to have been an ever varying and obscure and indefinable doctrine, and therefore cannot be important to the Christian, much less essential to his salvation? The answer to this suggestion is not difficult. I ask, first, is it not true, that the great body of the Christian churches, in every age, have regarded Christ as truly divine, and considered him as the proper object of worship, and the Being to whom their prayers might be properly directed? I admit, for I have already shown, that the metaphysical speculations of every age have been more or less varying, and sometimes in certain repects even opposite-speculations respecting the modus of the connection between Father, Son, and Spirit, the personality of each, the relation of the higher and lower natures in the person of Christ, and in regard to some other things of the like kind. But may not men make endless mistakes, and exhibit a countless variety of opinions, when they undertake to specificate and define that which in its very nature is beyond the reach of definition? And may not the mistakes or errors which they commit, pertain altogether more to philosophical views about the modus of things, than to their essence or reality? How easy it would be to show the like state of things in regard to most of the objects of intellectual or natural philosophy! It is sufficient to mention two simple things, in the existence and leading properties of which every rational being now alive on earth believes, who is in possession of common sense and has the use of his faculties-I mean light and heat. But is there any end of the disputes about these? Or is there like to be an end? It is not even yet decided, whether these are material substances or not, nor in what way the sensation of light in us is produced. It is not decided whether the sun radiates both, in such a manner as must attach itself to subtile and attenuated fluid substances, or whether his presence in the sky only occasions an action in the atmosphere, or in the empyreal fluid, which terminates in affecting our senses with the perception of light and heat. But is any man deterred by the endless disputes in relation to these subjects, from believing in the reality of light and heat? So far as I know, there is not, and never has been, even one.

Why now should the ever varying efforts of men to define the personality of the Godhead, and to define the manner in which the person of Christ is constituted, prevent our believing in what the Scriptures have asserted to be a matter of fact, viz., that Christ is both God and man? To show a priori that such a fact involves an impossibility or an absurdity, is out of question.

If we adhere to the authority of revelation, then we must simply inquire: What does revelation say? We need not-should not -go.to the ever varying phases of the doctrine of the Trinity, as taught by the Fathers and by the Schools, in hope of learning what cannot be taught by men, because it is beyond their reach. And if nearly, or (to a certain extent) quite, all the diversities of opinion that exist, have respect to things which are beyond the boundaries of human knowledge, why should this be made a ground for rejecting the substance of that in which the churches have been and are agreed? That substance, as it appears to me after not a little investigation of the history of the doctrine in question, seems to be, that Christ possesses a truly divine nature, which makes him a proper object of worship, of homage, and of prayer. It lies on the face of past history, that the Christian church was never, for any considerable length of time, satisfied with anything which they regarded as amounting to less than this. The New Testament always stood in the way of theories below this, and brought the church out, sooner or later, against them.

There cannot be any reasonable doubt, in respect to the unaffected reverence and homage paid to Christ by such men as Origen and Eusebius of Cesarea. Yet they held the doctrine of eternal generation in the homoiousian form, i. e. they held only that the Son was like to the Father. For us, this sentiment would throw an insuperable obstacle in the way of homage and worship to him, as a Being who is truly divine. But not so to them. Their philosophy forbade not the idea of emanation from God, and the emanation of a being like to him, but of course dependent on him. Yet here an escape from maintaining the decided inferiority of the Son, was designedly provided for, by holding that the generation or emanation of the Son was eternal, and therefore he must be divine. With their philosophy we cannot possibly agree; but their real theology is less discrepant from ours, than we may be inclined to imagine.

It is plain enough, that, when the churches had become alarmed with the tendency of Origen's speculations, and especially when this alarm had become almost a consternation, at the period in which Arius broached his famous problem: There was a time when the Son was not; and also asserted that he was merely created before the world began, (a view much below that of Origen); it is plain, I say, that the church spoke out its convictions at Nice, so as to contradict both Origen and Arius, although Arius was the person mainly and immediately aimed at in their

Creed. The Homoiousy of Origen and Arius is exchanged for Homoousy, i. e. like substance with the Father is exchanged for sume substance; the created or made of Arius is exchanged for eternally begotten. This puts aside at once both Origenism and Arianism, and makes in fact a very important advance towards the scripture doctrine of the Trinity-as great an one as could with any good reason be expected, at the commencement of the fourth century.

But still, with all the veneration which I feel for the Christian fathers, and all which in addition to this is naturally attached to a Creed so long and so widely diffused and honoured, I must confess myself to be entirely at a loss, how an intelligent Trinitarian, of the present time, can consent to admit this Creed as the leading Symbol of a Christian confession of faith. First, as a summary of Christian doctrine it is essentially defective; for it contains little else but a contradiction of the peculiarities of Arius. All the leading and fundamental doctrines of grace are omitted. Secondly, it asserts a doctrine, viz. that of eternal generation, which we of the present day, taught as we have been in respect to the essential attributes of Godhead, cannot possibly admit, without at the same time admitting, that the Son is neither selfexistent nor independent. But a being destitute of these two attributes we cannot regard as " God over all and blessed forever." I have no apprehension that the Nicene fathers meant to assert or concede the inferiority of the Son, or to imply a doubt of his true divinity. But, as I have already said, their metaphysics (such as they were) permitted them to believe in derived Godhead, and yet to make it homoousian with its source! But in this calculation the attributes of self-existence and independence were overlooked. A being derived, begotten, emanated, or created, cannot, even in imagination, be supposed to be self-existent or independent. All that is said of mysteriousness, and of the inconceivably super-natural, in respect to the mode of generation, does not touch the point in question. The favourite simile of Tertullian, and after him of all the orthodox fathers and even of the writers of modern times, is that of radiance proceeding from the sun. It is,' say they, 'coeval with the sun, and existed the first moment that the sun had an existence; and moreover, it is part of the sun, or of the same nature with him, and yet the emission of it does not diminish or alter the sun.' But on closer examination, we find that this comparison will not abide the test; not even as to time. It comes near to illustrating the eternity of the Son's generation, but does not reach the mark. If the

sun is the cause of radiance, then did the cause precede the effect. As to the rest; does not radiance depend upon the sun, which is its proper cause? And is the Logos caused and dependent, and yet God supreme? And when it is said that radiance is homoousian with the sun itself; how can it be true, that the cause of radiance and radiance itself are the same? Moreover, if radiance is material, then does the sun suffer a change by emitting it. If it is not material, then it depends on successive influences of the sun. Of course, there is no one point of the comparison which will abide the test. It must be true, that the necessary concomitant of generation, emanation, or creation, is dependence on the being which begets, or emanates, or creates. Dependence, however, and self-existence are direct opposites.

These considerations seem so plain and obvious, that I must confess it to be a matter of surprise to me, that any Trinitarians of the present day should adopt and defend the Nicene Creed, as part of their profession of faith..

I say nothing here of the so called Athanasian Creed; because it is generally admitted, as I suppose, that there is no satisfactory proof that Athanasius was the author of it. Dr. Waterland ascribes it to Hilary, bishop of Arles. It was first received in France, about A. D. 850; in Spain and Germany, about 1030. In some parts of Italy it was current about 960; at Rome, it was admitted in 1014. Many churches, viz. the Lutheran, the Episcopal (of Europe), and others, receive and retain it. It is more minute and circumstantial than the Nicene; but it leaves the main difficulty, viz. derivation and dependence, unremoved. Any Creed, which predicates these of the Logos or divine nature of Christ, cannot be mine. It is far below what I call orthodoxy, at the present time. We cannot take such a position, while enlightened views of the true nature of Godhead are widely diffused, without incurring the certain risk of teaching what is indeed somewhat in advance of Arianism, but still, as to the two most distinctive attributes of the Godhead, viz. self-existence and independence, it occupies common ground with the same heresy. For surely it differs from it, in respect to the matter now before us, only in the terminology which it employs.

I must now beg leave further to remark, that I know of no one topic in theology, which has been more abused, whether in the way of reasoning, or of appealing to the ancient fathers, than that of the Trinity. Some reason from all declarations respecting this doctrine, just as if language concerning it were employed in its ordinary sense as applied to finite and created be

ings. This has been usual among Antitrinitarians, in all ages. The appeals to the ancient Christian fathers have been endless; and unfortunately, all parties can find something in them, which they may manage to convert to their own use. Strictness of definition in regard to such a subject, among writers so little guided by the logic of Aristotle, or any other logic, as the fathers were, is out of all reasonable question. There is not one of them, in which we cannot find at least seeming discrepancies and contradictions. This lays them open to abuse and perversion. Then oftentimes their notions of the Godhead seem to be so discrepant from ours, particularly in regard to the pure spirituality of his nature, that what they sometimes say is capable of a meaning apparently very strange, and at variance with the general tenor of their language.

These are sources enough for originating mistakes, and to render the ground of the fathers rather a hazardous one to be trodden by a partisan or sectarian. Dr. Priestley has shown, on one side, and Waterland, as I think, on the other, not only what opposite conclusions may be drawn from the same general sources, but how almost anything and everything can be made out of hasty or not well digested expressions, when one sets out to carry a point at all adventures, and moreover does not enter, with any good degree of success, into the spirit of the age when the works of the fathers were written. A more incondite and unfair book than Priestley's History of Early Opinions, is rarely to be met with. Dr. Priestley was much more appropriately employed in the chemical than in the patristical laboratory.

Among the many hundreds of books, which have professed to give the views of the Christian fathers respecting the doctrine of the Trinity and the dignity and person of the Son of God, I know of but one, which is not a mere compilation of fragments and insulated and scattered parts. The idea of a regular order in the topics, and the unfolding of a principle, which may be called the trunk from which limbs have been continually shooting off; the conception of a general unity, with demarcations of specific variety; seem to have entered thoroughly into the mind of no writer, previous to the recent admirable Essay of Prof. J. A. Dorner, of the university of Tübingen, in his History of the Unfolding of the Doctrine respecting the Person of Christ. To him I am much indebted for some of the views correspondent with such a plan, in the present Note.*

*I take great pleasure in adding, that it appears by the catalogue of books in Germany, that he is enlarging, filling out, and completing the