its most literal, which is also it's most comprehensive, meaning. Their incipient, and then their crescent realization, give strength to faith, and that active energy which is so important to goodness, and scatter around multiplied consolations, and feed that eternal hope which it is so much blessedness to feel. The promise to Abraham, "that in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed," is an illustrious instance of this kind. It had its first and lowest fulfilment when his posterity became a numerous, well-regulated, and comparatively enlightened nation in the midst of barbarous tribes. It had a yet better accomplishment when by their means, in cap tivity or commerce, a pure theism was widely dif fused over the great empires of the east. In a larger sense was it realized in the mission of Christ, the descendant of Abraham, to proclaim glad tidings of great joy to all people. This illustration grew brighter in the rapid promulgation of his gospel, which went forth from Zion to many a nation, making Greek and Jew, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and free, one in Christ Jesus. A nobler commentary is, we trust, preparing in the extension of Christianity, till it become the universal religion, and lead on the latter days of freedom and knowledge, peace and improvement: nor shall we have nothing more left to expect from it, taken either in the strictness of the letter, or the benignant universality of its spirit, till we arrive at that felicitous consummation, of which all the rest

are shadows, when every family shall be blessed, because every individual shall be blessed, and " God shall be all in all." Like the ladder which Jacob saw, its foot is on earth, but it reaches to heaven; every step gladdens the eye by an enlargement of the prospect; we ascend to higher blessings, and trace them as they flow over a wider space; till we rest in the presence of God, and behold the universe basking in his smile.

Many other predictive passages might be alleged, some pointing to the same final result, others stop ping short of that, but all of similar tendency, affording constant nourishment to that brightening and boundless hope which the chosen messengers of God so strongly felt, and the excitement of which seems characteristic of Divine Revelation.

Unitarianism sustains this heavenly ministry. That which characterized Christianity among the superstitions of antiquity, characterizes her among the interpretations of Christianity. When others raise the song of hope, her voice is ever heard in unison; and when they suffer that strain to die away, or bring it to a dolorous close amid yells of agony, and moanings of despair, she perseveres alone-alone but for a while; for her animating chaunt is the prelude to that swelling chorus when every creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, even all that are in them, shall ascribe blessing and honour and glory and power to Him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb for ever.

Delineation, rather than argument, has been my object. I wished to shew what Unitarianism is, more completely than by a bare statement of our opinions; to make obvious, not merely its outward form and pressure, but its vital spirit; to shew it as it exists, not only in the Scriptures which we read, but in us when we are reading them; not only in our heads, but in our hearts; not only in our controversial, but in our devout moments; 'not only in our books, but in our lives. We thus give the inquirer as to what we wish him to think, the additional and more important information of what we wish him to be. With our principles is combined a view of the dispositions they cherish, and the character they form; whose worth is a practical test, immediately of their excellence, and remotely of their truth.

Yes, a test indirectly of their truth-for we are reasoning on the assumption of the truth of Christianity; and if our doctrines generate the spirit of Christ, there is no slight presumption that they are his doctrines. The identity of the result is an argument for the identity of the means; an argument forcible in itself, but conclusive when, as in this case, there is independent evidence of the Christian character of those means, and of their prominence in the Christian system. That there is one God, and God is love, is not more an Unitarian than a scriptural conviction; nor more in harmony with the spirit of the interpretation than with that of the

text. We are strong in the plain and literal declarations of the New Testament; but we are yet stronger in the sameness of the general impression made by Christianity and Unitarianism as to the moral qualities with which these declarations are associated in the teacher's mind, and which they are designed to produce in the convert. The machinery is the same; the object the same: our system has the spirit of Christ, and is his, and Christianity is Unitarianism. And were it needful to illustrate this practically, not hard would be the task; for men who have had an abiding and universal sense of the Divine presence, who have shewn that God was in all their thoughts, and who seem to have made the very state of consciousness an act of adoration: men who with filial confidence could cast themselves on his protection, and obey the call of duty, though summoning to the bitterest sacrifices of fortune or of feeling, renouncing every prospect for the testimony of a good conscience, and in reliance on his providence: men who have developed the powers and asserted the rights of intellect, and won from Philosophy her proudest trophies to cast them at the foot of the Cross; and whose exalted talents and unshaken faith were an exhibition of the native affinity of Reason and Revelation: men who have raised the standard of religious freedom, and fought its battles, and suffered in its cause, and prompted its manly and generous assertion, not only for those who were like-minded with themselves, but on be

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half of all, even though holding opinions the most remote, and mad with a bigoted hostility the most inveterate men who, deeply impressed with the practical importance of their own tenets, could yet most readily allow, and praise, and love goodness in others, whatever they believed, or whatever they rejected: men whose pure lives shewed that even if the head were wrong, the heart was right, and that, if doing Christ's will be building on a rock, they need not dread the storm, come when it may: men who loved their neighbour as themselves, and felt the zeal of benevolence in all its energy, and were in doing good unwearied, and grappled man to their hearts with the affection of a brother: men whọ through life's changes, and in death's struggles, had hopes fixed on high, ever firm and glorious, drawing their souls to heaven to join the kindred society of the just made perfect, and enjoy the full triumphs of that cause for which they combated, in the subjection of all enemies at the Saviour's footstool :-men such as these has no system done more honour to Christianity than Unitarianism by producing in comparative abundance. The descriptions will suggest to you names whose praise is in all our churches; nay, which pervades our country, and beams forth beyond, even to the very boundaries of enlightened and civilized society.

Here be the tree planted that bears such fruit, and long may it flourish! for it is the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations,