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    exist , more or less , all over the kingdom , which , together with village preaching , missionary labours and conferences , have succeeded so far in exciting attention and inquiry , and have diffused so much religious knowledge ,

    that we can scarcely go where there are not some Unitarians , and to but few considerable towns throughout the country , where there are not one or more places of Unitarian worship , erected to the sole worship of the one God and Father all . Before the Fund

    existed , Unitarians were , it is well known , a standing topic of contemptuous animadversion to their zealous orthodox brethren , both in the Church and-out of it : no language was thought too pointed or severe on their coldness , deadness and indifference : ridicule and sarcasm were called in to

    reprobate their cold legal notions , moral essays , &c , &c . But now so great has been the change , that they are crying out and sounding the alarm at the great and increasing zeal and numbers of the Unitarians . Cold or

    hot , we cannot please them . But surely this evidence , this expression of fear and alarm , and from such a quarter , is decisive , and allows the effect . Nor can any impediment thrown in our way , or any opposition made to

    us , operate otherwise than to increase our strength and to accelerate our progress . All discussion must do us service ; for our zeal is not exerted for mere forms and ceremonies , modes of church government , or for mysterious and bigoted creeds of man ' s invention . It is not fed by superstitious

    fears or enthusiastic extravagances . It flows from a deep and firm conviction of the great and unspeakable value of divine truth , of the pure and benign principles of the gospel , and of the moral character and government of God to promote the happiness and to elevate the character of mankind . We

    have no master in religion but Christ , and no creed but the Bible ; and are known to be as hostile to all injustice , slavery and oppression , as we are the determined advocates of the equal

    rights , the liberties , civil and religious , of the whole family of man . Principles like these must ever increase in power and influence in proportion as men make progress in wisdom and

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    goodness . If these views are sound pure and rational , then this Society ' which is founded upon them , can do nothing against the truth , but for the truth , and it must prevail .

    2 dly . We are aware that , as a Society , we have proceeded on views very different from those entertai ned by some distinguished individual s among us , who believe and have contended that the Unitarian doctrine

    was best adapted to the learned and the rich ; that , such was the nature of early bias and of preconceived nations , it could never prevail , but as it was embraced by the higher and more cultivated ranks of society , and from them must descend to the lower

    orders . This to us appears just to reverse the order of things ; and those who hold this opinion may see reason , from what has passed , to suspect its correctness ; as it is not only opposed to fects and experience , but to the practice of Christ and his apostles . And although our circumstances are

    different , the principles are the same . To the poor the gospel was first preached . This would not have been done , had it not been adapted to their capacities and condition ; they

    understood it and embraced it , and the poor became its first and ablest ministers , and were martyrs in its cause . And why not ? In all things appertaining to life and godliness , it is confessedly plain and simple . There is nothing in it to confound the understanding , or to

    perplex the path of duty . Now , as at first , it is able to make wise unto salvation , and notwithstanding early prejudices and errors , thousands of our countrymen , in the hu mbler walks of life , have received it in the love of it , adorn it by their conduct , and are able to render a reason for

    their faith , and of the hope that is in them . It may well appear to many , that the middle and lower orders ot society , both from their habits am aim

    stations , are as favourable to piety morals as those can be in the hig her and more dignified ranks ; whose temptations are much stronger , and whose dissination is as ruinous to

    themselves as it is pernicious to others , and whose scepticism and irrehgiou are at once proverbial and disgusting . There can be no doubt , however , tuai good men and sincere Christians may

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    482 Mr * Eaton s Account of the Rise and Progress of the Unitarian Fund .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1825, page 482, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2539/page/28/