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    with the more faithful disciples of Calvin ? Is Mr . Hull to be cast out for bis heresy , or pitied for his delusions , or allowed freely to exercise his understanding without reproach or molestation ? If the latter , we Unitarians can with no consistency be anathematized * for doing the same thing . If , on the contrary , Mr . Hull is to be disowned by his party , we shall be curious to observe in what regiment of the Christian host he will next be placed : for though not a thorough-going Calvinist , he is more like a Calvinist than any thing else .

    It behoves us to prove the assertions we have made respecting the doctrines he holds . First , he maintains error purely mental to be innocent . Towards the conclusion of his sermon on Saving Faith ( of which more hereafter ) he thus describes his conception of criminal unbelief : < l Such rejection of revealed truth as the Bible proscribes cannot be resolved into an innocent act of the mind , at worst , led astray by misconception and unavoidable error . The spirit of unbelief , as opposed to that of faith , is

    the very genius of irreligion , of disobedience , of impious revolt , of apostacy from GocL As such , and not simply as an aberration of the intellect , nobly asserting * its freedom , but unfortunately led astray , it is denounced with the utmost severity of condemnation by the Saviour and judge of mankind . It is an object of divine displeasure , not as error , but as sin ; not as a failure of the understanding " , but as a defection of the heart . The significant terms , therefore , in which the Scriptures express the acceptableness of faith as the

    condition of divine favour , and the stern indignation of Heaven against unbelief , resolves itself into the holiness of the divine administration , which pro-Tides for the reward of the faithful servants of God , and dooms to perdition the unrelenting adversary of truth and righteousness . If from this view the consolatory inference must arise , that involuntary and unavoidable errors , such as are purely mental , will not be imputed to moral turpitude by the

    Searcher of hearts—if the decisions of the final judgment will turn , after all , upon the hidden motives and affections of the soul , known only to the unerring mind of the Eternal ; still the responsibility attached to every individual is great and awful , since , of the possibility of dishonouring truth from a criminal antipathy to its holy requirements , there cannot be a doubt , nor will it fail to be visited , by the unequivocal marks of the divine indignation . " -Pp . 78-80 .

    The remaining points will be proved by the extracts we are about to give from the sermon on the Extent of the Sacrifice of Christ . As , however , there is an indistinctness of thought in every separate portion which we can . quote , and a no less prevalent obscurity of expression , the best proofs of the heresy we allege may be found in the scope of the discourse itself . Its

    arguments are designed to prove , that if the human race were placed in a condition of utter corruption and hopelessness by the fall of Adam , no individual of that race would be in a state of probation . That the economy of grace , by which man was restored to a state of probation , was instituted immediately after the fall ; that all are included under that economy , and that those only fail of securing its blessings who abuse their moral agency .

    " Could we even conceive of a pool * pagan , under the consciousness of iffnorance and misery , amid the solitudes of the desert or the shrines of Delhi , pouring forth his heart , a suppliant for mercy , although ' to the unknown God ; ' no man can shew that this abject child of sin and sorrow Would not find grace , although of the Author of his redemption he mov remain still uninformed , until his wondering eyes are opened upon th < i morning of the resurrection of the just . "—P . 11 . The proclamation of an universal amnesty sets aside the belief of an arbi-

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    HulVs Discourses . 591

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 591, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/7/