that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Is there any thing diftreffing in the idea, that our judge is to be one of the human race? Rather is it not calculated to inspire us with confidence and joy? For we may in this cafe fay of our judge, what the writer of the epiftle to the Hebrews fays of our high priest, "We have not a judge who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who was in all refpects tempted like as we are, yet without fin."

In fine, when we reflect upon the whole fyftem of christianity; when we confider that it is a scheme in every respect honourable to God, and condufive to the virtue and happiness of men; when we confider farther that Jefus Chrift was the meffenger chofen by God to introduce it, that he attefted the truth of it with his blood, and that he has thus been the means of delivering men from their iniquity and of courfe from their guilt, we are confident that we can cry out with a degree of holy transport, equal to that of the Trinitarian, "Thanks be to God for his UNSPEAKABLE GIFT?"

Mr. Hawker, if he would prove that unitarianifm leads to thofe difinal confequences to which he fays it leads, fhould prove that the lives of thofe who profefs it are lefs virtuous than the lives

of

1

1

of Trinitarians, and their deaths lefs refigned and
happy; but this I apprehend is not in his power.
He afferts, indeed, that "if experience can be deem-
ed the trueft teft for the afcertaining a matter of
fact, we have reafon to conclude that thofe leave
the world with moft complacency and fatisfaction,
who have learnt to place their confidence in a fa-
viour's merit and not in their own."(a) Here, however,
he has afforded us another proof of his ignorance
of our principles. We readily acknowledge that
we do not depend for our acceptance with God,
upon the merit of Jefus Chrift; for what can the
moft virtuous of creatures merit for another at the
hands of his Maker? But it does not, therefore,
follow that we depend upon our own. No; we
depend, as the fcriptures teach us, upon a more
fure foundation than either, our heavenly Father's
mercy, declared to mankind by Jefus Chrift our
Lord, mercy which, we know, will make allow-
ance for all the natural imperfections of human
nature, and which is fully adequate to the pardon
of all our fins.

I

may obferve, before I conclude, that in one refpect, at leaft, the unitarian fyftem has greatly the advantage of the contrary one. It is this; that there is nothing in it to puzzle and perplex the mind, that it is a system perfectly rational and fimple, that in it involves in itself no abfurdities or contradictions,

(a) P. 345,

contradictions, that it is founded on the obvious meaning of the uniform declarations of fcripture, and that it is a fyftem which the moft illiterate perfons may eafily underftand and explain. The trinitarian fyftem, on the contrary, is irrational and unintelligible, replete with abfurdity and contradiction, founded on the most abftruse explanations of a few paffages of fcripture detached from their connection, and a fyftem which its ableft advocates have never been able to define, or even to understand.

CONCLUSION.

Mr. Hawker calls the unitarian doctrine "the fashionable doctrine of the prefent hour," and he adds, "when it has had its day, like many others which have fprung up, and for the moment appeared to flourish, but foon died away, whose memorial is perifhed with them, this alfo will fink and be forgotten." (d) And if it be merely the doctrine of the prefent day, and not the doctrine of Chrift and his apoftles, Unitarians can confole themselves with the fame idea. If it be not a plant of our heavenly Father's planting, we are not fo much attached to it as a fyftem, as not to hope and pray that it may be rooted up. Being however firmly

Bb

(d) P. 362. 363.

firmly perfuaded that it is a plant of his planting, we are confident that every attempt, which is made to exterminate it, will only cause it to ftrike ftill deeper root. Our confidence is not a little ftrengthened by the confideration, that every controversy to which it has given rife, has encreafed the number of its advocates; and this circumstance feems to juftify the perfuafion, that its progrefs will continue to be accelerated till at length it shall become the religion of the world, when as the Prophet predicts, JEHOVAH fhall be King over all the earth, and there fhall be ONE JEHOVAH, and his name ONE. (e)

(e) Zech, xiv, 9,

FINI S.