"Have

"The

It was objected to the Gospel, and in the early age, conceded, that few embraced it but the poor, and the common people. "To the poor the Gospel is preached." any of the Scribes and Pharisees believed on him ?" common people heard him gladly." "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." Celsus, in the second century, exulted in the fact, that so few in the higher classes of society had professed christianity; and poured contempt upon the cause, as patronized only by mechanics and vulgar people.* Now, is it not notorious, that the liberal system of doctrines, unpatronized by the civil power, has never been the religion of the common people in any country; but rather the religion of men of philosophical minds and literary habits? i. e. the evangelical system has been chiefly patronized by that class of society which patronized the faith delivered to the saints; while the opposite system has more commonly relied for patronage on the arm of government, and on that class of men in society who, as a body, rejected the Gospel. A late writer in this country, of high reputation on the liberal side, says, "It is not to be doubted, that, throughout our country, a very large proportion of those men, who, for their talents and learning and virtues, have the most influence in the community, and have it in their power to do the most towards giving a right direction to the public feeling and the public sentiment, are dissatisfied with the Calvinistic and Trinitarian form in which they have had religion presented to them; but are prevented from making a public avowal of their opinions, by an unwillingness to encounter opposition and obloquy, and loss of confidence, and the power of being useful."+ The evangelical system in this country, then, is extensively embraced by the same

* Are there no attempts making to create an impression now, that the liberal system is patronized peculiarly by persons in high life, by men of taste and talents, of wealth and refinement; and that the opposite system is fast going down, to be the religion of the common people only, and of the poor?

+ Dr. Ware's Letters to Trinitarians and Calvinists, pp. 146, 147.

classes which embraced the Gospel; and is extensively disapproved by that class of men who rejected the Gospel.*

The faith delivered to the saints occasioned a virulent hatred. It was not hatred of it as false, arising from an ardent love of truth; for Pharisees and Sadducees could tolerate each other, and Pagans could tolerate thirty thousand gods, with all their lust and blood. And is not the evangelical system encountered by a virulence of opposition, in circumstances which show that it cannot arise from the love of truth or hatred of error? None will pretend, that the effects of the evangelical system are as deplorable, as the effects of idolatry in its present forms. The evangelical system has produced no temple of impure resort; no gratifications of lust enjoined as acts of worship; no blood of human victims; no burning of widows, or drowning of infants; no self-inflicted penal tortures. And yet, such is the hatred of many to the evangelical system, that they oppose, deliberately, all attempts to extend it to the heathen; and on the ground, avowedly, that they had rather the heathen would remain as they are, than adopt the evangelical system. In the face of all the absurdity and obscenity and blood of idolatry, not a few have declared, that they would not lift a finger to convert the whole pagan world to the evangelical faith, or words to that effect. They speak kindly of Infidels, Mohammedans, and Pagans; and fiercely of all which breathes the spirit of the evangelical

*If. to any, it should seem improbable that the unlearned and obscure should be more likely to have the truth than men of talents and learning; we are ready to admit, that the apprehension would be just, if the perception of the truth depended, exclusively, upon capacity and knowledge. But if, as the Bible declares, the truth is so plain, that the feeble and unlearned are able to perceive it, and its rejection is caused chiefly by the state of the heart; and if talents, and learning, and wealth, and power, occasion self-sufficiency, and ambition, and love of pleasure; with the cares of this world, diverting the attention from the truth, and increasing the prejudice of the heart against it; then men in the highest orders of society, are not as likely to have the truth as the common people: for the heart governs the understanding; and the peculiar aversion of learned and worldly men to the truth, throws more darkness upon it, than their superior intelligence serves to dispel; and creates a greater impediment to the perception of the truth, than is occasioned by any relative deficiency of capacity and knowledge among the common people. The argument, however, does not demand this explanation; for we do not infer the truth of the evangelical system from the fact, that, either class is more likely to have the truth; but, from the fact, that the same sort of men reject the evangelical system now, who rejected the Gospel; and the same sort embrace it now, who embraced the Gospel furnishing a strong presumptive argument, that the evangelical system and the Gospel are the because they produce the same effects.

same,

system. Such asperity the faith delivered to the saints occasioned, and such asperity the evangelical system occa

sions.

The faith delivered to the saints produced a stricter morality than any contemporaneous system. Whether this be true of the evangelical system, is not to be decided by a comparison of the best characters on one side, with the most defective on the other; or of individuals of good moral character on both sides, of which it is admitted there are many.* Nor can the moral efficacy of the two systems be decided by the standard of public morality, where the evangelical system has prevailed in the early period of life, and exerted its influence upon the conscience, and in the formation of moral habits; or where it still prevails to such an extent, as to exert a powerful modifying influence; and, especially, where the opposite system is of but recent public notoriety, and of limited extent. Great moral causes do not produce their effects immediately; nor, upon every individual, exactly the same effect. Their tendency and efficacy is to be looked for in those communities, where the influence of the two systems has been the most unmingled, and of the longest duration; and also, in those obvious changes in a community, which, as one or the other prevails, become apparent. With these explanations in view, I remark, that the superior moral efficacy of the evangelical system is a matter of unequivocal concession. In an article on predestination in the British Encyclopedia, written, it is said, by Robert Forsyth, Esq. a learned civilian, and an infidel; after giving an account of the Calvinistic and Arminian system, and the preference to the latter, it is said, "There is one remark which we think ourselves in justice bound to make. It is this; that, from the earliest ages down to our own days, if we consider the character of the ancient Stoics, the Jewish Essenes, the modern Calvinists and Jansenists, compared with that of their

*We desire all that is said on this subject to be understood with the same explanation which we have made on p. 223.

antagonists, the Epicureans, the Sadducees, the Arminians and the Jesuits; we shall find that they have excelled, in no small degree, in the practice of the most rigid and respectable virtues; and have been the highest honor to their own. age, and the best models for imitation to every succeeding age." This is the testimony of a philosopher, to the different moral effects of the two systems, from the time of Augustine, at least, to the present day.

Dr. Priestley, who will not be suspected of partiality for the evangelical system, says, that those who hold the evangelical doctrines, "have less apparent conformity to the world, and seem to have more of a real principle of religion." He says also," Though Unitarian dissenters are not apt to entertain any doubt of the truth of their principles, they do not lay so much stress upon them, as other christians do upon theirs. Nor indeed is there any reason why they should, when they do not consider the holding of them to be at all necessary to salvation. They therefore, take much less pains to make proselytes, and are less concerned to inculcate their principles upon their children, their servants, and their dependents in general. From this principle it is, that great numbers, becoming Unitarians in the church of England, and even among the clergy, do not feel the impropriety and absurdity, to say nothing more harsh, of continuing to countenance a mode of worship, which, if they were questioned about it, they would not deny to be, according to their own principles, idolatrous and blasphemous. Such persons also, having no zeal for speculative religion, merely because they have no zeal for religion in general, their moral conduct, though decent, is not what is deemed strict and exemplary."

In a periodical publication of high literary character, but of decided and known partiality to infidel opinions,† we find the following statements. "Predestination, or doctrines much inclining towards it, have, on the whole, prevailed in the christian churches of the west, since the days of Augus* Discourses on various subjects, pp. 95, 96. + Edinburgh Review.

tine and Aquinas. Who were the first formidable opponents of these doctrines in the church of Rome? The Jesuits,the contrivers of courtly casuistry, and the founders of lax morality. Who, in the same church, inclined to the stern theology of Augustine? The Jansenists,-the teachers and the models of austere morals. What are we to think of the morality of Calvinistic nations, especially the most numerous classes of them; who seem, beyond all other men, to be most zealously attached to their religion, and most deeply penetrated with its spirit? Here, if any where, we have a practical and decisive test of the moral influence of a belief in necessarian opinions. In Protestant Switzerland, in Holland, in Scotland, among the English Nonconformists, and the Protestants of the North of Ireland, and in the New England States, Calvinism was long the prevalent faith, and is probably still the faith of a considerable majority. Their moral education was at least completed, and their collective character formed, during the prevalence of Calvinistic opinions. Yet where are communities to be found, of a more pure and active virtue?"

The accusations brought against evangelical writers and professors, as requiring too much, or making no sufficient allowance for the weakness of human nature ;-as rigid, austere, enemies to innocent amusements;-as setting themselves up as better than their neighbors ;-as righteous overmuch ;are also concessions in point: as are also the topics of ridicule, having reference, as they do, to the fastidious strictness of our ancestors, and of evangelical professors; to which we may add, the invidious names given to them, of Puritan, Methodist, &c. It appears then, as a matter of fact, that sound morality has never, in any country or age, been so elevated, and so extensively prevalent, as in those communities where the evangelical doctrines have been most universally believed, and most diligently taught, in families and schools, and in the sanctuary. It has been said, I am sensible, that these salutary effects of the evangelical system are