of love is that, which is extended to a person whose principles are to be reprobated, and whose conduct is to be abhorred? Surely not the love of a virtuous, pious mind. Such a mind can love only virtue and piety. Hence the very terms of your definition should have proved to you its looseness and fallacy, and suggested the necessity of a virtue essentially different in its operations from the general principle of love; a virtue by which the compassion and good affections of our nature may be brought into exercise, in favour even of the unprincipled and the vicious, whom we cannot in any proper sense of the word love, except in proportion as we are willing to dispense with holiness and virtue in ourselves.

And again, on the principles of calvinism it is impossible for the charity, which you define, to be extended to any but a very small part of the human race. How can a good man love any of his fellow beings, who are under a sentence of eternal reprobation by an unalterable decree of God, who are totally depraved, destitute of all good and wholly inclined to all evil, whose every deed is wickedness, and whose every thought is rebellion against their Maker? If this be possible, it is a mystery in ethics, which I confess my inability to solve. No good man could love such beings, because every thing in them must be wicked, odious, and repulsive. He might, even under these circumstances, have for them a fellow feeling, or an affection, which the world have united in calling charity, because this dreadful condition would not be their fault, but their misfortune in having been born into the world. Calvinism, therefore, requires something more, than your general virtue of love, unless it would teach its advocates to withhold all civility and kindness from the great mass of men, who were either brought into the world by the Deity with the express

purpose of making them eternally miserable, or who have not yet been released from the bondage of their inherent depravity by a miraculous visitation of divine grace.

But these distinctions, you will say, perhaps, are "popular crudities," the pastimes of erring reason, which may be well enough in common use, but are not sanctioned by the Scriptures, and "ought to receive no countenance from any accurate thinker." That charity requires us to think favourably of the opinions of our brethren, to suppose them sincere and conscientious in the search of truth, and to indulge a hope, that they may be in a fair way of meeting the divine acceptance, you consider a vulgar notion, and "assert with confidence," that it makes no part of the true scripture doctrine. This was a point of much importance in your apology, or defence, for if your position can be made out, then it follows, that unitarians are beside themselves to imagine any want of charity in those, who, in their kind solici tude, call them heretics, utter anathemas against their opinions, and in the spirit of christian love console them with the comforting declarations, that they are not christians at all, and no more in the way of salvation than Mohammedans and Jews, that they cling to "dreadful, soul destroying errors," and in their morals are to be numbered among the loose and licentious, upon whose lives religion has no purifying power. These are all to be taken as the genuine fruits of charity, since it is made to appear, that they may be accompanied with a due degree of scriptural love.

Let us come now to the primary object of inquiry, and endeavour to ascertain what the Scriptures teach respecting the virtue of charity, and whether it be not

allowable to exercise this virtue towards the sincere opinions of our fellow christians.

When you say, that "in the language of Scripture charity is equivalent to the word love," I know not what you mean, unless it be that the original Greek word, which denotes the general principle of love, is sometimes rendered into English by the word charity. This is not denied. It proves nothing, however, except that there was no term in Greek exactly corresponding to the word charity in English. The meaning of the Greek word is to be determined, like the meaning of almost every other word, not by assigning to it an arbitrary, undeviating signification, but by the connexion in which it stands; and this is no difficult thing. Such an attempt at induction might have amazed the schoolmen, and confounded Aquinas himself, but since the days of Locke and Reid the province of thought is too well understood, and the principles of language are too easily apprehended, to admit of difficulties in this process. It is a rule as old as Hilary, that the force of words depends on their sense, and not on their sound. Verba non sono sed sensu sapiunt. This rule is not to be deserted in the Scriptures.

Schleusner, whose accuracy and discrimination will not be called in question by any biblical scholar, has assigned no less than six distinct significations to the word of which we are now speaking. I will not enumerate these, but mention three only, which will be sufficient to show the incorrectness of your assertion.

First, it means the general principle of love, or “an invariable preference of Good," as this principle is defined by a late acute and philosophical writer.* This is the kind of love, which the Deity exercises towards *Cogan's Philosophical Treatise on the Passions, p. 25.

his rational creatures, and which they are capable of exercising towards him. The word always implies this sense, when it is used to denote the love of God.

Secondly, it sometimes means alms-giving, or the conferring of benefits. St. Paul praises the Thessalonians for their labour of love, or their kind offices in relieving his wants and ministering to his comfort. He says to the Hebrews, "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward his name in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister." Here the apostle alludes to their kindness in contributing to the temporal necessities of the persons, who had laboured among them in the ministry. In both cases the word has the sense of charity, as we use the term to denote alms-giving.*

Thirdly, a meaning of the word, which is by far the most frequent in the New Testament, is that embracing the thoughts, feelings, and actions of men in their intercourse with one another. This is the charity, which the apostle says is greater than faith or hope, and which is so beautifully described in the thirteenth chapter of

* As most of the valuable Manuscripts, and all the ancient Greek commentators, omit the word xox8, labour, in the text last quoted, Peirce, in accordance with Mill, thinks it was not written in the original. But, as he justly observes, the sense will not be altered by leaving it out. And he adds, “What the love was they showed, the apostle more fully declares, Heb. x. 33, 34. A very delicate way he takes here to commend the kindness they had shown him, by representing it to have been done out of respect for God himself." Peirce in Loc. For a parallel example of the bounty of the Philippians, see Phil. iv. 18,

The word, ayan, appears to be used in a similar sense, 1 Thess. v. 13. "Esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake." That is, take care to make proper returns for their labours by your deeds of bounty and charity; or, as Schleusner paraphrases it, liberalitati in sustentandis et alendis doctoribus studete.

the first epistle to the Corinthians. It is that virtue, which displays itself in active deeds of benevolence, gentleness, mercy; which teaches us humility, forbearance, and a just sense of the wants and the deserts of our fellowmen; and which, in short, preserves and regulates the order of society, by restraining the passions and bringing out the good qualities of our nature. It is a virtue arising entirely out of the condition of men, their mutual dependence, and the necessity of reciprocal benefits. If human nature were perfect, if we had neither faults nor wants, such a virtue could not exist.

That there is a broad and strongly marked distinction between the three meanings here noticed, is manifest on the slightest inspection. The same thing will be confirmed by comparing the properties of the virtue under each signification. No use of language will allow you to speak of the charity of God. The duties, which men owe to one another, or the duties of charity, have no relation, either to the character or the actions of the Supreme Being; nor have they any concern in our relations to him. We cannot be charitable to God, although we may and ought to love him. In giving alms, our charity may prompt us to relieve the distresses of a man, whose infamy and vices utterly forbid the exercise of love. We may comply with the commands of our Saviour, and have charity for our enemies in both of the two latter senses above mentioned, but we have not power to do so much violence to human nature, as to love them in the first sense, while we know they are our enemies, and resolved to do us an injury when an opportunity shall offer.

But there is no occasion to dwell on this point. Nothing can be more clear than these distinctions, and