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to, or are represented as arising, in close and obvious connection, from the truths and facts then adduced.

It may be difficult, notwithstanding the tone of authority and triumph with which Mr. Fuller writes, for him to trace the supposed success of Calvinistic preachers, immediately, closely and exclusively to the Calvinistic doctrines they deliver for they can not preach such tenets, without also bringing into a strong point of view, at the same time, the great principles of God's government, a resurrection and a future judgment, which the Socinians hold equally with themselves. And can He or any other pretend to say, where the impressions made by these principles terminate; and those produced by the additional doctrines, by the explanations of the christian scheme mingled with the former, commence? Is it possible, amidst such a combination of principles and influences, to ascertain the precise influence of each? In the preaching of the apostles and the effects it produced, we sce what the doctrine, which was in substance pure Unitarianism, could do, and did do, by itself; free from any adventitious mixtures.

So that I must still consider the examples alleged from the Acts of the Apostles, so far from being foreign to the argument, as most pointed and to the purpose: as furnishing a most decisive proof of the efficacy of pure Unitarianism; of its efficacy in leading men to God, to faith, to holiness, and salvation.

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I submit this general defence of the ground I have taken, to your consideration, and remain

Dear Sir,

Respectfully,

Your obliged Friend and Servant

LETTER

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now, before me, the lamentation of one, of no little eminence : lamenting, that in the congregation, which is dear to him as one of the first fruits of his youthful ministry, when many souls were called and saved by grace, though it is as large as in the best of his days, little real work has of late been done. "From whence,'my God," he exclaims, "is this suspension? "Is the fault in me, or is it in them? Or is it, that I "am to be called elsewhere, by being driven to give a "less portion of my time to a people, who by seeing, they see, and do not perceive; and by hearing, they "hear, and do not understand?" In these instances Mr. F. it may be supposed, is ready to assign some principles and causes, whatever they may be, which counteract the efficacy of the truth. He will be justified by reason and experience in doing so. It is plain, from the parable of the sower, that the divine seed is not always productive of fruits: that the energy of it may be overpowered by outward circumstances; and that its efficacy is dependent on the soil, in which it is sown. Why should not truth and candor admit the like considerations in abatement of the suspicion, that may lie against Unitarian principles from the defective piety and virtue of those who hold them; especially if it can be shown, as I conceive I clearly have shown, that, under the influence of such principles, as now bear that name, one thousand have been born in a day?—

[* Rowland Hill's Journal of a Tour, p. 65.]

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These

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These remarks on the test of truth, which Mr. Fuller would set up, viz. what is that doctrine, in the present day, which is productive of the best moral effects, derive support from the reflection of an excellent person; who appears to have been disposed to apply this test to the different parties of christians, but found its fallacy. "All the churches in Christendom,American, Holland, Hungarian, Greek, "Armenian, Moravian, have so much imperfection, "and above all so little of the holy life, that I am "sometimes at a loss where to look for the true church. "Thanks be to God, in every denomination, in the "church universal, I can read of particular persons and

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particular churches, and some clusters of churches, "eminent for piety: with all these my soul unites and "harmonises *."

Mr. Fuller's confidence in his test of truth may, probably, yield, in a degree, if not to these strictures, yet to the concession of a writer, who applauds his work. The eloquent Mr. Wilberforce affirms †,

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that the doctrines he calls peculiar, were griev"ously abused by many of the sectaries who, while they talked copiously of the free grace of Christ, " and the operations of the Holy Spirit, were by "their lives an open scandal to the name of Chris"tian." Yet neither Mr. Fuller, any more than

[* Life of President Stiles. P. 20.]

[t Practical View, P. 380.]

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"on their authority *." Mr. Fuller, therefore, mistakes the text. It doth not sanction the test of truth, which he has adopted. Yet the force of all his reasoning, even supposing him to have sufficient grounds for accusing Socinians, as a body of people, of a want of devotion and holiness, depends on the manner, in which he interprets those words.

If he judge it proper and right, a just and conclusive mode of reasoning, to infer the falsehood of Unitarian principles from the conduct of those who embrace them, and from the sentiments they may hold on other points, what will he do with the inference that might be drawn (according to his own mode of reasoning) from the immoralities of some of the first christians, whom the apostles thought it needful severely to reprehend? Will he say, that those immoralities impeached the truth and divinity of the gospel, which they, who were guilty of them, had embraced? Need Mr. Fuller be reminded, that, as the apostle remarked, there have been persons who "held the truth in unrighteousness?" Rom. i. 18. Need Mr. Fuller be reminded, that great bodies of men, assembled to ascertain, profess, and sanction, by their votes and decrees, the principles which he deems most essential to a holy conduct, have in those very transactions manifested the worst passions, and been wholly actuated by pride, ambition, insolence of spirit, and

[* Doddridge's Family Expositor in loc. Note (1)]

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