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    ! y the path of virtue and happiness , and enforcing the practice of the most important duties by the most - powerful sanctions . Mi ^ ht not the prornises of a

    future reward stimulate so me individuals to a careful regulation of their temper and conduct ? Might not an assurance that the consequences of vice would extend

    beyond the present life , to an indefinite duration , deter many from the practice of it ? Why might not these motives operate on the human mind as well as others of

    less importance ! If they did operate in any degree , the design of the miraculous interference would be so far answered ; arid there is no reason to doubt but it has

    answered that design as far as it was ever expected by its author . Does this " statement involve contradictions far more strong and pointed" than any " that are said to occur" or that really do "occur in the creed of St . Athanasius ?"

    Or are the views of the author perverted by his bigotry to the church ? " What is praj-er , " says c * A Churchman / ' " but the solicitation of a miracle ? " In return , let me ask him what cc miracle "

    is " solicited" in the u devotional exercises" of Mr , Wcllbelovcd ? or in the 6 C collection of prayers" by the society of Unitarian Christians ? Let him peruse those publications and he will find that the Divine Being may be suitably

    and rationally worshipped without the solicitation or expectancy of a miracle . Indeed , when we acknowledge our cdntinual dependance on the Almighty , when we express a grateful sense of the bounty which supports us , when we lament our frailties and im-

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    perfections and aspire after higher degrees of virtue , at the same time earnestly wishing for the gradual progress of knowledge , truth and righteousness in the world ; how can it justly be said that our prayers are nothing i 6 but the solicitation of a miracle i " The observations which follc'tf in the next paragraph on " l ' fr £ conduct of God to fnan " would

    more properly have come under the preceding head ; and if what I have saiid in reply to that , be at all reasonable , I would refeir it to the judgment even of " A Churchman" himself , whether oir not the nebessity of human

    actions , " renders , Iii the eye of reason , all the lariguage , and all the conduct of men of every religion , ridiculous and absurd beyond the powers of description ?*' There are doubtless absurdities

    enough in the language and the conduct of most religionists ; but surely it is going too far to say that there is nothing in any religion , or in any mode or profession of religion , but absurdity itself . The fourth irrational doctrine

    maintained by Unitarians is , " that notwithstanding the present state of the world , it was the object of the mission of Jesus Christ to reform the world . "

    " A Churchman , " seems to have conceived an idea that Unitarians maintain the object of Christ ' s mission to have been no less than the utter extirpation of erroneous doctrines and immoral practices from the earth . And finding this end not accomplished , he concludes that it neyer was attempted , because it cannot be admitted tl * a t ark object propo § c 4

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    Mr . Allchhis Arimver to the Churchman . , 42 ^

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1808, page 427, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2395/page/27/