We cannot tell how others may regard this part of the subject, but we frankly confess that we view it of high practical importance and are shocked by that irreverence with which many seem to approach it. The incomprehensibility of the divine nature is inseparable from what we regard as the justest conceptions of the Deity, and essential to the best feelings of devotion with which man can approach him. Never do we lift the adoring eye with such intense emotion before his throne, never do we bow with such deep humiliation in his presence, never do we derive such a constraining power from his high authority and never do we cherish such a cheerful acquiescence in his universal government, as when baffled and lost in the height and depth of that mystery in which God hides himself. We should feel it to be a degradation of the Being whom we worship, the overthrow of all our accustomed conceptions of him, to know that Mr. C. or the Reviewer had so comprehended his nature as to be able to pronounce with infallibility the things concerning him which in their ignorance they have I ventured to pronounce. The God whose existence in its very nature precludes all cause and all derivation, whose duration retires into the immeasurable depths of a past eternity, and the immensity of whose every attribute mocks all created thought, is the God, in whom we believe. In our contemplations of him, when la bouring with the utmost comprehension of thought of which we are capable, instead of grasping the mysterious and ineffable idea, we know that we have formed but a faint and shaded image of him, whom no man can see and live. It is the thought of what eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath entered the heart of man to conceive that enthrones the object of our adoration in the grandeur and glories of divinity. Reduce him to the limits of human comprehension, bring him down to that insignificance which shall enable man to fathom and unfold his mode of existence, and we should feel that the sanctuary of the Eternal, were emptied of its glories and ourselves left without God and without hope in the world. We shall now make some remarks on what seems to us the unfairness and dishonesty, with which Mr. C. and the Reviewer have conducted the controversy on their part. First, they constantly misrepresent the doctrine of the Trinity. It has been affirmed again and again by Trinitarians, that they use the word person when applied to the Godhead, out of its ordinary acceptation. But the fact has already appeared that neither Mr. C. nor the Reviewer notices the Trinitarian explanations of the term in his argument. They still affix to it their own meaning, and regardless of our denials and explanations, they still hold themselves the only authorized interpreters of our language, and boldly maintain that a person is a being." This single position is the pillar of all their reasoning. Without it they have not even a pretence to argument, and throughout the review there is not a reason given for rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, which does not derive all its force from the unauthorized assumption that in the language of Trinitarians "a person is a being." Is it fair, is it honest? Just as fair, just as honest, as it would be to affirm that a triangle is a circle, and thence proceed to prove that the former is a figure without angles. Secondly, Unitarians represent the inferior nature of Christ, as proof that he is not God. Scarcely a text adduced by Trinitarians in proof of the divinity of Christ is rejected by Mr. C. or the Reviewer except on the ground that the divinity of the Saviour is inconsistent with his inferior nature. The arguments of the Reviewer professedly derived from the scriptures to prove that Christ is not divine, are extended through several pages, but in no one of them can we discover the shadow of plausibility, unless the apparent or real inconsistency of the humanity and divinity of Christ be assumed. But it happens again that we have the Reviewer's confession on the point which we wish to substantiate. He says "if this be fact, (that Christ was man) then the only question that need be examined is, whether it be possible for Christ to have been at once God and man, &c." It is the only question; and why does the Reviewer assume the very point in debate, as if there were no question concerning it? The scriptures unequivocally teach that Christ was man ; but this is no proof that they do not also teach that he was God, unless it be proved that his humanity was inconsistent with his divinity. Nor even then; for in that case the proof is furnished by the inconsistency of the doctrines, and not by the Bible. Only concede that it is as reasonable to believe on scrip tural authority that Christ was God manifest in the flesh, as to believe that he was a mere man, and all this scriptural argumentation, of the Reviewer comes to naught. If Unitarians are able, let them prove a priori that it is impossible that Christ should be both God and man, but let them not attempt to palm the mere assumption of the fact upon their readers as a scriptural argument. This, Mr. C. and the Reviewer have done. Is it fair, is it honest ? But the reviewer is not satisfied without imputing to us the grossest irreverence and impiety. Will you, at the present day, shock our feelings and understandings to the utter most, by telling us, that Almighty God was incarnate in this infant, and wrapt in swaddling clothes?-p. 388. Here the assumption is, that Trinitarians hold that the Lord Jesus was merely God and that they predicate that concerning the divine Being, which could be true only of a mere human being; in other words we are made to say that the Almighty was a mere human being. For if it be admitted that Christ was both God and man, what can there be so shocking to Unitarian sensibilities, in stating on the one hand his divinity, and on the other those facts which respect his humanity. Do we in such a statement affirm, that which implies that the Almighty was a mere human being? Will the Reviewer say, that this is our creed? If not what do we maintain that produces such a revolt of feeling and of intellect? The plain fact is that the Reviewer imputes to us the monstrous and shocking impiety of predicating that of divinity, which could be true only of mere humanity. Taking our creed then, as it is, we with no less propriety and no less emotion than the Reviewer, might ask will you shock our feelings and our understandings to the uttermost by telling us that—but we refuse to repeat the language of the writer. The sentiment and the argument might be expected from the infidel. The "bad eminence" of being willing to express them in terms of such irreverent vulgarity and with the implication intended we concede to the Reviewer and his compeers.+ such an unrestricted charge that some few * We can regard it as no vindication of Trinitarians have used unguarded language on this subject. The devout Dr. Watts has we think, sometimes fallen into this error. It consists in not sufficiently distinguishing the circumstances and properties which belong to one nature of Christ from those which belong to the other; or in supposing that what may be predicated of his complex person as mediator, may be predicated either of his human or divine nature indiscriminately. "The incarceration of the Creator of the world in the body of a helpless. puling infant is &c."--Belsham Thirdly, Unitarians decide the doctrines of the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ to be false, independently of the authority of the Scriptures. These doctrines are spoken of again and again, by Mr. C. and the Reviewer, "as involving gross absurdity," as "essentially incredible"-as "intrinsically incapable of any proof whatever"-as those "which could make no part of a revelation from God"-and which "it is impossible from the nature of the human mind we should believe.*" With such views it is plain that the question of the truth or falsehood of the doctrines in debate, cannot in the minds of Unitarians be at all affected by the testimony of holy writ. The question is forestalled and settled in every such mind, by its own independent decisions. Nor can doctrines thus absurd, if found in the Bible be matters of faith, for no man can be lieve what it is impossible from the nature of the human mind he should believe. To inquire in such a case, what saith the scripture, with a view to submit to its authority on the supposition that it teaches the doctrines in debate, is impossible, and to profess to do so, grossly hypocritical. The only object in recurring to the inspired volume must be either to invent some novel and violent method of interpretation to preserve the character of the writers, or to reject their declarations as corrections or interpolations, or to convict them of inconclusive reasonings, or to impute to them an excessive fondness for high wrought figures of speech, or what seems to us more consistent either to deny the inspiration of the writers, or to impeach the veracity of Him who inspired them. Whether any one or more of these motives govern Mr. C. and the Reviewer in the study of the word of God, it becomes not us to "The doctrine of the Trinity, if it had been found there (in the word of God) it would have been impossible for any reasonable man to believe, as it implies a contradiction which no piracies can rove."-Dr. Priestley Be decide, but them to inquire. this as it may, the fact which we have stated seems undeniable; they must come to the scriptures when the present questions are agitated with the whole case prejudged and decided, for if they believe the bible to be the word of the God of truth, to make it a question whether it teaches absurdities and contradictions as matters of faith, is beyond the limits of human folly. It is equally plain, that they labour to bring the minds of their readers to the subject, occupied with the same conviction of absurdity as a preparative to set aside the decisions of the scriptures. So far as they succeed in this attempt the main questions will be decided in a manner that will save time and study and prayer, but still in a manner which utterly precludes the testimony of the God of truth, from the least influence is determining their faith. It is true indeed, that both Mr. C. and the Reviewer profess to argue against the divinity of Christ from the scriptures. Such, however, is their mode of argument that it only enhan ces in our estimation the evidence of their disrespect for the inspired volume. This method consists in citing texts which speak of Christ's inferi ority, and in stating facts concerning Christ as a man, and hence inferring that he was not God; in pointing out the manner in which they suppose the doctrine would have been taught if revealed, and in specifying certain effects which as they suppose the doctrine, if taught, must have produced, and inferring that because their conjectures are not realized in matters of fact, the doctrine is not taught. Such is the proof professedly adduced from the Bible that Christ is not divine! But we are constrained to ask, how does the Unitarian notion of inconsistency between the human and divine natures of Christ, how does the opinion of Mr. C. and the Reviewer respecting the proper method of teaching the doctrine, or how do their conjectures respecting the effects which the teaching of the doctrine would have produced, partake of the nature of scriptural proof? And yet they would persuade us that their denial of the divinity of Christ, which arises simply from these opinions and conjectures of their own minds, rests upon the "prevailing sense of the whole New Testament." Is it fair, is it honest? Fourthly; Unitarians charge Trinitarians with great diversity of views and opinions, as proof that the doctrine of the Trinity is indefensible. Without retorting upon them the charge of diversity of opinion, unparalleled among the advocates of any cause, or to some extent, the sin of believing nothing,* we ask is diversity of opinion on any subject the least evidence that no one of those who differ, holds the truth? Is no man in the right but he who denies every doctrine of the Bible, on the ground that men have not been agreed in the doctrines of the scriptures, or in their mode of defending those doctrines? Are we to infer, as the Reviewer intimates, that Unitarians only are in the right, because they only agree respecting the doctrines in debate, and this perhaps only in the single point of rejecting them? Such are their intimations, such are the impressions which they aim to make on the minds of their readers. Is it fair, is it honest? On the question between us and the atheist, the same premises exist; diverse views of the character of God have been adopted, and false arguments used to prove his existence; are we hence to infer, that there is no God? Fifthly, Unitarians constantly represent the true doctrine of the Trinity, as a mere evasion. The evidence *Dr. Priestley, their great master not excepted. He tells us that he was once a Calvinist, and that of the straitest sect, that afterwards he became an high Arian, next a low Arian, and then a Socinian, and in a little time, a Socinian of the lowest kind, in which Christ is considered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and naturally as fallible and peccable as Moses or any other prophet. He added also that he did not know when his creed would be fixed. Vid. Fuller's Letters. Vol. 3-No. IV. 26 of this fact has already appeared. Suppose we should adopt the same world say of us? They would just ly say we were greatly to be pitied for our ignorance, or greatly to be blamed for our perversity. And now what is the difference between our charging them with being infidels, and their charging us with being tritheists? And if they may thus ascribe to us the belief of three Gods, why not the belief of thirty, or of thirty thousand? A more outrageous violation of the rights of controversy cannot be named. Sixthly, Mr. C. and the Reviewer appear to us to have written for the exclusive purpose of supporting their own cause, not to advance the cause of truth, by convincing their opponents of error. We cannot persuade ourselves that these men would have submitted to the labour of writing what they have written, without proposing some end, which, as reasonable men, they could hope to accomplish. This end, we farther suppose, must have been either to subserve the interests of their own party exclusively, or, in connexion with this, the cause of truth. On the latter supposition, while they would expect to confirm the faith of those who think with them, they would honestly hope and believe, that they should present such arguments as would be sufficient and well adapted, to convince their opponents of error. If, then, it appears that, as men of ordinary discernment, they must have been well satisfied that their arguments were wholly insufficient in the nature of them, and that their mode of managing the controversy was in no sense adapted to convince an intelligent and upright opponent of error, it follows, not only that they are conscious of the weakness of their own cause, but that they could have submitted to their present labours, for no other purpose than to subserve the interests of their own party. To the question then: could Mr. C. or the Reviewer have believed that their arguments were in the nature of them really sufficient, or at all adapted to convince an honest and intelligent Trinitarian of error? Particularly, could they have believed it sufficient to convince him |