to my own peculiar views, or to the views of any one denomination, as to what the text of the original ought to be. I shall always refer to the text of the original, as settled by the researches of learned men of various denominations, and as received by enlightened Christians of every portion of the Church.

With the views of Scripture now unfolded and explained, the question to be answered in the following Lectures is simply this: What testimony do the sacred writings, in their original form and fairly interpreted, bear with reference to God, to Christ, and to the nature, duty, and destiny of man? My sole design and purpose is to reason from the Scriptures; my only object is to receive and to communicate the light of God's revealed word upon those departments of religious truth, on which Christians are the most widely at variance. And my sincere prayer for you and for myself is, that the Infinite Spirit of truth may guide us into all truth, and through the truth may redeem and sanctify

us.

3

LECTURE I.

THE DIVINE NATURE.

EPHESIANS IV. 6.

ONE GOD AND FATHER OF ALL, WHO IS ABOVE ALL, AND THROUGH ALL, AND IN YOU ALL.

My object, in the course of lectures which I now commence, is to exhibit, so far as I am able, a fair and candid view of the points, on which most of us differ from other classes of Christians, and of the grounds, on which our peculiar views rest. In doing this, it will of course be necessary for me to make reference to the creeds of others; but such reference will be made as seldom as possible, in a spirit of unfeigned kindness, and, I trust, in a kindly tone and manner. My aim is, not controversy, but truth. I wish to aid you in the establishment of your own faith, not to furnish you with the means of attacking your neighbors. I wish to have you capable of maintaining and defending your views of Christian truth when they are assailed, and of instructing in them the young and inquiring; but should be exceedingly sorry to see among you that proselyting spirit, which would make incursions into other folds, or hurl the missiles of theological warfare at those, who have adopted other modes of faith. Equally sorry should I

be, that you should take any views of truth on my authority. Let me act only as your pioneer.

Our text implies the unity of God. This doctrine there is no need of our defending against Polytheism. But there has grown up in the Christian church a doctrine, which, to those who reject it, seems as much opposed to the divine unity, as any form of Polytheism is. I mean the doctrine of the TRINITY. This will be my subject this evening. We will first inquire whether the Bible teaches, or implies, the view of the divine nature designated by this word; and, if it shall appear that the Bible teaches no such doctrine, we will then endeavor to ascertain whence it comes. I shall reserve for future lectures the arguments for and against the supreme divinity of our Saviour, and for and against the personality of the Holy Spirit, and shall confine myself this evening to the single point of a threefold distinction in the divine nature.

We ought at the outset to define the Trinity. But here we are thrown into confusion; for hardly any two writers will agree upon the same definition. We may, however, classify the definitions given, and may thus show the different senses, in which this doctrine has been professed and held.

1. There are many professed Trinitarians, particularly of the English church, who maintain the supremacy of the first person of the Trinity, and the subordinate rank of the other two. This was the belief of Bishop Bull, who wrote much upon the subject, was called in England a Trinitarian, and was deemed an able defender of the creed of his own church, but

whose writings would pass, (and justly,) as Unitarian, on this side of the Atlantic. Indeed, his is nearly the same doctrine, on account of which, Rev. Noah and Thomas Worcester, of our own State, were, thirty or forty years ago, cast out as heretics by their clerical brethren; and a singular fact it is, that, for similar views, similarly expressed, Christian ministers should, on one side of the Atlantic, be crowned with fame and honor, in a Trinitarian church, as defenders of the faith, and on the other side should be compelled to take up the cross of persecution, and bear the reproach of heresy. But our American clergy were right. The second and third persons of the Trinity either are selfexistent, or were created. If self-existent, they must needs be independent. Having within themselves the cause of their own existence, they must be complete and self-sufficient, so that they cannot have come into subjection to any other being. But, according to Bishop Bull, they are subordinate; and, if subordinate, they are not self-existent, but must have been created, cannot then have existed from eternity, and therefore are not God. Bishop Bull, indeed, admits that they were derived from the divine essence, which is merely an obscure and involved way of saying, that they were created out of nothing.

2. There are others, (and they are very numerous in our own country,) who understand by the Trinity a threefold classification of the divine attributes. According to this view, God, being still one and the same being, in nature and providence, is called the Father,in the work of redemption, the Son,-in his convert