y, from Herbert to Hume, have been seldom read. They made
some stir in their day: during their span of existence they were noisy
and noxious; but like the locusts of the east, which for a while obscure
the air, and destroy the verdure, they were soon swept away and
forgotten. Their very names would be scarcely found, if Leland had not
preserved them from oblivion.

The account which has been given, of the secret, but grand, source of
infidelity, may perhaps justly be extended, as being not seldom true in
the case of those who deny the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel.

In the course which we lately traced from nominal orthodoxy to absolute
infidelity, Unitarianism[126] is indeed, a sort of half-way house, if
the expression may be pardoned; a stage on the journey, where sometimes
a person indeed finally stops, but where, not unfrequently, he only
pauses for a while, and then pursues his progress.

The Unitarian teachers by no means profess to absolve their followers
from the unbending strictness of Christian morality. They prescribe the
predominant love of God, and an habitual spirit of devotion: but it is
an unquestionable fact; a fact which they themselves almost admit, that
this class of religionists is not in general distinguished for superior
purity of life; and still less for that frame of mind, which, by the
injunction "to be spiritually, not carnally, minded," the word of God
prescribes to us, as one of the surest tests of our experiencing the
vital power of Christianity. On the contrary, in point of fact,
_Unitarianism_ seems to be resorted to, not merely by those who are
disgusted with the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; but by those also
who are seeking a refuge from the strictness of her practical precepts;
and who, more particularly, would escape from the obligation which she
imposes on her adherents, rather to incur the dreaded charge of
singularity, than fall in with the declining manners of a dissipated
age.

Unitarianism, where it may be supposed to proceed from the understanding
rather than from the heart, is not unfrequently produced by a confused
idea of the difficulties, or, as they are termed, the impossibilities
which orthodox Christianity is supposed to involve. It is not our
intention to enter into the controversy:[127] but it may not be improper
to make one remark as a guard to persons in whose way the arguments of
the Unitarians may be likely to fall; namely, that one great advantage