more liberal dispensation which includes the whole human race, and is to endure to the end of time. They believe that he was commissioned to reveal the doctrine of eternal life by a resur. rection from the dead. That to confirm his mission he performed a series of astonishing and beneficial miracles, and uttered various prophecies which in due season received their proper accomplishment. They believe that he was crucified, dead, and buried; that on the third day by the power of God he was raised to life: that he appeared to his disciples at different times for forty days, affording them many sensible and infallible proofs of his resurrection from the dead; after which time he was in their presence miraculously taken up into the clouds, and withdrawn from all visible connexion with this world.

3. The Unitarians also believe that within a few days after the ascension of Jesus, on the day of Pentecost, he fulfilled his promise of pouring out upon his apostles a miraculous EFFUSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, by which their minds were enlightened in the knowledge of truth, and inspired with zeal, courage and fortitude for its promulgation and defence; by which they were also at the same time endowed with various miraculous gifts and powers, and particularly with that of speaking divers languages, and of com

municating the holy spirit to the firit proselytes by imposition of hands. And the Unitarians further believe, that immediately after this extraordinary event the apostles went forth to preach the gospel of Christ, first to the Jews and afterwards to the Gentiles; and that the extent and rapidity of their success were such as can in no other way be accounted for, but upon the supposition that the doctrine was true and that the miracles were incontrovertible.

4. The Unitarians believe, upon the authority of Jesus Christ, that God will JUDGE THE WORLD in righteousness by the MAN whom he hath ordained, of which he hath given assurance to all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. And that the hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. And this sublime and infinitely important doctrine they conceive to be the sum and substance of the christian revelation; the great object of which was to bring life and immortality to light.

Lastly, The Unitarians believe that the SCRIPTURES of the Old and New Testament contain a revelation from God, and that they are the only authentic repositories of his revealed will.

These, my Lord, were the principles of Dr. Lardner, and of the great leaders of the Unitarian doctrine in the last century: and these important principles may surely protect those who seriously and openly profess them, from the calumny of being unbelievers in divine revelation. It is indeed true that, firmly adhering to these great principles, the Unitarians whom I have described, feel themselves bound in conscience, and in duty, to dissent from many doctrines which are believed by a majority of their fellow christians to be not only true, but of the highest importance, and to enter their humble but firm protest against them, as grievous corruptions of the primitive faith.

1. The Unitarians feel themselves bound to reject, and under an imperative sense of duty to enter their solemn protest against, the commonly received doctrine of the TRINITY, as an antient and gross corruption of the christian revelation, the primary and fundamental article of which is the UNITY OF GOD. If indeed the doctrine of the trinity implied nothing more than what Dr. Wallis stated, and the University of Oxford approved, viz. that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are only different names for one and the same being, as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, are different titles of one and the same God; "if this is what is meant,

and all that is meant" by a trinity of persons in the godhead, we cannot object to this doctrine as an infringement of the divine Unity; we can only express our disapprobation of the injudicious, unscriptural, and unwarrantable language in which this doctrine is expressed, which naturally tends to mislead the unlearned and the unwary. And, most certainly, this is not the sense in which the doctrine of the trinity is commonly understood.

2. Unitarians, properly so called, disclaim the doctrine of a SUBORDINATE CREATOR and governor of the universe. They believe in one God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things which are therein. And they see no evidence, either from reason or scripture, for a doctrine, which indeed had no existence till the fourth century, that the Logos was a derived being, created by God for the express purpose of creating and governing the material and intellectual universe. Much less can they suppose that, if such a being existed, they should be under no obligation to offer to him the homage of their hearts. To the One God, their maker, preserver, benefactor, and governor, who rules the universe with undivided sway, and who will not give his glory to another, we offer supreme and undivided honours. We acknowledge no delegated creator, no inferior God.

3. The Unitarians do not believe in the PERSONAL EXISTENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, as a being distinct from the Supreme. They acknowledge that God himself is sometimes designated by the expression the Spirit of God. But they conceive that the sense in which the phrase holy spirit occurs most frequently in the New Testament, is that of the miraculous gifts and powers with which the apostles and primitive converts were endued in the first age of the church.

4. The Unitarians believing Christ to be a mere human being, though he is the greatest of the prophets of God, of course deny the commonly received doctrine of the ATONEMENT; and they conceive that the death of Christ is no where represented in the scriptures as an expiatory sacrifice for human guilt, as appeasing the wrath of God, as a satisfaction to divine justice, as an exhibition of the evil of sin, or as a vicarious suf fering for the transgressions of mankind. They believe that this event is represented as a sacrifice only in a figurative sense. The death of Christ was of the highest importance, as a necessary preliminary to his resurrection: "helaid down his life that he might take it again;" and in this view it was wisely ordered, to avoid every suspicion of collusion, that he should suffer a violent death in public, and by the hands of his enemies.