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

[116] of peace deeply deplored at the time, became, in the hands of Providence, the instrument of important and extensive good. The parties who had been severally applied to from Exeter, when it was determined on to lay the question before the general body of ministers in London, were each bent on carrying the matter in their own way, and made great exertions to collect together as strong a body of supporters as they could. The friends of Mr. Peirce came prepared with a series of propositions entitled ‘Advices for Peace;’ of which the fourth, and most important, is as follows: ‘If, after all, a public hearing be insisted on, we think that the Protestant principle, that the Bible is the only and the perfect rule of faith, obliges those who have the case before them not to condemn any man on the authority of human decisions, or because he consents not to human forms and phrases: but then only is he to be censured as not holding the faith necessary to salvation, when it appears that he contradicts, or refuses to own, the plain and express declarations of holy scripture in what is there made necessary to be believed, and in matters there solely revealed. And we trust that all will treat the subjects of their common Lord, as they who expect the final decision at his appearing.’ The promoters of these ‘Advices,’ though deprecating any reference to human creeds, disclaim the imputation that they are themselves favourable to any other than the commonly-received notions on the subject of the Trinity; and this was probably true to a certain extent; though we perceive, in the list of signatures attached to them, the names of some who then were, and of others who afterwards became,