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    did produce , far other fruits than those which are now manifested on the face of the Christian world . If we believed that the will of God , which was made known to mankind by Jesus and his apostles , had been

    delivered down and taught in its native truth and purity for nearly eighteen hundred years , —or even since the era of the Reformation , and witnessed no better effects on the feelings and conduct of its professors than are now evident even in this country * ( boasting , as some of us do , of its piety and

    morals , ) should we not be justified in concluding , that , perfect as the theory of Christianity appears , experience had proved it unequal to the great work of reforming the human race , — the very purpose for which it was given ! For , as the appointed means of doing this , do all rational believers look to Jesus as their Saviour . A

    religion for the salvation of the world , must reform the world ; for " faith unless it sanctifies , cannot save . " That universal love is the great characteristic of Christianity , no one will deny : yet we mustallow that the Jew is well justified in asking , " Can there be found in the life and behaviour of

    most of those who call themselves Christians , the least sign of such a pure universal love ? Nay , are not the actions of most of them wholly contradictory to that which was practised by Christ ?"

    When we look around us , and over the Christian world , we must own that they are ; and there is no way of accounting for it , and removing from the minds of men this most reasonable objection to our holy faith , but by statements , such as the following , which Utilitarians can give from the full conviction of their hearts :

    The gospel of Christ began ( as we learn from apostolic authority ) to be corrupted even by some of its earliest converts ; and as the heathen world came in , and the civil power ' , under colour of protecting , assumed a right of interference and even dictation , it became more and more assimilated to

    their preconceived notions and prejudices , which . Were all in favour of man // pods , many objects ' of worship , and abundance of outward rites and superstitious observances . To those who had been accustomed

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    to deify almost every thing around them j to adore even brutes and > vegetable ^ , and fall down before " . stocks arid stones , " it might well seem strange that he who was sent by the Almighty Jehovah to be the Saviour of the

    world , who performed such great miracles , and exhibited in his life a pattern of perfection such as mankind had never before conceived even in idea , and to crown all * had risen from the grave * and ascended into heaven in the presence of his disciples : to

    suppose this extraordinary person a w > ere man , seemed to their minds , prepossessed as they had been , nearly impossible I Yet the doctrine of one only God was so firmly laid down as

    the foundation-stonef , both of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures , that it could never be disputed , and nothing but sad experience would persuade any one that a method of evading it could have been invented . Nor could

    it have been done but by almost imperceptible degrees : —the common sense of mankind would have revolted against so monstrous an assertion , ( and nothing like it is event pretended to be found in the sacred

    writings ) as that one is three , or that three are one . But dark ages of ignorance succeeded the promulgation of Christianity , and in the course of these , step by step , one absurdity after another was introduced and declared

    to be Christian verity \ by the decrees of synods , councils , &c . ; and in the course of successive centuries , while the Bible was inaccessible to the great body of believers , even if they had been able to read it , and little known

    or consulted even by the priests themselves , botb-tiie doctrines and practice of the Christian Churches attained the fearful acme of corruption at which the Reformation found them . Some of these strange doctrines , and many superstitious observances were then done away , and a noble

    spirit of inquiry seemed to be spreading among Christians : but the demon of bigotry and uncharitableness arose among the Reformers themselves ; they raised the cry of heresy against each other , and even brought their brethren to the stake for holding opinions different from their own 1 This was too clear a proof that they were still ** ia the gall of bitterness /* and that

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    Mrs \ Ml Hughes on the u ReformedJews" l 6 l

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    vot . xiv . z

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1819, page 161, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1770/page/25/