creature. This palpable error is retained in the text of the "Improved Version," and the true rendering is barely mentioned in a note with this vapid and silly interpretation,-" i. e. that ye may be admitted into the Christian church." As if the community of Ephesian Christians, which had flourished so many years in full organization (Acts xx.) and eminent stability (Eph. i. 13-15), was not yet to be regarded as a part of the Christian church!

Note [B], page 71.

The remembrance of our own past errors and frailties, and the consciousness of so much ignorance and sinfulness as still infest our minds, should be an humiliating and effectual preservative from rash censures and damnatory comminations of those whom we deem in error, but whose integrity and purity of life entitle them to our respect and love. The more intimately we become acquainted with ourselves and with the waywardness of our nature, the more we shall see reason to acquiesce in the observations of the great American divine who was not less distinguished for the clearness of his views of divine truth, and the force of his reasonings in its defence, than for his humility, benevolence, and piety. "How far a wonderful and mysterious agency of God's Spirit may so influence some men's hearts, that their practice in this regard may be contrary to their own principles; or how far that error into which they may have been led by education, or by the cunning sophistry of others, may yet be indeed contrary to the prevailing disposition of their hearts, and contrary to their practice; or how far some may seem to maintain a doctrine contrary to this gospel-doctrine, who really do not, but only express themselves differently from others, or seem to oppose it through their misunderstanding of our expressions, or we of theirs, when indeed our real sentiments are the same in the main ; or may seem to differ more than they do, by using terms that are without a precisely fixed and determinate meaning; or to be wide in their sentiments from this doctrine, for want of a distinct understanding of it, whose hearts, at the same time, entirely agree with it, and if once it were clearly explained to their understandings, would immediately close with it and embrace it :-how far these things may be, I will not determine; but I am fully persuaded that great allowances are to be made on these and the like accounts, in innumerable instances; though it is manifest that the teaching and propagating contrary doctrines and schemes, is of a pernicious and fatal tendency."-President Edwards, on Justif. by Faith; in his Works, vol. vi. p. 341.

Note [C], page 77.

I extract the following passage from the acute and learned Werenfels, who was not a man likely to have Calvinistic prejudices.

"A king sends one of his officers to a province, with authority to govern it in his name. After a time, this Governor allows himself to be ensnared and perverted by a faction. Hence, the affairs of the province are very badly administered, and all things are thrown into confusion. The Sovereign, being well apprized of all that had happened, and perceiving that the Governor had not the wisdom and firmness, the exertion and authority, requisite for remedying the disorders of the province and restoring it to peace, sends a Deputy Extraordinary, and gives orders to the Governor to submit himself entirely to this Deputy, and to take no measures without his direction. The Governor's first duty is to ascertain whether the superior minister be really sent by the King; for, unless he have satisfactory evidence of this, he would be guilty of treason in yielding to the stranger the authority which his Sovereign had committed to him. But, when he sees the sign manual and the other unquestionable attestations of the royal commission, he immediately delivers up all his own powers to the Deputy, and submits in all respects to his arrangements and decisions. Now, if I should ask, From whom does the Deputy hold his authority over the province? From the King, who sent him, and whose commission, signed and sealed, he has in his hand? Or from the Governor, who, on the production of those documents, received him with due honour and acknowledgment ?— Every man of common sense will say, From the King, surely for to suppose the other would be absurd.

"The application of this parable is plain. The gracious and almighty God has given Reason to man, for the guide of his conduct through life. But Reason has submitted to be corrupted by sin; and man, therefore, is fallen into a state of extreme misery. God, of his infinite goodness, has had mercy upon man; and, seeing the insufficiency of Reason to restore him from his fallen state, and to deliver him from his misery, has sent Revelation, and has given orders to Reason to yield obedience, and to take no part in directing the conduct of man, except what Revelation may assign. What, then, has Reason to do in this case? First of all, she must examine whether this, which claims to be a Revelation from God, is indeed such for, if she have not satisfactory evidence of this, she cannot, without criminal rashness, surrender her own authority, which the Creator had invested her with for the government and guidance of

man.

But, as soon as she is satisfied, from indubitable proofs, that this is indeed a divine Revelation, she yields without delay, and, if Reason be indeed rational, submits herself entirely to the woRD of God.

"Will any one now say, that Revelation rests upon the authority of Reason?-Of Reason, whose office it is to acknowledge the authority of Revelation; an acknowledgment which she cannot but make, if she be not quite insensible to the light of moral demonstration ?"

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But may God rule our Reason by his Holy Spirit that this faculty, sanctified by him, and freed from the bondage of sin and depraved affections, (by which it is often awfully blinded, borrowing from them the worst principles, and acting under their slavish dominion,) may reason for its Author, following the principles which he gives, and obeying the laws which he prescribes !"-Werenfelsii Opuscula Theologica, Philosophica, et Philologica; Bas. 1718, pp. 182, 183.

CHAP. IV.

ON THE ERRORS AND FAULTS, IN RELATION TO THIS CONTROVERSY, ATTRIBUTABLE TO UNITARIAN WRITERS.

Rash and ill-founded criticism.-Illogical inferences.-Hasty generalizing.Assumption of an extreme simplicity in the system of revealed doctrine.Irrational demands as to the kind of evidence, and a want of equitable regard to that which exists.-Denial of the complete inspiration of the apostolic writings.

THERE are delinquencies as to argumentative justice to be found in the writings of Socinian and Unitarian advocates. We should guard ourselves against them, as well as against the failures of the orthodox.

If the one party has appeared backward to critical inquiry, and prone to confide in authorized versions and received readings of the Scriptures, the other has often shewn a propensity to unfounded suspicion, and to rash alteration of the translation or of the text. This is a more dangerous extreme than the other: it is less favourable to reverence for the sacred word, it tempts critical vanity, it fosters the pride of learning or of half-learning, and it often and manifestly proceeds from a wish to dictate the result. It was one of Mr. Porson's canons of criticism, not to alter the received text without very strong reason. The Christian scholar will apply this rule, with conscientious impartiality. He will hold the scales of criticism with an equal hand, and never allow them to receive the slightest inclination for the purpose of favouring any hypothesis. The particular texts, whose diversity of

readings, entitled to critical attention, is of importance to the deduction of theological doctrines, are not numerous: since either the sense afforded by each reading is the same, or what portion of particular testimony is lost in one instance is gained in others.'

We must, also, put in the rank of fallacies, those arguments which, from scriptural testimonies to the unity of the Deity and the real and proper humanity of the Messiah, at once infer that the divine nature cannot imply a plurality of subsistences, and that the Messiah cannot possess any other nature in addition to that of a mortal man. The fact asserted in the orthodox doctrine is by them advanced as a miraculous fact; as the most stupendous of miracles and it is therefore to be judged of, not by reasoning from the constitution of created things, of which, after all, we know very little; but by its own proper and peculiar evidence, the declarations of God in his word. If the orthodox are in an error, they

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"If a corrupt line or dubious reading chances to intervene, it does not darken the whole context, nor make an author's opinion or his purpose precarious. Terence, for instance, has as many variations as any book whatever, in proportion to its bulk; and yet with all its interpolations, omissions, additions, or glosses (choose the worst of them on purpose) you cannot deface the contrivance and plot of one play; no, not of one single scene; but its sense, design, and subserviency to the last issue and conclusion, shall be visible and plain through all the mist of various lections. And so it is with the sacred text; make your 30,000 as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum: all the better to a knowing and serious reader, who is thereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool; and yet, with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter; nor so disguise Christianity but that every feature of it shall still be the same.”—Bentley's (the glory of classical criticism) Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, part i. p. 112.