speculations on that of politics. In common justice you ought to have added these; for, in that case, the "affirmative articles of our faith" would have formed a much longer catalogue.

In the second place, supposing a belief in necessity to be justly imputed to Unitarians as part of their faith, it is utterly false that they draw from it the absurd deductions which you declare them to affirm. When and where, Sir, did Mr. Belsham or any other Unitarian maintain that "the Christian religion precludes all remorse for our sins?" When indeed was it asserted that necessity was a part of the Christian religion at all, except by the late eloquent Bishop of St. Asaph, who was no intentional supporter of Dr. Priestley's cause? Above all, where is the necessarian, or the writer understanding English, who ever maintained that sins were not guilt? Perhaps he also asserted that guilt was not sin, and that sin was not sinful. But to pass by the absurdity of the expression, it is not true that the advocates of the doctrine of necessity affirm that it destroys all moral distinctions between good and evil. Had you merely asserted that such a deduction would follow from the admission of their premises, it would have been a matter of argument, not of denial. But you have taken a different course you have declared that they maintain the conclusions in their most absurd and obnoxious form; nay, that they derive them, not from the doctrine of necessity, but from their view of the Christian religion. This is a most important charge on a point of fact, and you have not the shadow of evidence to support it. You first unjustly represent necessity as a doctrine of Unitarianism; and then put into the mouth of Unitarians at large, supposed deductions from it that even those of them who received it never made, eloathed in language which no man of common sense could condescend to utter !

The third "article" is thus expressed: "They believe the gospels, though not written by inspiration, to be authentic histories on the whole, though with additions and interpolations. And on the authority of these writings, confirmed by other evidence, they believe in the resurrection of the

man Jesus Christ from the dead." On the subject of inspiration Unitarians differ. They also entertain various opinions respecting the extent of the additions made in the gospels; but that some additions have been made to Scripture you will not venture to deny, until you think fit to take up the defence of the exploded passage respecting the "Three which bear record in heaven."

The fourth "article" contains as strange a clustre of misrepresentations as was ever found in the same number of lines. It stands as follows: "On the historic credibility of this event (the resurrection of Jesus) they believe the resurrection of the body, which, in their opinion is the whole man, at the last day: and differ from other churches in this only, that while other Christians believe that all men will arise in the body, they hold that all the bodies that had been men will arise."

Now first it is not on the "historic credibility of Christ's resurrection" only that Unitariaus believe in the resurrection of man. It is impossible that the mere fact, though ever so clearly established, could prove even that another individual would be reanimated by a similar miracle. They believe the resurrection of all men because it was taught by Christ and his apostles; and they believe Christ and his apostles, because the fact of his being raised set the seal of divinity upon his mission and proved the veracity of his character. They regard it also as a visible symbol, as a marvellous and a prophetic sign, of the redemption of all from the power of death and the grave. In this sense they agree with St. Paul that all who have fallen asleep have perished if Christ be not risen; and that faith and hope would in this case be mere delusions. But it has never been asserted that taken alone, the TCsurrection of one demonstrated the reanimation of all. The censure, therefore, implied in this statement is utterly without foundation.

Secondly, It is not true that Unitarians as such believe the body to be "the whole man at the last day." Taking this proposition in its literal sense, it is too absurd to have met with any sensible advocate. That these our mortal frames which, in this life, are perpetually changing,

270 On Coleridge's Attack on the Unitarians contained in his Second Lay Sermon.

should be raised from the corruptions of the grave with all their human infirmities about them, is no less contrary to Scripture than to the evidence which our senses, afford us. Some, indeed, have supposed that there are certain stamina of the material frame which are preserved amidst the decay of the rest, and form the link which connects the present mortal with the future incorruptible man. But, generally speaking, materialists themselves are contented with believing that we shall hereafter be to all moral purposes the same, by retaining the consciousness of our past in the new attire of our immortal being. They, as well as other Christians, believe we shall rise again to a new and a glorious life, and are willing to trust the Divine goodness and wisdom respecting its mode, of which we can here form no adequate conceptions.

But, thirdly, supposing there were any class of men who believed in the resurrection of the bodies of all, in a literal sense, it is utterly unjust to confound them with Unitarians. Indeed, the system of materialism, in any form, has no connexion with a single distinguishing doctrine of the Unitarian creed. It does not affect the oneness of God or even the mere humanity of Christ. It may, indeed, be "verified from the writings of Mr. Belsham"-though, even there, you will search in vain for the absurdities you have imputed to us. But, highly as we esteem Mr. B. we do not acknowledge all his sentiments as our own. Hie is our instructor, but not our oracle. We look higher for our leader than any living writer however excellent, or even any dignitary however invested with spiritual powers or adorned with external grandeur. We subscribe to no creed but the Scriptures; we acknowledge no master but Christ.

Are

lect that, in the plainest language, it
asserts the doctrine against which
your indignation is directed?
you so little acquainted with the
formularies of the church you revere,
as not to know that all her members,.
on almost every occasion of divine
service, solemnly assert that they be
lieve in "THE RESURRECTION OF
THE BODY?" And yet it is, in the
supposed belief of this absurdity, that
'you represent us as differing from
other churches!"

"

The fifth "article" of our faith relates to the future condition of man. To the substance of this statement I have no material objection to offer. True it is that some Unitarians believe in the destruction of the wicked, and that others hope for the restora tion of all men to the blessings of holiness and peace, while all admit the peculiar rewards of the righteous. If it be a crime to regard the Almighty as a Universal Father, in all times and to all beings, we plead guilty to the charge. We are perfectly willing you should be left to the full exultation. in your own brighter and happier creed which this concession may afford

you.

The sixth "article" is utterly false.. It assumes that we hold only an intellectual and physical, and not a moral difference in the actions of men, they not being free agents, and therefore, they not being more responsible. beings than the brute beasts." This is little more than the repetition of a charge I have already refuted. For the benefit, however, of "the unwary," it may be proper to repeat two facts which sufficiently prove it to be a groundless slander. ist, the doctrine of necessity is not an article in the Unitarian creed; 2dly, not only has no Unitarian writer who has incidentally received it denied the moral difference of human actions and the proper responsibility of man, but it has been contended by all Christians who have embraced it, that it is on the supposition of necessity, alone that men become accountable to God, that the distinctions of virtue and vice can be maintained, or that rewards and punishments can be applied to effect any beneficial purposes. This is a matter of fact not of reasoning. Dr. Priestley and those who think with him may have drawn false conclusions from the premises they

have maintained; but they have ever asserted the contrary to those which you impute to them. Of course, the long chain of consequences you have built on these false assertions cannot now demand our scrutiny.

Here you close your "catalogue," but not your censures. You attack the Unitarian scheme, still confounding it with those of materialism and necessity, on the ground that it degrades the nature of man. You assert that if man be no nobler creature essentially than he is represented in their system, the meanest reptile that maps out its path on the earth by lines of slime, must be of equal worth and respectability, not only in the sight of the Holy One, but by a strange contradiction even before man's own reason." In order to support this astonishing proposition, you first take for granted that without free-will, in a sense opposed to necessity, there is no ground for love and esteem; next you assume that man's intellect independently of the will is more than counterbalanced by his vices; next speak of intellect as a more shewy instinct; and then conclude that "compared with the wiles and factories of the spider, or with the cunning of the fox, it would be but a inere efflorescent, and, for that very cause, a less efficient salt to preserve the hog from putrifying before its destined hour." Now, Sir, supposing this lamentable conclusion true; admitting your picture of man as faithful; taking him to be less distinguished from the beasts by intellect than by vice; does allowing him freewill, or a two-fold nature, turn the balance in his favour? On your own principles, it only renders him inore riminal, without making him more exalted. You assume, as a point of fact, that man, in action, is lower than the beasts that perish; and then you ask, unless he is distinguished by will, how is he above them? What, Sir! is it then an alleviation of his wretchedness that it is all of his own voluntary choice? Is he less degraded because he has been his own degrader? And what consolation do you offer him by asserting that he is "essentially" above the brutes, if you, at the same time, argue that he is practically below them?

No, Sir, the real nobleness of man

consists not in speculation but in fact. It depends on no metaphysical system. It is proved by his actual and present greatness, by his glorious energies, his never-dying loves, his generous virtues, his universal conscience, his unbounded powers, and his high desires and reachings forth of spirit far beyond the limits of earth or of time. However this grand piece of Divine workmanship is constituted, or rather by whatever names its frame is distinguished, whether it is termed mat ter, or spirit, or a combination of both, its actual and inherent grandeur re mains the same. There is breathed into it the breath of God. The image of the Divinity is stamped on it. Call it by what appellation you please, it is still the most glorious of God's visible works, the fit subject for the admiration of angels. After your deepest researches, you must deduce the su periority of man to the brutes from that which he Is, independently of all systems and theories. Here he is with dominion over earth and af finity with heaven-holding communion with all ages and with all worlds-joyous. in life splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.' If you do not know and feel this, whatever may be your theories of freewill, it is we who would elevate and you who would degrade our species.

I gladly pass over all the rest of your incoherent declamation against us. While others accuse us of giving undue honour to the understanding, you speak of us as rendering it too little. You declaim against us as if we appealed not at all to the reason but entirely to the affections. + You accuse us of "plucking away live-asunder as it were, from the divine organiser of the Bible textuary morsels and fragments," and yourself actually apply to us some dreadful prophecies in Isaiah! To these charges reply is needless. And as to the accusation of paying Christianity "no other compliment than that of calling by its name the previous dictates and decisions of our own mother wit," we are too accustomed to such unsupported assertions from the lowest order of Calvinistic Lay-preachers, to regard them any

* Sir Thomas Browne on "I'rne Burrial."

+ See pp. 60, 61.

SIR, April 21, 1817. OMO [p. 152] will permit me to point out w hat I conceive to be an undoubted error in his statement, that Christ and his apostles discouraged marriage, and only sanctioned it as a prevention of immorality. The gospel opinions as to marriage have a particular, not a general reference. They respect the peculiar circumstances of the early Christians, and especially apostles or missionaries, living in a time of persecution and various trial, and when celibacy, from the motive of when marriage would be inexpedient, entire devotion to the gospel interests, would be meritorious. Paul, however, expressly disclaims having any authority for his injunctions on the subject: "Now as to virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, yet I speak according to ny judgment." It is remarkable that the forbidding to marry" is pointed out as the mark of

the great Christian apostacy in the latter times, when “ many should depart from the truth?” Y

A discussion of the theory of Mr. Malthus would lead me too far: but I do not see how he can be said to show human life with the most dreadful aspect," because he argues that the instincts which we share in common with the animal species, require the check of rational thought.