steadfast hope of things unseen and eternal? Why, then, he is preaching Christ, who reminds them of the change and uncertainty belonging to their condition here, who points out to them the evident intention of their Maker, that they should not build all their trust on earthly foundations; who teaches them to consider their earthly existence as a season of probation and discipline; who bids them lay up treasures in heaven.

Thinking thus of the preacher's varied objects and extensive province, I am slow, I confess, to understand the distinction, about which so much is often said, between moral and christian preaching. That which is called, and sometimes with a degree of contempt, (but surely of a very misplaced contempt,) moral preaching, I find making a large part of Christ's own discoursesI find, also, largely intermingled with all the writings of that very apostle who determined not to know any thing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Surely, Paul's preaching, and Christ's own preaching, must be entitled to the name of christian preaching. In fact, all truly christian preaching must have a moral object, and a moral bearing. It must, to be of any value, produce some effect upon the temper and conduct, upon the principles that lie at the root of men's dispositions towards God and one another. It must furnish inferences and motives for a certain ordering of their thoughts and desires, their words and actions.

Instead, then, of endeavoring to prove in any single class of subjects, or style of preaching, an exclusive claim to the name of Christian, would it not be better, would

it not be more honorable to the true and comprehensive genius of Christianity, to say that whatever tends to make men wise, virtuous, benevolent, and happy, whatever tends to make them such as Christ desired that they should become, whatever harmonizes in its practical influences with his doctrine and his example, is a suitable subject of christian preaching? Oh! yes; let the minister of Christ be at liberty to use every power and every attainment of his mind in the service of Christ. Let him not be told, that a determination not to know any thing in his preaching, save Jesus Christ and him crucified, ties him down to a limited range of subjects, or of thoughts and illustrations wherewith to recommend the subjects of his exhortations. Let him be encouraged rather to glory in the belief, that God has made the whole province of the human mind, the whole field of knowledge, capable of being rendered tributary to Christ, subservient to the proof, or recommendation, or enforcement, or application, of christian doctrines, and to the promotion of christian objects. Yes, let the soldier of Christ be at liberty to choose from the whole armory of God the weapon that best fits his hand or suits his purpose. If he assails ignorance and error, if he beats down vice, if he maintains successful warfare with unholy and unkindly passions, let it te acknowledged that he is engaged in a christian contest, and that his spirit and exertions are also christian.

THE CHRISTIAN BELIEVER.

THE term believer means, in the christian scriptures, one who humbly and heartily receives Christ as he honestly and conscientiously believes him to be there revealed. It is this honest, unqualified and hearty reception of him, as he is brought to view in the sacred writings, which constitutes a man a believer on him, his follower, his disciple, and of course gives him a title to the name of Christian. To this honesty and conscientiousness of purpose Unitarians lay claim. On it they ground their title to the name of Christian, and not on any undoubting assurance which they have, that their peculiar views of Christ and of the necessity and purpose of his mission are infallibly correct. Yet they (religious Unitarians of course are meant) do value their views most highly, and they would plead for them as being, more than any other views, consistent with the perfections of God, and as establishing, more fully and firmly than any other views, the immutable obligations and sanctions of morality and religion ;-and when their views are sneered at, as they have been, as being nothing better than infidelity, or at most "a refined theism," they charitably hope that those who thus judge, speak in ignorance, and not from a wilful determination to misrepresent.

In the following remarks I have endeavored, without controverting the opinions of others, to give my own views-and they are such, I suppose, as are generally held to by Unitarians-of what constitutes a christian belief in regard to the Lord Jesus, and the design of his coming upon earth.

A broad and essential position in the Christian's mind then, and one that makes the foundation of all the rest, is that he regards Jesus as a divinely commissioned being; as placed, by God's appointment, on the throne of a moral kingdom as extensive as the world, as lasting as time. He looks upon him as the representative and vicegerent of God on earth,-speaking with his authority, operating with his power, and communicating his will; as invested with his perfections, and endowed with his spirit, to such an extraordinary and miraculous degree as to be justly spoken of as "the image of the invisible God." He believes him to have been thus sanctified and sent into the world for a great and holy purpose,-a purpose worthy of all that was done to accomplish it, worthy of having the laws of nature interrupted to give it support,-worthy of being attained even by the sacrifice of him who sought to carry it into effect. There was a world lying in wickedness; a race of beings, capable of much that was noble and excellent, had sunk into the deepest degradation. Endowed with immortal natures, they went through life almost as unconscious of their high destination, and as little prepared for it, as "the beasts that perish." Their minds were darkened, or wandering in error, their affections debased, their religious principles at once superstitious and licentious, their morals almost hopelessly corrupt and impure. Now the object was to raise this fallen, degraded race of beings. The Deity looked through what they were to what they might be. He loved them when he created them "to be an image of his own eternity," putting within them a spark of his own divine intelligence, and im

pressing upon them a reverence for purity and goodness. He loved them still, amidst the prostration and ruin of their natures; he pitied them; he could not lose his interest in them; he could not give them up, without an effort to save them. He provided means that would recover them from their debasement, if any thing could do it,--and that would leave them without excuse, if it did not. They needed light; they needed moral energy. These Jesus Christ came commissioned to impart. They needed a strong moral impulse. The spirit of God was wanted to move over the mass, and breathe life into it. A powerful arm was required to be stretched forth, that mankind, if possible, might be rescued from the thraldom of sin. To meet these wants of man's moral and spiritual condition, Jesus Christ came. He came, not merely to be the messenger of God's truth, but to exert a powerful moral agency in the world;--he came, not merely to pour light into the darkened mind, but to excite and animate the cold and insensible heart, to urge such considerations upon the attention, to awaken such emotions and desires in the breast, as should give new life and energy to the moral powers, new strength and ardor to the. resolutions, new vigor, steadiness and perseverance to the performance of duty, new hatred and disgust at sin, new and more earnest aspirations after holiness and a resemblance to the Being who is goodness itself. His purpose in coming into the world was, in brief, to be the Saviour of mankind,---to break down the strong hold of sin in the character, and to erect in every heart a tenple fit for the residence of the divine spirit; and to