On the contrary, it is precisely because I hold religion to be of deep and universal concern, because I know it to be as momentous as life and as serious as death, that I have endeavored to combat the notion that it requires of one what it does not require of all, or that it releases one from what it enjoins on another. It is precisely on aecount of its unchangeable character, its unlimited application, and its inestimable value, that I have denied that any of its obligations can, properly speaking, be new; that I have denied that they can be thrown off or assumed at pleasure; that I have asserted that our Maker has just as many and as weighty claims on our hearts and lives, before we solemnly acknowledge them, as after such a ceremony. I have not advanced, it ought not to be supposed that I would advance, the smallest word of this essay, in order to make any portion of the community less religious; my sincere wish and prayer is, that the whole community may be more so. If I would chase away shadows, it is only that I may introduce substantial realities in their stead.

I would observe, that there is one circumstance which seems to take off the weight of religious obligation; and that is, unavoidable ignorance. In what has been said, I have all along referred to those who either know or might easily know, what the obligations of religion are. To him who knows them not, the untutored savage for instance, they have no existence; or rather, the same obligations which bind the Christian have no existence. But even the savage is subjected to obligations, according to his knowledge and opportunities; and we may likewise say of him, that no formal acknowledgment

of those obligations will make them greater than they

are.

The sole point which I aim to establish, is, that our will and our convenience have no legitimate power over the nature of our duty. It would be as proper for a son to declare that he would not fulfil every filial obligation to his parents, till he appeared in court and took a legal oath that he would do so, as for the native of a christian land to declare that there were duties to his Maker which he did not intend, nor was he required to discharge, till he had openly allowed them; and the son, after having taken such an oath, might talk as consistently about his new obligations, as might the Christian, after the promise was passed, about his. They were both of them born with obligations, which neither of them can dismiss nor change; they might as well dismiss the air which they inhaled with their first breath, and throw off the atmosphere which envelopes the world.

UNITARIANISM

VINDICATED AGAINST THE CHARGE

OF

NOT GOING FAR ENOUGH.

PRINTED FOR THE

American Unitarian Association.

BOSTON,

BOWLES AND DEARBORN, 72 WASHINGTON STREET.

Price 4 Cents.

UNITARIANISM VINDICATED.

WHEN all other objections to Unitarianism fail, it is common for opponents to say, that this system is very well as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. This objection has really had a good deal of influence on common and weak minds; not because it has been understood, or is well founded, but because it is one which any body can make, and every body remembers: besides, as it specifies nothing, and seems to relate rather to imperfection, than to any thing positively wrong, it is, for this reason, at once more likely to be admitted, and more difficult to expose, or repel. These considerations have induced me to undertake, in the following pages, to vindicate Unitarianism from the charge of not going far enough; and this I shall do by showing, that it goes far enough for scripture, far enough for safety, and far enough for moral effect.

I. Unitarianism goes far enough for scripture.

I begin by distinctly stating the true reason why Unitarians do not go any further. It is the same with that