring 
 to deprive others of the funds which they have in-
 
 herited from their forefathers, on the ground that, 
 in acting upon the true Protestant principle of 
 thinking and judging for themselves, they have 
 come to conclusions opposed, in many respects, to 
 the opinions generally received *. Differing, then, 
 as we do from the English Church, there are large 
 classes of English Dissenters from whom we differ 
 still more ; and concerning whom their late into- 
 lerant conduct naturally prompts the exclamation, 
 " O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto 
 their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." 
 The views which are frequently taken of the 
 opinions which we entertain are so erroneous, and 
 
 * I allude here to the case of Lady Hewley's Charity, lately 
 brought before the Court of Chancery, from which it will be seen 
 that the Orthodox Dissenters, as they style themselves, instead 
 of being satisfied with largely partaking of the funds which the 
 Presbyterian trustees of a Presbyterian benefaction have distri- 
 buted in a spirit of generous comprehension, in agreement with 
 what they conceive to have been the intentions of the testatrix, 
 are now seeking by process of law, by the aid of obsolete 
 and intolerant statutes, to deprive the body for whom it was at first 
 chiefly designed of all benefit therein, and to monopolize the 
 whole to themselves. He who is desirous of understanding the 
 real merits of this question, would do well to read carefully the 
 admirable and instructive pamphlet of the Rev. Joseph Hunter, 
 entitled " An Historical Defence of the Trustees of Lady Hewley's 
 Foundations, and of the Claims upon them of the Presbyterian 
 Ministry of England."
 
 VI 
 
 the imputations with which we are perpetually 
 assailed are so palpably unjust, that it requires, 
 on the part of those who are well acquainted with 
 their principles, a great stretch of charity to be- 
 lieve that such charges are made in sober and 
 serious earnestness. Be the source, however, in 
 which they originate what it may, one thing is 
 certain, that they are widely circulated, and 
 among the uninquiring, unreasoning multitude, a 
 body gathered from all ranks and conditions of 
 life, obtain a ready and general belief. In this 
 way mischief is done to our cause which we have 
 it not in our power adequately to repair. The 
 false statement goes where the true statement is 
 not permitted to enter. The calumny spreads 
 faster and wider than the refutation follows. The 
 poison is swallowed where the antidote can never 
 be administered. If all who are called upon to 
 decide upon the correctness of our sentiments 
 would take the proper means of judging before 
 they decide, we should have no fears for the result. 
 We have no reluctance in submitting our cause 
 to a trial, and no doubt as to what the issue of 
 the trial would be. Our anxiety, our apprehen- 
 sion, arises from the difficulty of procuring a
 
 VII 
 
 fair and candid trial, of having the evidence pro- 
 perly stated, duly weighed, and impartially con- 
 sidered. Our complaint is, not that our opinions 
 are attacked, not that their truth and consistency 
 with Scripture are called in question, (for at this 
 we have no more right to be offended, than have 
 others when their sentiments are impugned,) but 
 the subject of our complaint is, that we are con- 
 stantly charged with holding opinions which we do 
 not hold, and with cherishing designs which are 
 alien to our hearts. Let the faith which we pro- 
 fess be justly represented, let it be contemplated 
 in its genuine form and features, and we have suf- 
 ficient confidence in the greatness of its merits 
 and the power of its charms to believe that it 
 will attract the admiration and win the affections 
 of the thoughtful, candid, and inquiring mind. 
 
 We think that we can honestly say that we 
 desire to witness the triumph of truth on which 
 side soever the truth may lie. Let our opinions 
 be proved to be false, let it be shown that they 
 are inconsistent with that testimony to which all 
 Christians alike appeal, and what is there to pre- 
 vent us from instantly renouncing our attachment 
 to them ?
 
 Vlll 
 
 What have we to gain by holding fast to them, 
 unless they themselves are fastened to the rock 
 of eternal truth ? If from that connexion and 
 alliance they are separated and dissociated, the 
 chord which bound them to us is broken asunder. 
 It is only as long as they appear in union and 
 association with the word of God, with the doc- 
 trines of Christ, that our hearts are knit to them 
 in holy constancy and love. Wedded to them, 
 indeed, our thoughts and affections are, but only 
 in as much and so far as they are wedded to the 
 just, the true, the beautiful, and the good. Divide, 
 cut them off from these, and you destroy the 
 very chain by whose links the bond of our sym- 
 pathy with them is preserved. Those who sup- 
 pose us to be actuated by sinister motives, to be 
 so much in love with a particular creed as to 
 adopt and abide by it in spite of any incongruity 
 and deformity which may be proved to belong to 
 it, should consider with themselves what, in a 
 worldly sense, we have to gain by our belief. Is 
 it the road to honour and preferment ? Does it 
 carry with it any peculiar recommendation to po- 
 pular favour ? Does it guide its professors to the 
 acquirement of any of those advantages and pos-
 
 IX 
 
 sessions which act upon the mind with a seduc- 
 tive influence, with a bewitching power of decep- 
 tion ? Assuredly, nothing of the kind can be pre- 
 tended. We are not of the world, and there is 
 good evidence that, with many, this is no secret. 
 The world's love and the world's law are against 
 us, and are known to be against us. From that 
 quarter no influence arises but such as is used to 
 the prejudice and disparagement of our faith, 
 in diverting our thoughts and drawing our incli- 
 nations away from it. And we know, likewise, that 
 the influence thus exerted is often but too success- 
 fully exerted, not only in bewildering the judge- 
 ment, and misleading the understanding, but in 
 bribing the conscience and betraying the mind to 
 the outward profession and avowal of what it 
 inwardly disowns and rejects. Looking, then, to 
 the world, all its meaner considerations operate 
 to the hinderance and not to the furtherance of 
 our opinions. As far as they are concerned, its 
 power is a repellent power, not attracting our 
 minds towards them, but evermore tending to 
 keep them and our minds asunder. 
 
 Without insinuating, therefore, that they, who 
 are opposed to us, are directly and consciously in-
 
 fluenced by worldly considerations, it is no more 
 than the plain simple truth to say, that on their 
 side, and not on ours, such inducements are most 
 plentifully to be met with. Whether they have any 
 effect in perverting or corrupting the judgement, 
 whether they do or do not give an improper bias 
 to the mind in its leanings towards the popular 
 system, it is for the friends and advocates of that 
 system to determine. Far be it from us to say 
 that they do, to say so, at least, of any individual 
 believer. But this we say, that to many they must 
 present strong temptations to deal unfairly with 
 the subject, and that the presumption is, that, 
 oftentimes, such temptations insinuate themselves 
 into the mind of the inquirer, leading his thoughts 
 
 and sentiments, unconsciouslv, to the conclusion 
 
 f 3 
 
 at which it is his interest to arrive. This, however, 
 is a topic on which I am not desirous of dwelling. 
 I had much rather give every one the credit 
 of a sincere and earnest desire and endeavour to 
 attain to the knowledge of the truth. I will not 
 suppose the intervention of any unrighteous mo- 
 tives, by which his mind should be dishonestly 
 acted upon. We are, all of us, weak and fallible 
 creatures ; liable to have our judgements, in vari-
 
 XI 
 
 ous ways, warped ; and our views, through the 
 medium of passion and prejudice, distorted and 
 discoloured. Of this let all parties be mindful, 
 and against this let all of them be upon their 
 guard. Instead of one saying to another, you are 
 actuated by interest, and you by a love of popu- 
 larity, and you by pride of understanding, and you 
 by a passion for novelty, let each be regarded by 
 each as a fellow-pilgrim to the land of eternity, 
 as much concerned as his brother to understand 
 what God has been pleased to reveal of himself, 
 and of the final destiny of his rational offspring. 
 What man has not as much interest in the know- 
 ledge of the truth as any other man ? Who, that 
 receives Christ as his Master, can wish to be 
 otherwise than truly informed of what that Master 
 has taught and commanded ? 
 
 I know not that it can be justly laid to our 
 charge that we have, in any great degree, been 
 guilty of violating the law of charity and love. 
 I am not aware that our practice has been to 
 deal in insinuations injurious to the personal ho- 
 nour and character of those from whose opinions 
 we have seen reason to dissent. That we have al- 
 ways steered clear of every offensive expression,
 
 Xll 
 
 that we have never been betrayed into the use of 
 supercilious language, of language inconsistent 
 with the spirit of Christian humility, is more 
 than I would take upon myself to affirm. But, 
 usually I think, it has been our endeavour to avoid, 
 as much as possible, all cause of personal offence ; 
 to cast no imputation upon the motives of those 
 to whose theological system we have most strongly 
 objected ; to look fairly at the statements of our 
 opponents ; and to be careful, in controverting 
 them, to understand them in the sense in which 
 they were meant to be understood. 
 
 There can also, I conceive, be no inducement 
 with any one to embrace Unitarian opinions from 
 the idea that they relax the strictness of moral 
 obligation, impose easier terms of obedience, or 
 give greater licence to the indulgence of sinful pas- 
 sions and inclinations. I know that this is often 
 insinuated, nay more, that it is sometimes plainly 
 and broadly asserted. We are said to make light 
 of the evil of sin, and not to be very rigid in 
 enforcing the unbending and unalterable nature 
 of God's holy law. What the actual practice of 
 Unitarians may be ; what the general tenour of 
 their conduct is ; how they rank in the scale of
 
 Xlll 
 
 morals as compared with other classes of Chris- 
 tians, opens a very delicate and invidious topic of 
 discussion, upon which no provocation will, I trust, 
 induce me to enter. But that the system which 
 they profess sanctions any departure from the code 
 of the purest morality ; that it allows of any laxness 
 in the observance of the divine commands; that it 
 looks with an eye of indifference and unconcern 
 upon any kind of sinful indulgence or vicious pur- 
 suit, is palpably and notoriously untrue. It teaches, 
 as strongly and as plainly as it is possible for any 
 system to do, that all sin is odious in the sight of 
 God, and should be so in the sight of man. It 
 enforces the necessity of a holy and virtuous life 
 as the " one thing needful," as the indispensable 
 condition of true happiness, as the only available 
 instrument of rendering ourselves fit objects of 
 the divine mercy and forgiveness. It tells us that 
 our actions are open to the inspection of that Be- 
 ing who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity 
 with approbation, and who will bring every work 
 into judgement, with every secret thought. It 
 holds forth and inculcates, in the most perem- 
 ptory and uncompromising manner, the assurance 
 that " every man must give account of himself to
 
 XIV 
 
 God, and be judged according to his works." So 
 far from providing any substitute for defective 
 virtue, it declares plainly and emphatically, that 
 he only "who doeth righteousness is righteous," 
 and that we must all " work out our own salva- 
 tion with fear and trembling." In the importance 
 which it ascribes to the cultivation and possession 
 of genuine morality; in the estimation and re- 
 gard in which it holds the practice of virtue ; in 
 the earnestness with which it insists upon the con- 
 nexion between sin and suffering, between duty 
 and happiness, between obedience to the com- 
 mands of God and the blessings to be reaped in 
 heaven, it is impossible for any doctrine to go be- 
 yond it. This is admitted by many of the most 
 respectable and candid writers among Trini- 
 tarians themselves. Bishop Burnet, speaking of 
 the Unitarians of his day, says, " I must do them 
 the right to own that their rules in morality are 
 exact and severe ; that they are, generally, men 
 of probity, justice and charity, and seem to be 
 very much in earnest in pressing the obligation to 
 very high degrees of virtue*." And in a work 
 
 * Addres$ to the Clergy of the Diocese of Sarum, prefixed to 
 his Four Discourses.
 
 XV 
 
 published a few years ago by Dr. Adam, a clergy- 
 man of the Church of England, the following 
 candid acknowledgement is generously made. 
 " With regard," says he, " 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 princi- 
 ple of love to God and benevolence to man, is, in 
 their judgement, the sum and substance of Chris- 
 tianity*." 
 
 To what extent Unitarians act up to the rules 
 of morality prescribed by their faith, and whether 
 they are more deficient than others in the per- 
 formance of the duties imposed upon them by 
 their principles, is an inquiry which each indivi- 
 dual would do well to institute for himself; but, 
 to go beyond this, and sit in judgement on the 
 conduct and character of others, can serve no 
 other purpose than that of ministering to the 
 growth of spiritual pride, and the encouragement 
 
 * Adam's Religious World Displayed, vol. ii. p. 171. 1st edit.
 
 XVI 
 
 of malignant bigotry. That we, all of us, fall far 
 short of what we ought to be ; that we, none of 
 us, act fully up to the standard by which our con- 
 duct should be regulated ; that we suffer our 
 principles to lie too much in our heads without 
 bringing them into the sanctuary of our hearts 
 and making them the prompters and sustainers 
 of holy and benevolent thoughts and purposes ; 
 that we all need to be frequently reminded of 
 what, holding the sentiments we do, it becomes 
 us to be ; is a concession which, in common with 
 all denominations of Christians, we cannot refuse 
 to make. And we would make it with humility 
 and sorrow. We are well aware that we have 
 much on this score that calls for penitence, cor- 
 rection, and amendment. Would that our faults 
 and errors arrested more of our own attention, 
 and excited more our own exertions to remove 
 them ! But if any Unitarian supposes that, by 
 reason of his peculiar opinions, he is released from 
 any one moral obligation which Christianity can 
 be clearly shown to have inculcated, or that a 
 wider door is thereby opened to him for indulgence 
 in sinful pleasure, let him be assured that he has 
 altogether mistaken the character of the faith
 
 XV11 
 
 which he has embraced, that he is little ac- 
 quainted with its true spirit, and has little entered 
 into its purpose and design. 
 
 In connexion with this topic I may, perhaps, 
 be allowed to remark, that those Unitarians who 
 have best understood their principles, who have 
 most thought upon and valued them, whose souls 
 have been brought into the closest and most abid- 
 ing intimacy with them, and upon whose minds, 
 therefore, they have probably exerted their na- 
 tural and appropriate influence, have ever been 
 distinguished for the excellence and purity of their 
 lives. A host of names rises to my view, to each 
 of which I might refer in corroboration of the 
 justness of this remark. From the bold and in- 
 trepid preaching of Biddle, to the powerful and 
 awakening appeals sent forth by the illustrious 
 Priestley, a race of advocates and defenders of the 
 doctrine of the Divine Unity successively sprang 
 up, not more distinguished for their learning and 
 talents than for their piety and virtue. Oppressed 
 and persecuted as many of them were, yet to this 
 their memories may justly lay claim, that not 
 even calumny itself has dared to breathe the 
 whisper of an accusation against their spotless 
 
 b
 
 XVlll 
 
 and incorruptible integrity. Passing by a long 
 list of worthies whose names are honoured in our 
 Churches, it is impossible to revert for a moment 
 to the consideration of such a life as that of our 
 revered Priestley, without perceiving what a 
 mighty influence was exerted upon his thoughts 
 and actions by the religious principles which he 
 professed, without feeling that they penetrated the 
 very depths of his soul, and imparted sustenance, 
 strength, and vigour to the noblest affections of 
 his heart. If we wanted an illustration of the 
 natural tendency of Unitarian opinions, we might 
 turn to the contemplation of him whose whole 
 mind and soul were given to their advocacy and 
 defence. Subject as he was to trials of no com- 
 mon severity, and driven by the rancorous malice 
 of his enemies, from scenes of usefulness and 
 comfort in his native land, to find a home and an 
 asylum in a foreign country, he never, under any 
 circumstances, forgot the spirit and the temper 
 becoming his Christian profession, nor was ever 
 betrayed into the expression of feelings at vari- 
 ance with the faith, the charity, and the hopes of 
 the Gospel. He was, in deed and in truth, a real, 
 sincere, practical believer, showing his faith by his
 
 XIX 
 
 works; living in the world, but, at the same time, 
 above it ; acting as seeing Him who is invisible ; 
 and looking not so much at " the things which 
 are seen and temporal, as at those which are un- 
 seen and eternal." Of this great and good man I 
 am tempted to quote what has been so justly and 
 beautifully said of him by two excellent judges, 
 now, like himself, departed to the world of spirits, 
 or awaiting in their graves the summons of that 
 voice which shall speedily call them to its bright 
 and august abodes. 
 
 The words which I shall first cite are those of 
 the late Reverend Dr. Parr, a distinguished clergy- 
 man of the Established Church, and celebrated, 
 equally, for the depth of his learning and the libe- 
 rality of his spirit. 
 
 (t Let Dr. Priestley," he observes, " be confuted 
 where he is mistaken. Let him be exposed where 
 he is superficial. Let him be repressed where he 
 is dogmatical. Let him be rebuked where he is 
 censorious. But let not his attainments be de- 
 preciated, because they are numerous almost 
 without a parallel. Let not his talents be ridi- 
 culed, because they are superlatively great. Let 
 not his morals be vilified, because they are correct 
 
 b2
 
 XX 
 
 without austerity, and exemplary without osten- 
 tation ; because they present even to common 
 observers, the innocence of a hermit, and the sim- 
 plicity of a patriarch ; and because a philosophic 
 eye will at once discover in them, the deep-fixed 
 root of virtuous principle, and the solid trunk of 
 virtuous habit*." 
 
 Not inferior to this, either on account of the 
 value of the authority whence it proceeded, or for 
 the beauty of the language in which it is delivered, 
 is the testimony borne to the same transcendent 
 excellence by the late Reverend William Wood 
 of Leeds, the immediate successor in the pastoral 
 office of the Christian philosopher now in our 
 contemplation, and himself a man whom to know 
 was to honour and respect, and who has left be- 
 hind him a name embalmed in the grateful and 
 affectionate remembrance of his friends. The 
 passage to which I refer forms the conclusion of 
 the funeral discourse delivered by him on occa- 
 sion of Dr. Priestley's death. It is as follows : 
 
 " He was a burning and a shining light, and 
 
 * See a Letter from Irenopolis to the Inhabitants of Eleuthe- 
 ropolis, p. 18.
 
 XXI 
 
 those who truly knew him rejoiced in his light. 
 Like a fervent summer's sun, he rose at an early 
 hour, to send forth his beams far and wide, and 
 illustrate the wonders of his Creator's works ; and 
 though, when not far advanced beyond the height 
 of noon, he was assailed by a sudden storm, which 
 hid him from the eyes of men, and seemed for a 
 time to have blotted him out from the firmament 
 of heaven, he moved in a sphere far above its 
 reach, and passed on with undiminished strength. 
 His rays were intercepted, but not extinguished ; 
 his glory was obscured, but not lost. He soon 
 dispelled the thickest blackness of the gloom, 
 burst at length through the yielding cloud, and at 
 the solemn hour of eve, appeared all calm and se- 
 rene, with a less dazzling splendour, but appa- 
 rently with a larger orb, giving to the admiring 
 world a delightful earnest that he will rise again 
 to a brighter morn, and shine with a new lustre 
 through the ever-extending course of a constant 
 day." 
 
 To words like these, glowing with the spirit of 
 the purest eloquence, it would be presumption in 
 me to add one further remark relating to the sub- 
 ject of them, save that it would be well for all of
 
 XX11 
 
 us to pray that we may lead a life of integrity 
 and piety kindred to that which he led, and that 
 our last end may be like his, calm, peaceful, and 
 serene, unclouded by guilty recollections of the 
 past, and radiant with bright and blessed hopes 
 of the future ! 
 
 To the gay and the giddy, the careless and the 
 sensual, Unitarianism has no attractions to offer. 
 Recommendations it has none, but to the candid, 
 serious, impartial inquirers after truth. To such 
 persons it must be a cheering circumstance to 
 know that some of the greatest and noblest spi- 
 rits that ever walked the earth, that some of the 
 loftiest intellects that ever mused upon truth, 
 and some of the purest hearts that ever throbbed 
 with piety to God, have belonged to the same 
 "household of faith" with themselves. And as 
 an indirect and collateral evidence of what the 
 spirit was by which they were actuated, it should 
 be noticed that those who have sought the truth 
 in the love of it, who have employed their thoughts 
 in Scriptural investigations, and have spoken 
 frankly and openly to the world, have generally 
 been branded with the name of Socinian, that 
 being deemed the foulest term of reproach that
 
 XX111 
 
 could be cast upon them. What is this but an 
 involuntary confession that between our system 
 of faith, and the spirit of free, honest, and generous 
 inquiiy, there is an accordance, a harmony, which 
 renders the one no unmeet companion for the 
 other, which assimilates their characters, and 
 identifies their interests. 
 
 Unjust and bitter as are the attacks continually 
 made upon us, we fear them not. We are pre- 
 pared to resist them, prepared to go forth and 
 encounter them, in the confidence that we are 
 clothed with the armour of truth. The general 
 principles of Christianity, those which concern 
 the common faith and the common salvation, are 
 the principles upon which we most delight to 
 dwell. We are not eager to engage in everlasting 
 contests about matters which, as subjects of con- 
 troversy, conduce little towards general edifica- 
 tion and comfort ; but, at the same time, we will 
 not shrink from the defence of any important 
 truth which has been entrusted to our care and 
 guardianship, nor decline the task, when forced 
 upon us, of contending earnestly for the faith 
 once delivered to the saints. In the words of 
 Milton, " If God come to try our constancy, we
 
 XXIV 
 
 ought not to shrink or stand the less firmly for 
 that, but pass on with more steadfast resolution 
 to establish the truth." 
 
 In meekness, then, let us endeavour to instruct 
 those that oppose us, and show, by the consistency 
 and integrity of our lives, our right and title to 
 the Christian name. One interpretation only can 
 be put on the high and noble bearing of a con- 
 sistently virtuous and good man. It speaks a 
 language which none can mistake, and with a 
 voice of power which none can resist. Let the 
 narrow-minded bigots beat the alarm. It will 
 not terrify those who know in whom they trust, 
 and where their security abides. Let us hold fast 
 to the profession of our faith with an unwavering 
 mind, steadily and strenuously opposing all spi- 
 ritual pride and presumption, all attempts to in- 
 timidate reason and to fetter the freedom of the 
 soul. Above all, be it our constant care and con- 
 cern to adorn the doctrine we profess by the ex- 
 hibition of a spirit, a temper, and a practice cor- 
 responding to its pure and heavenly nature.
 
 TWO DISCOURSES. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 JOHN x. 30. 
 / and my Father are one. 
 
 \_ HESE words are expressive of a certain unity 
 or connexion between God and Christ ; and have 
 been variously understood according to the re- 
 spective views entertained by the different inter- 
 preters of the nature and character of our Lord. 
 Some have inferred from them and similar expres- 
 sions, that the union existing between God and 
 Christ is a union of natures, that, in some my- 
 sterious way unknown to us, the Deity of the one 
 and the humanity of the other are so essentially 
 and substantially associated together as, by this 
 union, to constitute one person. Others, as the 
 Unitarian Christians, object to this interpretation, 
 because, in the first place, it assumes as an hypo- 
 thesis what the Scriptures nowhere teach ; and 
 in the next place, because the union spoken of in 
 
 B
 
 the text, as is obvious from the context and many 
 other places in the New Testament, is manifestly 
 not a union of natures, but a union of will and 
 affection, of disposition, purpose, and action. 
 
 Before proceeding with the consideration of the 
 general question, allow me to devote a few words 
 to the explanation of the phraseology of the text. 
 Whatever may be the notions entertained of the 
 person of Christ, it is agreed by all Christians, 
 by all who acknowledge the divine authority of 
 their Master, that he appeared on earth to make 
 known to man the will, and to execute the pur- 
 poses, of his heavenly Father. The wisdom which 
 he uttered was uttered by the inspiration of God, 
 and the works which he performed were performed 
 by the power of God. According to his own aver- 
 ment, it was his meat and drink to do the will of 
 him who sent him, and to finish the work which 
 it was given him to do ; and consequently, he 
 was one with God in mind and purpose, in spirit 
 and intention, in affection and action. This, as 
 it seems to us, is the meaning of the text. Jesus 
 Christ does not assert that he is the Father, or 
 the same being or person with the Father, but 
 that he and the Father, two beings, known and 
 distinguished from each other, were nevertheless 
 united together in one great object, that of pro- 
 moting the happiness, and accomplishing the re-
 
 demption and salvation of man. That there is 
 nothing 1 unreasonable in this interpretation, that 
 it is not an unnatural or unusual mode of explain- 
 ing- the language of the text, that similar phra- 
 seology, bearing the construction now put upon 
 it, is elsewhere adopted, and adopted too by Christ 
 himself, may be seen by referring to John, xvii. 
 20 23: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for 
 them also who shall believe on me through their 
 word ; that they all may be one ; as thou, Father, 
 art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be 
 one in us : and the glory which thou gavest me I 
 have given them ; that they may be one, even as 
 we are one : / in them, and thou in me, that they 
 may be made perfect in one." Here Christ is his 
 own interpreter of the words of the text. We 
 have here his own explanation of them. He di- 
 stinctly states in what sense this unity of which 
 he speaks, between himself and God, is to be un- 
 derstood. He prays, you will observe, that he and 
 his disciples may be one, as he and the Father were 
 one. " I in them, and thou in me," says Christ. 
 But how is Christ to be in us ? Not surely in na- 
 ture or person, but by the power and influence of 
 his spirit. So, in like manner, God is in Christ, 
 not in essence and substance, but by the holy 
 spirit which he breathed into him, and the power 
 and wisdom which he communicated to him. 
 
 B 2
 
 This use and meaning of the word c one' is also 
 justified by the language of the Apostle Paul, to be 
 found in 1 Corinthians iii. 8.: "He that planteth 
 and he that watereth are one ;" not one person, 
 one being, but one in object, design, and pursuit. 
 In this sense God and Christ are one, the first 
 having planted, having given birth to, while the 
 other watched and watered and tended, that tree 
 of life which was destined for the healing of the 
 nations. 
 
 Having thus explained the text, not by the 
 help of any hypothesis of our own, but simply by 
 comparing its language with that contained in 
 other similar passages of Scripture, I shall now 
 proceed to the consideration of the general ques- 
 tion ; WHAT is THE UNION WHICH is ASSERTED IN 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT TO EXIST BETWEEN GOD AND 
 CHRIST ? Is there any ground for the belief that 
 that union is a union of natures, such a union as 
 thereby to constitute Christ the same being with 
 God himself, and to entitle him to all the honours 
 of supreme Divinity ? 
 
 In refusing to Christ a homage of this descrip- 
 tion, in denying that he is really and truly God, in 
 maintaining the inferiority and subordination of 
 the Son to the Father, we are actuated by no de- 
 sire to lower our Saviour in the rank of existence, 
 or to place him among a different order of beings
 
 from that assigned him in Scripture. Insinuations 
 to this effect are, I know, often thrown out against 
 us, for the purpose, no doubt, of exciting feelings 
 of aversion and opposition to our opinions, as if 
 it were our object to degrade Christ, to diminish 
 that reverential and grateful admiration with 
 which his holy and majestic character ought ever 
 to be regarded. I trust I need not say, in the 
 presence of those whom I am now addressing, 
 that such imputations are most unfounded and 
 unjust ; that the views which we hold of the per- 
 son of Christ are held because, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, they are deemed by us to be scrip- 
 tural ; because we believe that they render 'Chris- 
 tianity a more reasonable and consistent scheme, 
 and reflect upon the character of Christ a beauty 
 and a glory which attract towards him the strong- 
 est and warmest feelings of admiring and affec- 
 tionate attachment. Our sole object is truth. 
 We have nothing to gain by error. Our desire 
 and endeavour is to ascertain what the revelation 
 of the mind and will of God is ; and having, as 
 we think, ascertained it, by the best use of the 
 various means and appliances in our power, to 
 assert it openly and abide by it steadily, not heed- 
 ing whether it be popular or unpopular, alike re- 
 gardless of the frowns of the bigot and the me- 
 naces of the fanatic, and caring only for this, that
 
 6 
 
 we have sought the truth in the love of it, and are 
 ready to give to every man that asketh us a rea- 
 son for the faith that is in us. 
 
 Let me, then, begin by saying, that, with the 
 most orthodox believers, as they are called, we 
 agree thus far, that between God and Christ there 
 existed a union of such a kind, and to such an 
 extent, as never existed, as far at least as is known 
 to us, between any other creature and the eternal 
 Creator. It is on account of this union, of this 
 relation between the two, that we hail and rejoice 
 in Christ as an instructor, master, deliverer, and 
 saviour. It is because God was with him, dwelt 
 in him, spoke by him, and acted by him, that we 
 feel he is entitled to be regarded as our authorized 
 teacher and lawgiver, upon whose word we may 
 safely rely, and to whose laws we are implicitly to 
 bow. But I need hardly tell you that the great 
 point of difference between us and those ( of our 
 fellow Christians who are opposed to us, is not 
 whether between the mind of Christ and the mind 
 of God there was not an intercommunion which 
 rendered the one the fittest revealer and interpreter 
 of the will of the other, but whether the one and 
 the other were truly the same individual being or 
 person, identified by the possession of a common 
 nature, of the essential attributes and perfections 
 of Deity. It is against this opinion that we pro-
 
 test, and protest earnestly, as unreasonable and 
 unchristian; contradictory in itself, and involving 
 the Scriptures in contradiction ; loading Christi- 
 anity with the weight of objections which it ought 
 not to have imposed upon it, and enveloping the 
 character of Christ in such a cloud of mystery and 
 incongruity as greatly to mar its simplicity and 
 impair its beauty. 
 
 In order to bring the subject before you in as 
 clear and intelligible a form as I can, I would beg 
 you first to consider what we are to understand 
 by the words Christ, Jesus Christ, and what by 
 the word God. Suppose you were asked, Who is 
 Christ ? What would be your answer ? It is he, you 
 might say, who in the time of Augustus Caesar was 
 born in Judaea, who presented himself to the Jews 
 as their long-expected Messiah, who wrought many 
 wonderful miracles in attestation of his claims to 
 this character, and who, after a short life passed 
 in labours of benevolence and mercy, was put 
 to death on 'the cross, and on the third day of 
 his burial rose from the dead, and in a little 
 while ascended up into heaven. Now the being of 
 whom this is said, who went through these suc- 
 cessive scenes and changes, who was born, and suf- 
 fered and died, could not, in the nature of things, 
 be himself the very and eternal God : it is impos- 
 sible; and all admit it to be so. What, then, are
 
 8 
 
 we to understand by the words Jesus Christ"} 
 Can we divide and separate them, and call the first 
 the creature, the servant, the sent of God, and the 
 last the supreme God himself? No, we cannot. 
 The Scriptures will not allow us to do so. They 
 forbid our considering 1 these names as expressive of 
 different persons, or beings, or natures. Accord- 
 ing to them the one may be used for the other, 
 the one and the other meaning the same person. 
 The terms are, what is called, interchangeable. 
 The Scriptures tell us plainly and expressly, that 
 the Christ is Jesus, and that Jesus is the Christ ; 
 that it was Christ who suffered and died and 
 rose from the dead, and that God hath made that 
 same Jesus whom the Jews had crucified both 
 Lord and Christ. " It is Christ that died," says 
 Paul, "yea, rather, that is risen again." The Christ, 
 then, is Jesus, and Jesus is the Christ. Conse- 
 quently neither the one nor the other of these ap- 
 pellatives can be substituted for the word God, 
 it being impossible that God can suffer or that 
 God can die. If, again, we were asked what we 
 mean by the term God, we might reply, with the 
 Apostle Paul, that he is the king eternal, immortal, 
 invisible: and by this definition, therefore, we are 
 likewise precluded from ascribing this title, in its 
 strict and highest sense, to Jesus Christ. There 
 are many things said by Christ which it would be
 
 folly, nay, impiety, to say of the one living and true 
 God. The unavoidable inference seems to be, that 
 Christ and God are two distinct and different be- 
 ings, and that to say of Christ he is the Supreme 
 God, is nothing less than a direct and palpable 
 contradiction to the assertions of Scripture. How, 
 then, are we to understand the language of those 
 who maintain that Christ is God ? In what sense 
 is such phraseology to be taken ? Plainly, and lite- 
 rally, and according to the common acceptation of 
 terms, it cannot by any possibility be true. Take 
 up the New Testament, open it where you will, 
 and you will find that Christ is spoken of, and 
 speaks of himself, in a manner which it would be 
 monstrous and shocking to apply to the Deity. 
 For instance, we read that Jesus wept. You cannot 
 say that God wept. Jesus cried with a loud voice, 
 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 
 You cannot say that this is the exclamation of 
 God. " I came not to do mine own will, but the will 
 of him that sent me." These words could never 
 have been uttered by God. What, then, is meant 
 by those who contend that Christ is God ? It is 
 obvious that it must be meant in some sense very 
 different from the plain and simple one. It must 
 be manifest to every man that the being who was 
 born, and tried, and tempted, and suffered, and 
 died, could not himself be the living, unchange-
 
 10 
 
 able, everlasting God. What is meant, then, by 
 the assertion that Jesus Christ is God, the true, 
 the supreme God ? How is such an opinion to be 
 maintained in the face of the whole history and 
 language of Christ, which, so far from being the life 
 and language of God, is the very reverse of what 
 in such a case it would and must have been? 
 
 To meet this difficulty, and to escape the gross 
 and palpable absurdity of ascribing to the Deity 
 limited knowledge, and limited power, depend- 
 ance, suffering and death, man, most rashly and 
 presumptuously, as it appears to me, has specu- 
 lated upon the nature or essence of God, has 
 boldly rushed in where angels fear to tread, and 
 upon a subject where he knows nothing, of which 
 he is most profoundly ignorant, concerning which 
 no data are given him, and which ought therefore 
 to have imposed upon him a deep, unbroken, re- 
 verential silence, he has advanced pretensions to 
 knowledge not more remarkable for the arrogance 
 than for the folly and mischievousness of their as- 
 sumption. In order to clear the notion of Christ's 
 supreme Deity from the charge of a direct point- 
 blank contradiction to reason and revelation, cer- 
 tain hypotheses have been put forth respecting 
 the nature of God and the person of Christ, upon 
 the two most important of which I shall now pro- 
 ceed to offer a few observations. And I hope that
 
 11 
 
 in doing so you will pardon me for leading your 
 thoughts to the contemplation of matters so re- 
 mote from human cognizance and understanding. 
 I confess I view with utter amazement the 
 manner in which man has dared to theorize on so 
 awful and mysterious a subject as that of the 
 mode of the divine existence. I am confounded 
 when I think that he should have spoken upon 
 such a theme like one who had been admitted 
 within the veil, and to whose vision had been 
 laid open the secret and retired paths of the 
 Great Invisible. If you say, Why call our atten- 
 tion to such a subject as that of the nature of 
 God, or of the manner of his existence, when, in 
 truth, we neither do know nor can know anything 
 about it ? I would echo the sentiment, and say 
 with you, Why indeed ? What right has any one, 
 for the sake of upholding a favourite or precon- 
 ceived opinion, to advance hypotheses respecting 
 the nature or essence of God, for which not an 
 atom of authority exists save in his own teeming 
 imagination ? Remember, it is not we, it is not the 
 Unitarian Christian who would press upon your 
 attention matters like these. On the contrary, 
 our views of Christianity would rather lead you 
 away from them, would withdraw your minds 
 from mazes and labyrinths, where they can only 
 wander amidst perplexity and darkness impene-
 
 12 
 
 trable and inextricable. As Unitarian Christians 
 our language is, The Bible, from the beginning of 
 Genesis to the end of Revelation, inculcates, in 
 the plainest and most positive form, the doctrine 
 that there is one God, and none other but he. The 
 Evangelists and Apostles, with equal force and 
 clearness, teach us also that Jesus Christ is his 
 Son and servant, who freely gave up his life in the 
 cause of human salvation suffered and died, as 
 he had lived and laboured, to do good to the souls 
 and bodies of men; and that in reward of this, his 
 perfect work, his perfect obedience, he was raised 
 from the dead, and advanced by the Supreme 
 Being to the highest honours of the heavenly 
 kingdom. This, we affirm, and make our appeal 
 to your understandings and consciences for the 
 correctness of the affirmation, this, we affirm, is 
 the plain, simple, uniform, uncompromising state- 
 ment of the Scriptures of truth. And with this 
 we are satisfied. With this statement we rest 
 contented. We ask not how so much of the power 
 and wisdom of God was imparted to Christ; how, 
 in what manner, and by what means the mind of 
 Christ was brought into immediate communion 
 with the mind of God. It is sufficient for us to 
 know that such was the fact, that there was this 
 connexion between our Lord and the God who 
 sent him. We do not puzzle ourselves about the
 
 13 
 
 abstract quality or essence of unity, about what it 
 is that constitutes the oneness of a thing. We 
 know what we mean by one mind, one conscious- 
 ness, one will; and, agreeably to the sense in which 
 we employ it of ourselves, we adopt it in our views 
 and descriptions of God. And so, when it is said 
 that Jesus Christ was raised up by God, was in- 
 spired by God, was exalted by God, was glorified 
 by God, we receive it in the natural and custom- 
 ary meaning of the words. We consider Jesus 
 Christ and God as two distinct and different be- 
 ings ; the one as the Creator, the other as the 
 creature ; the one as the giver, the other as the 
 receiver ; the one as the sender, the other as the 
 sent ; the one as independent, the other as de- 
 pendent ; the one as self-subsisting, the other as 
 subsisting by the will and power of a superior. 
 This, we say, is the doctrine positively and con- 
 stantly taught in the Scriptures ; and, abiding by 
 this, and not striving to be wise above what is 
 written, we would keep our minds from plunging 
 into depths beyond their power and skill to fathom. 
 Happy would it have been if Christians generally 
 had been content with these simple, intelligible, 
 and comprehensive views, satisfied that between 
 Christ and God there existed such a connexion, 
 such a relation as entitled the one to be the pro- 
 mulgator and expounder of the laws of the other,
 
 14 
 
 as rendered him worthy of our entire confidence 
 and of our implicit obedience. 
 
 But with these rational and scriptural views 
 Christians have, unfortunately, not been content. 
 They have contended that the union between God 
 and Christ is a union of natures, such a union 
 as, in fact, to constitute them one being or person. 
 And as it is impossible, for the reasons before as- 
 signed, to make this doctrine square with the 
 plain signification of the current language of Scrip- 
 ture, they have had recourse to the most extraor- 
 dinary hypotheses concerning the nature of God, 
 resolving or dividing that nature into parts, por- 
 tions, or distinctions, and speaking of essences, 
 and hypostases, and substances, and processions, 
 as if they were realities passing before their eyes, 
 or facts coming within the reach of their expe- 
 rience. 
 
 Thus, the doctrine of the Trinity supposes that 
 in the Godhead there are three persons or distinc- 
 tions, known by the name of Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost ; and that the Son, the second of 
 these persons or distinctions, was hypostatically 
 united with Jesus Christ, so as, by this union, to 
 constitute one person. 
 
 " In the unity of the Godhead," says the Con- 
 fession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland, " there 
 be three persons, of one substance, power, and
 
 15 
 
 eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God 
 the Holy Ghost." "The Lord Jesus Christ," says 
 the Assembly's Catechism, "being the eternal Son 
 of God, became man, and so was, and continueth 
 to be, God and man in two distinct natures and 
 one person for ever." "The Son," says the second 
 of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of En- 
 gland, " begotten from everlasting of the Father, 
 the very and eternal God, of one substance with 
 the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the 
 Blessed Virgin, so that two whole and perfect 
 natures, that is to say, the Godhead and the man- 
 hood, were joined together in one person never to 
 be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and 
 very man." And so the creed, commonly called 
 the Athanasian Creed, describes Christ as " per- 
 fect God and perfect man, equal to the Father as 
 touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father 
 as touching his manhood, who, although he be 
 God and man, yet he is not two but one Christ." 
 Now, my first remark is, that the language used 
 in these creeds and confessions is plainly and de- 
 cidedly unscriptural. Nothing is said in Scrip- 
 ture about there being three persons in the unity 
 of the Godhead. Nothing is there said of Christ's 
 being the very and eternal God, of one substance 
 with the Father. Nothing is there said about two 
 whole and perfect natures being joined together
 
 16 
 
 in one person. So far are such expressions from 
 being- found in the Bible, or anything like them, 
 I cannot conceive a wider departure from scrip- 
 tural language than these terms exhibit. But 
 passing this by, the point to which I desire now 
 to direct your attention is this, that, for the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity as commonly received, and as 
 laid down in the creeds and formularies just re- 
 ferred to, there is not in the Scriptures, even ad- 
 mitting for a moment the general proposition that 
 Christ is God, there is not in the Scriptures, for 
 the doctrine as above stated, the shadow of a foun- 
 dation. According to every scheme of the Trinity 
 which has ever come before me, Christ is declared 
 to be God by virtue of the union, with his human 
 nature, of the Son, the second person or distinc- 
 tion of the sacred three. Now, I say, that taking 
 up the language of Scripture, and construing it in 
 the most literal manner possible, there is not for 
 this doctrine the semblance of a proof. What 
 we do find in the Scriptures, according to the 
 showing of Trinitarians themselves, and adopt- 
 ing for a moment their own peculiar phraseology, 
 is, not that the Son, the second person of the Tri- 
 nity, dwelt in Christ, but that the Father, the first 
 person, dwelt in him. Observe, Christ does not 
 say, the Son dwelleth in me, I live by the Son, I 
 and the Son are one ; but his language uniformly
 
 17 
 
 is, " the Father dwelleth in me ; I live by the 
 Father ; I am in the Father and the Father in me; 
 I and my Father are one ; as the Father taught 
 me, I speak these things ; I speak that which I 
 have seen with my Father ; the Father gave me a 
 commandment what I should say." Granting, for 
 argument's sake, the doctrine of the supreme divi- 
 nity of Jesus Christ, it is demonstrable, never- 
 theless, that there is no ground whatever, if we 
 look to the Scriptures, for any such distinctions 
 in the divine nature as those usually contended for 
 by Trinitarians. For these distinctions or divi- 
 sions there is not, I repeat it, an iota of evidence to 
 be gathered from the Sacred Volume. Of what- 
 ever kind or description the union between God 
 and Christ may be alleged to be, it was a union 
 with the Father, the first person, (to borrow the 
 language of the Trinitarian,) and not with the Son, 
 the second person. The question, therefore, comes 
 to this, Was the Supreme God, the Father, so united 
 with Christ as to form by this union one person or 
 being 9 Did He, the infinite, the unchangeable, the 
 eternal one, become incarnate and take upon him- 
 self a human form ? 
 
 To the consideration of this more general theme 
 I will now turn ; but as I am anxious not to mis- 
 represent the opinions of others, I will state the 
 views which are commonly entertained of the doc- 
 
 c
 
 trine of the Deity of Christ in the language of the 
 most sober and considerate of its advocates. In 
 speaking of the divine and human natures of 
 Christ, Dr. Tomline, the late Bishop of Winchester, 
 in his Elements of Christian Theology*, says, 
 " The essential properties of one nature were not 
 communicated to the other nature : Christ was at 
 once Son of God and Son of Man ; he was at the 
 same time both mortal and eternal ; mortal as 
 the Son of Man, in respect of his humanity, eternal 
 as the Son of God, in respect of his divinity : each 
 kept his respective properties distinct, without the 
 least confusion in their most intimate union. One 
 person was formed by these two natures, as the 
 Council of Chalcedon expresses it, without con- 
 fusion, immutably, inseparably, indivisibly." "The 
 conclusion," says Dr. Pye Smith-f, "which, to my 
 most serious conviction, flows from the whole of 
 the prophetic and apostolic testimony concerning 
 Christ, received in simplicity and sincerity, with- 
 out hiding or evading any part of that testimony, 
 is that the person of Jesus, the Christ, the Lord, 
 Redeemer, and Saviour of mankind, comprises 
 the unique and mysterious union of humanity 
 and deity ; the human nature with all its proper 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 141. 
 
 t Scripture Testimony of the Messiah, vol. iii. p. 400.
 
 19 
 
 qualities, and the divine nature with all its essen- 
 tial perfections." "We readily avow, that we 
 pretend not to know in what manner the divine 
 and human natures, which we attribute to the 
 Messiah, are united in his sacred person. We 
 believe that in this respect, especially, ' his name 
 is wonderful,' and that ' no one knoweth the Son 
 except the Father.' The Scriptures appear to us, 
 on the one hand, to teach the existence of such a 
 union as produces a personal oneness; and, on the 
 other, to exclude the notion of transmutation or 
 confusion of the essential properties of either na- 
 ture with respect to the other*." 
 
 My first objection to this doctrine, as far as I 
 can attach any meaning to it, is its positive and 
 absolute impossibility. According to any sense 
 which the human understanding can put upon it, 
 it cannot in the nature of things be true. That 
 the power and presence of God may be more 
 strongly and sensibly felt by one of his creatures 
 than by another, no one pretends to deny. That 
 a more direct and intimate communion may exist 
 between the divine mind and the human mind 
 than we have had any experience or consciousness 
 of, it would be folly to dispute. That this was 
 especially and preeminently the case with Jesus 
 
 * Scripture Testimony of the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 372. 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 Christ, we not only believe, but rejoice in believing. 
 But that the nature of God was united to the na- 
 ture of man, so as to form one person, and yet 
 without any confusion or commingling 1 of their 
 natures, seems to me to involve a direct and pal- 
 pable contradiction. 
 
 The Creator is infinite and eternal ; whose ex- 
 istence is neither bounded by space, nor measured 
 by time ; whose dwelling is the " light of setting 
 suns, and the round ocean, and the living air, and 
 the mind of man," and whom the heaven of 
 heavens cannot contain. Is it possible, then, that 
 this nature can be contracted within the dimen- 
 sions of a human body, can be covered with a 
 garment of flesh, can be circumscribed within the 
 limits of an earthly tabernacle ? What, then, is or 
 can be meant by the union of God and Christ, 
 except that Christ enjoyed, in a fuller and more 
 especial manner than any other creature, the pre- 
 sence, the power, the favour, the influence of God ? 
 
 If Christ had been God by nature, if he had 
 come into the world with the nature of God within 
 him or upon him, why should he not, even when 
 he was but an infant of a day old, have manifested 
 as much power and as much wisdom as at any 
 after-period of his life ? Why should not the babe 
 Christ have discoursed in the arms of his mother, 
 as he afterwards discoursed in the courts of the
 
 21 
 
 temple ? Why, if he had been God by nature, is 
 nothing remarkable said to have fallen from his 
 lips till he had reached the age of twelve ? Of the 
 nature or essence of God, abstractedly considered, 
 we know nothing, and it becomes us, therefore, to 
 say nothing ; but this we know, that it is essen- 
 tial to his nature, or at least that it belongs essen- 
 tially to the idea we have of his nature, that he 
 be infinite, unchangeable, omnipotent, omniscient, 
 and immortal. Now, I ask, does it not appear to 
 us in the shape of a thing impossible, to unite 
 together, and at the same time to keep separate 
 and distinct from each other, unlimited power and 
 power that is limited, the knowledge which has 
 no boundary, and the knowledge which is circum- 
 scribed, the property that is unchangeable, and 
 the property that is mutable ? You cannot take 
 from infinity; you cannot weaken omnipotence; 
 you cannot alter unchangeableness ; you cannot 
 subject to death that which by nature is above 
 death. But infinity may swallow up that which 
 is finite, and the darkness of ignorance be lost in 
 the effulgent splendour of omniscience. This I 
 can conceive ; but that the one can exist in in- 
 separable conjunction with the other, that these 
 opposite and inconsistent qualities can be predi- 
 cated of the same being, that the same person 
 can do all things and not do all things, can know
 
 22 
 
 all things and not know all things, appears to 
 me as much a contradiction as to say, that we can 
 be and not be at the same time, or that light and 
 darkness can exist together. Talk of transubstan- 
 tiation, of its inconsistency and absurdity ! Why, 
 the belief of that, as compared with this, is as the 
 straining at a gnat to the swallowing of a camel. 
 
 My next objection to this doctrine is, that it is 
 not found in Scripture ; and that so far from 
 serving as a key to unlock its difficulties and in- 
 tricacies and lay open its hidden meanings, it 
 shuts them up in far greater perplexity and ob- 
 scurity than before. The Unitarian Christian 
 points to the whole history of Christ, to his birth, 
 to his baptism, to his temptation, to his suffer- 
 ings, death, and resurrection ; he points to the 
 constant deportment and the uniform language 
 of our Lord, to the prayers which he offered up to 
 God, and to the words which he addressed to his 
 disciples, as plain and irrefragable proofs of the 
 supremacy of one God the Father, and the sub- 
 ordination to him of his Son Jesus Christ. 
 
 And how is this evidence met and answered ? 
 By supposing that Christ possessed two natures, 
 the human and the divine ; and that when he 
 spoke and acted, felt and prayed as a dependent 
 and inferior being, as we know that he often did, 
 he is to be considered as having done so in his
 
 23 
 
 human capacity, being still the supreme and in- 
 dependent God in his divine nature. But where 
 in Scripture is it said or intimated that Christ is 
 a being possessing two natures, and that each of 
 those natures spoke and acted distinctly and se- 
 parately from the other ? We say : To the law and 
 the testimony : produce your authority : place 
 your finger on that passage in the Bible which 
 says that by Jesus Christ we are sometimes to 
 understand the Supreme Being, sometimes the 
 man Jesus, and sometimes God and man united. 
 Do this, and we bow instant submission ; but if 
 you cannot do this, cease to wonder at our rejec- 
 tion of your irrational and unauthorized assump- 
 tion. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that the Scriptures re- 
 quire this mode of interpretation, and that though 
 they do not directly assert it, they nevertheless 
 not obscurely imply it. 
 
 To this my answer is, that so far from requiring 
 it, so far from implying it, the general language 
 of Scripture is rendered by it a perfect riddle ; 
 and a meaning is given to the commonest forms 
 of expression totally different from that which 
 they have ever before been used to signify. When 
 Jesus Christ speaks of himself as sent by the 
 Father, as obeying the will of the Father, as re- 
 ceiving commandment from the Father, when he
 
 24 
 
 declares that his Father is greater than he, and 
 when, with reference to some anticipated divine 
 judgement, he says, "of that day and hour knoweth 
 no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, 
 neither the Son, but the Father only*," we are 
 told that this language has respect solely to the 
 humanity of Christ, that in these words Christ 
 spoke of himself in one only of the natures which 
 he possessed, and that therefore no conclusion is 
 to be drawn from it adverse to the doctrine of his 
 supreme deity. Now, admitting for a moment the 
 truth of this hypothesis ; granting to the Trinita- 
 rian the right of putting such a construction 
 upon the words of our Lord; what are the con- 
 sequences necessarily resulting from it? Why, 
 they are these : that Christ is not one, but two 
 beings or persons, and that the asserted union 
 of the divine and human natures is, in fact, no 
 union of natures at all. To call it so, while it is 
 admitted that each nature retained its own ap- 
 propriate essential attributes, and did not parti- 
 cipate in the characteristic properties of the other, 
 is of all misnomers the grossest and the most 
 palpable. When Christ denies his knowledge of 
 the day and hour on which a certain predicted 
 event is to take place, here, in this respect at 
 
 * Mark, xiii. 32. Matth. xxiv. 36.
 
 25 
 
 least, according- to the representation of Trini- 
 tarians themselves, here, the divine and human 
 natures were not united. What the one was con- 
 scious of, the other was not conscious of. So 
 when Christ was tempted and suffered, we are 
 told that it was his human nature only that suf- 
 fered and was tempted ; the divine nature could 
 not suffer and could not be tempted. It there- 
 fore follows, that, in this respect also, Christ in his 
 human nature stood apart from Christ in his di- 
 vine nature. Here, again, they were not united. 
 What the one thought, the other did not think. 
 What the one felt, the other did not feel. What 
 the one suffered, was not suffered by the other. 
 God was not one with Christ in his ignorance of 
 a certain day, he was not one with him in his 
 temptations and trials, he was not one with him 
 in his sufferings and death. The one had a con- 
 sciousness of what the other had not ; that is, 
 there were two distinct consciousnesses, two 
 minds, and, consequently, two distinct persons 
 or beings. This is a conclusion demonstratively 
 flowing from the principles and premises laid down 
 by the Trinitarians themselves. 
 
 The passage just referred to, in which Christ 
 denies his knowledge of a certain distant period, 
 is couched in terms which deserve a more marked 
 attention than the passing observation already
 
 26 
 
 bestowed upon it. Observe the climax; how 
 Christ rises from man to angels, and from angels 
 to the Son, and from the Son to the Father. Jesus 
 might have contented himself with saying, that 
 no man knew when that day of judgement, of 
 which he had been speaking, would take place ; 
 but, as if anxious to impress upon the minds of 
 his hearers that the knowledge of this circum- 
 stance had been confided to no one on earth, and 
 that it remained wrapped up in the impenetrable 
 counsels of the Most High, he first declares that 
 no man knew it, next that the angels in heaven did 
 not know it, then that not even the Son was ac- 
 quainted with it, and last of all that the Father 
 only knew it. Now what evidence can go beyond 
 this to prove that Christ and God are two distinct 
 and different beings, the one dependent and de- 
 rived, the other independent and underived, I am 
 utterly at a loss to conceive. 
 
 But admitting the possibility of this doctrine 
 of the union of two natures in Christ so as to con- 
 stitute one being or person, how does it tally, I 
 ask, with what Christ says of himself, and with 
 what is said of him by the Apostles ? I have already 
 referred to some passages of Scripture with which 
 it is totally and irreconcileably discordant. I will 
 now call your attention more directly and specifi- 
 cally to this point. I say, then, let this doctrine
 
 of the two natures in Christ be applied to the in- 
 terpretation of Scripture. Put it fairly to the test. 
 You, the Trinitarian, say, that Christ is both God 
 and man, and that when he speaks of himself as 
 a dependent being 1 , which he is continually doing 1 , 
 he is to be considered as speaking 1 only in his hu- 
 man nature. Be it so. Adopt this opinion ; ap- 
 ply it as the principle by which our Lord's words 
 concerning himself are to be interpreted, and see 
 how they will then read. My Father, says Christ, 
 is greater than I. No words can express more 
 plainly and unequivocally his inferiority to the 
 Father than these words do. Yes, it is replied, so 
 they would be admitted to do if Jesus Christ had 
 not possessed two natures. But possessing two 
 natures, being both God and man, he here speaks 
 in his manhood only, and not in his Godhead. So, 
 then, let the passage be read : let it be looked 
 at as reflected in the mirror of this interpretation. 
 "My Father is greater than I ;" that is, "My divine 
 nature is greater than my human nature." Now I 
 would pat it to the understanding and conscience 
 of any sober, reflecting, unprejudiced person, 
 whether he seriously thinks that this can be the 
 meaning of the passage ? 
 
 But to proceed: I came not, says Christ again, 
 to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 
 This is not, and could not be, the language of God,
 
 28 
 
 but it is the language of our Lord. Yes, it is re- 
 plied, but he here speaks in his human nature only. 
 Then, with this gloss upon them, how will the 
 words read ? "I, as man, came not to do the will of 
 my human nature, but the will of my divine nature." 
 It really concerns me to offer anything even in the 
 way of illustration, that has the slightest appear- 
 ance of burlesquing the Scriptures, of throwing 
 over them an air of ridicule ; but the fault, if there 
 be any, is not mine; it attaches to the system or 
 theory of which it is but the practical exemplifica- 
 tion. I wish to show you, by specific instances, how 
 the Scriptures will read with this principle of the 
 two natures in Christ fastened upon them. To 
 quote again his own declaration : / can of mine 
 own self do nothing. Never were words uttered 
 more repugnant than these to the doctrine of our 
 Lord's supreme divinity. And how is this repug- 
 nance disposed of? By supposing that Christ is 
 here speaking only in his human nature, in his 
 condition and capacity as a man. What! are 
 the words, I, myself, mine own self, uttered too 
 without any reserve, without any qualification, 
 without any the most distant intimation that they 
 are to be understood in a peculiar sense, are these 
 plain words to be considered as meaning only a 
 part of himself, not his whole self, not his entire 
 person, but only a part or portion of his person ?
 
 29 
 
 lean of mine own self do not king, that is, we are told, 
 " I can in my human nature do nothing." Can 
 you, I ask, be satisfied with this version ? Can you 
 really believe that this was what Christ intended 
 to express ? Would any one, who had been present 
 when these words were uttered, have ever dreamt 
 of putting upon them such a construction as this? 
 I might go on producing many other passages 
 of like import with those now referred to ; but, 
 as this is not necessary for the purpose I have 
 in view, I shall content myself with one specimen 
 more. In that day, says Christ to his disciples, 
 (alluding to the time of his ascension, and when 
 he should be personally withdrawn from them,) 
 ye shall ask me nothing. Whatsoever ye shall ask 
 the Father in my name, he will give it you. Here 
 is an express and positive injunction, given by our 
 Lord himself to his disciples, not to pray to him 
 after he was removed from their presence. There 
 seems to be no possible way of evading the direc- 
 tion thus so clearly and unconditionally laid down ; 
 nor is there any except by the help of some such 
 hypothesis as that now under our consideration. 
 With the light of this hypothesis shining upon the 
 passage, it will read thus. " In that day ye shall 
 ask me (my human nature) nothing. Whatsoever 
 ye shall ask the Father (my divine nature) in my 
 name (in the name of my human nature) he (that
 
 30 
 
 is, I myself, in my divine nature,) will give it you." 
 Now I say, boldly and unequivocally, that a doc- 
 trine which requires the Scriptures to be para- 
 phrased in such a way as this, and this is the way 
 and the only way in which they can be para- 
 phrased if it be admitted that Jesus Christ is both 
 God and man, the divine and human natures be- 
 ing united together in his person, a doctrine, I 
 say, requiring such a mode of interpreting the 
 language of Scripture as this, cannot possibly be 
 a true doctrine and worthy of our acceptation. 
 It carries, in its own application, its own refuta- 
 tion. The more it is brought into direct contact 
 and connexion with the language of Scripture, 
 the more glaring will its absurdity appear, the 
 more manifest and striking will be its incongruity 
 and inconsistency. As long as we keep it at a 
 distance, and speak of it in vague general terms, 
 without bringing it to the test, without a direct 
 and specific application of it to given passages of 
 Scripture, its deformity escapes observation, and 
 its falsehood eludes detection. But take it as the 
 principle upon which the language of the Bible 
 concerning Christ is to be explained, and show by 
 particular instances how it really and practically 
 exhibits itself in this form of its existence, and 
 my firm belief is, that, in every case where this 
 trial is made, this process is pursued, the con-
 
 31 
 
 sequence will be the entire rejection of the notion 
 of Christ's supreme divinity, a deep conviction 
 that it is utterly untenable, and totally incredible. 
 Most seriously and solemnly would I ask, Can 
 it be believed that when Jesus Christ spoke of 
 himself as inferior to the Father, as deriving all 
 his power and authority from the Father, he 
 meant only that his human nature was dependent 
 upon his divine nature ? If we had been present 
 when he declared to the mother of Zebedee's chil- 
 dren, To sit on my right hand and on my left is not 
 mine to give, could we have gone away with the 
 idea that he meant only to say, that it was not in 
 his power as man to do it, though as God it was 
 in his power ? On this supposition the Apostles 
 might have gone forth to the world and have said 
 to one, Christ suffered ; to another, Christ did not 
 suffer; to this man, Christ died; to that man, 
 Christ did not die. Now, suppose that they had 
 actually done this, and, on being asked what they 
 meant by it, they had said, In the first instance 
 we spoke of his human nature, in the other of 
 his divine nature ; would they not have been de- 
 spised for such a system of miserable equivoca- 
 tion ? And shall we attribute conduct like this to 
 the Holy Jesus, to him in whose mouth there 
 was no guile, who spake openly to the people, and 
 in secret said nothing ? To interpret the language
 
 32 
 
 of Christ in this manner, observed Mr. Emlyn, 
 is the same as if we were to say of a man, who 
 had shut one of his eyes, and then looked at an 
 object with the other, that he did not see the ob- 
 ject at which he was looking, meaning, that he did 
 not see it with the eye that was shut, though he 
 did see it with the eye that was open. 
 
 One would imagine that, if anything were plain 
 and intelligible, if any words were incapable of 
 being misunderstood, it would have been the 
 words, I, myself, mine own self. And yet, accord- 
 ing to the representation of Trinitarians, these 
 words, when used by Christ, have the most sin- 
 gular and extraordinary signification, sometimes 
 importing one thing, sometimes another, and 
 sometimes another still. Who would have be- 
 lieved that the most difficult and perplexing words 
 contained in the New Testament are the simple 
 expressions of, I and myself? Suppose that Christ 
 had said in so many direct terms, (what he has 
 said indirectly, though not less unequivocally,) 
 I am not the supreme God, I am not the very 
 and eternal God, but the son and servant of God : 
 What, upon the theory of the two natures, would 
 it have signified ? It would not have availed the 
 Unitarian a whit more than the texts to which he 
 now makes his appeal. For, still it would have 
 been said, Christ here spoke of his human nature
 
 33 
 
 simply, and not of his divine nature. His denial 
 of supreme divinity is to be taken with this un- 
 derstanding 1 , and with this limitation. It means 
 only that he was not God in one respect, though he 
 was God in another respect. In this way, let the 
 language of Christ have been ever so diametrically 
 opposed to the doctrine of his absolute deity, it 
 would have been perfectly easy to evade its force, 
 to explain away its meaning. I do not see, by 
 what possible contrivance any words could be so 
 arranged as to exempt them from the perversion 
 to which such a license exposes them. In truth, 
 and in fact, where is the difference between the 
 sentence 'I am not the supreme God,' and "I 
 can of mine own self do nothing," between the 
 words c I am not the supreme God,' and " I know 
 not the day or the hour" when a certain predicted 
 event is to take place, between the declaration 
 ' I am not the supreme God,' and " In that day ye 
 shall ask me nothing," between the proposition 
 ' I am not the supreme God,' and the assertion 
 " My Father is greater than I"? In each of these 
 cases, are not the first declaration and the second 
 exactly of the same import, and expressive of 
 precisely the same idea ? I should like to ask a 
 believer in the deity of Christ, how a Unitarian 
 could produce stronger evidence in favour of the 
 distinguishing article of his faith than that which
 
 34 
 
 he does produce ? It seems to me that it is not 
 in the power of human language to convey his no- 
 tion of the strict unity and supremacy of God the 
 Father, and of the subordinate authority of Jesus 
 Christ, more decidedly and clearly than is done by 
 the passages above cited, and others of a similar 
 description with which the Scriptures abound. If 
 he wished for stronger, or more unequivocal ex- 
 pressions, he could not have them ; for language 
 does not supply them. In precision, in strength, 
 in force and fullness, nothing can go beyond the 
 evidence with which he is actually furnished. 
 
 Throughout, the language of Christ when 
 speaking of himself, of his own powers and endow- 
 ments is the language not of a God, not of the 
 supreme and eternal Creator, but of one com- 
 missioned by God, and acting under the autho- 
 rity of God. He declares that God gave him a 
 commandment what he should say and what he 
 should do ; that the doctrine which he preached 
 was not his own, but the Father's who sent him ; 
 that he sought not his own glory, but the glory of 
 his heavenly Father. Hence, he always referred 
 the works which he performed, not to any intrinsic 
 power of his own, but solely to the power of his 
 Father ; not as a proof that he was himself God, 
 but that God had sent him, that God had taught 
 him, and that God was present with him. He
 
 35 
 
 constantly prayed to God, looked up to him for 
 strength and consolation, and when about to expire 
 on the cross, commended to him his departing 
 spirit. What stronger proof can we have of the 
 inferiority of Christ to the Father than the lan- 
 guage of submission, dependence, and supplica- 
 tion which was ever on his lips? It would, indeed, 
 be strange, passing strange, that, being himself 
 the supreme God, he should be constantly making 
 use of terms and expressions implying directly 
 the reverse. And in accordance with what Christ 
 has said of himself is the language made use of 
 by the Apostles. They everywhere represent him 
 as a prophet raised up and inspired by God ; as 
 receiving from God the promise of the holy spirit ; 
 as approved of God; as honoured and glorified 
 by God, and exalted by him to be a prince and a 
 Saviour. Speaking of his power and authority, 
 their language is, " It pleased the Father that in 
 him should all fullness dwell. God giveth not the 
 spirit by measure unto him. He hath given him 
 authority over all flesh. He hath given him au- 
 thority to execute judgement." This is the strain 
 in which the Evangelists and Apostles constantly 
 speak of Christ; and that strain could not possibly 
 have been adopted towards a being whom they 
 knew or believed to be the supreme God. These, 
 and abundance of passages similar to these, prove 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 that whatever power, whatever authority, what- 
 ever dignity Christ possessed, it was not inherent 
 it was derived, it was dependent. But God, the 
 everlasting Creator, without beginning of days or 
 end of years, is underived, is independent, has all 
 power within himself and of himself. It is the 
 property, the necessary and essential property of 
 the everlasting God to bestow, not to receive ; to 
 give, not to be given to ; to confer gifts, not to 
 have them conferred upon him. Christ received; 
 Christ was given to ; Christ was honoured, ex- 
 alted, glorified by another, and could not, there- 
 fore, be in himself the living and true God. This 
 title belongs alone to the Father. He is the Lord 
 of lords and the God of gods. He is high over 
 all the earth, " power above all powers," single 
 and one, the undivided God. 
 
 To this mass of overpowering evidence, as it 
 seems to me, there is always at hand the one in- 
 variable reply, All this, so expressive of inferiority 
 to God and dependence upon him, is to be under- 
 stood of the human nature of Christ, and not of his 
 divine nature. And, with this convenient ready- 
 made answer, all argument is dismissed ; the 
 weightiest proofs are accounted trifles light as air; 
 and declarations and assertions, clear and bright 
 in their meaning as the sun at noon-day, are 
 thrown out of view, as if they signified nothing.
 
 37 
 
 But, assuredly, I have a right to ask, Who gave you 
 authority to say, here Christ speaks as man, here 
 as God, and here as God-man ; these words are to 
 be understood in thejSrri distinction of his nature, 
 and these in the second distinction of his nature. 
 The Scriptures assert, without any qualification 
 or reservation, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
 suffered pain, and hunger, and weariness ; was 
 tempted and grieved ; was tried, and learnt obe- 
 dience by the things which he suffered ; was con- 
 demned and crucified, and raised from the dead 
 by the mighty power of God. Am I to under- 
 stand all this as applying only to a part of the 
 person of Christ? What a monstrous proposi- 
 tion ! that Christ should be a being, compounded 
 of two natures in one person, and yet, that, 
 throughout the Scriptures, the word Christ should 
 generally signify, not the person of Christ, not his 
 real and entire person, but only a part of himself, 
 and that the most inferior part ! And, to add still 
 more to the extravagance of this hypothesis, all 
 this is supposed to take place without the slightest 
 intimation having been given that such a meaning 
 was intended ; without a single hint having been 
 dropped, that the words, Christ and Son of God, 
 were used in any other sense than their plain and 
 obvious one. Can this be possible ? I believe not. 
 I believe that such a supposition would never have
 
 38 
 
 been dreamt of, had not men been obliged to have 
 recourse to it for the sake of supporting a favour- 
 ite system, a system to which, from education, 
 habit, deference to antiquity, or other reasons, they 
 had become attached. 
 
 Mark, now, the difference in the nature and kind 
 of proof respectively produced by the Unitarian 
 and the Trinitarian. The former, the Unitarian, 
 not only appeals to Scripture in behalf of the truth 
 of his doctrine, but states that doctrine in the 
 very language of Scripture itself. The latter, the 
 Trinitarian, also appeals to the Scriptures in proof 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity, but, strange to say, 
 he can find no language in Scripture by which to 
 express the doctrine which he holds to be so im- 
 portant. But this is not all. The Unitarian, be- 
 sides proving positively his own doctrine, that the 
 Father is the only true God, does more. He 
 proves, negatively also, that the Son is not the 
 only true God. Here is a marked and important 
 difference in the kind of proof brought forward by 
 the respective parties. The Trinitarian, though 
 he maintains that the doctrine of the Trinity is to 
 be deduced from Scripture, never attempts to main- 
 tain that the Unitarian doctrine, which asserts 
 that the Father is the only true God, is denied in 
 Scripture. He never attempts to show that the 
 Scriptures deny that the Father is greater than
 
 39 
 
 the Son, and that the Son, therefore, is dependent 
 upon the Father. How, then, does he endeavour 
 to establish his own doctrine ? how does he go 
 about to prove that though the Father is greater 
 than the Son, the Son nevertheless is equal with 
 the Father ? Upon what plea does he strive to 
 reconcile these apparently contradictory propo- 
 sitions ? He labours to do this, by inventing a 
 curious metaphysical hypothesis of three persons 
 in the nature of God, and of two natures in the 
 one person of Christ ; and then, by the arbitrary 
 application of this theory to the interpretation of 
 certain passages of Scripture, he thinks to escape 
 the charge of involving Scripture in plain and pal- 
 pable contradiction. 
 
 In this discourse it has been my aim, to which 
 I have chiefly confined myself, to show that this 
 hypothesis, of the union of two natures in the per- 
 son of Christ, does not answer its designed pur- 
 pose; that it does not reconcile one part of Scrip- 
 ture with another; that it is not free from the 
 charge of entailing upon it inconsistency and con- 
 tradiction; and that the very invention of such an 
 hypothesis is, in itself, a proof of the falseness of 
 the system which it is intended to support. 
 
 This, in a few words, is the course of argument 
 which the Unitarian pursues in justification and 
 vindication of his faith. He produces a variety
 
 40 
 
 of passages from Scripture which affirm God to 
 be one, and that one God to be the Father. He 
 next proves, by passages equally numerous and 
 striking, that Jesus Christ is represented in Scrip- 
 ture as inferior and subordinate to God the Father, 
 deriving from him all his authority, and depend- 
 ing upon him for all his power. Upon this ground, 
 upon the foundation of Prophets and Apostles, he 
 builds the fabric of his faith, Jesus Christ himself 
 being the chief corner-stone. 
 
 In these observations you will perceive that I 
 have not aimed at exhibiting a general view of the 
 evidence in favour of the strict unity of God. I 
 have not even noticed some of the strongest pas- 
 sages in the Sacred Volume which might be alleged 
 in its support. My object has been somewhat of 
 a different kind. It has been to show what, as Uni- 
 tarian Christians, we conceive the union between 
 God and Christ to have been, viz. not a union of 
 natures properly so called, but a union of purpose, 
 affection, and operation ; a union arising from an 
 extraordinary and special communication from the 
 mind of God to the mind of Christ. How that 
 communication took place, in what way the 
 spirit of God held intercourse with the spirit of 
 our Lord, by what means our Saviour enjoyed 
 so much of the divine wisdom and power, we 
 know not, we pretend not to know. We are con-
 
 41 
 
 tented with the plain fact, because the fact is all 
 that is revealed to us. Those who go beyond the 
 fact, and assume that, because Christ appeared 
 in the form of God, armed with supernatural 
 power, and endowed with extraordinary authority, 
 he was, therefore, the very and eternal God him- 
 self, assume, for the reasons assigned in this dis- 
 course, what is not only not revealed in Scripture, 
 but what is directly and decidedly opposed to it. 
 There is a sense, indeed, in which God may be 
 said to be united to all his works, to every part 
 of his creation ; for he is everywhere, and the 
 universe is filled with his presence. He walketh 
 upon the wings of the wind, and he moveth in the 
 paths of the waters. Though dwelling among the 
 sanctities of heaven, he visits the tabernacles of 
 earth, and has access to the chambers of the soul. 
 In him we all live, and move, and have our being. 
 And generally, wherever there is a particular ma- 
 nifestation of his power, wisdom, and glory, there 
 he is said to be, and there to dwell. For this 
 reason, Christ, who enjoyed so peculiar and inti- 
 mate a communion with the Divine Being, is natu- 
 rally and justly represented as one with whom God 
 was, by whom God spake, and in whom God dwelt. 
 But surely the presence or communion of God 
 with any thing or being does not make that thing 
 or being to be God. When God is said to dwell
 
 42 
 
 in the temple, the temple does not, on that ao 
 count, become God. When God is said to dwell 
 in us, and we in him, that dwelling does riot make 
 us to be Gods. When the spirit of God is said to 
 dwell in our minds, we are not thereby converted 
 into the spirit of God. That God was with Christ, 
 that God dwelt in Christ, is a Scripture truth. 
 We never thought of denying it. What we do 
 deny is the inference which misguided reason has 
 attempted to draw from it. We certainly do deny, 
 we undoubtedly do reject, the conclusions of those 
 who argue that, because God is said to dwell in 
 Christ, therefore Christ is God. We say that the 
 same mode of argument would equally prove that 
 Zion is God, that the temple is God, that we are 
 Gods, because God is said to dwell in Ziori, and 
 to dwell in us. 
 
 I here close the argument, and request your 
 attention to one or two short reflections. 
 
 And first, how senseless is the clamour so often 
 raised against us on the ground that our princi- 
 ples are constructed, not out of materials furnished 
 by Scripture, but from suppositions and theories 
 supplied by the inventive ingenuity of our own 
 understandings ! This, however, is but one among 
 the many misrepresentations and calumnies to 
 which we are constantly exposed. Every effort is 
 used to prejudice the public mind against us, and
 
 43 
 
 to prevent our claims from obtaining a fair, calm, 
 deliberate, and impartial consideration. Even the 
 Christian name is refused us ; that name which 
 we prize, and revere, and rejoice in, and for the 
 honour of which none have contended more suc- 
 cessfully, nor distinguished themselves in the de- 
 fence of its rights more illustriously, than have 
 those who held the principles which we hold. 
 Yes, it is to the writings of Unitarian Christians 
 that the advocate and defender of Christianity re- 
 sorts, when he wishes to prepare and accomplish 
 himself most worthily for the task which he has 
 taken in hand. It is here, as to an armoury, that 
 he goes and gathers up the weapons of keenest 
 temper and weightiest metal wherewith to gird 
 himself for the conflict and the struggle on which 
 he is about to enter. And yet the very men by 
 whose labours this benefit is obtained, from whose 
 learning, and diligence, and zeal, and faithfulness 
 these advantages are derived, who in past times 
 toiled and suffered for the common cause, who 
 devoted their days and nights, their whole lives, 
 to the assertion and vindication of the truth of 
 the Gospel, in maintaining for Christianity its 
 right and title to a heavenly descent, these men, 
 the Clarkes, the Lockes, the Lelands, the Lard- 
 ners, are now to be robbed of that name in the 
 possession of which they gloried, for the honours
 
 44 
 
 of which they nobly contended, and in the spirit 
 of which they lived and died, because, instead of 
 adopting the Shibboleth of a party, they held 
 fast to reasonable and scriptural views of Chris- 
 tian truth, and shrunk from speaking- of the 
 Deity in language presumptuously implying an 
 acquaintance with his nature, to which man, in 
 the blindness of his ignorance, has not the slight- 
 est pretensions. 
 
 And what, let me ask, is to be gained to the 
 Christian cause by withholding the name of Chris- 
 tian from men who have thus laboured in its 
 behalf, and have devoted their fine talents and 
 learning to its illustration and defence ? For be 
 it known and remembered, be it impressed upon 
 your minds, and treasured up there as an inter- 
 esting and important fact, that many of those 
 great and gifted men upon whom God has sent 
 down so large a portion of his spirit, into whom 
 he has breathed the purest and holiest inspira- 
 tions of genius, are to be enrolled in the catalogue 
 of Unitarians. There is the glorious triumvirate 
 of Milton, Locke, and Newton the like to which 
 we may wait till the world's end before we see 
 again, and of this triumvirate Unitarianism 
 claims the possession. And the claim, though 
 sometimes affected to be disputed, is now esta- 
 blished beyond all doubt. Would Christianity
 
 45 
 
 lose nothing in the estimation of the wise and 
 good by having the names of these illustrious 
 men transferred from the list of its friends to that 
 of its foes? Would the brow of infidelity be 
 decked with no brighter laurels if, among the tro- 
 phies of its conquests, it could number the sub- 
 jection and homage of minds like these ? Milton, 
 Locke, and Newton ! I know full well the reluct- 
 ance which would be felt in separating these 
 names from the Christian cause. I am well 
 aware, when the sectarian or factious spirit does 
 not intervene, how ready even the most orthodox 
 believer, as he is called, is to claim on behalf of 
 Christianity whatever weight and authority may 
 attach to such names. To the unbeliever, he 
 will talk earnestly of that evidence which could 
 subdue and satisfy the grasping and inquisitive 
 minds of these great men, and then, most incon- 
 sistently, will turn round to others of a different 
 class, and gravely affirm that Unitarians are not 
 Christians. Is it ignorance, or bigotry, or, what 
 is still worse, hypocrisy, that has the largest 
 share in this miserable proceeding? 
 
 Amidst the many and various efforts to misre- 
 present our principles, and to obstruct the pro- 
 gress of our cause, it is difficult so to restrain 
 those indignant feelings that rise up within us as 
 to prevent them from going forth in the shape of
 
 46 
 
 harsh and bitter recrimination ; but this is one, 
 and not the least, of our Christian trials; and it 
 becomes us to bear in mind that in this, as in all 
 other things, we are required to act in the spirit 
 of our glorious Leader, not to return railing for 
 railing, but contrariwise, blessing for cursing. 
 
 We say, if we are mistaken, let our mistakes 
 be corrected. If we err, let our errors be refuted. 
 If we have fallen into absurdities, let our absurdi- 
 ties be exposed. But, in the name of truth and 
 honesty, let us not be condemned without a hear- 
 ing. Let us have a fair, a candid, and a righteous 
 judgement. We ask no more : but this, we think, 
 we have a right to demand. As to the charge of 
 wishing to degrade Christ, we repell it with all our 
 heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. A wish 
 to degrade the pure, the holy, the spotless, the 
 great and glorified Saviour of man! Perish for 
 ever the system which could prompt such a desire! 
 
 Our principles of interpretation I speak of 
 those which are adopted generally by us, by the 
 most intelligent and thoughtful of our body, are 
 no other than the same which have received the 
 sanction of theological scholars of various churches, 
 and of the first rank and character. And there 
 is this distinction which we may boast of, and a 
 proud distinction it is, since the like to it belongs 
 to no other party that I am aware of, there is
 
 47 
 
 this distinction which attaches to us, that the 
 sense which we put upon the most important 
 passages referring to the points in discussion be- 
 tween us and our Trinitarian brethren, is the very 
 sense given to them by orthodox writers of the 
 highest reputation. Destroy, I would say, every 
 professed Unitarian commentary on the Scrip- 
 tures now in existence, and there will still remain, 
 in the writings of learned Trinitarians themselves, 
 those expositions and explanations of Scripture 
 by which our leading principles are maintained 
 and defended. For the peculiar interpretations 
 required by Calvinism, you must consult only 
 commentators of Calvinistic opinions. For those 
 needed by the Trinitarian, you must go to the 
 writings of Trinitarians. But for those demanded 
 by the Unitarian, you may have recourse to all 
 to the enlightened and liberal of all persuasions. 
 Take from me the works of the Polish Brethren, 
 the expositions of Lardner, Lindsey, Priestley, and 
 Belsham, and leave me in possession of those of 
 Erasmus, Grotius,, Wetstein, Griesbach, Camp- 
 bell, Archbishop Newcome, and Bishop Pearce, 
 and in them, in the illustrations and explanations 
 of Scripture contained in them, I shall find all 
 that I need to warrant my reception of the Unita- 
 rian faith, and to enable me to assert and maintain 
 it against the fiercest assaults of its enemies.
 
 48 
 
 Lastly, if it be to God alone that we are autho- 
 rized to pay our religious adoration, if it be to 
 Him alone who is styled "The Father " that we 
 pray for pardon and mercy and peace, for wisdom 
 to guide us in the midst of our doubts and diffi- 
 culties, and for grace to help us in the time of 
 our need, it is because Jesus himself has so taught 
 and so directed us. And, if we fear to bend the 
 knee of devotion to any other being than the ever- 
 lasting Jehovah, the one infinite and all-perfect 
 spirit, it is because we are desirous of obeying 
 the instructions, and of following the example of 
 our Lord. When, however, we think of what 
 Jesus was, and of what he has done for us ; when 
 we reflect upon the piety of his life, and the wisdom 
 of his discourses, upon the dignity of his deport- 
 ment, and the beneficence of his works ; when we 
 contemplate him as " the way, the truth, and the 
 life" as our "teacher, Saviour, and judge," 
 we feel that he is every way entitled to all the 
 honour, and all the reverence, and all the love 
 which we can render to him, consistently with 
 that first and highest homage, that supreme and 
 perfect love, which we are required, and which he 
 himself was accustomed, to give to " his Father 
 and our Father, to his God and our God " ; and we 
 are ready to join with all our hearts in the apoca- 
 lyptic song of "Worthy is the Lamb that was
 
 49 
 
 slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom 
 and strength, and honour, and glory, and bless- 
 ing." 
 
 Have we not all "one Lord, one faith, one hope, 
 one baptism, one God and Father of all?" Then, 
 let us feel as brethren ; then, let us remember our 
 common relationship ; then, let our pride be 
 humbled in the dust ; then, let us honour all men; 
 then, let us glorify God in our souls and bodies, 
 for we are his, and to Him, the King eternal, im- 
 mortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and 
 glory through Jesus Christ now and for ever ! 
 
 Note. " If our Saviour had preached such a doctrine as that of 
 the Trinity, it is remarkable that the Evangelists should not have 
 stated it explicitly, and taken some pains to explain and enforce 
 it. No doctrine could be more novel, none more important, and 
 none more opposed to the rooted prejudices of the Jews. But, 
 when we come to examine, we find nothing said in the three first 
 Gospels which can have any direct bearing on the subject ; and 
 the introduction to the Gospel of John admits quite as good an 
 interpretation, according to the Unitarian, as the Trinitarian 
 hypothesis. The strong evidence which the four Gospels contain, 
 that no one in the time of our Saviour thought him to be God, 
 and the entire silence of the Evangelists on the subject of a Tri- 
 nity in any form, are objections to this scheme not easily to be 
 answered. 
 
 " In the Acts of the Apostles, we have a minute account of their 
 preaching. It is to be supposed that, in promulgating the Chris- 
 tian religion among the heathen nations, the Apostles preached 
 all its important doctrines. Yet he will read in vain, who shall 
 expect to find anything relating to a Trinity in a single discourse 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 of theirs, which has been recorded. They preached that Jesus 
 was the Christ, the Son of God, and that God had raised him from 
 the dead ; but they never spoke of his being ' the very and eternal 
 God.' They never intimated that God exists in a three-fold 
 nature, or in any other nature than that of the one true God." 
 Sparkes's Letters to the Rev. Dr. Wyatt, pp. 185, 186. Baltimore, 
 1820.
 
 51 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 ROMANS xiv. 5. 
 Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. 
 
 THE subject to which your attention is now to be 
 directed has reference to the grounds on which 
 Unitarians rest the justification of their separation 
 from the Established Church. Unless, for this 
 separation, strong and satisfactory reasons could 
 be assigned, it would lie open to deserved censure 
 and reprobation. I am not one of those who 
 think lightly of the advantages and blessings of 
 union and concert on the one hand, or of the evils 
 and disadvantages of division and disunion on the 
 other. But union in the bonds of ignorance, of 
 insincerity, of hypocrisy, of pretended outward 
 agreement where there is a real internal discord- 
 ance, a union founded upon compromise and 
 double dealing, upon the suppression of free 
 thought and of all open honest avowal of opinion, 
 a union based upon such a foundation, and ce- 
 mented by such ties as these, can be productive 
 of no results but those which are degrading and 
 debasing to the mind, which corrupt the very 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 fountains of the heart, and cut away from the soul 
 the root of its moral and spiritual life. 
 
 To avoid such a hollow and deceitful union as 
 this ; to give to the law of conscience that rule 
 and authority to which it is justly entitled ; to 
 allow to our thoughts that freedom from external 
 controul in which the highest dignity of a human 
 being consists ; to possess, exercise, and enjoy the 
 rights and privileges appertaining to us as the 
 rational creatures of God, and the voluntary disci- 
 ples of Jesus Christ, we feel ourselves constrained 
 to secede from the worship and communion of the 
 Church established by law. 
 
 It was Paul's earnest desire that the Corinthian 
 Christians to whom he wrote should not be vexed 
 and harassed by divisions and schisms. But 
 what is the inference from this ? That all Chris- 
 tians must think alike ; or that any society of 
 Christians assuming to be the only true church 
 of Christ, has a right to impose whatever terms of 
 communion it pleases, with which terms, if any 
 one sees reason not to comply, his non-compli- 
 ance, therefore, becomes criminal and sinful ? Is 
 this what we are to understand by the advice of 
 the Apostle ? So far from it, the whole life and 
 conduct of this illustrious minister of Christ, his 
 strongest language and most vigorous reasoning 
 are to be regarded as a protest and remonstrance
 
 53 
 
 against the prostration and subjection of the free 
 and independent mind of man to the dictating 
 and tyrannizing authority of his fellow-man. 
 Friend as he was to harmony and peace in the 
 Christian Church, he knew too much of man's 
 nature to suppose that these blessings could only 
 be secured by a uniformity of belief, or that it 
 was at all desirable that they should be purchased 
 by the sacrifice and surrender of the noblest rights 
 and privileges with which our Creator has en- 
 dowed us. What, then, was the schism which he 
 deprecated, the discord which he dreaded? In 
 order to understand what it was, we must consider 
 what the union was which the Apostle so earnestly 
 recommended, and the violation of which he so 
 strongly condemned. Now, the bond of union 
 between Christians, besides their common faith 
 in the divine mission and resurrection of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, was, not their agreement in judge- 
 ment and opinion, but their mutual agreement in 
 affection and brotherly love. By this, says Christ, 
 shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
 have love one to another. This is no less the crite- 
 rion of the Christian character than the foundation 
 of Christian unity. Whoever so conducts himself 
 as to alienate the affections of Christians from one 
 another, to divide them into hostile and opposing 
 factions, is, in the worst sense of the word, a
 
 54 
 
 schismatic. It is manifest, from a variety of 
 passages occurring in the Epistles of Paul, that he 
 never dreamt of anything so wild and monstrous 
 as the establishment among men of an entire uni- 
 formity of opinion. The point on which he dwelt, 
 and which he was most anxious to enforce, was, 
 not mutual agreement in all matters of opinion, 
 but mutual indulgence and forbearance, the pro- 
 priety of allowing to one another the enjoyment of 
 his own peculiar views, and the duty of abstain- 
 ing from all interference with the common rights 
 of Christians, of not imposing terms of commu- 
 nion other than those which Christ himself has 
 expressly enjoined. Him that is weak, says the 
 Apostle, receive ye, but not to doubtful disputa- 
 tions. For one believeth that he may eat all things: 
 another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that 
 eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him 
 
 which eateth not judge him that eateth One man 
 
 esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth 
 every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded 
 in his own mind. 
 
 The schism, then, against which the Apostle- 
 protested, and of which he warned his Corinthian 
 disciples to beware, was not that arising from 
 conscientious differences of opinion. Those dif- 
 ferences, where they did exist, he urged them mu- 
 tually to tolerate and respect. They had each a
 
 55 
 
 right to form their own views, and it was not for 
 one to assume the authority of dictating to, or of 
 domineering over, the mind of another. The di- 
 vision of which he was most afraid, the disunion 
 which he most reprobated, was that which w r ould 
 arise from the creation of conflicting sects and 
 parties, each striving to obtain the mastery over 
 the other, and all aiming to set up their own au- 
 thority and their own laws above those asserted 
 by Christ. The guilt of schism does not belong 
 to an external separation from a church compel- 
 ling that separation ; but it does attach to every 
 practice, the natural effect of which is to divide 
 the hearts and affections of Christians from each 
 other, and to weaken those ties of charity and 
 love by which they are mutually bound together*. 
 If, for instance, in the days of Paul, he who ex- 
 claimed "I am of Apollos" had induced the 
 majority of the church to which he belonged to 
 join in the same exclamation, and they had then 
 united together in proclaiming the authority of 
 
 * " Wheresoever false or suspected opinions are made a piece 
 of church liturgy, he who separates is not schismatic, but he 
 who imposes." John Hales of Eton, Tracts, p. 182. " When a 
 church requires unnecessary conditions of communion, then that 
 church must take on itself the charge of schism." Bishop Still- 
 ingfleet, Irenicum, p. 199. See also Jeremy Taylor s Liberty of 
 Prophesying, sect. 22.
 
 56 . 
 
 their leader as superior and paramount to that of 
 all other Christian teachers ; and, under the cover 
 of this plea, had demanded of their fellow-Chris- 
 tians assent to doctrines and compliance with 
 practices of which their consciences could not ap- 
 prove, do you suppose that the Apostle Paul, for 
 the sake of what is called the peace of the church, 
 would have counselled the minority to submit 
 quietly and patiently to the unrighteous usurpa- 
 tion of the majority, thus to surrender up the 
 freedom of their minds, and suffer the galling yoke 
 of spiritual bondage to be laid upon them ? No. 
 He would have said, as upon another occasion 
 he did say, " Stand fast in the liberty with which 
 Christ has made you free." Assert, manfully and 
 temperately, your Christian privilege of judging 
 for yourselves what is right. Never forget the 
 allegiance which you owe to Christ alone, by yield- 
 ing implicit obedience to the commands of an- 
 other. Resist all attempts at such spiritual dic- 
 tation. Say to your deluded brethren that one is 
 your master, even Christ, and that to no other 
 master will you bend the knee of unquestioning 
 submission. If this remonstrance avail not, and 
 they should still persist in exacting obedience, 
 where obedience is not due, withdraw from them 
 in quietness and charity, and associate together 
 as a Christian church upon principles more con-
 
 57 
 
 genial with the enlarged and liberal spirit of your 
 Christian faith. Whatever evil may arise from 
 this separation is not caused by you. It is the 
 work of those who have unwarrantably assumed 
 the right of legislating in matters where the only 
 lawgiver is Christ himself. They are the worst 
 schismatics who sow the seeds of division, who, 
 by their arrogance and presumption, compel 
 others, valuing and loving the community of free 
 and honest minds, to withdraw from their com- 
 munion. It is they, who thus play the part of 
 spiritual despotism, that justly incur the blame of 
 schism, and not those who, to uphold the purity 
 and integrity of their own minds, feel obliged to 
 separate from them. 
 
 When, therefore, fault is found with us for de- 
 parting from the communion of the Established 
 Church, let it be shown that the separation is a 
 needless one, that it is wantonly and causelessly 
 made; not in obedience to the imperative com- 
 mands of conscience, not from deference to that 
 inward law of righteousness which should be the 
 guiding principle of every man's conduct, but 
 because we have formed ourselves into a party, 
 and are governed by party motives, and have in 
 view, not so much the promotion of Christian 
 truth, and the furtherance of the ends of Chris- 
 tian benevolence, as the advancement of the inter-
 
 ests of a faction, and the indulgence of sectarian 
 partialities and antipathies ; let this be shown, 
 and then the imputation of schism, of fomenting 
 unholy and uncharitable divisions and dissensions 
 in the church of Christ, will not unjustly be ad- 
 vanced against us. But I am greatly mistaken if 
 it cannot be made evident, to the satisfaction of the 
 most determined churchman that ever existed, 
 that, whether we are right or wrong with respect to 
 the grounds of our dissent, those grounds, so long 
 as they appear to us to be founded in truth, fur- 
 nish a sufficiently valid reason for our withdraw- 
 ment from the Established Church. We ask with 
 the Apostle Paul, when the members of this or 
 that church exclaim, " I am of Apollos, and I of 
 Cephas," or, which amounts to the same thing, I 
 am of Calvin, and I of Luther, and I of the 
 framers of the Thirty-nine Articles, " Are ye not 
 carnal?" Are ye not betraying a spirit kindred to 
 the narrow, exclusive, and selfish ways of the 
 world? With such a spirit we should have no 
 communion ; it is essentially an evil spirit, and 
 ought to be exorcized from every Christian mind. 
 If, perchance, it should gain entrance into a Uni- 
 tarian church if there, too, should be heard the 
 voice which says, I am of Socinus, and I of Priest- 
 ley, and I of Lindsey, I trust that there are those 
 among us sufficiently alive to the rights and du-
 
 59 
 
 ties of a professedly Christian society to denounce 
 and rebuke such a spirit, and, if need be, to with- 
 draw from the communion which it pervades and 
 governs. The only basis on which a true Chris- 
 tian church can be erected, is that which is large 
 enough and broad enough to admit every sincere 
 disciple of Christ, on the terms prescribed in the 
 New Testament. Anything narrower than this, 
 anything more restricted and confined, is at once 
 a signal to every man, within whose breast burns 
 the faintest spark of the love of truth and freedom, 
 to keep aloof from it, and go in search of another, 
 and, it may be, a humbler temple, but whose doors 
 are wide open to receive every Christian who may 
 wish to enter in, without first requiring him to 
 " bow down in the house of Rim m on," and to burn 
 incense to the idols of human vanity and presump- 
 tion. 
 
 The grounds upon which we, as Unitarian Chris- 
 tians, withdraw from the communion of the Esta- 
 blished Church are so important, that, allowing 
 them to be just, all must concede, I think, that 
 our secession is not needless, is not made in the 
 spirit of factious opposition, is not of wantonness 
 or caprice, but of necessity and constraint. Let 
 the points in which we differ from the creeds and 
 articles of that church be brought fairly before 
 the sincere and ingenuous mind; let all conse-
 
 60 
 
 quences be put away from its contemplation save 
 those connected with the interests of truth and 
 righteousness ; let it give forth its judgement 
 freely and independently, and impelled by no in- 
 fluences but those of its own inward convictions; 
 and who can doubt that the decision of such a 
 mind would be in favour of the nonconformity we 
 practise ? Of course it behoves us to know, and 
 understand, and be satisfied with the principles on 
 which we act. That being supposed, no other 
 course is left open to us, if reason, and conscience, 
 and honesty are to determine our path, but the 
 one which we have chosen. 
 
 There is, however, one admission which, in jus- 
 tice, I cannot refuse to make, and that is, that as 
 there are members of the Established Church who 
 have no reason for belonging to it except that aris- 
 ing from habit, fashion, or interest, in like manner 
 there are many Dissenters who are so or have 
 become so, not because their judgements and con- 
 sciences have had any share in the matter, but 
 because they have been guided by the prejudices of 
 education, by the accidental associations of life, or 
 by personal and party predilections and antipathies. 
 For all who dissent from the Church of England I 
 am far from claiming the merit of high and inde- 
 pendent principle ; and there are many who appear 
 to me to dissent on very slender and insufficient
 
 61 
 
 grounds. This,, however, is a question which must 
 be left to every man's own mind to judge of and 
 determine for himself. He has a right to connect 
 himself with whatever Christian church he pleases, 
 and in so doing we have no right to say more to 
 him than this, See that you exercise this privi- 
 lege honestly; let the motives from which you act 
 be pure ; take care that nothing mean or unworthy 
 lurks at the bottom of your choice ; be sure that 
 it is made in the spirit of conscientious determi- 
 nation; and you have fulfilled all the reasonable 
 conditions that can be demanded of you. There 
 is, and there can be, no higher duty than that of 
 obedience to the law of conscience ; and there is 
 no department of human thought and care where 
 this law should reign with so peremptory and ab- 
 solute a sway as in that of religion. This is a 
 truth of which both Churchmen and Dissenters 
 alike require to be reminded ; for neither of them, 
 it is to be feared, sufficiently make it the guiding 
 light, the ruling authority of their minds and 
 conduct. 
 
 My concern, however, at this time, is not with 
 the principles of Dissenters, speaking generally, 
 but of that class of them more particularly de- 
 nominated Unitarian Christians. It is of them 
 that I am about to speak ; it is their cause that I 
 have now to plead ; it is their separation from the
 
 62 
 
 Established Church that I have to vindicate ; it 
 is the sufficiency,, the fullness, the commanding 
 power and strength of their reasons for noncon- 
 formity that I have now to set before you. 
 
 In executing this task I shall take my stand 
 upon common ground, passing by what may have 
 been the favourite position of certain individuals, 
 and confining myself to that in which all have an 
 equal interest, and where all may contend with 
 equal success. Questions of mere external regu- 
 lation, concerning church government and the 
 observance of forms and ceremonies, which in 
 times past constituted, and with many in these 
 days still constitute, the main points of disagree- 
 ment and separation, would not, in my estimation, 
 if all other occasions of offence were removed, pre- 
 sent any insurmountable obstacles to union with 
 the Church of England. I deny not that these 
 questions are questions of importance, and well 
 worthy to be considered and discussed. By all 
 means let them be so ; and let every individual 
 urge them upon the attention of others according 
 to his own sense of their merits and value. But, 
 as they are, confessedly, matters of calculation 
 and comparison, and not subjects upon which the 
 Law has gone forth and pronounced its irrevo- 
 cable fiat, upon which conscience and duty have 
 spoken with a clear and commanding voice, they
 
 63 
 
 should not, in my judgement, be set forth as of 
 primary and paramount importance. To their 
 occupying such a position I have strong objec- 
 tions, not only for the reasons just mentioned, 
 but because there are many sincere and conscien- 
 tious Unitarian Dissenters, whose faith and pro- 
 fession are not grounded upon such considera- 
 tions ; and therefore no one has a right to state 
 that as a common principle of the body to which 
 he belongs, which in truth is not a common prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 Besides objections to certain forms and observ- 
 ances, of which I cannot say that I think them 
 worthy of the weight and importance which have 
 been attached to them, objections have also been 
 made to the Church of England simply as an esta- 
 blishment, purely because it is endowed, and its 
 temporal wants are provided for by the State. 
 Many Dissenters are at this time particularly 
 earnest in insisting upon this as the great griev- 
 ance of all; as that, in comparison with which all 
 other reasons for dissent sink into positive insigni- 
 ficance. With such persons I do not agree. I do 
 not agree with them in their reasonings. I do 
 not agree with them in their conclusions. The 
 question of church establishments, or of a legal 
 provision by the State for securing to the State an 
 adequate supply and a regular succession of well-
 
 64 
 
 educated men for the Christian ministry, is one so 
 important, so complicated, involving topics of the 
 gravest consideration, and connected with such a 
 train of interesting and momentous results, that I 
 should deem it great folly to attempt its discussion 
 within the limits of the present discourse. I will 
 only observe that the subject of a church esta- 
 blishment, generally considered, ought not to be 
 confounded with that particular form or species 
 of it existing in our own country. That may be 
 bad ; in its construction bad, in its administration 
 bad. But this, as every one must perceive, is a 
 totally different question from the consideration of 
 a state provision, taken abstractedly and generally. 
 Whether such a provision could be made, consis- 
 tently with a full maintenance of the rights of 
 conscience, placing all Christians upon the same 
 footing, excluding none, stigmatizing none, de- 
 grading none, but embracing and comprehending 
 all; whether an endowed church, formed upon 
 this model, with such a breadth of basis, and such 
 an amplitude of dimensions, and consisting of 
 solid and durable materials, could be built up, 
 may appear to some more than doubtful and pro- 
 blematical. To me, I own, it seems easy and 
 practicable enough. Let there be the right spirit 
 prevailing, and the right means will not be want- 
 ing. If such a church could be formed, I have
 
 65 
 
 no hesitation in declaring that to such a church 
 I should feel no objection in conforming. Nay, 
 I will go further, and say, Repeal the Act of 
 Uniformity; remove the burthen of tests and sub- 
 scriptions ; give to the laity and the clergy the 
 enjoyment of Christian liberty ; let there be free 
 open communion to all, whether ministers or con- 
 gregations, without the imposition of any other 
 terms or conditions than those prescribed by 
 Christ and his Apostles, and there will remain 
 nothing, on the score of conscience, to prevent me 
 from entering within the pale of the present Esta- 
 blishment. 
 
 This observation brings me at once to the 
 main purpose of the present discourse. It leads 
 me to say, that it is because there is not this 
 Christian liberty allowed to the members of the 
 English Church ; that because it manacles con- 
 science, fetters the mind, chains down reason, 
 imprisons the understanding, and limits within a 
 given prescribed circle the range of religious in- 
 quiry and reflection; that because it usurps powers 
 which it ought not to exercise, and assumes func- 
 tions which it is neither fitted nor was designed 
 to discharge ; that because it enacts laws instead 
 of obeying them, and prescribes, of its own will 
 and pleasure, terms of Christian fellowship in- 
 stead of conforming to those already laid down in
 
 66 
 
 the New Testament* ; in a word, that because it 
 is not Scriptural in its worship, or in the demands 
 which it makes upon the worshipper ; we have no 
 alternative but that of withdrawing- from its com- 
 munion, and protesting- before the world against 
 this perversion of Christ's ordinances, against 
 this invasion of Christian freedom. 
 
 Here lie, as it seems to me, the strongholds of 
 Unitarian Dissent. I call them strongholds, be- 
 cause they are not points of expediency and cal- 
 culation, like those of church government, and 
 church forms, and church establishments, all 
 which may be good or bad according to their ten- 
 dency, and, therefore, to be judged of by their 
 tendency ; but to the Unitarian, the objections to 
 which I have just referred present themselves in 
 the clear commanding form and attitude of posi- 
 tive and absolute principles. With him it can be 
 no question whether the worship of the Church of 
 England be right or wrong. Conscience declares, 
 in language too plain to be mistaken, that for him 
 
 * In the Fifth Canon of the English Church we read, " Who- 
 soever shall hereafter affirm that any of the Nine and Thirty 
 Articles agreed upon for avoiding diversities of opinion, and for 
 the establishing of consent, touching true religion, are in any 
 sort superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a 
 good conscience subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated ipso 
 facto."
 
 67 
 
 it is wrong. It does not leave him at liberty to 
 inquire what its tendency is what its conse- 
 quences may be. Tendency and consequences are 
 here out of place. On this ground we are not per- 
 mitted to balance one consideration against an- 
 other, to oppose objection to objection, and to 
 weigh advantages and disadvantages in the scale 
 of the prudential reason. That is not our province 
 here. There are, indeed, as I have already stated, 
 matters about which this exercise of the judge- 
 ment may be most proper and fitting ; but it is 
 not proper and fitting to consider whether it be- 
 comes me to worship as gods those whom I do 
 not consider to be gods. From the moment that 
 I come to this conclusion, from the moment that 
 I adopt Unitarian opinions, Trinitarian worship 
 stands before me in the light of a thing for- 
 bidden. There is a law above that of expediency 
 and calculation, and worldly prudence, which 
 says, " Worship God alone, and to him only pay 
 your religious homage." If you consider with 
 yourselves whether that law may be violated, or 
 how it may be indirectly evaded, you are consi- 
 dering what you have no right to consider. Whe- 
 ther there be such a law it is yours to consider ; 
 but when the existence of such a law is ascer- 
 tained, the door of inquiry is shut. There is no 
 longer any entrance for the suggestions and in- 
 
 F2
 
 68 
 
 terrogatories of propriety and utility. The only 
 access then left open is for the spirit of submis- 
 sion and obedience. 
 
 Among the foremost of the reasons for Unita- 
 rian Dissent, I place that of THE WORSHIP OF ONE 
 GOD, THE FATHER. This, we say, is Christian 
 worship. This is the worship which Christ paid. 
 This is the worship which the Apostles paid. 
 This is the worship which, in express and positive 
 language, we are commanded to pay. We are 
 prepared to quote chapter and verse in the New 
 Testament where this command is laid down 
 with a clearness that precludes all doubt, and 
 with a precision that defies all casuistry. Show 
 us, we say, that this command is not given, or 
 that we have mistaken its import, and one prin- 
 cipal cause of our dissent will be removed. But 
 unless this can be done, we stand upon a rock, 
 and that rock is the word of God. In the Scrip- 
 tures there are these plain and intelligible com- 
 mands of the Saviour: "Worship God alone. 
 The true worshippers shall worship the Father in 
 spirit and in truth. When ye pray, say, Our Father. 
 In that day ye shall ask me nothing." In confor- 
 mity with these precepts was his own constant 
 practice, as well as the practice of the Apostles. 
 He worshipped and prayed to the Father, and the 
 Father only ; and the Apostles, with one mouth,
 
 69 
 
 glorified God, even the Father. There is no men- 
 tion in Scripture of the worship of the Trinity. 
 There is no record of prayers being addressed to 
 " God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy 
 Ghost." We therefore dissent from, and protest 
 against, the use of such language in Christian wor- 
 ship. We protest against it as a departure from 
 the plain and positive directions contained in the 
 Christian's statute-book ; as contrary to the in- 
 junctions and example of our Lord and his Apo- 
 stles. Further than this we pretend not to go ; 
 or, if we do, we also are censurable for usurping 
 a power and a prerogative to which we have no 
 valid claim. As a Christian Church our business 
 is to worship God in the spirit and after the 
 manner that Christ has directed. In addressing 
 our prayers to the Father only, we know that we 
 are so far right, that we are truly and literally 
 obeying our Lord's commands. Whoever, there- 
 fore, be his opinions of the nature of the Deity 
 what they may, can unite with us in this worship 
 is welcome to our communion. Our prayers are 
 not to be made the vehicle of controverted doc- 
 trines, but of devout, grateful, and reverential 
 sentiments of the Almighty Creator, of thanks- 
 givings for mercies, supplications for pardon, and 
 entreaties for moral and spiritual good. Consis- 
 tently with these objects, the more comprehensive
 
 70 
 
 our language is, and the freer it is from all allu- 
 sion to the differences existing among Christians, 
 the more conformable is it to the mind and spirit 
 of Christ, the more catholic does our worship 
 become, and the greater is its title to universal 
 reception. 
 
 Next to purity of worship, the second great 
 point on which we separate from the Established 
 Church is in relation to the restraint which it lays 
 upon conscience, the restriction which it places 
 upon individual liberty of thought and judgement, 
 and the imposition which it ordains of articles 
 and creeds of mere human devising, and for which 
 not the smallest Scriptural authority can be pro- 
 duced. 
 
 This subject opens a wide field of inquiry and 
 discussion; too wide, indeed, to be gone over, 
 even in the most cursory manner, in the brief 
 space to which I am now limited. All that I can 
 do is to select for observation one or two of the 
 most prominent features in the view before us. 
 I begin, then, with observing, that, admirable and 
 beautiful as I admit the general strain of her 
 liturgy to be, there is, notwithstanding, much in 
 the service of the Church of England which is de- 
 cidedly unscriptural, for which not the smallest 
 warrant can be produced from Holy Writ, and 
 which no Christian Church, professing to act on
 
 71 
 
 the principles of the New Testament, ought to 
 tolerate. I object strongly, as many before me 
 have objected, to the invocation of God in sup- 
 plicatory language of this kind : " By the mystery 
 of thy holy incarnation, by thy holy nativity and 
 circumcision, by thy baptism, fasting and tempta- 
 tion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy 
 glorious resurrection and ascension." What, I 
 ask, does this mean, and to whom is it addressed? 
 If it be addressed to God and to whom, but to 
 God, can prayer be addressed? then, I say, it is 
 language of the use of which we can hardly speak 
 in terms sufficiently condemnatory. Nothing more 
 gross or shocking ever characterized the suppli- 
 cations of the most ignorant and barbarous people. 
 It is worthy only of the darkest ages. To implore 
 the Supreme Being by " his birth, his circum- 
 cision, his baptism, his fasting, his temptation, his 
 agony," is so monstrous, that nothing but custom 
 could, for a moment, reconcile any man to the 
 adoption of such phraseology in reference to the 
 Deity. It cannot be said, in excuse for it, that it 
 is addressed to Christ as man in his human ca- 
 pacity, because as man he is confessedly not the 
 object of prayer. It must, therefore, be addressed 
 to him as God ; and, so considered, the reason and 
 the heart of every reflecting man revolt from it as
 
 72 
 
 offensive to both, and derogatory to the nature 
 and perfections of the Supreme Being. 
 
 To introduce such language into the forms of 
 devotion ; to retain it in spite of the remonstrances 
 of some of the wisest and best of our race; to adhere 
 to it, as though it constituted a necessary and es- 
 sential part of divine worship, betrays an illiberal, 
 uncatholic disposition in the Church which alone 
 would justify a separation from it. Long ago did 
 Bishop Stillingfleet refer, with the highest appro- 
 bation, to these words of the ever-memorable John 
 Hales : " Consider of all the liturgies that are, or 
 ever have been, and remove from them whatever 
 is scandalous to any party, and leave nothing but 
 what all agree on ; and the event shall be that the 
 public service and honour of God shall no ways 
 suffer." And more anciently still, the learned 
 ecclesiastical historian Eusebius expressed him- 
 self to the same effect : " The use of unscriptural 
 expressions," says he, "has been the cause of 
 almost all the confusion and distractions that 
 have happened in the churches*." There is much 
 other objectionable phraseology with which the 
 Book of Common Prayer is interspersed, on which 
 
 * Euseb. Epist. ad Csesaream, apud Socrat., lib. i., as quoted 
 by Dr. Samuel Clarke.
 
 73 
 
 I cannot now stay to dwell, and shall therefore 
 pass on to observe that the language contained 
 in some of the creeds which are to be read either 
 statedly or occasionally, constitutes an offence 
 against reason and propriety, against Christian 
 liberty and Christian charity, of which the Church 
 ought long since to have been ashamed. 
 
 Look at the Athanasian Creed, as it is errone- 
 ously called; was there ever a greater affront 
 offered to the human understanding than is offered 
 to it in the metaphysical, paradoxical, antitheti- 
 cal, anathematizing jargon with which that cele- 
 brated symbol of faith is not unsparingly gar- 
 nished* ? What right has any church, assuming to 
 be a Christian church, to exact from its members 
 the repetition of such a creed as this ? Does it 
 pretend to be of apostolic origin ? Is it asserted 
 by any of its advocates to be Scriptural in its lan- 
 guage ? Why, then, make it a part of that service 
 which, as much as possible, should be accommo- 
 dated to the views, feelings, and sentiments of all 
 sincere believers in Jesus Christ. Let those who 
 
 * To this so-called creed of St. Athanasius, is not the remark 
 of Dr. Jortin on the creed of Cyril fairly applicable ? "It con- 
 sists of two parts ; of curses and of doctrines : the curses are in- 
 telligible, and the doctrines are unintelligible. If it had been the 
 reverse, it had been more for his credit." Disney's Life of Jortin^ 
 p. 153.
 
 74 
 
 think it a good exposition of what they consider 
 to be the orthodox faith, make what use of it they 
 please for their own instruction and edification 
 out of the Church ; but in a church professing to 
 be founded on Christ's authority, and to be go- 
 verned only by laws of his ordaining, it has no 
 title whatever to be recited as an epitome of 
 Christian doctrine. Still less is it entitled to such 
 a character when we consider the damnatory 
 clauses by which it is distinguished. I have no 
 hesitation in saying, that the church which re- 
 tains and requires, as a part of its service, the 
 reading of so disgusting a formulary, signally dis- 
 graces itself by such an act. It is, indeed, most 
 extraordinary that a creed of which nothing was 
 known or heard till the sixth or seventh century, 
 a creed framed by some unknown person, in the 
 darkest period of the Christian Church, a creed 
 which no one affects to understand, a creed 
 against the use of which, in the public services of 
 the Church, some of the noblest and most gifted 
 of her sons have earnestly and repeatedly remon- 
 strated, it is, I say, most extraordinary that a 
 creed of so generally offensive a character, with 
 no pretensions to apostolic authority and no 
 claims to high antiquity, should, notwithstanding, 
 be retained by the Church with the utmost perti- 
 nacity, with a warmth and a zeal proportioned
 
 75 
 
 to the degree of its absurdity, and the extent of 
 its uncharitableness. 
 
 So, however, it will continue to be as long as 
 those who are looked up to for their learning and 
 respected for their virtues are content to slumber 
 over or to wink at such incongruities and enor- 
 mities, such departures from Christian simpli- 
 city, and such invasions of Christian liberty. It is 
 this tame unresisting acquiescence in acknow- 
 ledged abuses and detected corruptions, on the 
 part of those whose voices of condemnation might 
 be lifted up with mighty effect, which is the great 
 obstacle to the desired reformation. When the 
 excellent Archbishop Tillotson, speaking of the 
 Athanasian Creed, expressed his aversion to it, by 
 saying that " he wished the Church were well rid 
 of it," he might have been reminded that there 
 was one very effectual way of getting rid of it, and 
 that was by such men as he quitting their stations 
 in the Church, and openly testifying that they 
 would belong to no communion which disgraced 
 itself by the retention of so shameful and unau- 
 thorized a confession of faith as this. 
 
 Oh! that men of enlightened and generous minds 
 would awake to a conviction of the advantages 
 which they have it in their power to confer upon 
 the cause of Christian truth and liberty ! Courage, 
 moral courage, is what we want, the courage
 
 that will face difficulty and danger, that will defy 
 ridicule, that will endure neglect, that will en- 
 counter, without shrinking, the taunts of enemies 
 and the reproaches of friends. Honesty, open- 
 ness, plainness and sincerity, this is the mini- 
 stering service which truth and charity require. 
 Let this service be rendered, and mightier and 
 speedier than has yet been witnessed or antici- 
 pated will be their future progress and triumph in 
 the world. 
 
 I now proceed to notice another instance of the 
 unjust imposition, on the part of the Established 
 Church, of unscriptural terms of communion, 
 which adds to and strengthens the reasons already 
 assigned for withdrawing from her ritual and 
 worship. The instance to which I allude is that 
 of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, which, 
 every one well knows, is made a necessary preli- 
 minary to the performance of the ministerial 
 office in the English Church. Now let any one 
 read over these articles, deliberately and carefully, 
 and then let him say whether, in his conscience, 
 he really thinks it reasonable, right, or fitting that 
 any man, whose profession and duty it will be to 
 preach the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, should be 
 required to bend his understanding to such a yoke 
 as this, to lay upon his soul the fetters of so ig- 
 nominious a bondage ? I should be quite willing
 
 77 
 
 to have the question decided by an appeal to the 
 pure and genuine feelings, to the unperverted and 
 unsophisticated judgement of an honest and un- 
 prejudiced mind. I do not believe that, except 
 for party or interested purposes, or unless the 
 passions, the worldly hopes and fears of men had 
 been previously excited, I do not believe that 
 such a requirement would be viewed by any one, 
 of common understanding and reflection, without 
 feelings of unutterable aversion and disgust. I 
 confess I hardly know how to speak of it in any 
 measured terms of disapprobation. It is so un- 
 reasonable, so unauthorized, so unchristian, so 
 affronting to the judgement, so revolting to the 
 conscience, so opposed to all sense of justice and 
 propriety, that eveiy other emotion is lost and 
 swallowed up in the one strong, burning, indig- 
 nant sentiment of reprobation and scorn which it 
 excites in my mind. The wonder with me is, 
 and it is a real, unfeigned wonder, how any per- 
 sons, in these days, dare insist upon such a pro- 
 ceeding, and how, when insisted upon, the spirit 
 of every virtuous high-minded independent man 
 does not rise up in rebellion against it, and push 
 it from him with an instant and disdainful rejec- 
 tion. But the fact is, I fear, that too often the 
 whole aifair of subscription to articles of faith is 
 considered as a mere matter of course, and as a
 
 78 
 
 matter of course is yielded to without thought or 
 care. But, that a subject of such importance 
 should be thus treated, should be passed by thus 
 lightly and heedlessly, should be engaged in with 
 as much indifference as the performance of the 
 veriest ceremonial, is the circumstance to be com- 
 plained of, is THE ONE THING to be decried and 
 denounced. It is not, however, by all, nor always, 
 regarded in this light. By many, subscription to 
 articles of faith is seriously advocated and de- 
 fended on the ground of utility and expediency. 
 That such a measure may be made instrumental 
 to the interests of a party or a sect, to the mainte- 
 nance of their exclusive privileges and the conti- 
 nuance of their distinctive peculiarities, I can well 
 understand. But I cannot understand how that 
 can be promotive of the real and true interests of 
 piety and virtue, which begins with an encroach- 
 ment upon the territory of conscience, by blunting 
 the moral sensibilities of the mind, and by cramp- 
 ing the exercise of its freedom and its energies. 
 
 But these articles, what are they ? what are the 
 pretensions which they lay claim to, and what is 
 the ground of these pretensions ? 
 
 These articles, it should be remembered, are a 
 series of statements, embracing a great variety of 
 subjects, some of them of a most difficult and 
 intricate nature, and amounting, perhaps, alto-
 
 79 
 
 gether to several hundred distinct propositions. 
 And all these are submitted to a young man, pre- 
 viously to his assuming the ministerial office and 
 character, to be by him assented to and believed, 
 though, in all probability, he has scarcely bestowed 
 upon them the most cursory examination ; and 
 with respect to many of them, if they had been 
 ever so carefully considered by him, it is hardly 
 possible that he can honestly say that he has 
 made up his mind, or, at least, that he has so far 
 made up his mind as to be able to declare that 
 he truly and sincerely receives them. Now, what 
 a strait is this for a well-disposed young man to 
 be placed in ! What a temptation to insincerity 
 and prevarication ; to palter with his conscience 
 and equivocate with his tongue ; to deal falsely 
 and treacherously with his own thoughts ; to 
 mystify and confound, by various plausibilities 
 and special pleadings, the clearest distinctions of 
 right and wrong ! And why should such a temp- 
 tation be thrown in his way ? Why should such 
 lures and enticements be held up to draw him 
 aside into the paths of duplicity and deceit ? Is it 
 fair, is it decent, to entrap the understanding into 
 such a surrender of its rights and duties as this 
 act of subscription to human interpretations of 
 divinely revealed truth implies? Suppose, and 
 this supposition, observe, will form a very good
 
 80 
 
 test of the soundness and propriety of the mea- 
 sure, suppose that, at this time, a new set of 
 articles "were drawn up, containing two or three 
 hundred distinct propositions on some of the abs- 
 trusest questions that can be submitted to the 
 consideration of the human understanding, and 
 that subscription to these articles, though strongly 
 recommended, was, however, not enforced by 
 pains and penalties, suppose that it stood only 
 on the ground of its own intrinsic reasonableness 
 and religious acceptableness, suppose, I say, a 
 case like this, Does any one seriously think that 
 there could be found a dozen well-instructed, 
 well-informed men in the kingdom who would 
 consent to the proposal ? And why, if we think 
 it so difficult, so impossible even, for the wise and 
 learned of the present day to compile a long list 
 of articles on the most abstract and debateable 
 questions in theology, with any chance of com- 
 manding the assent of Christians generally, why 
 should we suppose that they, who lived two or 
 three hundred years ago, were better qualified for 
 the task, or better entitled to implicit confidence 
 and reliance ? 
 
 Keep in mind, then, this plain simple question, 
 which I will now repeat in another form. 
 
 How many a candidate for the office of the mi- 
 nistry in the Church of England would, volunta-
 
 81 
 
 rily, of his own inclination and accord, subscribe 
 the Thirty-nine Articles ? If it were not made a 
 necessary and essential condition of admission to 
 what are termed " holy orders" ; if it were not made 
 a step or passport to future honours and favours, 
 to certain prospective advantages and preferments ; 
 if it stood purely and entirely on the basis of its 
 own spiritual recommendation, unmixed with any 
 temporal considerations whatever ; the question 
 which I ask is this, How many, among those who 
 are eagerly preparing for the ministry of the 
 Church, would then declare, as they are all now 
 compelled to declare, their unfeigned assent and 
 consent to the hundreds of propositions contained 
 in the Thirty-nine Articles ? Let every thoughtful, 
 sober, reflecting man put to himself this question, 
 and I am perfectly willing to abide by the result 
 of his honest and conscientious verdict. 
 
 You will perceive that I am dealing very di- 
 rectly and plainly with the subject : and pursuing 
 the same course, I ask again, is it right, is it rea- 
 sonable, is it on any account desirable, that a 
 man, seeking the office of a Christian minister, 
 should, in order to attain this object, be com- 
 pelled to do that which, if left to himself, he 
 would not do ; should be constrained to the per- 
 formance of an act which neither his judgement 
 nor his conscience would allow him to perform, 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 if left to their own unbiassed, unforced, voluntary 
 impulse ? 
 
 Look at the tendencies and the probable con- 
 sequences of such a proceeding. The candidate 
 for the ministry either subscribes to what he has 
 never, perhaps, seriously considered*, which no 
 one will contend is, in itself, either j ust, proper, or 
 expedient, or, which is still worse, if he has con- 
 sidered and examined the Articles, with a view of 
 ascertaining their truth and agreement with Scrip- 
 ture, it is ten to one but doubts and misgivings, 
 respecting some at least of the many propositions 
 which they contain, will arise in his mind, and 
 which, therefore, he must contrive to silence or 
 varnish over, in some way or other, in order to 
 fulfill the necessary required conditions. That is, 
 his very first step into the sacred temple must be 
 accompanied by acts of compromise and collu- 
 sion, by mental reservations and verbal equivo- 
 cations. Surely nothing can be worse than this. 
 Nothing can be a worse preparative for that pure, 
 open, honest, manly simplicity, that sincere deal- 
 ing with truth, and that artless, undisguised, dig- 
 nified demeanour which become the office and 
 
 * More than a century ago Bishop Burnet complained that the 
 greater part of the clergy, even then, subscribed the Articles 
 without ever examining them, and that others did it because they 
 must do it. Burnet' s History of his Own Times, Conclusion.
 
 83 
 
 character of the Christian minister, which alone 
 can raise it above the clouds of suspicion, and 
 place it in the heaven of the people's love and con- 
 fidence. It is miserable to think of what the 
 commencement of so important an undertaking 
 must often be, of the shifts and evasions to 
 which the mind is invited and driven, at the very 
 moment when every possible incentive should be 
 supplied, and every animating encouragement 
 should be held out to the most open, straightfor- 
 ward, ingenuous, unsophisticated declaration and 
 exercise of its thoughts and feelings. Instead, 
 however, of looking at the Articles and studying 
 their real import and significance, one man en- 
 deavours to extract from them one meaning; 
 another, another; and a third, a different meaning 
 still. The utmost skill is exerted ; the greatest 
 ingenuity is employed; words and phrases are 
 put to the torture, in order to make the Articles 
 quadrate with the opinions of the subscriber, or 
 to shape and mould the opinions of the subscriber 
 into an apparent resemblance and congruity with 
 the Articles. In this work, what subtlety and 
 refinement and hair-splitting distinctions are made 
 use of! Verily, the Protestants of some Churches 
 and persuasions have taken good care that these 
 arts should not be a monopoly of the Jesuits. 
 Here, in this craft of word-catching, they seem to 
 
 G2
 
 84 
 
 have resolved at all events not to be outdone by 
 them. Hence it is contended by many, that we 
 have to consider not the absolute positive meaning 
 of the Articles themselves, but merely what the 
 compilers, at the time, intended by them ; the 
 particular purpose they were designed to accom- 
 plish ; whom they were meant to embrace, and 
 whom they were meant to exclude; and that, with 
 this understanding of them, they are to be sub- 
 scribed and agreed to. Others, again, look upon 
 them as simply articles of peace*, as equivalent 
 to a general declaration of conformity to the 
 Established Church, and of a determination to 
 abide by her rules and regulations. Now, if the 
 Articles may thus mean anything, everything, or 
 nothing, may be construed in a Calvinistic sense, 
 or in an Arminian sense, or in neither, why lay 
 upon the soul the burthen of their subscription ? 
 Is it not lamentable to think of the effect of such 
 an imposition upon a noble, candid, upright, in- 
 genuous young mind ? It is, perhaps, in the pro- 
 cess of explaining away the real meaning of these 
 Articles, of endeavouring to twist and turn them 
 into a sense different from that which they plainly 
 
 * This was the view entertained of them by Archbishop Laud, 
 Sheldon, and many others of that day. And Chillingworth also 
 seems to have been at length persuaded by them to adopt it. 
 Vid. Biog. Brit., Kippis's edition, Art. CHILLINGWORTH.
 
 85 
 
 and obviously bear, of trying to effect a reconci- 
 liation and union between notions essentially dis- 
 cordant and repellent of each other, that the tricks 
 and artifices of theological casuistry are first com- 
 mended to his notice and regard. It is in this 
 way, it may be, that the first fine sense of honour 
 is impaired ; that the first delicate sensibility to 
 truth is paralysed ; that the first keen edge of 
 a tender conscience is worn off; that the first 
 warm, generous, kindling sentiments and sym- 
 pathies in favour of what has been called " the 
 plain majesty of honest dealing" are chilled and 
 repressed. Oh ! who can calculate the seeds of 
 evil that are thus scattered abroad, the amount of 
 corrupt and corrupting influence that is thus in- 
 sinuated into the mind ? 
 
 It is, I conceive, utterly impossible that subscrip- 
 tion to humanly prescribed articles of faith can 
 do any good ; can instruct and elevate the mind, or 
 ennoble the soul, or breathe into the spirit of man 
 impulses and desires of a pure, disinterested, heaven- 
 uplifting nature. Its whole tendency, on the con- 
 trary, must be to dwarf the understanding, to nar- 
 row its views, to limit the range of its thoughts and 
 inquiries, to keep it lame and halting in the pur- 
 suit of truth, or to turn it aside into the paths of 
 cold indifference, or the beaten road of expedient 
 conformity and unresisting acquiescence. In a
 
 86 
 
 word, the requirement of such an act is but the 
 laying of traps to ensnare the conscience, the 
 spreading of meshes to entangle the understand- 
 ing ; and no one, who is desirous of upholding 
 conscience in its purity and integrity, of preserv- 
 ing it free and independent, unassoiled with the 
 world's breath, and unencumbered with the world's 
 shackles, will belong to a Church, whether esta- 
 blished or not established, which places such pit- 
 falls in the way of those who are preparing to 
 minister in holy things. I cannot conceive of a 
 more weighty and substantial reason for separat- 
 ing from any community assuming to be a Chris- 
 tian community, than the one upon which I have 
 now been animadverting. My language is, To a 
 measure so full of injustice, so presumptuous in 
 its claims, so spirit-enthralling in its tendency, and 
 so pregnant with consequences injurious to the 
 great interests of truth and righteousness, I will 
 never, directly or indirectly, tacitly or avowedly, 
 be a consenting party. Let us, I would say to 
 every Church of which I wished to be a member, 
 let us endeavour to secure, as far as, by human 
 means, can be secured, the advantages of a mi- 
 nistry whose sole object shall be the investigation 
 and communication of Christian truth ; the ser- 
 vices of men before whose eyes the book of God 
 shall stand open without the interposing veil of
 
 87 
 
 human creeds and confessions, and to whom,, 
 therefore, no worldly temptations, no sinister in- 
 terests shall be present to induce them to deal un- 
 fairly with the great and momentous topics upon 
 which they will have to meditate and discourse. 
 Of such a ministry, whose very office it is to give 
 forth the law as revealed in the oracles of God, it 
 may not be unreasonable to demand, as a preli- 
 minary condition, on entering upon the discharge 
 of their duties, a declaration of faith and trust in 
 those oracles. But more than this it is not ours 
 to demand ; more than this cometh of evil ; and 
 more than this would be inconsistent with that 
 Christian freedom, independence, sincerity, and 
 uprightness which should be guarded and de- 
 fended as the most precious jewel of the soul, and 
 any busy meddling with which, by human laws 
 and enactments, can only tend to its disfigurement 
 and defilement. 
 
 The one all-powerful and insurmountable ob- 
 jection to subscription to articles of faith of man's 
 imposing is, then, their manifest tendency to be- 
 get hypocrisy and insincerity*, to make the mind 
 
 * So thought and reasoned Dr. Paley, as may be seen from 
 the following passage taken from his defence of the ' Considera- 
 tions on the Propriety of requiring Subscription' to Articles of 
 Faith. "The author," says he, " contends very properly, that it is 
 one of the first duties a Christian owes to his Master, to keep
 
 88 
 
 play truant with itself, to cause it to " handle 
 the word of God deceitfully," and to lead it to 
 look at things not in the pure, clear, bright light 
 of simplicity and truth, but as they are clothed 
 and coloured in the forms and hues thrown over 
 them by the devices of human policy, and the arts 
 of human ingenuity. Except for selfish, party, 
 and temporary purposes, I can conceive of no ef- 
 fect resulting from subscription to creeds which 
 is not bad, radically and thoroughly bad, de- 
 grading to the mind, enslaving to the conscience, 
 and corrupting to the heart. It cannot be re- 
 quired but for one or the other of these two pur- 
 poses, either to prevent all freedom of thought 
 and inquiry upon the subject of religion, or to 
 direct that thought and inquiry into one parti- 
 cular channel, to keep it " cribbed, cabined, and 
 
 his mind open and unbiassed in religious inquiries. Can a man 
 be said to do this, who must bring himself to assent to opinions 
 proposed by another, who enters into a profession where both his 
 subsistence and success depend upon his continuance in a parti- 
 cular persuasion ? In answer to this, we are informed that these 
 articles are no rule of faith ; [What ! not to those who subscribe 
 them ?] that the Church deprives no man of his right of private 
 judgement ; [She cannot ; she hangs, however, a dead weight 
 upon it.] that it is a very unfair state of the case to call sub- 
 scription a declaration of our full and final persuasion in matters 
 of faith, [though if it be not a full persuasion, what is it ? And ten 
 to one it will be 'final' when such consequences attend a change.]" 
 Paley's Works, edited by his Son, vol. iii. p. 291.
 
 89 
 
 confined," within a given prescribed circle. Now, 
 the attempt to restrain and prevent those whose 
 bounden duty it is to endeavour to understand 
 and to preach the pure doctrines of Jesus Christ, 
 from fairly and properly exercising their minds in 
 the work in which they are engaged, would be in 
 the highest degree sinful and criminal; and no 
 greater condemnation of the Articles could be pro- 
 nounced than the avowal that such was the design 
 of their institution. There is only one other pur- 
 pose for which they can have been ordained, and 
 that is, that they might so operate to limit and 
 fetter the course and range of religious inquiry, 
 as to preclude any wide and material diversity of 
 opinion. This is the real and professed object of 
 their ordination. It is expressly stated, that for this 
 end they were instituted and compiled*. Their aim 
 and intention is to produce and preserve a uni- 
 formity of faith. What ! a uniformity of faith 
 and upon such a great variety of topics as those 
 embraced in the Tirty-nine Articles ? Impossible ! 
 exclaims Reason. Impossible ! echoes the voice 
 of Experience. There never was a more mon- 
 strous piece of folly exhibited in the workshop 
 of human vanity and presumption, than that of 
 
 * They are entitled " Articles agreed upon by the Archbishops 
 
 and Bishops for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions, 
 
 and for the establishing of Consent, touching true Religion."
 
 90 
 
 attempting to secure, by any art or contrivance, 
 a uniformity of belief on all the great and mo- 
 mentous questions that occupy the ground of 
 religion. After all the lessons which have been 
 read to us from the history of the past, after 
 what we ourselves have individually witnessed 
 and observed, and after the various arguments 
 that have been addressed to our understandings, 
 still to be told of the practicability of securing a 
 uniformity of religious belief by the enforcement 
 of subscription to creeds and articles, can only 
 excite the stare of surprise, or provoke the laughter 
 of ridicule. When it is notorious that in those 
 Churches where this burthen weighs most heavily, 
 dissensions have sprung up, divisions have arisen, 
 and controversies, violent and long-continued con- 
 troversies, have been agitated ; when it is consi- 
 dered that the sight of that terrible tribunal, the 
 Inquisition, could not scare away diversity of 
 opinion, and that the boasted unity of the Romish 
 Church was torn asunder by internal conflicts and 
 struggles ; when it is remembered that in this 
 country the established religion, though nominally 
 the same to all, is in reality different to many, 
 that its doctrines, though professing to be enter- 
 tained in one sense, are actually held in various 
 senses, it would, after this, be an insult to our 
 reason any longer to have it said that the ob-
 
 91 
 
 ject is answered, for which, mainly, subscription 
 to Articles has been exacted. To use the language 
 of Paley, " They may check inquiry, violate liberty, 
 ensnare the consciences of the clergy, by holding 
 out temptations to prevarication," but as to pre- 
 venting diversity of opinion, their influence is vain 
 and impotent. If, however, by any human means, 
 it were practicable to attain this object, so much 
 the worse ; for it would then be a proof that, 
 upon the subject of religion, the mind of man was 
 reduced to a state of listlessness and indifference 
 destructive of inward dignity, and fatal to all 
 high, manly, and generous action. The peace 
 that would then prevail would be the peace, and 
 along with the peace, the coldness and stillness, of 
 death. What Milton said of the doctrines of the 
 Church and the scheme of prelacy, may, with at 
 least equal propriety and effect, be applied to fixed 
 formularies of faith of every description : " If to 
 bring a numb and chill stupidity of soul, an un- 
 active blindness of mind upon the people, be to 
 keep away schism, they keep away schism indeed. 
 With as good a plea might the dead palsy boast 
 to a man, l It is I that free you from stitches and 
 pains, and the troublesome feeling of cold and heat.' 
 The Winter might as well vaunt itself against the 
 Spring, ' I destroy all noisome and rank weeds, 
 I keep down all pestilent vapours ;' yes, and all
 
 92 
 
 wholesome herbs, and all fresh dews ; but when 
 the gentle west winds shall open the fruitful bosom 
 of the earth, thus overgirded by your imprison- 
 ment, then the flowers put forth and spring, and 
 then the sun shall scatter the mists, and the ma- 
 nuring hand of the tiller shall root up all that 
 burdens the soil without thanks to your bond- 
 age*." 
 
 That of which we stand most in need is not the 
 concord and harmony resulting from one unvaried 
 round of dull monotonous thinking, but the union 
 and charity which spring out of the cultivation 
 and exercise of benevolent and Christian disposi- 
 tions, from knowing and freely according to every 
 man the rights which belong to him as an intel- 
 lectual and moral being, and from recognising 
 and owning no authority to which he is amenable 
 but his conscience and his God. Let this foun- 
 dation for the peace of the Church be laid deep 
 and strong in the hearts of Christians, and more 
 will be done to secure this desirable object than 
 can be gained by the fabrication of the best-de- 
 vised creed which the wisdom of the wise can put 
 together. The imposition of articles may, indeed, 
 subserve the interests of a party ; it may answer 
 
 * The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty, 
 chap. vi.
 
 93 
 
 a sectarian purpose, a worldly purpose, and may 
 operate to produce some trifling and transient be- 
 nefit : but it never can conduce to real, substan- 
 tial, durable good ; for it wars with nature and 
 reason, with the free action of the mind and con- 
 science, and with the claims, the privileges, and 
 the duties of our Christian heritage and calling. 
 And therefore our determination should be to 
 withdraw from any and every Church, calling 
 itself Christian, which bars all access to its com- 
 munion except through such a door of unrighteous 
 usurpation as that to which I have been referring. 
 The barriers of human creeds and articles must 
 be thrown down and swept away, or the sense of 
 what is due to my own mind, to the minds of my 
 fellow-Christians, to the commandments of God, 
 and to the authority of Christ, directs, urges, 
 compels me to stand aloof, and not participate in 
 the injustice and oppression of which they are the 
 instrument and the occasion. 
 
 Against this injustice and oppression many and 
 strong have been the protests made, at different 
 times, by some of the wisest and best men of 
 whom our country can boast, as well in the 
 Church as out of it. But, as I before observed of 
 the Athanasian Creed, so I now say of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, that complaints upon complaints 
 may be preferred against them, but they will not
 
 94 
 
 be listened to. They will not be listened to, 
 they will not be regarded, as long as they are 
 merely complaints. Let those complaints go 
 forth and embody themselves in decided, unequi- 
 vocal overt acts of opposition and resistance ; let 
 the good men who feel the burthen and loathe it, 
 shake it from them by quitting their hold of the 
 Church that has laid it on, and there will be a 
 speedier abatement of the nuisance, a readier re- 
 dress of the grievance than can be hoped for by 
 continued silence and uncomplaining adherence. 
 The example of the great and glorious Milton is, 
 in this respect, one which it would do honour to 
 any man to follow. In assigning his reasons for 
 endeavouring to effect a further reformation in 
 the Church, he, in his own peculiar and forcible 
 strain of eloquence, thus writes : " Were it the 
 meanest underservice, if God, by his secretary, 
 conscience, enjoin it, it were sad for me, if I 
 should draw back ; for me especially, now when 
 all men offer to help, ease, and lighten the diffi- 
 cult labours of the Church, to whose service, by 
 the intentions of my parents and friends, I was 
 destined of a child and in mine own resolutions ; 
 till, coming to some maturity of years, and per- 
 ceiving what tyranny had invaded the Church, 
 that he, who would take orders, must subscribe 
 slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he
 
 95 
 
 took with a conscience that would retch, he must 
 either straight perjure, or split his faith, I thought 
 it better to prefer a blameless silence, before the 
 sacred office of speaking, bought and begun with 
 servitude and forswearing*." 
 
 Thus spake the immortal Milton, and other 
 great and good men also have spoken of the same 
 thing in terms scarcely less disparaging and de- 
 rogatory, though seldom accompanied with the 
 same noble and magnanimous practical demon- 
 stration of their opinion as that given by our 
 illustrious bard-j~. 
 
 Of the strain of language adopted by some of 
 the first divines and prelates of the Church of 
 England itself, first in learning and first in cha- 
 racter, on the subject of Church authority and 
 subscription to articles of faith, I shall now sub- 
 join a few specimens. " Let nothing," says Bishop 
 Jeremy Taylor, " be taught as simply necessary to 
 
 * Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty, 
 book ii. 
 
 f Among those, however, who have afforded, in their conduct, 
 ample proof of their hostility to this species of mental vassalage, 
 honourable mention should be made of Whiston, who, when it 
 was intimated to him by Sir Joseph Jekyl, that, if he were dis- 
 posed to accept of preferment, he might probably be made a bishop, 
 immediately answered, " I would not sign the Thirty-nine Articles 
 to be made Archbishop of Canterbury." Whiston's Memoirs, 
 vol. i. p. 163.
 
 96 
 
 be believed, but what is evidently and plainly set 
 down in the Holy Scriptures. For he that calls a 
 proposition necessary which the Apostles did not 
 declare to be so, or which they did not teach to 
 all Christians, learned and unlearned, is gone be- 
 yond his proportions. For everything is to be 
 kept in that order, where God has placed it*." 
 "Bodies of confessions and articles do much hurt, 
 by becoming instruments of separating and divi- 
 ding communions, and making uncertain and un- 
 necessary propositions a certain means of schism 
 and disunion. ' Lord, I believe thou art the Son 
 of God who was to come into the world ;' that 
 was Martha's creed. 'Thou art the Christ the 
 Son of God ;' that was Peter's creed. ' We know 
 and believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the living God;' that was the creed of the Apo- 
 stles. ' This is life eternal, that they may know 
 thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
 thou hast sent;' that was the creed which our 
 Lord made....-f-" 
 
 " It has never gone well," says Archbishop Wake, 
 " with the Church of Christ since men have been 
 so narrow-minded as to mix the controversies of 
 faith with their public forms of worship, and have 
 
 * Second Visitation Sermon on Titus, ii. 7. 
 t Ductor Dubitantium.
 
 97 
 
 made their liturgies, instead of being- offices of 
 devotion to God, become tests and censures of 
 the opinions of their brethren*." 
 
 The language of Chillingworth is, " Let all men 
 believe the Scripture, and that only, and endea- 
 vour to believe it in the true sense, and require no 
 more of others ; and they shall find this, not only 
 a better, but the only means to suppress heresy, 
 and restore unity. For he that believes the Scrip- 
 ture sincerely, and endeavours to believe it in the 
 true sense, cannot possibly be a heretic. And if 
 no more than this were required of any man, to 
 make him capable of the Church's communion, 
 then all men so qualified, though they were dif- 
 ferent in opinion, yet, notwithstanding any such 
 difference, must be of necessity one in commu- 
 
 In the same manner writes the learned Bishop 
 Stillingfleet : " Without all controversy, the main 
 inlet to all the distractions, confusions, and divi- 
 sions of the Christian world, hath been by adding 
 other conditions of church-communion than Christ 
 has done ..... Forms of divine worship should be 
 composed so as to be the least subject to any 
 scruple from any person whatever ; and were a 
 
 * Sermons, vol. i. p. 195. 
 
 t Preface to ' Reply to the Author of Charity Maintained.' 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 review made by wise and peaceful men, not given 
 to wrath or disputing 1 , it might be so far from be- 
 ing a dishonour of the Church, that it may add 
 to the glory of it *." 
 
 Much more to the same effect might be cited 
 from these and other distinguished Divines of the 
 English Church. The sentiments thus expressed 
 are such as become enlightened and liberal men 
 of all persuasions, and, if I am not grievously mis- 
 taken, they are in entire harmony and accordance 
 with the opinions which we profess, and the prin- 
 ciples on which our Churches are conducted. 
 
 If it be asked, then, What is Unitarian Chris- 
 tianity? my answer is, It is Christianity freed from 
 the peculiarities of different sects. It is Christi- 
 anity as professed by the universal Church. It is 
 that which unites into one all the scattered mem- 
 bers of Christ's mystical body. It is Christi- 
 anity such as it was before it was transformed 
 into creeds and confessions and articles and sy- 
 stems. And it is the faith which will survive 
 and flourish, when the names and distinctions, 
 into which Christians are now divided, shall be 
 forgotten. and lost in the one common name and 
 the one great community which will, eventually, 
 embrace and comprehend all. 
 
 * Preface to ' Irenicum' ; Preface to Uneasiness of Separation'.
 
 99 
 
 But this faith, what is it ? What are the princi- 
 ples of which it is composed ? What are the doc- 
 trines alike pervading all Churches, and consti- 
 tuting the vital, essential parts of the Christian 
 religion ? I cannot better describe them than as 
 they have been already described by two men of 
 opposite communions ; the one a Roman Catho- 
 lic, the other a member and minister of the Pro- 
 testant Church of England. According to the late 
 Mr. Charles Butler, the fundamental principles of 
 Christianity, those in which all Christians are 
 agreed, may be included in the following summary. 
 
 " 1. That there is one God ; 2. That he is a be- 
 ing of infinite perfection ; 3. That he directs all 
 things by his providence ; 4. That it is our duty 
 to love him with all our hearts, and our neighbour 
 as ourselves ; 5. That it is our duty to repent of 
 the sins we commit ; 6. That God pardons the 
 truly penitent ; 7- That there is a future state of 
 rewards and punishments, when all mankind shall 
 be judged according to their works ; 8. That God 
 sent his Son into the world to be its Saviour, the 
 author of eternal salvation to all that obey him ; 
 9. That he is the true Messiah; 10. That he taught, 
 worked miracles, suffered, died, and rose again, 
 as is related in the four Gospels ; 11. That he will 
 hereafter make a second appearance on the earth, 
 raise all mankind from the dead, judge the world 
 
 H 2
 
 100 
 
 in righteousness, bestow eternal life on the virtu- 
 ous, and punish the workers of iniquity*." 
 
 Here is a list of what an enlightened Roman 
 Catholic considered to be the great fundamental 
 principles of the Gospel, those principles which 
 are acknowledged by Christians generally ; and 
 to not one of these does the Unitarian offer the 
 slightest objection. On the contrary, he could 
 scarcely desire a better epitome than is here ex- 
 hibited of the system of faith as professed by 
 him. The other writer to whom I alluded is Dr. 
 Arnold, a clergyman of the Established Church, 
 and the head master of Rugby School. In a tract 
 lately published by him, after stating that the 
 problem is, how to unite persons of different opi- 
 nions in one Church, he says, "Before such a 
 union is considered impracticable or injurious to 
 the cause of Christianity, might we not remember 
 what, and how many those points are, on which 
 all Christians are agreed ? 
 
 "We all believe in one God, a spiritual and all- 
 perfect Being, who made us and all things ; who 
 governs all things by his providence ; who loves 
 goodness, and abhors wickedness. 
 
 "We all believe that Jesus Christ, his Son, 
 came into the world for our salvation; that he 
 
 * Butler's Confessions of Faith, p. 199.
 
 101 
 
 died, and rose again from the dead, to prove that 
 his true servants shall not die eternally, but shall 
 rise as he is risen, and enjoy an eternal life with 
 him and with his Father. 
 
 " We all believe that the volume of the Old and 
 New Testaments contains the revelation of God's 
 will to man ; that no other revelation than what 
 is there recorded has been ever given to mankind 
 before or since ; that it is a standard of faith and 
 a rule of practice ; so that we all acknowledge its 
 authority, although we may often understand its 
 meaning differently. 
 
 "We all have, with very few exceptions, the 
 same notions of right and wrong ; or, at any rate, 
 the differences on these points do not exist be- 
 tween Christians of different sects, but between 
 sincere Christians of all sects, and those who are 
 little better than mere Christians in name. We 
 all hold that natural faults are not therefore ex- 
 cusable, but are earnestly to be struggled against ; 
 that pride and sensuality are amongst the worst 
 sins ; that self-denial, humility, devotion, and cha- 
 rity are amongst the highest virtues. We all be- 
 lieve that our first great duty is to love God ; our 
 second, to love our neighbour*." 
 
 * Principles of Church Reform, by Thomas Arnold, D.D. 
 pp. 29, 30.
 
 102 
 
 Now this is neither more nor less than a state- 
 ment of Unitarian Christianity. It exhibits a 
 fair view of the principles that Unitarian Chris- 
 tians deem to be of the first and highest import- 
 ance. So far from allowing that their opinions 
 can be best expressed negatively, by saying that 
 they consist in not believing this or that particular 
 doctrine, they would be happy if their attention 
 were never more called to the points which they 
 reject, to the doctrines which they deny ; wishing 
 much rather that their minds should be turned to 
 the contemplation of the great positive principles 
 above laid down, and which constitute the com- 
 mon faith of Christendom. They would rejoice 
 to have the name Unitarian sunk and extin- 
 guished in the better name of Christian, to feel 
 that there was no longer any occasion for a pecu- 
 liar title to designate them by, or to remind them 
 by its etymology of the errors against which they 
 now feel it to be their duty to protest. Their de- 
 sire is to think of God as the one Almighty Cre- 
 ator and Father of men, without a question being- 
 raised as to distinctions or divisions in his nature. 
 They would wish to contemplate the great and 
 glorious character of the Saviour without being 
 drawn aside to the consideration of different views 
 regarding his personal existence. They would be 
 glad to dwell on the rich promises, the bright and
 
 103 
 
 beautiful hopes of the Gospel, without any refer- 
 ence to the doubts and difficulties that have been 
 started respecting the mode and extent of Chris- 
 tian redemption. But while Christians, generally, 
 will trouble and perplex themselves and others 
 with subtleties of their own devising, with specu- 
 lations about the divine essence which darken, if 
 they do not wholly destroy, the beautiful and sub- 
 lime simplicity of the doctrine of one universal 
 Sovereign, the Creator and Father of all, while, 
 instead of regarding the Christian redemption as 
 a redemption from ignorance and sin and death, 
 as a redemption from a state of misery hereafter 
 by raising us, through the ministry of Christ, to a 
 state of purity, virtue, and holiness now, while, 
 instead of thus considering it, it is represented as 
 a deliverance from the wrath and consequent pu- 
 nishment of an angry and vindictive Deity; and 
 while, to engage in what we think a purer worship, 
 and to enjoy the advantage of meditating upon 
 nobler and better principles, we are obliged to 
 separate from other Churches, and form ourselves 
 into a distinct community, unwillingly and re- 
 luctantly, it may be, but necessarily and for con- 
 science sake, while this is the case, we seem 
 compelled to employ some appropriate appellation 
 by which to mark and distinguish ourselves. And 
 though we are desirous of taking the name that
 
 104 
 
 will be most characteristic and descriptive of our 
 faith, we are equally desirous that it should be 
 one, which is, at the same time, unassuming and 
 inoffensive. We do not, therefore, call ourselves 
 "rational or liberal Christians," as some have pro- 
 posed to do, and as, I believe, is sometimes done 
 by our American brethren. This we think sa- 
 vours a little of presumption and arrogance ; but 
 we take rather the name of " Unitarian Christians," 
 meaning thereby simply this, that we are of that 
 class of Christians who worship one God, as one 
 being or person, in contradistinction to those 
 who worship three persons or beings, whom they 
 denominate the Trinity. We wish not to impose 
 upon one another the profession of any unautho- 
 rized creed, or to demand assent to any prescribed 
 set of articles. We meet together as Christians, 
 differing probably in many respects, but agree- 
 ing in this, the worship of one God, the Father, as 
 disciples of one Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Our communion, therefore, is open to all Chris- 
 tians. We draw no line of exclusion, we lay 
 down no terms of admission. To every one who 
 can unite with us in the worship of one God as a 
 disciple of Jesus Christ, we hold out the right 
 hand of fellowship, and welcome him as a friend 
 and a brother. In denominating our Church a 
 Unitarian Church, we would impose upon none of
 
 105 
 
 its members any kind of bondage ; we would not 
 restrain the exercise of the most perfect freedom 
 of opinion ; we would not fasten upon the con- 
 science the fetter of a single unauthorized dogma. 
 Assembling together as Christians, for the pur- 
 pose of divine worship and religious instruction,, 
 there must, of course, be a general agreement as 
 to the object of worship, and the authority of him 
 from whose law our instructions are to be drawn. 
 Beyond this nothing more is necessary, and no- 
 thing more, therefore, should be required. It 
 would be lamentable to suppose that our Churches 
 were made up of those who entertained only one 
 set of opinions, in as much as it would be a proof 
 of the utter failure of our scheme, which is that of 
 the establishment of a truly catholic Church. Be 
 it remembered, then, that we do not unite, that 
 we do not associate together as Christian worship- 
 pers on the ground of an entire agreement in re- 
 ligious opinion. The basis of our union is simply 
 that of agreement as to the object of worship, the 
 divine commission and authority of our spiritual 
 lawgiver, and the right of every individual, with- 
 out incurring the censure of his brethren, to inter- 
 pret for himself the records of revelation, and to 
 form, hold, and profess whatever opinions that in- 
 terpretation may lead him to adopt. We meet to- 
 gether for the worship of one God, the Father, in
 
 106 
 
 the name and as the disciples of Jesus Christ. 
 Uniting together in this act, according in the just- 
 ness, the propriety, and the scripturalness of this 
 form of worship, we are not bound together by 
 any other articles or terms of union. To the pre- 
 servation of this concord and fellowship, we see no 
 cause for sacrificing the individual independence 
 and freedom of our own minds. While, therefore, 
 we unite in the belief and acknowledgement of one 
 only God as the object of our supreme adoration, 
 and receive the instructions of Jesus Christ as the 
 authorized messenger and revealer of his will, we 
 not only do not exact anything like a uniformity 
 of faith on other topics, but we expect, and are 
 prepared, to find, among ourselves, a considerable 
 diversity of opinion on many subjects of great in- 
 terest and importance. In becoming members of 
 a Christian Church we do not discard our indivi- 
 duality as men. It would, however, be a proof 
 that that individuality was discarded, that the 
 freedom of our minds was destroyed, that all sin- 
 cere and honest exercise of our judgements was 
 extinguished, if, from the moment that we joined 
 ourselves to a society of professing Christians, all 
 personal differences of opinion were then to cease. 
 The prevalence of a uniformity like this would at 
 once be an evidence of such a surrender of the 
 rights of private judgement, of such an abandon-
 
 107 
 
 ment of the privilege and the duty of thinking for 
 ourselves, as would argue either a total forgetful- 
 ness of what belongs to us as men, or a deplorable 
 indifference to the interests of truth and righteous- 
 ness. So far from being displeased at the dis- 
 covery of differences, and even of important differ- 
 ences of opinion among those associating together 
 in the same Church, I welcome such an event as 
 bearing strong and explicit testimony to the true 
 sound catholic principles on which such a Church 
 is established. 
 
 To uphold and maintain these principles our 
 forms of worship should, as much as possible, be 
 general, adapted to the varying circumstances and 
 condition of the worshippers. The supplications, 
 the thanksgivings, the confessions, the interces- 
 sions, should be such as all may be ready to join in, 
 such as all may be able to offer without hesita- 
 tion or scruple. There should be nothing in them 
 which can justly give offence to the devout Chris- 
 tian of any persuasion. " Let the Church," says 
 Paley, " discharge from her liturgy controversies 
 unconnected with devotion ; let her try what may 
 be done for all sides, by worshipping God in that 
 generality of expression in which He has left 
 some points ; let her recall the terrors she suspend- 
 ed over freedom of inquiry ; let the toleration she 
 allows to Dissenters be made l absolute' ; let her 
 invite men to search the Scriptures ; let her gover-
 
 108 
 
 nors encourage the studious and learned of all 
 persuasions; let her do this, and she will be 
 secure of the thanks of her own clergy, and, what 
 is more, of their sincerity*." 
 
 The only Christian Church to which I could 
 heartily attach myself must be founded on the 
 principles here so well expressed by Dr. Paley. 
 Its mode of worship and its terms of communion 
 must be in conformity with the precepts and di- 
 rections contained in the New Testament. Ar- 
 rangements respecting the preservation of order 
 and decorum, and matters of a kindred descrip- 
 tion, fairly come within the province of the 
 Churches to settle for themselves ; but the nature 
 and object of Christian worship, and the terms 
 or conditions of Christian communion, are not left 
 to our determination, but are positively prescribed 
 for us in the ordinances and statutes of Christ 
 and his Apostles. To them we are restricted ; by 
 them we are to be guided. Now it appears 
 to me, that, in these respects, our Churches, as 
 far as I am acquainted with them, conform to the 
 rules laid down for us. We are commanded, when 
 we pray, to say, " Our Father" ; to " worship God 
 alone".-}- Accordingly, this is our practice. We 
 
 * Paley's Works, edited by his Son, vol. iii. pp. 309, 310. 
 t " In the first and best ages," says Bishop Bull, " the 
 Churches of Christ directed all their prayers, according to the
 
 109 
 
 i 
 
 invariably do so. We are exhorted to " call no 
 man Master on earth " but Jesus Christ. We 
 obey this injunction ; we bow to no authority but 
 his. We are commanded to receive and regard 
 eveiy one as a Christian brother who confesses 
 that " Jesus is the Christ/' and who " believes in 
 his heart that God hath raised him from the 
 dead." To all who can make this confession we 
 willingly open the doors of our communion. We 
 build upon no little narrow foundation. The 
 ground on which stands the edifice of our reli- 
 gious union is wide and comprehensive, designed 
 to include all who are content with Scriptural 
 forms of worship and with Scriptural terms of 
 fellowship. Even a Trinitarian will find nothing 
 in our devotional services to offend him, nothing 
 with which he cannot cordially concur. Our 
 prayers may not be all that he thinks they ought 
 to be, there may be omissions which he might 
 wish to have supplied; but, as far as they go, his 
 thoughts and feelings may readily go with them. 
 
 Scriptures, to God only, through the alone mediation of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 " The Lord's Prayer," observes Archbishop Wake, " teaches 
 us that we should pray to God only, and to Him as our Father, 
 through Jesus Christ, our Lord." See Dr. Clarke's Scripture 
 Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 435, 436.
 
 110 
 
 I 
 
 They contain nothing abhorrent to the one, no- 
 thing revolting to the other. While they are 
 addressed to one God, the God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, they express no opinions ad- 
 verse to those which any other Christian may 
 entertain of the Divine nature. In our prayers 
 he will find no terms or expressions directly con- 
 demnatory of any peculiar theological views which 
 he may have been led to form, nothing that can 
 annoy, nothing that can disturb or disquiet his 
 devotional feelings*. 
 
 And so, upon the subject of church communion, 
 we ask not whether a man be a Trinitarian or a 
 Unitarian, we inquire not what maybehis notions 
 of the nature or person of Christ, what he thinks 
 of the doctrines of Calvin, of Arminius, or of 
 Socinus. Our only requirement is that he be a 
 Christian; one who acknowledges Christ as his 
 Master, by whose instructions he feels it his duty 
 to be guided. These, we contend, are the only 
 
 * Many great and good men belonging to the English Church 
 have advocated this principle. Amongst others Dr. William 
 Claget is honourably mentioned by Dr. Samuel Clarke. " If, 
 says he, in all established churches, the forms of divine service 
 were so framed as in no wise to intrench upon any divine rule, 
 all Christian people would, for the rest, leave considerations of 
 prudence and expedience to those in authority, and comply with 
 public order." Claget's Discourse of Church Unity.
 
 Ill 
 
 necessary preliminaries to the fellowship of a 
 Christian Church, to the full participation and en^ 
 joyment of its privileges and advantages. Those 
 who require more than this are exceeding the 
 bounds of their rightful authority. And it is be- 
 cause of such usurpation and encroachment on 
 Christian truth and liberty, that we feel com- 
 pelled to withdraw from the Established Church 
 and others calling themselves orthodox. I will 
 add, that, if any trespass of this kind should be 
 committed by a Unitarian Church, if there, too, 
 any human authority should presume to exalt 
 itself above that of Scripture, I should feel it to 
 be no less my duty to withdraw from that Church 
 than I now do to withdraw from those of a differ- 
 ent denomination. What ! it may be asked, has 
 not every society a right to form its own laws and 
 regulations, to lay down what terms of admission 
 to its fellowship it pleases ? Undoubtedly it has, 
 if it be purely a voluntary association, originating 
 in and entirely founded upon mere human autho- 
 rity. Then, indeed, its members might say to any 
 applicant, We cannot receive you into our com- 
 munion unless you will subscribe to our creed, 
 unless you will consent to walk with us in the 
 same course of reflection and opinion that we 
 walk in. But while Christ alone is the Master of 
 Christians, while we profess to administer his or-
 
 112 
 
 dinances and to be governed only by his laws, we 
 have no right to reject any one from his Church, 
 on account of some difference of sentiment on 
 theological questions, or because he objects to 
 the use of certain phraseology which he alleges to 
 be unscriptural. We have no right to exclude 
 any one from Christian fellowship, for which ex- 
 clusion we cannot produce the clear and un- 
 doubted authority of Christ or his Apostles. What- 
 ever Church, calling itself a Christian Church, 
 arrogates to itself this power, is guilty of gross 
 spiritual tyranny, and is violating, equally, the 
 conscience of man, and the commandments of 
 God. 
 
 "Require of Christians," says the celebrated 
 Chillingworth, "only to believe Christ, and to call 
 no man master, but him only: let those leave 
 claiming infallibility, that have no title to it; and 
 let them that in their words disclaim it, disclaim 
 it likewise in their actions in a word, take away 
 tyranny, which is the devil's instrument to sup- 
 port errors and superstitions and impieties in the 
 several parts of the world, which could not other- 
 wise long withstand the power of the truth: I say, 
 take away tyranny, and restore Christians to their 
 just and full liberty of captivating their under- 
 standing to Scripture only: and as rivers, when 
 they have a free passage, run all to the ocean, so
 
 113 
 
 it may well be hoped, by God's blessing, that 
 universal liberty, thus moderated, may quickly 
 reduce Christendom to truth and unity*." 
 
 These golden words exhibit the ground on 
 which we chiefly rest the vindication of our non- 
 conformity to the Established Church. It is be- 
 cause the worship of that Church is not in accord- 
 ance with the worship prescribed in the New Test- 
 ament, and because other and different terms of 
 communion are there set up than those ordained 
 by Christ and his Apostles, that we feel obliged 
 to withdraw from its service, as well as from that 
 of all other churches acting upon similar princi- 
 ples. Whatever may be the errors and defects 
 belonging to the constitution of our own churches, 
 and, probably, there are many, they are not 
 wanting, I am prepared to maintain, in the first 
 and most essential requisites, scriptural worship 
 and scriptural communion. These advantages we 
 certainly possess. Free access is open to all. No 
 restraints are laid upon any man's freedom of 
 judgement. No human authority dictates to us 
 what we are to believe. The rights of conscience 
 suffer from us no attack, no invasion. We wor- 
 ship one God, the Father, in the name of our Lord 
 
 * Quoted by Dr. Clarke, Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, 
 Introd., pp. 16, 17. 
 
 I
 
 114 
 
 Jesus Christ, and every man's faith " is to himself 
 in the sight of God." We ask no questions. We 
 say, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
 own mind." " Happy is he who condemneth not 
 himself in the thing which he alioweth." This, I 
 believe, is in harmony with the practice of our 
 churches. It is their distinctive peculiarity. Ever 
 may it be so ! for herein lies their noblest com- 
 mendation ; their glory, their honour, their justifi- 
 cation, their defence. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR, 
 BED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL L BRARY FAC LITY 
 
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