the issue of all this discipline. "Thanks be unto God," says she, "I am enjoying a new life. While my friends are mourning over me, I am rejoicing with a calm and holy joy, which has spread itself to the inmost recesses of my soul." And a little further on she assures us, that 'her heaven has already begun, in the way of anticipation.'

.

Now all this is quite sentimental. The book begins, continues, and ends, in a strain of entire consistency, so far as this matter is concerned.

But I am exceeding the bounds allotted me; and long since have doubtless lost all credit with this writer and her friends, for courtesy and kind feeling toward a new and young adventurer on the field of theology. I shall not improbably be ranked among denouncing bigots; nor is it at all unlikely, that I shall be accused as wanting even in the humane toward the gentler part of the creation, both by Mrs. D. and her new friends. I am very sorry to lie under such an imputation; but I really do not know how to help it. If the young adventurer had no such feeling of modesty and diffidence as would make her refrain from so bold an attack on all Trinitarians, I cannot feel myself altogether guilty of a betise, because I defend a sacred enclosure against what I look upon in the light of a profanation. Comity itself must needs have some bounds. Truth must not be sacrificed to mere urbanity. I say this calmly and deliberately, in view of all the outcry that can be made among sentimentalists and exquisites. There are more serious duties to be done by a Christian minister, than to listen to any voice of persuasion that doctrines respecting the Godhead may be compromised by any of the usages of etiquette. I have no other apology, therefore, to make to Mrs. D. or to her new friends, than that I think the truths assailed to be too sacred to be passed by in silence, To her and her advisers in the matter of this publication, if they will tolerate it in this land of freedom, I would even venture to suggest for their consideration, the sentiment of one of the shrewdest observers of human nature which the heathen world ever produced-Ne sutor ultra crepidam. If this advice should be spurned, I would with all diffidence recommend a careful examination of 1 Tim. 2: 12.

I have done with Mrs. D. and her book. But the subjects presented, and the attitude in which some of them are placed, as well as the reasoning grounded upon this, seem to call for a few remarks. I engage that they shall be brief.

Dr. Channing maintains, with much earnestness, the separate

personality and inferiority of the Son of God. But if he has anywhere declared himself explicitly, in respect to the actual rank which Christ holds and the constitution of his person, I have not yet met with the passage. Whether he was Arian or Socinian, in his speculative views, I must confess myself unable satisfactorily to determine. Many things which he says of Christ look much like high Arianism, and he seems to lean to the views of Dr. Samuel Clarke. But whether he actually regarded Christ as created before the world was made, specially whether he did this in the latter part of his life, is not known to me. On the other hand, Socinus and his contemporaries and fellow labourers often speak in exalted terms of the Saviour, and hesitate not to declare that worship is due to him; but still only a secondary worship, such as we may pay to a most exalted character after an apotheosis. If Mrs. D., in sketching her own views, has also given a faithful portrait of the opinions of her confidential advisers, then are they more explicit than Dr. Channing. No names are too high for Christ. He is Lord of all and God over all, and the object of worship and praise; yet all in subordination to one, who, with the same names, is the only and absolute Supreme, and is alone entitled to our highest spiritual homage and worship. She does not even once appear to feel the immeasurable distance there is, between these high Arian notions and the simple Humanitarianism of Priestley, and of a large portion of the Unitarians in England and this country. That Christ was a mere man, when once assumed, leads naturally enough to the inquiry: Whether he was the Son of Mary by a miraculous birth, or the Son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of things. Those who distrust and impugn all miraculous events, of course deny his miraculous birth, and attribute his paternity to Joseph. Of this party, if I rightly understand the matter, there are not a few, among Unitarians of the present day.

To Dr. Channing's admirers and friends in respect to religious sentiment, as well as to all gradations of Humanitarians, I ask liberty here to put a few questions.

The doctrine of the Trinity is rejected and spurned at mainly for two reasons. First, three cannot be one, nor one three, because it is impossible in the nature of things, inasmuch as the proposition presents us with a downright contradiction. Secondly, admitting the possibility of a threefold distinction in the Godhead, the whole matter respecting Christ is covered with impenetrable darkness and wrapped in mystery. The Bible ex

hibits Christ as a man, really and truly a man; and to say, that God and man are united in one person, is affirming a thing both mysterious and impossible. The unity of God, moreover, is virtually denied by such a supposition.

Many aspects of these allegations have already been examined. I touch here only on what needs, perhaps, a fuller development. I have often thought it very strange, that Unitarians of the Arian cast, who complain everywhere of Trinitarians for introducing so much of the mysterious and unintelligible into their creed, never seem once to entertain the suspicion that they are fully exposed to the same charge, even in a still higher degree. If there is any one thing that lies on the very face of all the N. Testament, Gospels and Epistles and Apocalypse, it is that Christ was really and truly man. If the reader has a moment's doubt, I must refer him to pp. 54, 153 above. Indeed this is what all Unitarians of the present day are in the constant habit of affirming, particularly when they wish to expose, what they name the absurdity of Trinitarians, in maintaining that he is truly God.

Let us take them now at their own word. Christ was a man. But what is a man? A human body and a human soul constitute the being to whom we give this appellation. Let Dr. C., then, and all his friends and followers, choose between the horns of the dilemma, on which their assertions place them. 'Christ existed before the world was;' for so of course the Arians must speak. He created the world; he is the object of worship and homage, next to the Father.' Very well. But then, when "the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us," how did he unite with the person of Jesus, so as constitute a being truly man? The old Arian theory was, that he became the soul of the man Jesus. For argument's sake I will concede this, at present. But then I must be allowed of course to make some inquiries here. If the Logos became the soul of Jesus, then in what respect was Jesus really and truly a man? A man is made up of a material body and a reasonable human soul. I have always been accustomed to suppose, moreover, that the soul is, in a high and altogether preeminent sense, the very essence of man or human nature. The body is only the costume; the soul is the person. To talk then of Christ's being a man, and on this ground to deny that he can have a divine nature, and yet to represent him as having no human soul, but only as being inhabited by the Logos-is this steering clear of mystery and even absurdity?

Such is one horn of the dilemma. The other is equally prominent and sharp. A composite person, God and man, is said by Unitarians to be an absurdity. But if so, how is this at all removed by uniting in the person of Jesus the Logos-nature and the fleshly nature? I say fleshly, for I cannot of course speak of human nature, when a human soul is denied to Jesus. Here then Arianism itself brings forward and commends to our faith, a Saviour who is neither human nor divine, neither of the angelic order nor of that of the sons of men. What else is this, but to bid us believe in two natures and one person? Yea, we are called on to admit, that there are two created natures united in one and the same person. This is the other horn of the dilemma.

For my own part, I can much easier believe it to be possible and probable, that the Godhead should; in some mysterious way, unite man who is formed in its own image with itself, than believe that two distinct created beings should form one person. For there, the mind finds some relief from the consideration, that "all things are possible with God."

And how is Arianism to rid itself of this dilemma? In no way whatever, unless it can invent a method of entirely explaining away, either the human nature, or the higher nature of the Logos.

What does it signify, now, for combatants to rush into this contest about the person of Christ, without once stopping to ask, into what difficulties their own sentiments lead them? Truly, among all the theories about the person of Christ, which have troubled the church, I think none is more forbidding, more mysterious, more entirely destitute of any tolerable support from reason or Scripture, than Arianism.

The Humanitarians get rid of the difficulties of two natures in one person. But other difficulties occur. What becomes of the evangelical narrations, which aver that Jesus was born of a virgin? If admitted, then there is at least something of mystery about the matter. An extraordinary man of course he must be. If his miraculous birth is denied, then of course the Gospels are put on the same shelf with Robinson Crusoe and the Tales of my Landlord. Mr. Parker's positions, in the book Of Religion, are of course virtually adopted. But is there no difficulty and no mystery here? This same Christ is said to have been "in the beginning with God;" it is said of him, that he "was God;" that "he made all things;" that "the worlds were created by him;" that he "existed before Abraham;" that he "came out

from the Father, and was about to return to the place from whence he came;" that he "had glory with the Father before the world was;" and yet he is declared by Humanitarians to be merely and only a man. Is there no difficulty and no mystery here? Nay, I may urge this matter still further. Is there any alternative for a truly frank and honest mind here, but that of rejecting the authority of the New Testament, or of giving up the doctrine of simple humanity? All attempts to do away the plain, direct, and simple assertions of these and the like passages, are, and must forever be, unavailing with a straightforward and thoroughly upright mind. The only consistent course in respect to the matter is, to deny the authority of the New Testament writings.

The often asserted impossibility of a union of two natures in one person, may gather credit, but not strength, by its repetition. It does not strike my mind as an impossibility. Are we not ourselves examples of two natures in one person? Even of two natures the opposite of each other-matter and spirit. But does this hinder our being one person? Yea, I might (with Paul and the ancients) appeal to the well known trichotomy, or division into three natures, "body, soul, and spirit." That is, we are made up of a material body, of animal and sensitive life, and of an immortal spirit. Here then are three in one. Why now do not the wonder-haters stand aghast at this, and deny the possibility of it? Because they are aware that the common sense and feelings of men could not be made to side with them in so doing. But when we assert our belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as united in one God, they accuse us of mysticism, of credulity, and even of downright absurdity. In vain do we declare, that we do not take the word person in its common sense as applied to men; in vain do we assert our belief in the unity of God, even the numerical unity and sameness of substance; in vain do we say, that we make no pretences of being able to define or describe the exact nature of the distinctions in the Godhead; in vain do we declare, that whatever those distinctions are, they do not and cannot interfere with unity. We are still met with the old objection endlessly repeated: "Three are not one, and one is not three." Self-evident, we readily confess this proposition to be, when understood as having relation to the same thing in the same respect. But do we ever assert that three persons are one person? Never. We merely affirm that the Godhead, which is one Godhead, consists of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Is this a contradiction or absurdity? It has not yet been shown to be such. I think it cannot be. When our opponents shall prove it