"In accordance with the principles thus laid down, as constituting the basis of religious union, and distinguishing a truly Catholic Church, I cannot continue to be the permanent minister of any society which insists on maintaining a narrower basis, and excludes from equal privileges and equal rights any one who bearing the name of Theist, or Rationalist, or Anti-Supernatural Christian, wishes to cultivate his religious and moral affections. If I am to occupy the position of religious and moral teacher to any society, it must be to a society which allows of a different belief in its members on many points; which does not blame men for differing from it according to evidence satisfactory to themselves; and which requires only for religious union that without which men cannot unite in religious worship, viz., veneration for the same object of worship, and acknowledgment of the divine obligation of virtue." P. 18.

With regard to religious union in conjunction with intellectual liberty, it should be remembered that upon those who are free from dogmatic bonds falls the responsibility of bearing with the weak brother yet in their bondage, to any extent that does not make them hypocrites or slaves. The untrammelled can go to the fettered, but the fettered cannot go to him. The liberal may concede to the bigot, what the bigot cannot concede to him. With the free rests the responsibility of violating unity, if unnecessarily he casts the dogmatist from him. The Deist may find in the Christian all the sentiments and affections requisite for religious union, and the Christian may add to these some dogmas which the Deist does not accept, but with the Deist will be the violation of unity if he insists on exclusion of those Christian matters which he regards as nonessential. And if the cultivation of the religious affections alone was their object, supposing these two to represent a Society, the Pulpit should be the Christian's, because to receive religious sentiment through the medium of Christian facts is to him a thing important, and to the Deist, so long as all religious sentiments and affections are preserved, a thing indifferent. We are supposing neither party to encroach on the conscience or rights of the other, but to be willing to unite as far as possible in religious feelings: the forbearance should be on the part of him whose faith contained the smallest number of positive dogmas.

an

So intimate, however, is the connection between right views and right affections in Religion, that no truth, or what is deemed a truth, should be concealed or kept back for the sake of union, but neither should it be preached so as to involve a violation of inward fellowship, and make religious unity dependent on its reception.

Our view then of the Constitution of a religious Society is,

that there should be no Creed in the Trust Deed; that the majority for the time being, should rule its affairs and influence its Pulpit by the election of its Minister,-with reasonable provisions for securing that such Majority should consist of permanent and taxed Members, and not of sudden incursors into other men's property and labours.

On the question of Anti-Supernaturalism and its possible connections with a true Christian faith, we have already given our views at great length in this Journal, in the Number for April 1841. We are not Anti-Supernaturalists. We cannot account for Christ without the introduction of supernatural purpose and direction; and we cannot account for the Christian history, for the revolutions in the views and conduct of the Apostles, without the Resurrection of our Lord. But we do not presume to define Christianity for any other man; and we acknowledge all as Christians who, in the sincerity of their hearts, taking the Christ for their Teacher, Master, and Example, interpret his Religion for themselves. If indeed he ceases to be their Teacher, Master, and Example, we cease to call them Christians, for they themselves must admit that they cease to be so. No man can reasonably call himself a Christian, who believes and avows that there are important religious principles which Christianity does not recognize. Even the belief that "Jesus was a Theist" will not entitle him to call himself a Christian, for be cannot call that his RELIGION which he considers to be essentially defective in "just and philosophical and charitable principles." If he claims the name on the ground that Christ places in his hands the instrument of free Inquiry, -and teaches him "of himself to judge what is right," it is a strange anachronism to make that principle only coeval with Christianity.

And it is here that Mr. Taylor separates from us; not in relation to religious union, but in relation to our respective connections with Christianity. By professing to find it defective in important principles, he disowns it as a Religion. We do not blame him for that; it is the honest opinion of a pure, strong, earnest, and clear mind,—but it leaves him no reason for even wishing to call himself a Christian. Had he identified Christianity with his highest views of Religion, we should have vindicated his right to the name, to whatever extent we might have differed with him on external, historical, or dogmatical questions. But when he places Christianity below Deism, with sincere respect for his ability, his purity, and his religious character, and with the most earnest desire that no foreign interference may obstruct the legitimate influence of his mind on

his fellow-men and fellow-worshippers, we know of no intelligible sense in which the name of Christian designates his religious position. He may be more and better than a Christian,

that is a matter of opinion, but Christianity no longer includes what he deems his highest conceptions of Religion. The passage in the Letter we principally refer to is the following:

"The manner in which the Unitarian interprets Christianity gives him no superiority in any respect, over the views and sentiments of the Theist, who possesses all that is really valuable or good, moral or devout, reasonable or ennobling in Christianity, along with other just and philosophical and charitable principles which cannot, without violence, be educed from it."-p. 30.

Mr. Taylor cites some Unitarian professions, that the right of individual judgment and free inquiry in Religion have been incorporated into the economy of Unitarianism, and asks, "How can Unitarians, without a blush, proclaim their attachment to a blended intellectual freedom and religious sentiment, unless they tolerate, admit and countenance, within their societies, the principle of progress in religion?" Undoubtedly if they "speak evil of the deep and vital religion' which pure Theism is adapted to cherish," or if they expel (which they do not) from their Societies individual members who reject the narratives of Christian Miracle, they are glaringly inconsistent, —and if there is anything in the constitution of their Societies, to prevent a legitimate majority, holding such views, to elect the Minister and occupy the Church, they have departed from their first principles; but there is no violation of first principles in a majority who regard Christianity as the highest, the absolute Religion, declining to elect as their Minister one who ranks it below pure Deism, or declining to regard Deism alone as the bond of their union. Neither violates or distrusts the principle of free inquiry: each acts according to his present status, without assuming it to be unchangeable. In the Resolution, quoted by Mr. Taylor, passed at the Aggregate Meeting of Unitarians in 1838, the progress expressly contemplated is within the bosom of Christianity; though doubtless if that progress carried them out of Christianity, the framers and supporters of that Resolution would have made no question that it was not only their Right but their Duty to act upon their Convictions, and the Duty of all other men to respect their liberties, and to speak no evil, and "think no evil," of their religious character. Here is the Resolution:

That this Meeting, in professing its attachment to Unitarian Chris

tianity, as at once Scriptural and rational, and conducive to the true glory of God and well being of men, and in avowing its veneration for the early British expositors and confessors of this faith, at the same time recognizes the essential worth of that principle of free inquiry to which we are indebted for our own form of Christianity, and of that spirit of deep and vital religion which may exist under various forms of theological sentiment, and which gave to our forefathers their implicit faith in truth, their love of God, and their reliance for the improvement of mankind on the influences of the Gospel."-Note p. 24.

We would express our respectful sense of the religious, moral, and intellectual qualities which shine through this Letter. Mr. Taylor is a man whom no cause would be willing to part with. But the enemy of Christianity he never can be, though he may think there are certain elements inseparable from it which render its worship, more or less, sectarian. Men will necessarily unite for instruction and prayer according to their religious affinities, but the true religious unity is not that which draws men together as members of the same Congregation, but that which holds them in the same supreme love of excellence, the same submission and loyalty to God, and earnest desire to be faithful to the same guiding affections. A Trinitarian and an Unitarian may have religious union with intellectual freedom,' though they do not meet together in Houses of worship, because the affections which they both hold supreme, the love of God and man, would not, with both, be nourished by the same Theology.

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We earnestly trust that the question of Anti-Supernaturalism is not about to assume a prominent place in our Churches. It is a barren question. While the soil of humanity lies bare and neglected, are the sowers of the word' to spend their energies in dissecting the divine seeds of goodness? Whilst the Christianity of Creeds is active and encroaching, is the Christianity of the spirit and life of Jesus to be only critical and speculative? We do not deny the importance of such questions. But let them not become watchwords amongst us. Let not a war of opinions rage within the bosom of those whose glorious Gospel it is, that Jesus is the Son of God, and the Son of Man. our younger men eschew rashness, and our older men finality. It cannot be denied that there are two tendencies existing within our Churches; let them work together in prudence and simplicity until their issues appear, and not, through any want of Christian wisdom or Christian love, be forced into active opposition. But there must be no Orthodoxy within the bosom of Freedom. There is nothing in our present condition that will not lead to higher truth and good, provided we abide by

Let

our first principles, respect each other's rights and motives,— leave opinion and inquiry to find their natural resting-places,and by foreign dictation interrupt no process of thought and development, working itself into light and clearness. By mutual simplicity, discretion and forbearance, "religious union" may be combined "with intellectual freedom."