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    Esteemed Friend , Havino heard your ideas of Unitarianism and the sentiments you bear towards its professors , I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise and concern that one so disposed to rectitude of principle , and to a conformity with the dictates of the gospel , should nevertheless be wanting in the great and essential duty of charity , seeing , as I feel assured you must upon a due

    consideration , that it constitutes the brightest ornament of Christianity ; that it is the duty enlarged upon and enforced throughout the gospel above all others . The 13 th chap . 1 Cor . is so eminently illustrative of the subject , and renders it so evidently paramount amongst Christian duties , that I confess it is always a matter of great astonishment to me that any reader of the gospel can for a moment lose sight of it . How overcharged must that zeal for a particular creed be which can fail to impress the mind with an everpresent conviction , that though I have all faith so that I could remove

    mountains , and Jiave not charity 9 I am notJung / Permit me then to urge upon you a never-failing attention to the subject , since where charity is wanting there evidently can be no genuine Christianity ; and whenever you may find your zeal for your particular faith bearing you onward beyond the bounds of that meekness , humility , and forbearance , under which it ought to be held , and without which it can be nothing worth , I fain could wish that one moment ' s retrospective thought may point to this appeal and help to recall the peaceful spirit of Christian charity .

    In furtherance of my object , allow me now not only more particularly to point out how inconsistent the sentiments you manifest towards those who differ from you are with the peculiar religious tenets you profess , but at the same time to suggest that you appear strangely to overlook the all-confounding reaction readily deducible from the opinions you entertain .

    In the first place , the judgment you pass upon others for not thinking as you do yourself , will , I apprehend , upon a short inquiry , be found to be , as far as regards reason , a judgment absolutely devoid of all sense . According as the Almighty has seen fit to make us , the features of our minds differ as much as the features of our countenances ; so many men so many minds ; and were it otherwise the world would be very differently constituted from what it really is . Scarcely two are to be found who can think precisely alike , and specially with regard to religious dogmas . Christianity has been seen in such different views by its respective votaries , that the best and wisest men have stood wide apart , whilst experience has demonstrated that the strongest measures and the most earnest zeal ever exerted to induce uniformity , have proved equally weak and mischievous ; and , excepting by your own sect , the idea has been generally given up as persecutory ,

    indefensible , and impossible ; excepting those pf your faith , scarcely any example of such an intolerant desire is now to be found , but in the most wretched and ignorant of the Roman Catholic countries . Conscientious opinion is by no means a matter of choice , but clearly a matter of absolute and unavoida * - ble necessity ; and consequently it would be just as reasonable to adjudge your neighbour to everlasting condemnation for not having the features of hi 3 countenance in all respects like your own , as for not having the features of his mind so . I am reall y surprised at these things . If a maa exerts bis understanding to tbe best of his power , and conscientiously forms his judgment accordingly , be does all he possibly can do ; and to require more of

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    LETTER FROM A UNITARIAN LAYMAN TO AN EVANGELICAL FRIEND .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 163, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/11/