which is once true of God, in himself, must be always true. He is immutable. He must always have been with or without the supposed co-equal partners of his throne. It is not a subject on which increased information can be pleaded. We might have seen but one sun, though three existed. There might be three human persons, of whom one was first made known to us, and the two others subsequently: these are not parallel cases. The supposition is not admissible that the Unity of God was first revealed, and the Trinity afterwards, for the revelation of that unity is exclusive. Not only was one Divine Being revealed, but it was revealed that there was but one. To reveal the Deity of the Father might perhaps be thought not to exclude the Godhead of the Son and Holy Spirit: but it was revealed that the Father was God alone, the only and exclusive God. Henee such further communication would be, not addition but contradiction; what was made known before would not be increased but falsified. Here, then, might we rest our faith; but this is not the whole of the evidence. Christianity pleads as strongly as Judaism; and we might say of this truth, as the writer to the Hebrews of the word and oath of God, "That by two immutable things, wherein it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong" confirmation.

Christianity adopts this tenet of Judaism, 1. impliedly by the absence of controversy between

Christ, the apostles, or any of the first Christians, and the Jews, on the object of worship. Such controversy must have arisen had they taught the doctrine of the Trinity.. There is no vestige of it; and this silence pleads eloquently, forcibly, resistlessly, on behalf of their common faith in the Divine Unity.

2. By assertions of the identity of the object of worship: not only by worshipping together, which our opponents feel very well, and shew very clearly would not have been the case, had the one been Trinitarian and the other Unitarian; but also by explicit declaration. The prayers of the apostles were addressed to "The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." Paul admitted a difference in the manner, but not in the object of worship. "After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers." Acts xxiv. 14. Jesus himself bore witness to the correctness of the Jews as to this point, in his conversation with the woman of Samaria: "Ye worship ye know not what; but we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." John iv. 22.

3. By similar assertions of the Divine Unity. "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well." James ii. 19. "God is one." Gal. iii. 20.

4. By similar appropriation of worship. "When ye pray, say, Our Father." Luke xi, 2. "I thank

God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans vii. 25. "I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Ephes. iii. 14. "The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to whom be honour and power everlasting." 1 Tim. vi. 15, 16.

5. The silence of the apostles in their addresses to Jews proves that they and their hearers agreed as to the object of worship, and only differed as to whether the one God, whom they equally acknowledged, had sent Jesus of Nazareth to be the Saviour of men: so when they addressed Pagans, we find them not asserting a Trinity, and an incarnate God, which to Polytheists might have been more acceptable than the Jewish doctrine, but following the custom of the prophets, when reclaiming the apostate Israelites, and shewing the vanity of idols, and the proofs from nature of the existence and attributes of One Great Creator; we have a striking instance of this in the speech of Paul to the Athenians.

Christianity takes from Judaism not merely the truth of this doctrine, but its importance also; and, as we have already seen, associates it with whatever is most interesting in religion or morality. With Christ, as with Moses, it is "the first of all the commandments:" with Christ, as with Moses, it is the foundation of devotion to God and benevolence to man. With the advance of the divine communications its rank is not de

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graded. No brighter or nobler truth appears to obscure its lustre. We see it alike pre-eminent in the full discoveries of Christianity and the partial revelations of Judaism; in the one, the sun that rules the day, and in the other, the moon that rules the night.

A powerful argument against Trinitarianism is derived from what is preserved of apostolic preaching: but fully to state and enforce this would require the quotation of all the sermons recorded in the Acts. To all, Dr. Toulmin's excellent remarks on the first discourse of Peter are applicable: "Here is nothing but the plain Unitarian doctrine. Not a word came from the lips of Peter concerning the depravity of human nature, the deity and atonement of Christ, and justification by the imputation of his righteousness. Not a word like that of the Moravians, who preached to the Greenlanders concerning the Creator taking upon him human nature, and dying for our sins.' Peter doth not in this manner preach Christ, and yet his preaching was effectual to the conversion of multitudes. He insists upon a few plain facts only, illustrative of the unity and supremacy of God the Father, the humanity and divine mission of Jesus of Nazareth; such facts as form the creed of the Unitarian. The prominent features of this discourse are the fundamental articles of the Unitarian Creed."

Certain general characteristics of Christianity

are given in Scripture to which Unitarianism and Trinitarianism may be brought as tests. 1. It was, as a system of grace and merey, superior to Judaism. "The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." With this, Unitarianism evidently corresponds, which makes one the perfection of the other. If Trinitarianism be the gospel, it was inferior to Judaism; for Trinitarianism teaches that God is partial; Judaism, that "his tender mercies are over all his works :" Trinitarianism, that guilt is imputed even so as to subject justly the posterity of Adam, to the millionth generation, to damnation for his offence; Judaism, that "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father" Trinitarianism, that for every sin full satisfaction must be made to Divine justice; Judaism, that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust" Trinitarianism, that his vengeance is eternal; Judaism, that judgment is "his strange work ;" and that "his mercy endureth for ever." Can we say with propriety of any, passing from one of these religions to the other, "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage, again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father"? 2. Christianity was eminently simple, intelligible, and reasonable. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Yea, and