forsake sin, to do good where evil has been done before. It is to make our faith a purifying principle, to amend the heart, subdue the passions, banish evil desires, to love where we have hated, and to return kindness for injury. To repent is to examine and watch our own hearts, love God supremely, and our neighbour as ourselves. Whoever sincerely obeys, will sincerely repent. Obedience ensures repentance. The latter is turning from evil, the former is doing good; the one inspires respect for the divine laws, the other applies them to practice. Both are absolutely essential to salvation through Christ.

Can that opinion, which regards a good life as the foundation and means of final acceptance with God, and of eternal felicity, can such an opinion be charged with having an unfavourable influence on morals? The charge is equally absurd and ill founded and demands no refutation. It is enough to have stated facts; the conclusion is self evident.

Nor is it a just inference, which some have drawn, that this view unduly exalts human merit. The truth is, that in relation to God, no merit on the part of man is supposed. The whole is of divine mercy, it is the exclusive work of God, the merit is his, and to him belongs all the praise. By his compassion alone he was inclined to save and bless his creatures; he sent his Son to redeem them from their sins by publishing the conditions of pardon, and performing works to aid their restoration to holiness, which could not have been performed without light, guidance, and support from heaven. The actions of men have

no merit, except as the testimony of obedience. They are of no value as a price of salvation. God saves freely. Every act of obedience is an act of duty, and is so far meritorious, as to deserve the promised reward, because God has promised it, and not because any benefit is conferred on him. As far as there is any merit in complying with the conditions of divine forgiveness, so far is human merit exalted by the above views of the manner of salvation, and no farther.

Finally, the comparative moral tendency of the Calvinistic and Unitarian schemes of atonement, may be expressed in a few words. Calvinists ascribe salvation to a cause, which puts all human agency out of the question, renders personal holiness unnecessary, and personal responsibility impossible. Unitarians, on the contrary, refer the original cause of salvation to the mercy of God, and dare not indulge any hope of immortal glory, which does not rest on a faithful obedience of the divine laws, as revealed and confirmed by Jesus Christ. Calvinists inculcate morals, it is true, but they have found out a way of salvation, which does not require good morals, or rather in which they can be of no service. The principles of Unitarians, more rigid and consistent, demand perfect obedience, without any such discouragement to virtuous and holy living. Calvinists, to be religious, must believe one thing and practise another; with Unitarians, faith and practical religion are in harmony.

PART IV.

COMPARATIVE MORAL TENDENCY OF

THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF CALVINISM AND THE SENTIMENTS OF UNITARIANS.

LETTER I.

Calvinistic and Unitarian Views of the Depravity of Man.

SIR,

WE come now to a consideration of the more peculiar doctrines of Calvinism; or those doctrines which owe their origin to the metaphysics of Austin, their growth and strength to the genius of Calvin, and their maturity to the deliberations at the Synod of Dort. They may be arranged in the following order, namely, total depravity, irresistible grace, divine decrees, particular redemption, and final perseverance. These are the five links in the Calvinistic chain, and so closely depending on each other, that, should one be broken, all the rest must fall. According to Calvinists, this chain constitutes the entire system of Christianity; it comprises faith, charity

virtue, piety; it embraces the whole compass of the divine dispensations to the moral creation, and points out the only possible method by which the Maker of the universe could bless any portion of his creatures with salvation and eternal life.

Some of these doctrines you enumerate, and you profess to account it an evidence of the immorality of Unitarians, that they do not believe and preach them. Whether this be a just conclusion we are

now to examine.

you

It is but fair to premise, that you acknowledge some friends among Unitarians, whom you esteem, and who "set an example of integrity, benevolence, and active virtue." But lest it should be thought that allow even these to have the virtues of Christians, you immediately ask, "may not the same be said of many Deists, from Lord Herbert down to the present day ?" Whether your unitarian friends will take this as a compliment or not, this is no place to inquire. If it has been your ill fortune, however, to find none among them, who showed from their professions, lives, and conversation, that they acted from higher motives than those of deism, I must think your acquaintance has been extremely limited, and must lament, that you should feel warranted from information so slender, in denying the christian name to a whole denomination of professed Christians. Every sincere unitarian must hope, that those who differ from him in faith, will hereafter be more fortunate than you have been, in the friendships they may form, and the acquaintances they may contract, with his brethren. I am willing to grant, however,