that which is demanded for any other profession. A lawyer and physician begin their employment with a small number of clients or patients, and their practice is confined to the least important cases within their respective departments. They have therefore much leisure for preparation after entering on their pursuits, and gradually rise into public notice. Not so the minister. He enters at once on the stage. All the duties of a parish immediately devolve upon him. His connexion at the first moment extends to as large a number as he will ever be called to serve. His station is at first conspicuous. He is literally burdened and pressed with duties. The mere labor of composing as many sermons as are demanded of him, is enough to exhaust his time and strength. If then his education has been deficient, how is it to be repaired? Amidst these disadvantages, can we wonder that the mind loses its spring, and soon becomes satisfied with very humble productions? How important is it, that a good foundation should be laid, that the theological student should have time to accumulate some intellectual treasures, and that he should be trained under circumstances most suited to give him an unconquerable love of his profession, of study, and of the cause to which he is devoted! THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION AND DENUNCIATION IN RELIGION Nothing is plainer, than that the leaders of the party called 'Orthodox,' have adopted and mean to enforce a system of exclusion, in regard to Liberal Christians. They spare no pains to infect the minds of their too easy followers with the persuasion, that they ought to refuse communion with their Unitarian brethren, and to deny them the name, character, and privileges of Christians. On this system, I shall now offer several observations. I begin with an important suggestion. I beg that it may be distinctly understood, that the zeal of Liberal Christians on this point nas no other object, than the peace and prosperity of the church of Christ. We are pleading, not our own cause, but the cause of our Master. The denial of our christian character by fallible and imperfect men gives us no anxiety. Our relation to Jesus Christ is not to be dissolved by the breath of man. Our christian rights do not depend on human passions. We have precisely the same power over our brethren, which they have over us, and are equally authorised to sever them from the body of Christ. Still more; if the possession of truth give superior weight to denunciation, we are persuaded that our opposers will be the severest sufferers, should we think fit to hurl back the sentence of exclusion and condemnation. But we have no disposition to usurp power over our brethren. believe, that the spirit which is so studiously excited against ourselves, has done incalculable injury to the cause of Christ; and we pray God to deliver us from its power. We Why are the name, character, and rights of Christians to be denied to Unitarians? Do they deny that Jesus is the Christ? do they reject his word as the rule of their faith and practice? do their lives discover indifference to his authority and example? No, these are not their offences. They are deficient in none of the qualifications of disciples, which were required in the primitive age. Their of fence is, that they read the scriptures for themselves, and derive from them different opinions on certain points, from those which others have adopted. Mistake of judgment is their pretended crime, and this crime is laid to their charge by men, who are as liable to mistake as themselves, and who seem to them to have fallen into some of the grossest errors. A condemning sentence from such judges carries with it no terror, Sorrow for its uncharitableness, and strong disapprobation of its arrogance, are the principal feelings which it inspires. It is truly astonishing, that Christians are not more impressed with the unbecoming spirit, the arrogant style, of those, who deny the christian character to professed and exemplary followers of Jesus Christ, because they differ in opinion on some of the most subtile and difficult subjects of theology. A stranger, at hearing the language of these denouncers, would conclude, without a doubt, that they were clothed with infallibility, and were appointed to sit in judgment on their brethren. But for myself, I know not a shadow of pretence for the language of superiority assumed by our adversaries. Are they exempted from the common frailty of our nature? Has God given them superior intelligence? Were they educated under circumstances more favorable to improvement than those whom they condemn? Have they brought to the scriptures more serious, anxious, and unwearied attention? Or do their lives express a deeper reverence for God and for his Son? No. They are fallible, imperfect men, possessing no higher means, and no stronger-motives for studying the word of God, than their Unitarian brethren. And yet their language to them is virtually this ;— We We pronounce you to be in error, and in most dangerous error. know that we are right, and that you are wrong, in regard to the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. You are unworthy the christian name, and unfit to sit with us at the table of Christ. We offer you the truth, and you reject it at the peril of your souls.' Such is the language of humble Christians to men, who in capacity and apparent piety are not inferior to themselves. This language has spread from the leaders through a considerable part of the community. Men in those walks of life which leave them without leisure or opportunities for improvement, are heard to decide on the most intricate points, and to pass sentence on men, whose lives have been devoted to the study of the scriptures. The female, forgetting the tenderness of her sex, and the limited advantages which her education affords for a critical study of the scriptures, inveighs with bitterness against the damnable errors of such men as Newton, Locke, Clarke and Price! The young, too, forget the modesty which belongs to their age, and hurl condemnation on the head which has grown gray in the service of God and mankind. Need I ask, whether this spirit of denunciation for supposed error becomes the humble and fallible disciples of Jesus Christ? In vindication of this system of exclusion and denunciation, it is often urged, that the 'honor of religion,' the purity of the church,' and the 'cause of truth,' forbid those who hold the true gospel, to maintain fellowship with those who support corrupt and injurious opinions. Without stopping to notice the modesty of those who claim an exclusive knowledge of the true gospel, I would answer, that the 'honor of religion' can never suffer by admitting to christian fellowship men of irreproachable lives, whilst it has suffered most severely from that narrow and uncharitable spirit, which has excluded such men for imagined errors. I answer again, that 'the cause of truth' can never suffer by admitting to christian fellowship men, who honestly profess to make the scriptures their rule of faith and practice, whilst it has suffered most severely by substituting for this standard conformity to human creeds and formularies. It is truly wonderful, if excommunication for supposed error be the method of purifying the church, that the church has been so long and so wofully corrupted. Whatever may have been the deficiencies of Christians in other respects, they have certainly discovered no criminal reluctance in applying this instrument of purification. Could the thunders and lightnings of excommunication have corrected the atmosphere of the church, not one pestilential vapor would have loaded it for ages. The air of Paradise would not have been more pure, more refreshing. But what does history tell us? It tells us, that the spirit of exclusion and denunciation has contributed more than all other causes to the corruption of the church, to the diffusion of error; and has rendered the records of the christian community as black, as bloody, as revolting to humanity, as the records of empires founded on conquest and guilt. But it is said, Did not the apostle denounce the erroneous, and pronounce a curse on the 'abettors of another gospel?' This is the strong hold of the friends of denunciation. But let us never forget, that the apostles were inspired men, capable of marking out with unerring certainty, those who substituted another gospel' for the true. Show us their successors, and we will cheerfully obey them. It is also important to recollect the character of those men, against whom the apostolic anathema was directed. They were men, who knew distinctly what the apostles taught, and yet opposed it; and who endeavoured to sow division, and to gain followers, in the churches which the apostles had planted. These men, resisting the known instructions of the authorised and inspired teachers of the gospel, and discovering a factious, selfish, mercenary spirit, were justly excluded as unworthy the christian name. But what in common with these men, have the Christians whom it is the custom of the Orthodox' to denounce? Do these oppose what they know to be the doctrine of Christ and his apostles? Do they not revere Jesus and his inspired messengers? Do they not dissent from their brethren, simply because they believe that their brethren dissent from their Lord ?-Let us not forget, that the contest at the present day, is not between the apostles themselves and men who oppose their known instructions, but between uninspired Christians, who equally receive the apostles as authorised teachers of the gospel, and who only differ in judgment as to the interpretation of their writings. How unjust, then, is it for any class of Christians, to confound their opponents with the factious and unprincipled sectarians of the primitive age. Mistake in judgment is the heaviest charge which one denomination has now a right to urge against another; and do we find that the apostles ever denounced mistake as 'awful and fatal hostility' to the gospel, that they pronounced anathemas on men who wished to obey, but who misapprehended their doctrines? The apostles well remembered, that none ever mistook more widely than themselves. They remembered, too, the lenity of their Lord towards their errors, and this lenity they cherished and labored to diffuse. But it is asked, Have not Christians a right to bear solemn testimony' against opinions which are utterly subversive of the gospel, and most dangerous to men's eternal interests?' To this I answer, that the opinions of men, who discover equal intelligence and piety with ourselves, are entitled to respectful consideration. If after inquiry they seem erroneous and injurious, we are authorised and bound, according to our ability, to expose, by fair and serious argument, their nature and tendency. But I maintain, that we have no right as individuals, or in an associated capacity, to bear our solemn testimony' against these opinions, by menacing with ruin the Christian who listens to them, or by branding them with the most terrifying epithets, for the purpose of preventing candid inquiry into their truth. This is the fashionable mode of 'bearing testimony,' and it is a weapon which will always be most successful in the hands of the proud, the positive, and overbearing, who are most impatient of contradiction, and have least regard to the rights of their brethren. But whatever may be the right of Christians, as to bearing testimony against opinions which they deem injurious, I deny that they have any right to pass a condemning sentence, on account of these opinions, on the characters of men whose general deportment is conformed to the gospel of Christ. Both scripture and reason unite in teaching, that the best and only standard of character is the life; and he who overlooks the testimony of a christian life, and grounds a sentence of condemnation on opinions, about which he as well as his brother may err, violates most flagrantly the duty of just and candid judgment, and opposes the peaceful and charitable spirit of the gospel. Jesus Christ says, ' By their fruits shall ye know them.' 'Not every one, that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.' 'Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.' 'He that heareth and doeth these my sayings,' i. e. the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, 'I will liken him to a man who built his house upon a rock.' It would be easy to multiply similar passages. The whole scriptures teach us, that he and he only is a Christian, whose life is governed by the precepts of the gospel, and that by this standard alone, the profession of this religion should be tried. We do not deny, that our brethren have a right to form a judgment as to our christian character. But we insist that we have a right to be judged by the fairest, the most approved, and the most settled rules, by which character can be tried; and when these are overlooked, and the |