deep, experimental, tender piety, which good people call "an unction from the Holy One." It was this unsabbath-like, unreligious, (if we may use such words,) mode of preaching, which made us feel, quite as much as the erroneous doctrines delivered, that there was something radically wrong in the system. We have heard serious Unitarians express a similar sentiment. They are not fed; the deep wants of the soul are not met; they are not assisted by such instructions, in drawing nigh to God.

Whether this Lyceum style of preaching will be adopted by the denomination generally, for a part of the Sabbath, more than it has been heretofore, time must show. We had supposed that the better class of Unitarians, we mean those who believe in Jesus Christ as the only Son of God, were becoming more spiritual and evangelical in their pulpit ministrations.

Unitarians seem inclined to assume a regard, above all others, for excellence of character. Dr. Gannett has somewhere said, that a supreme regard for character is the distinguishing feature of Unitarianism. We quote from memory, and will not vouch for the words, though we cannot be mistaken as to the sentiment. See on this subject also, an address delivered before the Association of the Alumni of the Cambridge Divinity School, July, 1846, by William O. Peabody, D. D.. Mr. Peabody says: "It is one of the chief advantages of that body of Christians with which we are connected, that they insist on character, in its wholeness and harmony, as the essential thing." Not that they lay more stress on it practically, but because, if we understand him, they do not lay much stress upon any thing else. "This idea of the supreme importance of character, is the substance of Unitarianism." "If, therefore, the Unitarian sect is passing by, it conveys the glad ti dings that its warfare is accomplished, and its work is done; in other words, that the world is receiving this great truth of the transcendent worth of character, and need no longer to have it pressed upon them by an active and earnest party." The same sentiment may be often found among writers of this denomination. Honor to whom honor is due. We have read many beautiful and eloquent appeals from leading Unitarian writers, in behalf of the moral virtues. Sincerity, purity, charity, domestic affections, philanthropy and piety found glowing advocates in Channing, Ware, Greenwood, and others. These gentlemen had a high appreciation of refinement, amiability, integrity and honor. We admire

much that they have written, and doubt the reality of a Christian character where these virtues are not manifested. It may be true, also, that Orthodoxy has sometimes dwelt more upon the substantials of godliness, than upon its outward adornments. While we insist upon faith, communion with God, and holy living, something might be gained by a more prominent and frequent presentation of all those excellences which give a charm to social life, and render Christianity absolutely beautiful in every feature.

But we must look a little at the Unitarian assumption. Do our liberal friends imagine, that the Evangelical denominations are comparatively regardless of character? Is there a virtue inculcated in the New Testament which our pulpits do not enforce? For ourselves, we must say that we have never heard nor read more earnest exhortations to "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of good report," than we have from preachers of our own denomination. We hold sin in all its forms as infinitely odious, the greatest evil in the universe, and more to be avoided, if we could separate it from its consequences, than the punishment of hell itself. We also believe holiness of heart and life, to be of more value to immortals than all the rewards of heavenly bliss which come in connection therewith. In this respect, we attach supreme value to character. It is the end of Christianity, as it respects the individual man. He is to be transformed in the renewing of his mind into the image of Christ, who is the pattern of all goodness. He is to strive after the attainment of all the imitable perfections of his Lord. We wish to see the man completely developed in the beauty of holiness, so that being unblamable, and unreprovable, having a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man, and exhibiting every trait of Christian greatness and loveliness, he shall grow up into the stature of a perfect one in Christ.

Where then is the difference between Orthodoxy and Unitarianism on the subject of character? Why does the Unitarian imagine, that it is a supreme regard to character which distinguishes his denomination from all other forms of religion? We have a threefold answer to these questions. Unitarianism is the religion of culture. Orthodoxy is the religion of redemption. Unitarianism proceeds to the formation of character without first 32

VOL. I.

attempting to lay the foundation. This was the great defect of the younger Dr. Ware's little book on "The Formation of Christian Character." The title of the book indicates well its contents. It is a treatise upon the formation of christian character. Orthodoxy occupies itself first, and in addressing one class of men, chiefly, in laying the foundation. This is repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, the only foundation on which a justly proportioned Christian character can be built.

Again, the Unitarian seems to place his confidence for salvation chiefly upon what he is, upon what he has done, upon what he has made himself, upon what he has become. The Orthodox believer, while seeking a complete Christian development in the renewed man, builds his hope of salvation, not on merit as the ground of acceptance, but wholly on the mercy of God in Christ.

Again, with the Orthodox, the first element of a good character is godliness, or love and obedience to God. Where this exists, the virtues of the second table will follow. With the Unitarian, the refinements of civilization, kind offices between man and man, and moral improvement seem to have too nearly usurped the place of that supreme love to God which is the first element of goodness.

From some things in the Examiner, we are led to believe that the Unitarian ideal of character, is decidedly defective. For ourselves, as we cannot conceive of goodness without godliness, nor of godliness without God, no more can we believe, that there is any Christianity without Christ; or a truly good man, who, understanding the religion of Jesus, rejects it. We are led to this remark, particularly by an article in the Christian Examiner for September, 1845, entitled "Blanco White-Rationalism, by O. D., the same writer to whom we have already alluded.

Mr. White was an infidel. "His autobiography shows," says Dr. Dewey, "that there may be good and devout men under the greatest diversities of honest conviction." His outbreaks upon the Church and Priesthood could be called, "if you please, the infirmities of a noble mind." "It was a noble mind. This was a good man." The emphatic Italics belong to the text. But let us see some of the characteristics of this good man. "In the course of his life," says 0. D.," he passed from the extreme of Romanism to the extreme of Rationalism." "He died believing in God but without any belief in a future life." "His invectives against authority, Church and Priesthood, often seem to us as more querulous than philosophical,”—“to

a certain extent indiscriminate and unjust." "These wholesale denunciations of all churches and their clergy, as full of pretension, craft and cruelty, though they may gratify a certain class of persons, will give pleasure, we believe, to no wise man." "Mr.

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Gallaudet, a man whose name we cannot pass without expressing for him the sincerest respect and esteem, is severely censured for a dogmatic teaching of children in his Book of the Soul."""He inveighs much against what he calls Bibliolatry, the worship of the Book," that is, the Bible. "He goes farther, and calls in question the very ideal and teaching of the Master." He thinks the text: "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned into the likeness of his glorious body," "the source of many errors, monachism, bodily maceration, and an irrational contempt of the body." "Christian humility and martyrdom, too, come under Mr. White's censure. Alas! we said, as we went on with the Memoir, every thing is to go down before this determined criticism. Humility, he says, is the virtue of slaves, and familiarity with the lash was the true preparation of the heroes of martyrdom." "We understand Mr. White, too, as objecting to prayer; that is, to prayer considered as a direct petition." At length this remarkable person, when approaching the end of his mortal pains and strifes, quits the last hold upon positive Christianity. The belief in a God alone remains to him. "He dies and gives no sign of Christian hope." After this account of Mr. White, given under the flippant and often eloquent pen of O. D., it sounds oddly enough, to hear the same writer eulogising the subject of his notice as a noble mind, as emphatically a good man, a man of a most affectionate nature, and of an unconquerable love of truth. His wholesale and indiscriminate denunciations and out-pourings of bitterness upon Christian professors, "the noble army of martyrs" not excepted, is to us, we confess, a singular proof of "his affectionate nature;” while his rank infidelity, expressed not without a liberal interlarding, as O. D. himself says, "of the old pagan scorn," appears no less remarkable as the manifestation of an unconquerable love of truth. We could not but wonder, from any thing presented in the article, why the writer should say that "for the character of Mr. White, we have the highest veneration and regard; nay, we will confess it, an affectionate and tender feeling." He indeed makes a distinction, as charity requires, between character and opinion. But is not

the spirit of a man an element,ay, the very essence, of his character? And ought a man of such a spirit, expressing pagan scorn for Christianity, and maligning indiscriminately its professors, to be labelled a noble character? Is it so certain that bad opinions never spring from a bad heart; or that the Saviour contradicted truth when he said: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine ?" The distinction between character and opinion in this case reminds us of an explanation we once heard of the parable of the wheat and the tares; that, at the judgment, "God would cast the sins of the wicked into a furnace of fire, but receive the sinner into heaven."

In many of their discoursings upon charity, Unitarians seem to be untrue to themselves. It is a mawkish, wordy, unmeaning charity, which appears to spring quite as much from certain " recorded opinions" on the subject, as from deep convictions at the moment of utterance. And we would seriously inquire of our' Unitarian friends, whether in many of their remarks concerning Straussism, Parkerism, Putnamism, and the like, they may not be really, though unconsciously, abusing their own convictions.

But Unitarian charity is not always excessive, or fawning in all directions. A single sentence or two, at the close of this article on Blanco White, may possibly furnish a clue to the writer's reverence and affection for him. "There is," says he, "an entirely different direction of thought with regard to this work, which we could wish to see thoroughly followed out. The value of its protests against the popular forms of Christianity ought to be carefully appreciated; and we hope that some competent hand will undertake the task." Mr. White heartily hated Evangelical Christianity. And O. D. has said, that he "would rather be an infidel than a Calvinist, a strict Calvinist of the old school."

In an article by H. W. B., or Rev. Mr. Bellows of New York, in the Examiner for November, 1845, the character of Mr. White is highly eulogised, while many of his opinions are disapproved. It appears that he rejected "Romanism and Christianity together;" that he concealed his opinions "during seven years of total unbelief," and continued all this time "to exercise the office of a priest," "striving to convince himself that he may honestly profess Christianity in an esoteric way, using his office only for any breach of morals."

good purposes, and carefully avoiding

Have our Unitarian friends lost their reason? Surely they