his apostles, sometimes as man, sometimes as God, and sometimes as both God and man. He speaks, and is spoken of, under these different characters promiscuously, without any explanation, and without its being any where declared, that be existed in these different conditions of being. He prays to that being, whom he himself was. He declares himself to be ignorant of what (being God) he knew, and unable to perform what (being God) he could perform. He affirms that he could do nothing of himself, or by his own power, though he was omnipotent. He, the Supreme God, prays for the glory which he had with God, and declares that another is greater than himself. In one of the passages QUOTED IN PROOF OF HIS DIVINITY, he is called the first born of every creature; in another of these passages, the Supreme God is said to have been anointed by God with the oil of gladness above his fellows; and in a third of them, it is affirmed that he became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. If our readers are shocked by the combinations which we have brought together, we beg them to do us the justice to believe that our feelings are the same with their own. But these combinations necessarily result from the doctrine which we are considering. We might go on to fill page after page with inconsistencies as gross and as glaring. The doctrine has turned the scriptures, as far as they relate to this subject, into a book of riddles, and, what is worse, of riddles which admit of no solution. We willingly refrain from the use of that stronger language, which will occur to many of our readers. And this monstrous doctrine is introduced under the pretence of rendering the scriptures clear and consistent.

We do not then believe the doctrine of the Trinity, nor that of the union of two natures in Christ, because they are doctrines, which, when fairly understood, it is impossible from the nature of the human mind we should believe. They involve, as it seems to us, manifest contradictions, and no man can believe what he perceives to be a contradiction. Anive

We are sometimes accused of opposing reason to revelation, of canvassing and questioning what God has clearly revealed. The charge is utterly unfounded. We are accused of qitestioning what God has clearly revealed! The charge is not one of depravity, for it is not in human nature to be guilty of impiety of this sort; but it is a charge of mere insanity or idiocy. "When it is God who speaks," says Calvin, "all agree that there is no man of such deplorable audacity, unless indeed he be destitute of common sense, and of humanity itself, as to refuse credit to the speaker.” To doctrines which

those who hold them contend make a part of God's revelation, we oppose the true revelation from God, contained in the scriptures, which teaches his Unity, and which teaches that Christ is a distinct being, not God, and consequently, as every other being must be, infinitely inferior to God. In what we bave already said we have not been bringing arguments to disprove the doctrines; we have merely been showing that they are intrinsically incapable of any proof whatever; for a contradiction cannot be proved; that they are of such a character, that it is impossible to bring any arguments in their support, and unnecessary to adduce any arguments against them.

Here then we might rest. If we have established this proposition, the controversy is at an end, as far as regards the truth of the doctrines, and as far as it can be carried on against us by any sect of Christians. Till it can be shown that there is some ESSENTIAL mistake in our preceding statements, he who chooses to urge that these doctrines were taught by Christ and his apostles, must do this not as a Christian, but as an unbeliever. If Christ and his apostles communicated a revelation from God, they could make no part of it, for a revelation from God cannot teach absurdities.

But here we have no intention to rest. If we were to do so, we, suppose that, notwithstanding what we have said, the old unfounded complaint would be repeated once more, that we oppose reason to revelation; for there are those, who seem unable to comprehend the possibility, that the doctrines of their seet may make no part of the Christian revelation. What pretence then, we ask, is there for asserting that the doctrines, of which we are speaking, are taught in the scriptures? Certainly they are no where directly taught. It cannot even be pretended that they are. There is not a passage from one end of the Bible to the other, on which you can by any violence force such a meaning, as to make it affirm the proposition, "that in the Godhead are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and that these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory;" or the proposition that Christ was and "continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever." There was a famous passage in the first Epistle of John, (v. 7.) which was believed to affirm something like the first mentioned propo sition; but this every man of tolerable learning and fairness, at the present day, acknowledges to be spurious. And now this is gone, there is not one to be discovered of a similar character. There is not a passage to be found in the scriptures, which can be imagined to affirm either of those doctrines which

some have represented as being at the very foundation of Christianity.

What pretence then is there for saying that these doctrines are taught in the scriptures? In answer to this question, our opponents first bring forward a small number of passages, by which they maintain that it may be proved that Christ is God. We say a small number of passages. It has been remarked, that it is of no consequence whether the number of passages be few or many in which a doctrine is clearly taught in the scriptures. Certainly ;-in which a doctrine is CLEARLY taught. But it is of great consequence, whether the number of passages be few or many, which may bear such an interpretation, that some expressions which they contain shall APPEAR to teach a doctrine irreconcilable with the whole tenor and common language of the scriptures. With these passages, which are adduced as arguments for the divinity of Christ, our opponents likewise bring forward some others which are supposed to intimate or prove the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. It cannot but be observed, however, that Trinitarians for the most part give themselves comparatively little trouble about the latter doctrine, and seem to regard it as following almost as a matter of course, if the former be established. Now there is no dispute that the Father is God; and it being thus proved, that the Son and Spirit are each also God, it is inferred, not that there are three Gods, which seems to us the proper consequence, but that there are three persons in the Divinity. But Christ having been proved to be God, and it being at the same time regarded by our opponents as certain that he was a man, it is inferred also that he was both God and man. The stress of the argument, it thus appears, bears upon the proposition that Christ was God, the second person in the Trinity, the Son.

Without, then, insisting further on the essential character of the two doctrines in question, we will proceed to inquire what the scriptures teach respecting this proposition, that Christ is God, understood in the Trinitarian sense.

1. In the first place we say, that, putting every other part of scripture out of view, and forgetting all that it teaches us, this proposition is clearly proved to be false by the very passages which are brought in its support. We have already had occasion to advert to the character of some of these passages, and we shall now remark upon them a little more fully. They are supposed to prove that Christ is the Supreme God, or God in the highest sense, equal to the Father. Let us see what they really prove.

One of them is that in which our Saviour prays: "And now, Father, glorify thou me with thyself, with that glory which I had with thee before the world was." John xvii. 5.

The being who prayed to God to glorify him, CANNOT be God.

The first verse of John needs particular explanation, and we shall hereafter recur to it again. We will here only observe, that if by the Logos be meant, as Trinitarians suppose, an intelligent being, a person, and not an attribute of God, and this person be Christ, then the person who was WITH God could not have been God, except in that inferior and figurative sense which some Unitarians have supposed.

We proceed to Colossians i. 15., &c. and here, the first words which we find, declare, that the being spoken of is the image of the Invisible God, and the first born of the whole creation. You may take the latter expression in a sense as figurative and remote from its primary meaning as you please; and render it, for instance, chief of the whole creation; but is it possible that any one can believe, that God is affirmed by the apostle to have been the image of God; or that such a metaphor as is conveyed by the word First born, could have been used by him concerning the Almighty? The word, First born, [groTaxes] when used in this metaphorical sense, means as we should expect it to mean from the nature of the metaphor, pre-eminence among beings of the same kind.

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Turn now to Philippians ii. 5-8. According to the Trinitarian translation and exposition, Christ (the Supreme God) did not regard his equality with God as an object of solicitous desire, but bumbled himself, and submitted to death, even the death of the cross. Can any one imagine that he is to prove to us by such passages as these, that the being to whom they relate is the Invisible and Unchangeable God?

Look at Hebrews i. 8, 9. "Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Do you choose to maintain that this language is used concerning one who possessed essential supreme Divinity? If you bring passages of this sort to establish the doctrine, by what use of language, by what possible statements, would you ex pect it to be disproved?

We do not believe that the conclusion of the 5th verse of the 9th chapter of Romans, or the quotation Heb. i. 10. 12. relates to Christ. We conceive that they relate to God, the Father. Laying these for the present out of the question, the passages on which we have remarked are among the principal adduced in support of the doctrine. They stand in the very

first class of proof texts. Let any man put it to his conscience what they do prove.

Again, it is inferred that Christ is God, because it is said, that he will judge the world. To do this, it is said, requires omniscience, and omniscience is the attribute of divinity alone. We answer, that whatever be meant by the judgment of the world spoken of in the New Testament, St. Paul declares that God will judge the world by A MAN* (not a God) whom HE

hath APPOINTED.

Again, it is argued that Christ is God, because supreme dominion is ascribed to him. We do not now inquire what is meant by this supreme dominion; but we answer, that it is no where ascribed to him in stronger language than in the following passage. "Then will be the end, when he delivers up the kingdom to God even the Father; when he shall have destroyed all dominion, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet. **** And when all things are put under him, then will the Son himself be subject to God, who put all things under him, that God may be all in all."+

We do not think that any words can more clearly discriminate Christ from God, and declare his dependence and inferiority; and of necessity his infinite inferiority. We say, as we have said before, infinite inferiority; because an inferior and dependent must be a finite being, and finite and infinite do not admit of comparison.

We do not then believe the doctrine under consideration, because it appears to us to be overthrown by the very argu ments which are brought in its support.

II. But further, we do not believe the doctrine, because we are satisfied, that it contradicts the express and reiterated declarations of our Saviour. According to the doctrine in question, it was THE SON, or the second person in the Trinity, who was united to the human nature of Christ. It was HIS words, therefore, that Christ, as a divine teacher, spoke; and it was through His power, that he performed his wonderful works. But this is in direct contradiction to the words of Christ. He always refers the divine powers which he exercised, and the divine knowledge which he discovered, to the Father, and never to any other person, or to the Deity considered under any other relation or distinction. Of himself, AS THE SON, he always speaks as of a being entirely dependent upon the Father.

* "A man," so the original should be rendered, not "that man:" d. Acts xvii. 31. +1 Cor. xv. 24-28.