sidered the subject and know whereof they affirm, and dividing them into their separate classes according to their various explanations of it, that is separating from each other those who really hold different sentiments, each class would number fewer adherents than the number of those who reject it. But our object is not so much to urge this, as to state the impossibility of accounting for the fact of the Unitarian doctrine being received by such persons and in such a manner, as it has been received, on any other ground than that of its being the sense of scripture.

We shall limit our remarks to its progress among ourselves, because, though the course has been similar in the parent country, the facts which we might state would not be so familiar to our readers. It has grown up here under every circumstance of discouragement. The soil was parched and the sky inclement, and nothing but the strongest principle of growth could have urged it upward. Our early settlers answered exactly to the description of the venerated Robinson. "They have come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further than the instruments of their reformation. The Lu therans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw. Whatever part of his will our good God has revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things." Thus it remained till the habits of the country were formed, till its institutions were well established, and had begun to operate with their mighty machinery on the forming mind, as if it had been the design of Providence to accumulate obstacles, and show how scripture truth can bear them all away. A century ago there was not an avowed Unitarian of any note in the country. Now the doctrine has many advocates; men toe of intelligence, learning, and piety; men who read their Bibles, and pray that they may read them profitably. And it has not been forced on them by others, who have received it and then busied themselves in making proselytes. It has made its way with nothing to aid it, but the careful study of the sacred writings, and with every thing else against it. The reception of it has been the result of the solitary inquiries of solitary individuals; of individuals too who have trembled as they learned it, for they knew that in becoming wiser than their neighbours, they must either lose their honesty and self-respect by concealing their convictions, or by publishing them incur the forfeiture of repu tation, friends, and often of the means of living. It has reared New Series-vol. I.

its head in the strong holds of the popular doctrine. In Bos ton, once the very Vatican of Calvinism, it is professed by many and serious Christians. Along our sea-coast it has almost ceased to be dreadful, and it is not a thing quite unheard of in our western counties. In Connecticut it is stifled as fast as it appears; but they will learn, by and by, it is only cutting off limbs, which the body can reproduce and multiply. In 1805, an ecclesiastical council dismissed Mr. Sherman, for the crime of embracing it, from his charge in Mansfield in that state, contrary to the wishes of both church and society. In 1811, after a quiet ministry of fifteen years, Mr. Abbot of Coventry followed his example in honesty and suffering; and, nothing deterred by this, Mr. Wilson of Brookline pursued the same course something more than a year ago. Nor is the doctrine confined to one section of the country. In Charleston, SouthCarolina, there is a flourishing church, the pastor and associates of which embraced it without communication from abroad. In Philadelphia there is a temple to the only God. In Baltimore, a large and growing Unitarian society have lately chosen for their pastor a gentleman, who, without any thing of the zeal of proselytism, has spirit and ability to defend their belief. Nor is it confined to one order of Christians. Many of the communion of Baptists have received it, and some, we are told, of high literary name among them. In this town there is a society of professed Unitarian Baptists; and if we are not misinformed, some who repeat the Litany would be well pleased with the omission of the three addresses following the first. Religious knowledge in its universal progress is diligently sowing the grain of mustard-seed, and our children, if not we, will be shaded by its magnificent branches.

Mr. Eddy is one of those whom diligent study of scripture has led reluctantly to the rejection of the received belief. We copy his account of the course of his inquiries, because it is an account of the course of inquiry of almost all who come to the same result. Few, perhaps none, start in it with their minds fairly opened to the evidence against the Trinitarian doctrine; and as they proceed, every feeble argument in its favour which the examination wrests from them, is relinquished with a pain and disappointment, such as one might feel in detecting a flaw in the finished demonstration of the most beautiful system of the world. On one account it is happy that it is. thus. Conviction once produced, there is less ground to doubt that it is just, when all the feelings and prepossessions were combined to oppose it.

"The common doctrine of the trinity was received by me, as it is by most others, without examination. I had, as you probably have, taken it for granted, without investigation, to be the truth of revelation; and for a time, that faith in it was necessary to constitute the character of a Christian. (I am happy however in saying, that this was but a short time.) And so strong was my prejudice on this subject, that notwithstanding the contrary faith was frequently a subject of conversation, I never once gave that side of the question any attention. As far as I can recollect, false arguments, seriously adduced in proof of the underived power and proper deity of Christ, first turned my mind to a consideration of this subject. As I read the scriptures, passages presented themselves in a light in which I had never before viewed them, and my doubts increased. As I had read nothing against the received doctrine, I was determined to satisfy my mind from the only correct source of information. Whatever the true doctrine might be, I was persuaded that it must appear in the New Testament. To that I therefore had recourse. And that I might have the whole evidence on the subject before me at once, as far as possible, I transcribed every word, from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Revelations, which appeared to me to bear on the question. The result was a full conviction, that the Father was the only true God, and that Christ was not the Father, or that being whom Christ asserts to be the only true God."

The author of these pages is a man of high standing and unimpeached character. He has filled, and now fills, important public offices; and we risk nothing in saying, that there is no man among us who can found on weight of character, on conscientious love of truth as a thing to be earnestly sought and frankly professed, and, to judge from his work, on humble piety and a Christian temper, a better title to be heard. He was for many years a prominent member of the first Baptist Church in Providence, Rhode Island, and, as we have been told, was always regarded by his brethren as an Israelite indeed, till in an evil hour, he became a suspicious character, by forbearing to join in the service of a doxology to the triune God, and immediately became an object of reprehension with those who make themselves busy with other people's errors, and a cause of painful solicitude to the church. The first expressed their regret and pity in the customary way, and the church summoned him before them, to learn from himself whether it were true, that he worshipped the God of his fathers in the way which they called heresy. He offered them an account of his scheme of belief expressed in scripture language, and protested against their right "either by the laws of Jesus Christ, or the principles on which their church was founded," to discipline him for any supposed error in sentiments which he had avowed. This was not satisfactory; and at a subsequent meeting of the church he opened to them his views more fully. Still they remained inflexibly convinced of

his crime, and their right to punish it; and as we learn from the title page of his little publication, compelled him to withdraw from their communion. In what manner we are not told; but we suppose with the usual expressions of mingled reproach, commiseration, and contempt, which the confident in goodness think a little better than the erring deserve, but becoming their moderation to give. Thus denounced by his brethren, and called on for a vindication of his consistency, he gave these pages to the public, who may find in them evidence, that a man can be an Unitarian without being ignorant or thoughtless, and a controversialist without being angry.

This pamphlet is not to be considered as a set defence of the Unitarian doctrine. It has a local reference, and is rather the writer's justification of himself in professing that belief, and protest against the right of others to molest him in it. It is composed of the papers which he read to his inquisitors at the two interviews we have named. The first, except a few words of caution to them not to persist in their design of censuring him, consists of a sketch of the author's views of the nature and some of the attributes of God, and of the nature, origin, dignity, qualifications, office, and exaltation of the Saviour. It is drawn up in scripture language, and as such, none we should think need fear to read it, for what it expresses has the authority which the sanction of the sacred writers gives. The second is a more elaborate development of his views. After giving, in the passage which we have extracted, an account of the progress of his opinions, he proceeds to examine the question, whether, by the laws of Jesus Christ, or the principles on which the church to which he was held accountable was founded, his opinions rendered him a subject of church discipline, and, arguing from the want in the New Testament of any precept or example which will meet the case; from the positive example of our Lord and his apostles in not retiring from the communion of the Jews; from the entire im possibility, considering the different capacities, love of investigation and opportunities of private Christians, that a real and thorough uniformity of opinion should exist; from the truly catholic practice of the Baptist churches in better times; and from the express authority of scripture, decides it in the nega tive. He proceeds then to shew, (the conclusion we must be allowed to think too modest) "that however unscriptural his opinions may be, in the view of the church, they are such as an honest man may entertain without the charge of ignorance or irreligion." He states (and let who can refute him) that the Jews, selected and qualified for depositaries of the doctrine

of the divine unity, knew nothing of one God in three persons; and that neither Christ, his forerunner, nor his apostles, spake of such an one. What remains is a brief and close statement of the grounds of the author's "belief, that there is but one only self-existent and true God, and that Jesus Christ is not that being;" in which the testimony of our Lord concerning himself, and that of his apostles concerning him, are separately considered. He states his rule in the investigation of the subject to have been, "to construe passages of doubtful import by those which are plain and unequivocal, and to consider Christ's declarations of himself to be of primary regard;" and he appears to have adhered to it faithfully, and has certainly used it with success.

It will be seen from our account of Mr. Eddy's conduct of the argument, that it is plain, brief, and popular. It has no great peculiarity, except as far as on the tritest subjects a man of independent discriminating mind will give an individuality to what he writes. There is one particular, however, which somewhat distinguishes it. The distinct personality of the Holy Spirit is the part of the trinitarian scheme, which they who have advocated it have found to labour most, and accordingly they have had the address to keep it most out of sight. It may safely be said, that, with all the art which can be employed in wresting scripture by false explanations to prove what it never would have suggested, in favour of this part of the received doctrine there can scarcely be made to appear a decent pretence of evidence, and, but for the three principles of the Platonists, it is most improbable that the framers of the system of Christian metaphysics would ever have thought of more than two persons in the Godhead. The orthodox doctrine is, there are three distinct equal persons in one God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and it falls to the ground whenever the distinct personality and equality of either of the three persons is disproved. It is overthrown when the Son is proved not to be equal with the Father; or if it be shown, that the Holy Ghost is not a distinct existence from the Father yet equal with him, it is overthrown as well. But the argument has generally been so managed, as if to prove the equality of the Father and Son was to prove the doctrine of the trinity. Here its advocates have had the advantage of engaging on their own chosen ground, and have been careful to keep it. By the false methods of interpreting scripture which now prevail, texts may be brought together, which will give some speciousness to the argument in favour of the equality of the Father and Son, when addressed to some minds; but the worst