This, fays the apostle John, is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. If ye love me, fays our Lord, keep my commandments. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you; and this is my commandment, that ye love one another. By this hall all men know that ye are my difciples, if ye have love one for another.

Remember that true christian charity is humble, modeft, and diffident; and that he is pronounced to be happy, who feareth always, so as to be circumfpect in thought, word, and deed; and that, for this purpofe, we are to put on the whole armour of God, that we may withstand the temptations of the world.

Rather than indulge a pharifaical pride, in recounting your experiences, boafting how vile you have once been, or thought yourselves to be, in order to make others believe how holy and fanctified you are now, content yourselves with the language and practice of the humble publican, who, fpeaking to God and his own heart only, cried, God be merciful to me a finner.

Rejoice in all the real good you see done by others, whatever may be their ill-will, or oppofition to you; and be especially upon your guard, left your just averfion to what is corrupt in the principles or practices of others lead you to diflike what is good in them. Let not the pharifaical rigour of fome throw you into the oppofite extreme of levity; and let not their laying an undue ftrefs · E

upon

upon praying, preaching, and other means of religion, make you neglect them, as we are too apt to do with respect to any thing that has been much abused.

Having enough to do with our own hearts, let us be particularly upon our guard against that spirit of cenforioufness, which many profeffing chriftians indulge with too little reftraint. Let us remember that the true chriftian beareth all things, and hopeth all things; and let us never forget the awful warning of our Lord, Judge not that ye be not judged: for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Be not moved, my brethren, by the rafh cenfures and reproaches of others. Perfecution, of fome kind, is what all who live godlily in Chrift Jefus must expect to fuffer in this world. To their wrath, anger, clamour, evil-speaking, and malice, answer with the wisdom that is from above; which is pure, peaceable, gentle, and eafy to be intreated; full of mercy, and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrify. Let us even rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer fhame, and infult, for the fake of Christ, though our fufferings come not from the profeffed enemies of Chrift, but from false brethren; and let us not be concerned at being counted deceivers, if we be confcious to ourselves that we truly love the gofpel, and that we labour to promote and adorn it.

You

You will be called arminians and focinians by your adverfarics, or fomething elfe that fhall exprefs more of their hatred and diflike. But let not this offend you. If there be any proper meaning in those epithets, it can only be that you hold certain opinions which they deem to be falfe, but which you cherish as the only genuine doctrines of the gofpel. If nothing more is meant by those terms, befides mere reproach and abuse, think yourselves happy, as being reproached for the name of Christ. 1 Peter iv. 14. With many the appellation of Lutheran or Calvinist is reproachful, and with many also that of Chriftian is much more fo. Besides, both Arminius and Socinus were men who loved the gospel, and who fuffered more for their adhe rence to it, than moft others of the reformers, especially Socinus.

If we be chriftians indeed, we shall confider ourfelves as not of this world, but as citizens of heaven. The friendship of this world, therefore, together with popularity, and fuccefs in it, ought not to be confidered as any object for us. If we abide in Chrift, and walk even as he also walked, not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds, we are heirs of a far nobler inheritance, an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, referved in heaven for us; and when Chrift, who is our life, and for whom we fuffer reproach, shall appear, we also shall appear with him in glory.

I fhall conclude this addrefs with a word of advice and exhortation to all unitarians, whether they be members of the established church, or of any fociety of diffenters in this country.

Of fuch great importance is the doctrine of the divine unity, that nothing will more fully juftify a feparation from any chriftian church that does not openly profefs it, and much more from thofe that avow the contrary doctrine, directing prayers, and paying fupreme worship, to any other than the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift.

It was for the prefervation of this great and fundamental doctrine, that Abraham, and his family by Ifaac and Jacob, were feparated from the rest of the world, and made a diftinct people, as it were, to be the depofitaries of the true religion, which confifts principally in the fole worship of the one true and living God, the maker and preferver of all things. The fame important doctrine was uniformly taught by Chrift and the apoftles; though chriftians in after-times, like the Ifraelites after the time of Joshua, relapsed into that idolatry which has generally prevailed to this day.

If it was a fufficient juftification of the firft reformers, that they confidered the church from which they separated as worshiping faints and angels; will it not justify your feparation from their partial reformations, that you confider them as praying to and worshiping one whom you con

der as a man like yourselves, though honoured and diftinguished by. God above all other men?

To join habitually in public worship with trinitarians, is countenancing that worship, which you muft confider as idolatrous; and which, however innocent in them, is highly criminal in you. If they think it a point of conscience not to go to mafs in popish countries, because, in their opinion, it is idolizing a piece of bread, you ought to make a point of conscience of not worshiping with them, because, in your opinion, it is idolizing a man, who is as much a creature of God as a piece of bread, and just as improper an object of worship.

Besides, the great offence to jews, mahometans, and the world at large, being the doctrine of the trinity, it is highly neceffary that focieties of chriftians fhould be formed exprefsly on this principle of the divine unity, that it may be evident to all the world, that there are chriftians, and focieties of chriftians, who hold the doctrine of the trinity in as much abhorrence as they themselves can do. For the converfion of jews or mahometans to chriftianity, while it is fuppofed to contain the doctrine the trinity, no perfon who knows, or has heard of jews or mahometans, can ever expect.

You will fay we unitarians are but few, even in large towns, and ftill fewer in villages, and there are no men of leifure or learning among us. But was not this the cafe with the primitive chriftians,