benevolence, and making this his sole spring of action. Now without going at all into the question whether these views are correct in themselves, or salutary in their practical influence in other respects, it is self-evident that their tendency, compared with that of Orthodoxy, must be to make those who hold them, and are continually hearing and contemplating them, more mild and catholic, and of course less likely to abuse power.

Eighthly, the more consistent Unitarians are, the more liberal they must be ; but the more consistent the Orthodox are, the more intolerant they must be. We do not pretend that all Unitarians are consistent; but if they were, enough has been said of their principles to show, that they could not be guilty of usurpation and oppression in the church. Unitarians are as likely to be consistent as other men; and besides, as they are forever inculcating liberality, and as this is manifestly the inference from all their doctrines, they cannot but carry some of this liberality into their conduct, if from no better reason, for very shame. This cannot be asserted of those whose principles themselves are avowedly exclusive. The man, whose system represents sincerity as nothing, unless accompanied by an orthodox faith, and denounces the pretended virtues of the supposed misbeliever as false and hollow, and holds him up to view as spreading a moral taint through the community, 'soul-destroying' and 'hell-deserving,' cannot, if he would be consistent, keep any terms with the offender, without seeming to participate in the guilt of soul-murder. The man who thinks that there can be no genuine virtue or piety, and no salvation, out of the pale of his own communion, or a certain number of communions agreeing with him in what he calls fundamentals, and who regards this, not as an opinion merely, but as an established certainty, cannot be tolerant, as it would seem, without being inconsistent. It is true, there are natural feelings, hardly ever entirely extirpated, which must plead trumpet-tongued, against the tendencies of such a creed, and not always without effect. In a case like this, however, the man is candid and liberal, not because of his peculiar belief, but in spite of it. On the whole, then, it appears that a consistent Unitarian is what we should most desire, and a consistent Exclusionist what we should most dread.

Ninthly, it is a mistake to suppose, that the progress of civilization and refinement has neutralized the intolerant and persecuting tendencies of all creeds. We live in milder and more quiet times, it is true; but this only changes the forms under

which intolerance displays itself, without however extinguishing the vice. It should be recollected, in all our reasonings on this subject, that intolerance is not an error merely, but a crying sin, like drunkenness, or sacrilege. There is an unaccountable apathy in the public mind in regard to the full amount and enormity of those sins which originate in false religions, and do so much to sear the conscience, and pervert and indurate the heart, no matter whether these false religions consist in abuses of reason or revelation. Intolerance, to be sure, is obliged to evince itself differently in different states of society, under forms more or less glaring and atrocious; but still the vice itself remains substantially the same, about as culpable and injurious under one form as another, and therefore about as much to be feared and shunned. A profligate man is constrained to consult more decent ways of gratifying his propensities in a refined and cultivated community; but still he is a profligate man. So it is with the bigot, and so it is with those doctrines which encourage and foster bigotry.

Tenthly, supposing Unitarians to become the majority in any place, and to gain all that they ask or wish, it can hardly follow, in the nature of things, that the minority should be oppressed. It is commonly said of Unitarianism, even by those who reject it, that it is very well as far as it goes. Certainly it can be no very great hardship for any man to join in doxologies taken from the scriptures, instead of those taken from the catechism. It can be no very great hardship for any man to listen to serious and practical preaching, in which no one's sincerity or religious character is impeached, even though his own peculiar sentiments are not inculcated. It can be no very great hardship for any man, if he is permitted and invited himself to come to the christian ordinances, even though he should be obliged to sit down among brethren of different persuasions. If anything like peace is ever reestablished in the church, if a plan of accommodation and comprehension is ever carried into effect, it must be by adopting substantially Unitarian principles as the basis of public worship, leaving every individual to supply what he may conceive to be the defects of it, in his own thoughts, in his reading, and in his private devotions. On the contrary, it is sometimes expected, we know, that Unitarians, even where they are the majority, will continue to support the preaching by which they are denounced, and religious institutions from which they are systematically and avowedly debarred. True, they are told for their

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consolation, that these are high matters, on which they are not competent to be their own guides, and must submit to be led, if not ridden, by others. In one word, Unitarians must compromise everything, the Orthodox nothing. Certainly this is a little too much to expect from mortal men. Charity, as it has been justly said, is not a fool.

Eleventhly, there are some exertions of power on the part of Unitarians, which can be defended and justified, though they may sometimes cross the ambitious schemes of other religionists. Unitarians are at liberty to assert whatever rights are guaranteed to them by the laws as Christians. They have a right to demand that their feelings and professions should be respected to the same extent in which the feelings and professions of their opponents are respected. A man's piety is as much a part of his character as his honesty, and he has a right, therefore, to resent an impeachment of the former, in any way, in which it would be proper to resent an impeachment of the latter. If he has reason to believe that a candidate for office will carry exclusive or intolerant principles into any post of influence or authority, he has a right, nay, is in duty bound, to oppose him ; not on the ground of a mere difference of opinion, but because he has reason to believe that the public confidence will be betrayed. If it should be said, that we require of an Exclusionist, what, by our own showing, he cannot do consistently with his principles, we can only say, that if a man is led by any cause to adopt principles which he must violate, or be guilty of manifest injustice, he ought to suffer for it rather than his neighbours. All that Unitarians ask, is, that they may meet other Christians on the ground of common rights and common privileges; and this they are justified in demanding.

Lastly, these general reasonings are sustained and corroborated by facts. It will hardly be denied that Unitarians, as a sect, in this country and in England, have always stood forth the decided and zealous advocates of civil and religious liberty. In every great controversy that has arisen, we believe without a single exception, they have arranged themselves, not always indeed on the popular side, but yet on the side of the rights of the people. Perhaps we may be asked to reconcile with the doctrines here advanced, the treatment which Francis David received from Socinus, and other Unitarians of Poland and Transylvania. The facts in this case have seldom been fairly stated. It is conceded, that the Socinians deserve censure, as there is

good reason to suppose that some of them at least consented to, if they did not advise, an appeal to the civil authority, and were for coercing silence in regard to the obnoxious dogma. The Socinians, however, are not responsible for what Blandrata did, the principal persecutor, who before this had forfeited his standing and influence with the party, by his vices, and appears to have acted in this affair solely with a view to revenge himself. on the man by whom his vices had been reproved. Besides, when the question came before the diet at Thorda, whether David should be condemned as a heretic, the Socinians, we believe to a man, voted in the negative, and the measure was not carried by them, but by the Trinitarian members of the assembly. Again, we may be referred to the conduct of the Unitarians at Geneva, as intolerant and oppressive. Here, however, as in the former case, justice requires that the facts should not be misrepresented or colored. Undoubtedly it is an evil, that the Genevan church, like that of England, should be a state establishment, and under the control of the civil power; but it is an evil for which the Calvinists are answerable, by whom it was instituted. If the Unitarians have not as yet succeeded in correcting this evil entirely, we must regret that they have not proceeded faster in the work of reform; that the prejudices fixed in the minds of a whole people, by false views of religion until lately prevalent there, should be found so difficult to eradicate. Admitting, however, that the civil authorities are ever to interfere in ecclesiastical matters, it would seem that no exercise of this power can be regarded as so excusable as that on which the Genevans have ventured. The Pastors are not prevented from expressing their own opinions freely and openly, in their sermons; but for the sake of peace they are forbidden to preach controversially on any of the great topics, respecting which the public mind, at the present day, is so much divided and excited. Those who transgress this ordinance, whether Unitarians or Trinitarians, or who do not conform to the ecclesiastical polity established by the Calvinists, are silenced. Compare this with the abuses of the same power when in the hands of Exclusionists, with the burning and drowning of Unitarians and Anabaptists, and it will be seen, how much less likely Unitarians are, even at Geneva, to resort to severe and tyrannical measures.

After what has been said, can any one doubt that Unitarians are less likely to abuse power in the church, than the Orthodox? We do not say, that they cannot abuse power, or that

they never have done it, or that they never will do it ; but we say that they are not so likely to do it, and this, we conceive, is capable of absolute demonstration. We would not, however, be misunderstood. There is, we fear, in all organized bodies, more or less of a lust of domination; an occasional forgetfulness of the feelings and rights of others; a frequent confounding of a love of party with the love of truth. For these reasons, power in the hands of any sect, should be watched with extreme jealousy. We think, indeed, that Unitarians have reason for gratitude in possessing at present so little power, as in this way they are effectually protected against one of the most insidious and powerful temptations to sin. We do not wish, in the present moral condition of the world, to see the number of sects, into which the church is divided, materially lessened. We sometimes wonder that Providence should permit such a multitude of sects; and yet on further reflection we must perceive that they constitute that balance of power among the different communities, which, in the church as in the state, is a check upon each, and the security of all.

ART. VII.-1. Elements of Medical Statistics; containing the Substance of the Culstonian Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians: with numerous Additions, illustrative of the comparative Salubrity, Longevity, Mortality, and Prevalence of Diseases in the principal Countries and Cities of the civilized World. By F. BISSET HAWKINS, M. D., of Exeter College, Oxford; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; and Physician to the Westminster General Dispensary. London. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. 1829. 8vo. pp. 234.

WE apprehend that the general impression among mankind has been, that the habits of refined and civilized life are unfavorable to health and longevity; that the luxuries, delicacies, and even conveniences which are now universally enjoyed by all classes of Europeans and their descendants, tend to produce effeminate constitutions and to generate diseases; that in forsaking the rough and hardy manner of life of our ancestors, we have