regard to the Salvation of mankind; I am perfuaded you will feel yourselves difpofed to pay fome attention to the thoughts which have now been fubmitted to your confideration. But there are always difficulties to be encountered in treading the path of duty, and especially that part of it, to which we have hitherto been ftrangers. Happy the man who is not difcouraged by them from proceeding! Happy the man who has refolution and fteadiness enough to encounter all, and to "prefs forward to the mark of "the prize of his high calling of GoD in Chrift Jefus!" Some difcouraging thoughts are now, perhaps, prefenting themselves to your minds, my friends. Be upon your guard, I pray you, that they have not more influence upon you than they deserve. Confider that if you be unitarians in principle, every fuggeftion which pleads in favour of your conformity to trinitarian worship, pleads in oppofition to your duty and your eternal intereft. One difficulty, and which, indeed, may be considered as an unanswerable objection to the conduct here recommended, is that

(FOURTH OBJECTION.) There is no place of worship near you, in which God the Father only is worshipped.

It is a most melancholy thought that this should be the case with any of you. But, alas! it must be acknowledged, that where there are even diffenting focieties, there are frequently no unitarian ones, many diffenters being as firm trinitarians as any church-ofEngland

England man, and conducting their religious fervices in a manner equally repugnant to the feelings and principles of a confcientious worshipper of the one, only living, and true GOD. But when there is a difsenting society of unitarians, you ought, undoubtedly, to join them in preference to the church of England: ́ for though you like a liturgy better than an extempore prayer; yet a matter of this kind ought never to be confidered of fo much importance as to make you facrifice fincerity, truth, and the gofpel caufe. But if there be in your neighbourhood no unitarian place of worship of any kind, there is fo much the greater call for your exertions. A clear, explicit, open, and decifive conduct is abfolutely neceffary, if you would serve the cause of GOD and of truth. If you would be the only man in your neighbourhood whofe eyes almighty God has opened to the truth; ftill be perfuaded to "flee from idolatry." If you make a point of confcience to devote the Sunday, or any other part of the week, to religious purposes, your conduct will foon be noticed, fome perfons will be led to inquire, and it cannot be long before you will meet with some, ready to join you in focial worship upon a fcriptural plan. A cause so good, must gain advocates, when it is properly underftood. Nothing is wanting but attention and inquiry, and the truth will flourish. Let the fteadiness of your conduct, added to the perfection of your character, excite that attention. As foon as you meet with any ready to join

you

you in adoring the ONE GOD, you may enjoy all the comforts and advantages of focial worship. You cannot imagine that it is essential to the utility and acceptibleness of focial worship, that numbers fhould be affembled together in a house devoted to the purpose, and with all the attendants of a minister regularly educated, and other officers.

In the first ages of chriftianity we read of churches that did not extend beyond the circle of a family, as the church in Nympha's houfe*,_and_that_in_the houfe of Philemon, &c. It cannot admit of a doubt whether it be not preferable to worship the only true GOD with one's family only, agreeably to the fcriptures, and in the language of fincerity and truth, than to join the largest fociety with every circumftance of ftate, convenience and fplendor, in a worship which the fcriptures forbid, and our hearts difapprove. You will find it more easy to put fuch a plan into execution than you might at firft imagine. Of useful fermons there is a great variety, fuch as Tillotson's, Secker's, Balguy's, Jortin's, Lardner's, Bourne's, Holland's, and Prieftley's.-You will be well able to conduct the devotional fervices, with the affiftance of Mr. Lindley's reformed liturgy, of that used at Salisburyt, or of Dr. Priestley's forms of prayers,

* Col. iv. 15.

and

There is also a valuable one lately published, at the new unitarian chapel in Manchester, as well as a copious collection of pfalms and hymns printed at Birmingham.

and other offices, for the use of unitarian focieties. In these publications you will find fervices for the lord's fupper and for baptifm, which it is unreafonable to fuppofe can be conducted properly by none, but a regular ordained minifter, for nothing of this kind is intimated in the new Teftament.

By thus maintaining a noble independence and confiftency of conduct in all your religious concerns, you will improve and confirm your own character; you will be an honour to the cause you espouse; you will render effential fervice to mankind, and be enabled to look forward with pleasure to the great day of retribution. You and your fellow labourers in the cause of GOD, will be like a city fet upon a hill: you will be the means of diffeminating, far and wide, the principles of true chriftian worship, and of diffufing a fpirit of serious and rational zeal.

But, perhaps, you will fart another difficulty,

viz. that

(FIFTH OBJECTION.) You have reason to expect a violent opposition to your feparating from the church, on the part of your nearest friends and connections.

Your cafe is undoubtedly to be pitied. But poffibly your fears lead you to imagine that they will carry their refentment much farther, than there is any juft ground for fearing they will. When they fee that you act upon principle, that the favour and approbation of GOD is the grand motive of your conduct, and that you are leady in what you efteem to be the path of duty; their refentment will probably

bably be foftened, and their confidence and affection towards you, will gradually revive. Indeed, the mere circumftance of your diffent being an old thing, (as it muft in time become) will naturally wear off that dread towards it, which was felt at firft: and they will at length perceive and acknowledge, that it has not made you fuch a strange being as they imagined it would. At any rate the line of duty is clear. Your hardships will be no greater than those which our lord laid it down as abfolutely neceffary that his first followers fhould endure, than those which were often experienced by the reformers of the fixteenth century, or than those which every faithful difciple of Jefus will be ready to undergo, when called to them in the courfe of duty. "He that loveth father or "mother more than me (faith our lord) is not wor"thy of me. He that loveth fon or daughter more ❝than me, is not worthy of me. Whofoever he be "of you that forfaketh not all which he hath, his "father and mother, and wife and children, and "brethren and fifters, yea, and his own life alfo, he "cannot be my difciple." May God give you grace to act up to your chriftian profeffion!

But fome perhaps will say,

(SIXTH OBJECTION.) I cannot bear to be fo fingu lar, as to leave the church in which I have been educated, especially if it be neceffary to make my house a place of focial worship.

But let fuch perfons confider, that the greater the effort, the greater will be the merit, and that where

duty