the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[206] that if we extend our views of its application to more distant ages, it is difficult to perceive why the Apostle should be supposed to limit himself to a denunciation of the apostacy and corruption which prevailed in one portion of the Christian world, when it is but too manifest that the same principles and the same antichristian spirit have prevailed, and exercised a most pernicious influence in almost every age, country, and denomination of professing Christians. Wherever any form of Christianity has been established by the interference and patronage of the civil power, we have commonly seen too clear indications of the disposition to assume unholy dominion, and to lord it over the consciences of men, which is here characterized under the figurative expression of ‘the man of sin.’ The spirit of intolerance and persecution was little less conspicuous in the ranks of the reformers than among the adherents of the Romish church, and led to the same dreadfull excesses and flagrant violations of the law of Christ, in a narrower sphere and to a less extent, only because their power and their opportunities of exercising it were more limited. We may hope, however, that this spirit is in a great measure abated, and that few would now be found to hesitate in receiving the admonition with which our author concludes: ‘Let us ever take care to watch against a persecuting spirit, in all the branches and degrees of it, and to lay the great stress of religion where the scriptures of the New Testament have laid it,—not in abstruse notions and unintelligible subtleties,—not in forms and ceremonies, or an empty profession of the best and purest religion; but in the sincere love of ’