adopted in their search, and these could not fail to lead them into all truth. Unitarianism arose from the ashes of the pile at which creed-books, and articles, and confessions had been consumed, and hundreds of churches were erected for the worship of the Universal Father, and the voice of truth has gone forth-and the progress of truth who will stay?-until One God alone shall be adored throughout all the land, whose name and whose praise shall be one. "The Unitarians of Scotland are not ignorant nor unobservant of the circumstances which I have detailed in this rapid and imperfect sketch. We mark the advance of Christian truth with lively interest, and we are desirous of publicly expressing our sympathy with our struggling brethren, and offering our congratulations to those of our friends who have been successful in their efforts to keep and defend the faith. We rejoice that we are not the only nation from which the hallelujahs of grateful hearts have ascended to the Father of mercies and the God of love. We rejoice that his praises are now heard in many lands, and that his boundless benevolence and illimitable compassion are the sources of gratitude and peace to thousands and tens of thousands of his erring children. We rejoice in the diffusion of the faith we profess, because we are thus assured, that others derive peace and joy from believing in these sacred truths which our experience teaches us, give the truest zest to the blessings of prosperity, and minister consolation and relief in the hour of adversity and distress. We believe, that if the friends of Christian Unitarianism are firm and united in their testimony, that the God of truth will overrule and prosper their exertions, and crown their labours with success. And are not the political and moral worlds fast advancing to that state, when the teachers of Christian liberty, and the friends of free inquiry, may hope to go forth conquering and to conquer? Are not the signs of the times peculiarly propitious? Do they not portend the speedy advent of that period, when, without a metaphor, it may be said, that Unitarianism will spread like the light of heaven, and diffuse happiness and peace throughout the world? "It is impossible, when the signal of liberty and liberality is re-echoed from land to land, and from shore to shore-when men and nations are shaking off the political fetters in which their straitened limbs have moved for ages-that they will long permit their consciences to be controlled, or their convictions restrained, by the shackles of priestly domination. No! They will arouse from the religious apathy in which they have too long permitted their energies to slumber-they will shake off the servitude which creeds and churches have imposed-they will exult in the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free-they will all become Bible Christians-they will all become, but I need not tell you what faith we believe they will adopt. "When this period arrives, the triumph of the sacred principles we profess, is certain. 'The knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the great deep.' One Sovereign shall reign over universal nature; and the adorations of all shall ascend to one good and ever-bountiful Father, in the name of the only Mediator between God and men." The Resolution, on being seconded by Mr. Peter of Glasgow, was unanimously adopted. Mr. Condie of Paisley, made a few remarks on the benefits likely to accrue to the cause of Christian Unitarianism in Scotland, by the employment of a Missionary, and proposed the 4th Resolution. It was seconded by Mr. Walker of Tillicoultry, and unanimously carried. On the motion of Mr. Calder, seconded by Mr. Steel of Glasgow, the former Committee was unanimously re-elected. The Rev. B. T. Stannus of Edinburgh, in moving the 5th Resolution, spoke to the following effect: "Mr. Chairman,-With the letter and spirit of the Resolution which I have the honour of moving, I do most heartily concur; and I feel persuaded that the principles which are therein embodied, will at once find an entrance to the heart and conviction of every man who has not been habituated to the practice of viewing through a jaundiced medium, the plain facts and declarations of Scripture. In the language of this Resolution, I firmly believe that Christian Unitarianism is identified with the great Protestant principle-'the Bible, the Bible only,' in opposition to all human creeds and confessions.' Indeed, I should wish to be satisfactorily informed wherein the utility of creeds consists, and what advantage the great and holy cause of Christianity has derived from their introduction. We know that they took their origin in boldness of innovation upon the sacred Scriptures; and that the glaring corruptions which followed in their train, gradually increased in magnitude and repulsive deformity, until, at length, they toiled amidst the inexplicable principles and tortuous disquisitions of the Schoolmen. Then was Christianity favoured with catalogues of grandiloquent attributes and phrases, such as had never been dreamt of in the philosophy' of preceding ages, and which fairly set at defiance every process of rational investigation. Daring spirits propagated their own antichristian views -the Scriptures were shamefully corrupted-diversity of sentiment stalked over the Christian world, and human formularies of belief those precious theological gems-were enstudded in the coronet of Christianity, that a chimerical uniformity in religious faith might be obtained, and rigorously preserved. This was the principle adopted, and adhered to, by the ghostly fathers of the Christian Church prior to the commencement of the sixteenth century, when the axe was laid to the root of many corruptions: but, although the Scriptures were then translated into the vulgar tongues, and acknowledged to be the only rule of faith and practice, yet it was virtually enjoined that they were to be understood in precise accordance with the abstract systems and compendiums of the Christian religion which had been published a short time before. Thus, Sir, the Reformers were, in the first instance, at the extraordinary pains of overturning the fabric of Catholicism, and subsequently of rearing the goodly edifice-and that, too, in such a style, as violated every principle of their own theological architecture. On the ground of individual judgment, they separated from the communion of the Church of Rome, and, in direct opposition to the same indefeasible right, they erected their own religious standards, under which it was necessary that every Protestant who regarded his worldly interests, or valued his eternal welfare, should enrol himself. Thus, in reality, did they establish one of the most exceptionable portions of the system which they professed to abhor. And when their importance increased, they did not scruple to press into their service the unrighteous assistance of the secular arm; and did not hesitate to deprive honest men of earthly comforts, and impiously attempt to close against them the entrance to eternal happiness; and they did not fear to thrust men of greater integrity than themselves without the ordinances of the Church; and they did not shrink from hurrying them before earthly tribunals, to answer for the crime of worshipping God according to their own conscience-for which, if it were an offence, they were accountable to God alone; and they manifested such an unhallowed thirsting for groans and torture, and persecution even unto the death,' that their progress, in establishing the circumscribed views of sectarianism, might have been traced by the impress of their footsteps in the blood of their unprotected victims. These, Sir, are some of the services with which creeds, and their invariable concomitants-intolerance and persecution-have blessed the Christian world; these are some of the claims which they have upon our esteem. I maintain, that the requiring of subscription to tests, countervails the free operation of the intellectual powers, and invalidates the genuine importance of the Holy Scriptures. Is it not an obvious and unavoidable conclusion, however the pretenders to infallibility may endeavour to soften it down, that the enjoining of an assent to the mere deductions from, and varying interpretations of, Scripture, takes the glory from the Word of God, and goes to make it of none effect?' Is it not requiring from us an acquiescence in the revolting principle, that human formularies are necessary to aid our Heavenly Father in making known his divine will to the children of men? Blessed be his name! we have line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little,' and so lucidly revealed, that he who runs may read.' Is not the compelling of an assent derogatory to human liberty, and to that liberty with which Christ has made us free?' Is it not chaining the understanding and the free will of man to the dictum of a worm like ourselves, who mocks at the march of mind, and daringly attempts, with his own puny opinions, to repel the progress of society-impiously, but vainly exclaiming to the great ocean of knowledge that is setting in broad and irresist ible majesty against the shore of the world, thus far shalt thou come, but no farther?' Such impotent endeavours to circumscribe the wide range of thought, will be as ineffectual as the frantic behaviour of the Eastern tyrant, when he threw fetters into the flood of the Hellespont, and inflicted lashes upon its surface, to influence its obedience to his will. To all men who manifest the unholy wish to check the free aspirations of Christian freedom, I would say, in the glowing expressions of your patriotic country man in vain ye trace the wizard ring; No! the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand, "But, besides the argument which results from this consideration, we rejoice in the circumstance of our being able to summon the Word of God in behalf of the great cause of Christian liberty. Do we find in Scripture any theory which enjoins us to deliver up our consciences into the holy keeping of our fellows? Do we there discover that it is necessary for the peace of God's people, for the purity of the Church, or for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, that we should pander to the bigotry of man? Do we there perceive that all Christians must consult the Sacred Oracles, and agree with each other in every jot and tittle' of religious belief? No such thing. Examine yourselves,' says Paul, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.' And, lest salvation should be connected with the profession of any particular opinion, our Lord assures us, that many shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.' In opposition to the theory of Helvetius, I hold that different minds are differently constituted; and that every individual can no more arrive at a perfect uniformity of sentiment on the great doctrines of religion, than an Ethiopian can change the colour of his skin, or a leopard his spots. It very frequently occurs that the opinions of men on the commonest subjects, are as various as the character of their face; and how comes it that the very men who are the loudest in swelling the warwhoop of intolerance, and the most zealous in endeavouring to bring all Christians into the fold of orthodoxy-are not characterised by a perfect and immutable uniformity amongst their own sect? Physicians, heal yourselves.' 'How wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote of thine eye; and behold a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.' "We have no authority, Sir, in Holy Writ, for checking the progress of free inquiry; but many admonitions to be fully persuaded in our own minds. We are told that Joshua appealed to the reasoning powers of the Israelites in an important choice which he wished them to make: whether they would serve the gods of the Amorites, or the LORD GOD of Israel.' Even Jehovah himself appears to give his divine sanction to the duty of free examination, when he condescends to say to the children of Israel, come now, and let us reason together.' Our great Master never restricted the exercise of individual judgment:- why even of ་ your own selves,' says he, 'judge ye not what is right?' He recommends all his followers to search the Scriptures.' The Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they searched the Scriptures daily.' Paul puts forth many admonitions on the same subject. Be not children in understanding; howbeit, in malice be ye children; but in understanding, be men.' "Beloved, believe not every spirit; but try the spirits whether they be of God, for many false prophets are gone out into the world.' 'Be ready always to give an answer to every man for the hope that is in you.' Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.' 'I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say.' "It is a great truth,' that the inhabitants of mountainous districts are fondly attached to the music and poetry of their native hills and glens; and the more barren and craggy, and inaccessible their mountains, the more unconquerable is the love which these rugged features of Nature generate. A Laplander could not be induced to exchange his own dreary wilds, for the most luxuriant spot in the universe; and we all have heard of instances in which Swiss soldiers, having their remembrance of home awakened within them by a wild native melody, have deserted the army in which they were enlisted, and returned to the loved precipices over which they had clambered in all the buoyancy of their mountain mirth.' In a similar way, if the man who is wedded for better for worse, for richer for poorer,' to human formularies of faith, happen to leave for a moment his beloved theological difficulties, and enlist in the ranks of free inquiry, it very frequently occurs, that he hears, or thinks he hears' the Rans-de-vaches of the mountains and precipices of mystery, on which he is accustomed to domicile, invitingly summoning him to his native residence;―he shakes off the dangerous quota of mental courage which he had so inconsiderately assumed; he obeys the melodious invitation; and, like a good thoroughpaced theological mountaineer, the more craggy, the more full of asperities, the more tangled with difficulties are his positions, so Swiss are his predilections, that the more deeply and religiously are they valued. "We are possessed of a nature more excellent than that of the beasts of the field; we are furnished with extensive capacities for knowing and enjoying our Creator; we have powers fitted for the investigation of subjects which minister to our happiness,— and I cannot conceive of a nobler theme upon which they could, by possibility, be exercised, than upon the one which interests us in the things which belong to our everlasting peace.' If the human mind be progressive, it is our duty to subject it continually to a process of cultivation-if we are formed but a little lower than the angels,' we should strive to shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day,—and if we are called upon by gratitude, and by God's Holy Word, to adore our Creator, to reverence His sacred name, and to be drawn by the leadings of His gracious providence, it is only reasonable that we should, without pain or penalty, be permitted to consult for ourselves as to the best method of render |