NOTES.

NOTE A, page 5.

I HAVE Used the phrase or denomination Liberal Christians, because it is employed by the Reviewer to distinguish those whom he assails. I have never been inclined to claim this appellation for myself or my friends, because as the word liberality expresses the noblest qualities of the human mind, freedom from local prejudices and narrow feelings, the enlargement of the views and affections, I have thought that the assumption of it would savour of that spirit, which has attempted to limit the words orthodox and evangelical to a particular body of christians. As the appellation, however, cannot well be avoided, I will state the meaning which I attach to it.

By a liberal christian I understand one, who is disposed to receive as his brethren in Christ, all who in the judgment of charity, sincerely profess to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Master. He rejects all tests or standards of christian faith and of christian character, but the word of Jesus Christ and of his inspired apostles. He thinks it an act of disloyalty to his Master to introduce into the church creeds of fallible men as bonds of union, or terms of christian fellowship. He calis himself by no name derived from human leaders, disclaims all exclusive connexion with any sect or party, professes himself a member of the church universal on earth and in heaven, and cheerfully extends the hand of brotherhood to every man of every name who discovers the spirit of Jesus Christ.

According to this view of liberal christians, they cannot be called a party. They are distinguished only by refusing to separate themselves in any form or degree from the great body of Christ. They are scattered too through all classes of Christians.

I have known Trinitarians and Calvinists, who justly deserve the name of liberal, who regard with affection all who appear to follow Jesus Christ in temper and life, however they may differ on the common points of theological controversy. To this class of christians, which is scattered over the earth, and which I trust has never been extinct in any age, I profess and desire to belong. God send them prosperity.-In this part of the country, liberal christians, as they have been above described, are generally, though by no means universally, Unitarians in the proper sense of that word. It is of this part of them that I chiefly speak in this letter.

I cannot forbear enforcing the sentiments of this note and of the letter by a passage from the venerable Baxter, as I find it quoted by Grove from the preface to the second part of "Saints' Everlasting Rest."

"Two things have set the church on fire, and been the plagues of it above one thousand years;-1st. Enlarging our creed, and making more fundamentals than ever God made. 2d. Composing, and so imposing, our creeds and confessions in our own words and phrases. When men have learned more manners and humility than to accuse God's language as too general and obscure, as if they could mend it-and have more dread of God and compassion on themselves, than to make those to be fundamentals or certainties which God never made so; and when they reduce their confessions, 1st. to their due extent, and 2d. to scripture phrases, that dissenters may not scruple subscribing-then, and I think never till then, shall the church have peace about doctrinals. It seems to me no heinous Socinian notion which Chillingworth is blamed for, viz. Let all men believe the Scripture, and that only, and endeavour to believe it in the true sense, and promise this, and require no more of others, and they shall find this not only a better, but the only means to suppress heresy and restore unity."

NOTE B, page 6.

I have mentioned the name of Dr. Eckley, because his opinions on this subject were again and again expressed before me with perfect frankness, and are stated with great distinctness in his letter to the Rev. Thomas Worcester of Salisbury, from which I subjoin an extract.

"My plan, when I saw you, as I think I intimated, respecting the Son of God, was very similar to what your brother* has now adopted. The common plan of three self-existent persons forming one Essence or infinite Being, and one of these persons being united to a man, but not in the least humbling himself or suffering, completely leads to and ends in Socinianism; and though it claims the form of orthodoxy, it is a shadow without the substance; it eludes inspection; and I sometimes say to those who are strenuous for this doctrine, that they take away my Lord, and I know not where they place him."-"The orthodoxy, so called, of Waterland, is as repugnant to my reason and views of religion, as the heterodoxy of Lardner; and I am at a loss to see that any solid satisfaction, for a person who wishes to find salvation through the death of the SON OF GOD, can be found in either.”"I seek for a plan which exalts the personal character and attributes of the SON OF GOD in the highest possible degree. The plan which your brother hath chosen does this-The scheme he has adopted affords light and comfort to the christian. I have long thought so; and I continue to think I have not been mistaken."

Rev. Noah Worcester.

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