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    their heavenly Father and Friend mercifully accepting their faith ^" endeavours to perform their duty , to correct their faults , and to improve their characters , they feel certain that no rational hope can be founded on any thing less than earnest and prevailing endeavours to do right , accompanied by honest self-examination , sincere repentance of known faults , andconstant

    efforts after improvement ? On account of which of these characteristic doctrines is it that they should be judged likely as a body , rather than other professing Christians , to make light of the evil of sin , to find excuses for the indulgence of bad passions , and to join themselves with those who , thinking only of present pleasure , make the decencies of society , not the Miles of duty , the standard by which they regulate their conduct ?

    We ask , again , are Unitarian Christians in fact distinguished from those amongst whom they live by being less strict in the government of their own appetites , less honest and liberal in their dealings with others , less kind and charitable towards their suffering fellow-creatures ? We know that they are not generally thought so by those who differ from them most widely in sentiment . They are often , through misapprehension of their opinions , accused of relying on their good works , but seldom of any remarkable

    deficiency in performing them . We have no disposition to praise them highly . We lament that they do not come nearer to what , with their advantages , might reasonably be expected . We would to God we could see them more deeply imbued with their professed principles , and more uniformly acting as becomes their high and hol y ^ calling ; but we cannot silently allow them to be unjustly and uncandidly condemned . We well know that the faults with which they are chargeable are not effects of their religious principles , but

    consequences of these not being cherished and felt as they deserve to be : and as the language of Dr . Smith has forcibly reminded us of those whom we have known most truly under the influence of the peculiar religious sentiments in which we rejoice , most firmly convinced of their truth , and most constantly applying them in practice— -of those whose pure minds , elevated affections , warm and habitual piety , strict integrity , and active benevolence , have been to our conceptions a genuine and glowing representation of the Christian life—of some who yet remain to edify and bless their

    friends—of others who have already found their faith triumphant over death , and have closed their pilgrimage as became those who had spent it in preparation for that better world , of which through the gospel of Jesus they entertained an assured expectation—that language has appeared to us so inexcusably unjust , so entirely founded in culpable ignorance and prejudice , and dictated by so arrogantly censorious a spirit , that whilst we appeal from his judgment , we cannot help reminding him of the responsibility under which he has passed sentence upon us .

    In his fifth chapter , Dr . S , makes somewhat more particular charges against the conduct of Unitarians , which , that we may not have to return to the subject , we shall here notice . He accuses them of being generally , * ' so far as station and circumstances afford opportunities , " devoted to ' all the forms of gay amusement and fashionable dissipation ; " of neglecting the ordinances of religion , and of not honouring the Lord's-day . With respect

    to the first of these charges , we cannot tell what Dr . Smith may have seen , but from pretty extensive opportunities for observation , we feel ourselves warranted in giving the opinion , that the members of Unitarian congregations ( meanings of course , those who are of a rank to be within reach of the tem ^\ A \\ on )' generally partake very moderately in , the gaieties of life , and are not justly chargeable with dissipation . It is true they do not think every

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    & -Or , < J . ~ P . Smith ' s Scripture Testimony to the Messiah !

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1831, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2593/page/8/