According to our author, the formation of the world by Christ does not imply creation from nothing, that probably being peculiar to almighty power; but only an arrangement of things into their present order, and the esta blishment of that course of nature to which we are witnesses. Christ is not the original creator, but only God's minister in creating.

This plan coincides with the foregoing Unitarian system, in rejecting the trinity of the Godhead; the divinity of Christ; his being a proper object of prayer; the impu tation of Adam's sin to his posterity; and such a total corruption of our natures by original sin, as deprives us of free-will, and subjects us before we have committed actual sin to the displeasure of God and future punishment; and also in rejecting absolute predestination,particular redemption, irresistable grace, and justification by faith alone.

in connexion with the scripture account of his exaltation, implies an inconsistency and improbability which falls little short of an impossibility. The scriptures tell us that Christ, after his resurrection, became Lord of the dead and living; that he had all power given him in heaven and earth; that angels were made subject to him; that he is hereafter to raise the dead and judge the world, and finish the scheme of the divine moral government with respect to the earth, by conferring eternal happiness on all the virtuous, and punishing the wicked with It differs from the foregoing everlasting destruction. Can it be believed that a mere man could be advanced at once so high as to be above angels, and to be qualified to rule and judge the world? Do not all things rise gradually, one acquisition laying the foundation of another, and perhaps for higher acquisitions? The power, in particular, which the scriptures teach us Christ possesses, of raising to life all who have died and all who will die, is equivalent to the power of creating a world. How inconsistent is it to allow that he is to restore and new create this world, and yet to deny he might have been God's agent in originally forming it!

*Price's Sermons, pp. 153-192.

in two respects (1.) In asserting Christ to have been more than any human being. -(2.) In asserting that he took upon him human nature for a higher purpose than merely revealing to mankind the will of God, and instructing them in their duty and inthe doctrines of religion.*

The celebrated Dr. Priestley calls those philosophical unitarians, who in the early ages of christianity explained the doctrines concerning Christ according to the principles of the philosophy of those times. As the sun was supposed to emit rays and draw them into himself again, so the divine Being, of whom they imagined the sun to be an image, Price's Dissertations, p. 134.

they supposed emitted a kind of efflux, or divine ray, to which they sometimes gave the name of logos, which might be attached to any particular substance or person, and then be drawn into the divine Being again. They supposed that the union between this divine logos and the man Christ Jesus was only temporary: for they held that this divine efflux, which, like a beam of light from the sun, went out of God, and was attached to the person of Christ, to enable him to work miracles while he was on earth, was drawn into God again when he ascended into heaven, and had no more occasion to exert a miraculous power. Some of them might go so far as to say, that since this ray was properly divine, and the divinity of the Father, Christ, who had this divine ray within him, might be called God, but by no means different from the Father. They are moreover charged with saying, that the Father, being in Christ, suffered and died in him also; and from this they got the name of Patripassians. This denomination may be applied to the Sabellians, Monarchians, and others.* See Sabellians, Monarchians, Noetians, &c.

UNIVERSALISTS.

The

sentiment which has acquired its professsors this appellation was embraced by Origin in the third century, and in more modern times by Chevalier Ramsay, Dr. Cheyne, Mr. Hartley, and others. The plan of universal salvation, as exhibited by a learned divine of the present day, who, in a late performance, entitled, "The Salvation of all Men," has made several additions to the sentiments of the above mentioned authors, is as follows:

That the scheme of revelation has the happiness of all mankind lying at bottom as its great and ultimate end: that it gradually tends to this end, and will not fail of its accomplishment when fully completed. Some, in consequence of its operation, as conducted by the Son of God, will be disposed and enabled in this present state to make such improvements in virtue, the only rational preparative for happiness, as that they shall enter upon the enjoyment of it in the next state. Others, who have proved incurable under the means which have been used with them in this state, instead of being happy in the next, will be awfully miserable; not to continue so finally, but that they may be convinced of their folly

*Priestley's History of Early Opinions, vol. iii. p. 376. vol. iv, p, 279, Priestley's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i, pp. 296, 297.

and recovered to a virtuous tation: for the sacred writers frame of mind; and this will are singularly emphatical in be the effect of the future expressing this truth. They torments upon many, the con- speak not only of Christ's sequence whereof will be their dying for us, for our sins, salvation, they being thus for sinners, for the ungodly, fitted for it. And there may for the unjust; but affirm be yet other states before the in yet more extensive terms, scheme of God may be per- that he died for the world, fected, and mankind univer- for the whole world. (See sally cured of their moral dis- 1 Thess. v. 10; 1 Cor. xv. orders; and in this way qua- 3; Rom. v. 6—8; 1. Pet. iii. lified for and finally instated 18; John i. 29; iii. 16, 17; in eternal happiness. But 1 John ii. 2; Heb. ii. 9; and however many states some of a variety of other passages.) the individuals of the human If Christ died for all, it is far race may pass through, and more reasonable to believe of however long continuance that the whole human kind, they may be, the whole is in- in consequence of his death, tended to subserve the grand will finally be saved, than that design of universal happiness, the greatest part of them and will finally terminate in should perish. More honour it; insomuch that the Son of is hereby reflected on God; God and Saviour of men will greater virtue is attributed to not deliver up his trust into the blood of Christ shed on the hands of the Father, who the cross; and instead of dying committed it to him, till he in vain, as to any real good, has discharged his obligations which will finally be the event in virtue of it; having finally with respect to the greatestfixed all men in heaven, when part of mankind, he will be God will be all in all. made to die to the best and noblest purpose, even the eternal happiness of a whole world of intelligent and moral beings.

A few of the arguments made use of in defence of this system, are as follow :*

1. Christ died nut for a select number of men only, but for mankind universally, and without exception or limi

2. It is the purpose of God, according to his good pleasure, that mankind, universally, in

*The learned author of the performance whence these arguments are extracted has illustrated the passages of scripture quoted by critical notes on the original language, and by shewing their analogy to other passages in the inspired writings. Those who would form a just idea of the arguments

must consult the work itself.

*Our author paraphrases these texts in the following manner: "It pleas. ed the Father that all communicable fulness should be lodged in his Son Jesus Christ, and by him, as his great agent, (having prepared the way for it by his blood shed on the cross) to change back again all things to himself. I say, by him it pleased the Father to change the state of this lower world, of the men, and the things of it, whether they be on the earth, or in the heaven that encompasses it."