one to consider what God has been doing to confirm the gospel since its first publication, and he will find it a further evidence of its divine original. We might argue at large from its surprising propagation in the world; from the miraculous powers with which not only the apostles, but succeeding preachers of the gospel, and other converts, were endowed; from the accomplishment of prophecies recorded in the New Testament; and from the preservation of the Jews, as a distinct people, notwithstanding the various difficulties and persecutions through which they have passed.

"What is clear in Christianity," says Paley, "we shall find to be sufficient and to be infinitely valuable. What is dubious, unnecessary to be decided, or of very subordinate importance, and what is most obscure, will teach us to bear with the opinions which others may have formed upon the same subject. We shall say to those who the most widely dissent from us, what Augustine said to the worst heretics of his age-They rail against us, who know not with what labor Truth is found and Error to be avoided!"

men,

There is one argument to prove the authority of the word of God, which cannot be overturned by all the Deists in the world. If the Bible be not the word of God, it must have been written, or invented, either by good men, or wicked men; but if it can be proved that it was neither written, nor invented, either by good men, or wicked it must be the word of God. That it was not written, or compiled by wicked men, will appear from its own evidence, for if it is to be judged, we must suffer that evidence to appear in its defence. Can any Deist be so weak as to suppose that wicked men, who were in the love and practice of evil, would frame laws to punish their own vices in this world, and condemn themselves to everlasting punishment by declaring, the wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God? And again, Thou shalt not covet: this reaches the thoughts and desires of the heart. These restrictions and declarations are opposite to those things, which are con

tained in the religious books of the Mahometan and Pagan nations, which are the production of men, in which permission is given to indulge in sensuality. This, so far, is a certain proof of the divine origin of the Bible. It is no less evident, that good men could not be the authors of the Bible. For had it been compiled by good men, the same good men neither could nor would have given a lie to their profession by calling it the word of God, as it would only have been the word of men: consequently the Bible must be the word of God, inspired by him, and thus given to man.

It must be allowed that God created the first man; this being admitted, as it cannot be denied, we cannot doubt that he would give him a law, or rule of life. Now whether the divine author of our being condescended to speak it with an audible voice,-to write it on the heart, as is said in scripture, or whether he commissioned man by that spoken law, or from that writing on the heart, to write it in a book for the instruction of posterity, it amounts to the same; for the law, or word of God, first spoken, or written on the heart, and from thence written in a book, still remains to be the word of God, first given by him.

The possibility of such inspiration must necessarily be allowed, for certainly it was no more wonderful for God to inspire man to write his will in a book, than it was to inspire him, or enable him to receive by continual influx, a regular train of ideas.

The question has long been asked by Deists, how shall we know that the Bible is the word of God? first, by being convinced from the Bible, that the precepts therein contained are worthy of God; that the pure spirit which runs through the whole, inculcates nothing but LOVE TO GOD AND CHARITY TO ALL MANKIND, viz. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.' Deut. vi. 5. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Levit. xix. 18. Matt. vii. 12. Luke x. 27. These are the two great commandments which pervade every page of the Bible, and which on this account is truly called sacred: these are sacred

duties. For the recorded wickedness of the Jews, or of any other nation mentioned in the Bible, makes no part of the word of God, any farther than as it shows that a departure from those precepts of true religion recorded therein, necessarily draws after it that train of fatal consequences, which is the result of that disobedience to the divine command, when the whole sum and substance of true religion contained in those two great propositions, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself, are not manifested in the life of

man.

Secondly, from the accomplishment of those things foretold by the prophets, beginning with Moses, and which, to the astonishment of every impartial man, have been fulfilling from their times to the present day. Now as it must be evident, that none but God could open to man those scenes of futurity, which have been realising for the space of 3300 years, and as those precepts of morality contained in the Bible could never be gathered from the book of nature, as man must have been totally ignorant in a savage state; and as it is clear that he could not have been reformed or civilized without a knowledge of those precepts; they must have been given by the Creator: consequently, as far as demonstration can make truth appear, it is undeniable proof that the sacred scripture is the WORD OF GOD

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CHAPTER IV.

TRINITARIANS AND UNITARIANS.

In the first ages of Christianity, there were various sects, which have long ago sunk into oblivion, and whose names therefore exist only in the pages of ecclesiastical history It does not accord with our object to describe these ancient denominations. We shall merely notice those which at the present day attract our attention. The primary divisions, which appear in contemplating the Christian church, are those of Trinitarians and Unitarians.

TRINITARIANS.

The name of Trinitarians is applied to all the numerous sects, comprising more than nine-tenths of the Christians of the present day, who profess to believe the doctrine of the Trinity, in opposition to Arians and Socinians, who are called Unitarians and Anti-Trinitarians.

The word Trinity is not to be found in the Bible. It is a scholastic term, derived from the Latin word trinitas, denoting a three-fold unity. According to the best authorities, it was introduced into the church during the second century. The doctrine of the Trinity, as generally professed, accords with that of Athanasius, whose scheme made the Supreme Deity to consist of three persons, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. The first of those three persons, and fountain of divinity to the other two, it makes to be the Father. The second person is called the Son, and is said to be descended from the Father, by an eternal generation of an ineffable and incomprehensible nature in the essence of the Godhead. The third person is the Holy Ghost, derived from the Father and the Son, but not by generation, as the Son is derived from the Father, but by an eternal and incomprehensible procession. Every one of these three persons is very

and

eternal God, as much as the Father himself; and yet, though distinguished in this manner, they do not make three Gods, but one God.*

The Unitarians believe that there is but one person in the Godhead, and that this person is the Father, and they insist that the Trinitarian distinction of persons is contradictory and absurd. The unity of God is a doctrine, which both parties consider the foundation of all true religion.

Although the doctrine of the Trinity is ostensibly the main subject of dispute between Trinitarians and Unitarians, yet it is in reality respecting the character of Christ. Those who believe in his proper deity very easily dispose of all the other difficulties in the Trinitarian system; while anti-Trinitarians find more fault with this doctrine than any other in the Trinitarian creed; and the grand obstacle to their reception of the Trinitarian faith is removed, when they can admit that Jesus Christ is God, as well as man; so that the burden of labor, on both sides, is either to prove or disprove the proper deity of the Son of God.

În proof this doctrine, the Trinitarians urge many declarations of the Scripture, which, in their opinion, admit of no consistent explanation upon the Unitarian scheme; they there find that offices are assigned to Christ, and to

Such

It is thus expressed in the Athanasian creed :-"Now, the Catholic faith is this-that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For one is the person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Ghost is uncreated. The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost is incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three Eternals, but one Eternal."

The

Modern divines seem generally to assent to the judgment of Waterland, who considers the Athanasian creed to have been written by Hilary. Archbishop Tillotson, in writing to Burnet, the historian, says of this creed, "I wish we were well rid of it." The episcopal church in America rejects it. Its damnatory clauses are very exceptionable, and have given just offence to many.