however, the danger arose not from any religious tenets of the Catholics, but from their fubjection to a foreign head, and their attachment to the family of the Stuarts, to which family the high church party also had a strong leaning. The danger alfo that fome perfons ftill apprehend from popery, is on the fame account, viz. the political nature of their system. But surely there is nothing of a political nature in the Unitarian doctrine. What has the belief of one God, or of the humanity of Chrift, to do with any principle of the English conftitution? No doctrine in philofophy, or medicine, can have lefs connection with it.

On this business Mr. Madan should have explained himself, and not have afferted that the principles of Socinians are hostile to the state, without fome evidence, fomething in the form or shape of an argument. It is in vain to reply to a man who advances nothing to reply to, and who only confidently afferts what we as confidently deny, treating it as a mere calumny. But according to Mr. Madan, Diffenters being enemies to the church, they muft, of course, be enemies to the state too; and Unitarians being of all other Diffenters the fartheft from the church, they must therefore be the greatest enemies to the ftate; whether it can be made to appear (for this is what Mr. Madan has not yet attempted) that their principles bear any afpect at all towards the state or not. Since, however, to my great regret, we are to hear no more from Mr. Madan, I fhall proceed as well as I can without him, and in my next give an account of the grounds of our Unitarian faith, that you may judge for yourselves whether reafon and the scriptures be on our side, or not. The question is certainly of importance, deferving your very ferious confideration, and that of Mr. Madan too. I am, &c.

LETTER

IN

LETTER XVII.

Of Unitarianifm.

My generous Townsmen and Neighbours,

*

N the third part of the LETTERS which I have taken the liberty to address to you, I promised you a fight of what Mr. Madan has thought proper to call the contaminating dæmon of herefy; affuring you that it had nothing at all contaminating, or dangerous, in its nature, but that, on the contrary, it was as clean and harmless a thing as a young lamb. You may think that in the fourth part of these Letters I neglected to fulfil this promife; but I really did not. For in it I gave you a distinct and plain account of what Mr. Madan must have meant by his contaminating dæmon, since Unitarianifm, or Socinianifm, was certainly in his eye; this being what he calls herefy, and what he reprefents as being of a more dangerous nature than popery itfelf. And yet I dare fay you saw nothing frightful in it, and for that reason imagined that I had forgot my promise. To myself, that which is fo great a bug-bear to Mr. Madan has long been perfectly familiar; for after the manner which he calls herefy, fo worship I the God of my fathers (Acts xxiv. 14.) and be affured that he is quite mistaken with respect to it.

From the alarm which your clergy have been industrious in spreading about Unitarians, you will naturally imagine that we are little elfe than Atheists; neither believing in a God, in a providence, or in a future ftate, and profeffing no moral obligation at all, so that it is nothing but the laws and the gallows that reftrain us from any enormity. Whereas

* These Letters were originally printed in different Parts, and pub. lished at different times. This Letter was the firft of Part V.

we

we not only believe in a God, and every other principle of natural religion, but also in the divine miffion of Christ, and in the certainty of his coming again, to raife the dead and judge the world, as much as your clergy themselves. We continually preach thefe doctrines, and lay the greatest stress. upon them; and in confequence we confider ourselves as obliged to the ftricteft moral virtue in all respects; our thoughts as well as our actions, being under the inspection. of an all-feeing God, whether our conduct be fubject to the obfervation of men or not. If this be Unitarianism, you will naturally fay, what great harm can there be in it; and what can be the reason of our clergy making such an outcry about it. I will then tell you.

This fame Unitarianism, plain, fimple and harmless, nay, great and noble, as it is, is not the doctrine of your church. Instead of worshipping only one God, the Father, you are taught to address your devotions fometimes, indeed, to the Father, but at other times to the Son (folemnly adjuring him in your litany, "by his holy nativity and circum"cision, by his baptism, fasting, and temptation, by his agony "and bloody fweat, by his cross and paffion, by his precious "death and burial," extraordinary proofs of divinity, no doubt) and likewife to the Holy Ghost, and fometimes to all these three together, under the appellation of trinity, or three perfons in one God; and this doctrine of the trinity (a word which you will in vain look for in your bibles) is connected with many other fundamental doctrines of your church. And though this, or any other particular do&rine, might be changed, and the establishment itself, with its peculiar government, revenues, &c. remain unaltered, your clergy fear that if any change, though ever fo reasonable, fhould once be made, others might follow, and they should not be able to say where the reformation might ftop (for which I own there is some reason) and therefore they oppofe all changes, though ever fo trifling, and especially this, which is acknowledged to be a very fundamental one. It is just the case of

the

the boy who would not say A, left he should be obliged to fay B, and then C, and at laft the whole alphabet.

However, that this reformation in the articles of your church ought to be made, whatever be the confequence of making it, I fhall endeavour to thew you, on the fuppofition that truth ought ever to be followed at all events. And if truth, and the pure worship of God, be on the side of us Unitarians, it is an advantage which we would not exchange for all the dignities and emoluments of your establifhed clergy. Give me then, my friends, your candid attention, and I shall soon convince you, that we Unitarians have both reason and the fcriptures on our fide, and that your clergy have nothing but authority, and acts of parliament, on theirs.

If you look through the Old Testament, you will find nothing taught there, but the worship of one God, and the greatest possible stress laid on that worship, as opposed to the worship of many gods, to which the world, in the early ages, was peculiarly prone. The very first commandment, in which Jehovah, the only true God, is the speaker, is, "Thou shalt have no other Gods befides me." Mofes, repeating this most important doctrine fays (Deut. vi. 6.) Hear, Oh Ifrael, the Lord thy God is one Lord, and the prophet Zechariah (chap. xiv. 9.) Jehovah is one, and his

name one.

The God who was thus worshipped by the Jews, was also the object of worship to Christ and the Apostles. Our Lord describes the true worshippers, as they who worship the Father (observe, he fays nothing of himself, or the holy Spirit, but only the Father) in spirit and in truth. John iv. 23. And when he himself prayed, as he frequently did, it was always to the fame Being, called the Father, whom he represents as the only true God, John xvii. 3. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jefus Christ whom thou haft fent, that is, his messenger, or fervant. This fame great Being is called the God and Father of

Chrift,

Christ, as well as of other men-Go to my brethren, says Jefus, John xx. 17. and fay unto them, I afcend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God.

All the prayers of the apostles were likewife directed to this one God and Father, and to no other person whatever. For this caufe, fays Paul (Ephef. iii. 14.) I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, and never to Jesus

Chrift himself.

This is the uniform language of the apostles, and of all the primitive chriitians. They knew nothing of a trinity, to which you pray. Could they hear your litany, in which you fay, O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us miferable finners. O God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, have mercy upon us miferable finners. O holy blessed and glorious trinity, three persons and one God, have mercy upon us miferable finners; could they hear your vain repetitions, exactly after the manner of the heathen worship, Son of God we beseech thee to hear us; O Lamb of God that takeft away the fins of the world, grant us thy peace; O Lamb of God that takeft away the fins of the world have mercy upon us; O Chrift hear us, Lord have mercy upon us, Chrift have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy, upon us, they would be filled with amazement and terror, not being able to conceive that this thould be the worship of chriftians. And indeed it is the worship of antichrift, and nothing else. For beginning with the worship of Chrift, christians proceeded to the worship of the Virgin Mary, most impiously called the mother of God, of Saint Ann, the mother of Mary, called by the papifts, the mother of the mother of God, but in plainer English God's grandmother, and of innumerable faints and angels also, which is the effence of popery, and fo like heathenifm, and fo unlike chrif tianity, that the whole fyftem is juftly termed antichriftian.

Now, at the Reformation, though the prayers to faints and angels, and even to the Virgin Mary, were rejected, prayers to Christ, who is no more a proper object of worship than his mother, or grandmother, were retained. But