of a very bad distemper; let them, therefore, have your tender pity, and perhaps your meekness may prove an occasion of their eure. But if your humility should do them no good, it will, however, be the greatest good that you can do to yourself.

Remember that there is but one man in the world with whom you are to have perpetual contention, and be always striving to excel him, and he is, yourself.

The time of practising these precepts, my child, will soon be over with you; the world will soon slip through your hands, or rather you will soon slip through it: it seems but the other day since I received these instructions from my dear father, that I am now leaving with you: and the God that gave me ears to hear, and a heart to receive what my father said unto me, will, I hope, give you grace to love and follow the same instructions.

Thus did Paternus educate his son.

THE TRINITY.

I HAVE been asked a thousand times, 'What do you think of the doctrine of the Trinity-what do you think of the Trinity?” Some-nay, many, think that to falter here is terrible; that to doubt bere, or not to speak in the language of the schools, is the worst of all errors and heresies. I have not spent, perhaps, an hour in ten years in thinking about the Trinity. It is no term of mine. It is a word which belongs not to the Bible in any translation of it I ever saw. I teach nothing, say nothing, I think nothing about it, save that it is not a scriptural term, and consequently can have no scriptural ideas attached to it. But I discover that the Trinitarians, Unitarians, and the simple Arians, are always in the field upon this subject, and that the more they contend the less they know about it. As a singular proof and example of this, I extract the following from the Christian Messenger of the 4th March:

"Let us proceed to this inquiry, and, in the present case, employ ourselves with the question, What is the Trinity? What are the conception, or ideas either separately or combinet, which form the object of faith, to which this appellation has been given? For the sake of form, this question may be asked, but no one, who has attended to the subject, will flatter himself that it can be answered. To bring together a small number of the leading opinions of those professing themselves Trinitarians, is all that will be attempted. It would be no difficult matter, perhaps, to determine in some general sense how the trinity is set forth in particular creeds, and the notions of individuals; but to find out any thing like a system in which all Trinitarians would unite, or to enumerate the parties into which the advocates of this doctrine have been divided, from its origin to the present day, and the opposing scheme invented to bring it within the compass of the human faculties, would be as impossible in itself, as fruitless in the attempt.

"Trinitarians themselves have not yet approached so near to a similarity of views, as to agree in a definition, notwithstanding many of them confess to regard faith in this indefinable doctrine

as absolutely essential to salvation. One of the heaviest censures affected to be passed by the orthodox on Unitarians, is, that they do not agree in explaining their own opinions. Before this point is insisted on any further, we should be glad if Trinitarians would unite in some explanation of the doctrine, which they profess to think the most important in religion; or, at least. show some good reason why we are to reverence as a fundamental article of faith, a doctrine, which cannot be defined in Scripture language, and which is confessed to be unintelligible and inexplicable. The truth is, that no plan has been devised, which was not encumbered with so many insurmountable difficulties, that few minds could be induced to receive it in that shape. Hence, plans have been multiplied, the powers of invention and combination have been put in requisition, till the theories of the trinity have become as numerous as the writers by whom it has been attempted to be explained.

"Bishop Stillingfleet speaks of five different trinities, radically distinct from each other, which the opposers of that doctrine had detected in the writings of its defenders. First, the Ciceronian trinity, which represents the three persons, as three relations of God to his creatures; secondly, the Cartesian trinity, in which the three persons are three infinite minds; thirdly, the Platonic trinity, which consists of three coeternal beings, two of which are subordinate to the other; fourthly, the Aristotelian trinity, in which the three persons are one numerical substance; fifthly, the mystical trinity, which no conscientious believer should presume to explain. Another writer has discovered forty particulars in which Trinitarians are at variance among themselves in their sense of this doc. trine. Had he chosen to take the trouble, he might have found forty more.

"Some of the wiser sort of divines have been more cautious how they committed themselves. They have taken care to talk in such a way as either to mean nothing at all, or any thing, which should suit the taste and fancy of their readers. Instead of defining, or ex plaining, they tell us of three differences, or diversities, or subsistencies, or properties, or somewhats; of three internal relations, or external relations, or modes of existence; of any thing, indeed, but plain rational facts from which you can gain a single idea, or form a single conception.

"As an example suffer me to quote a paragraph from Cheynel's book of the Divine Trinity:

"We may best resemble all that difference," says Cheynel, which is between the essence of God, and the divine subsistences, by considering the transcendant affections of ens simpliciter, and the attibutes of God: who doth infinitely transcend, not only a predicamental substance, but a metaphysical entity; as the most metaphysical men, who are sound in faith do honestly confess. Concerning the transcendental affections of ens; which are unum verum bonum, we say, these three affections, and ens in latitudine, do not make four things really distinct; and yet we say, they are real and positive affections." 18*

Vol. VII.

"This, in the language of the learned Henry Taylor, is called explaining; and it is just as clear as the explanations, with which other divines have darkened this subject, although they may have been less skilful than Cheynel in using the dialectical weapons of the schoolmen. Witness an elaborate volume recently published by a professor of oriental languages in the College of Aberdeen, in which the acute professor attempts to prove the doctrine of the trinity by "Reason and Demonstration founded on duration and space." Witness Sherlock's Vindication, by the reading of which Emlyn and Manning were driven to the Unitarians. They were tempted to suspect, that a doctrine which the ability of such a man succeeded so imperfectly in explaining, and so poorly in vindicating, must have something defective in itself. Witness the writings of Barrow, and Westerland, behold men of great genius and learning uttering themselves on the trinity in phrases of such unmeaning import, as they never would have ventured on any other subject of the most trivial kind. Look where you will, and it will invariably be found, that the more the defenders of this doctrine say about it, the less intelligible they become, and the farther they recede from the principles of common sense."

This is one of those untaught questions which I do not discuss, and in the discussion of which I feel no interest. I neither affirm nor deny any thing about it. I only affirm that the whole controversy is about scholastic distinctions and unprofitable speculations; and that to believe that "God so loved the world as to send his only begotten Son into the world, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish but have everlasting life," is quite another and a differ. ent thing from believing any system of Unitarianism, Trinitarianism, or Arianism in the schools. EDITOR.

SERMONS TO YOUNG PREACHERS-No. V.

THE following conclusion of an address to a mixed congregation of religious sectaries, may afford you some idea of what was intended in my last by proclaiming reformation to a people, and arguing with them, on their own concessions:

CONCLUSION OF AN ADDRESS FROM ECCLESIASTES.

"You acknowledge that God the Almighty, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient, created you, preserves you, and sent his Son to save you; and yet you fear not his omnipotence, regard not his omnipresence, and think to conceal yourselves from his all-seeing eye! He preserves you, and where is your gratitude-where your affection for him! Do you not owe him every thing, and will you not give him even the homage of a grateful heart? And you say he sent his Son to save you, and will you reject the message of his love, and refuse submission to him that died for your sins, and called you to honor and immortality?

Can you think he created you for no purpose, with no design, and that he feels no interest in you? Why, then, has he built the universe for you? Why does he make his Sun to shine upon you, and send you the rain and dew of heaven?

And what regard to him do you show? How many thoughts do you give him every day-how much of your affection does he share? Has he given you eyes to see every thing but his wonderful displays of himself-ears to hear every thing but his voice-a tongue to speak every thing but his praise-and a heart to feel every thing but his love? Which of your appetites and passions, and evil habits are restrained by the fear of him? What energies of your nature are called forth by your veneration and love for him? With what fear does his frown, his indignation, fill you? And with what love and ardent desire do his promises inspire you?

You acknowledge the Bible to be his oracle to men. How do regard it? Do you represent it to be obscure, unintelligible, a barren, and dead letter? What an insult to its author! what a reproach to his wisdom, goodness, and mercy! Do you read it, do you search for its meaning as for hidden treasure? Are the words and works of men sought after, read, and valued more than the volumes of God's authorship? Will you not be ashamed and afraid to see him, when you reflect that you have not read, nor studied, nor regarded the message which he sent you; that you honored any, and almost every author more than him; and that while he displayed the greatest regard for you, you showed the least to him. How can you think of appearing in his presence, having thus insulted his Spirit of wisdom and revelation? Surely he has called, and you have refused; he has stretched out his hand, and you would not regard? Will he not laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh? How vain and fruitless to implore his mercy then, when you disdain it now; to ask for pardon then, when you refuse it now; to sue for favor then, when you reject it now!

You have contended for correct opinions and sound doctrines, but what sort of lives are you leading? You have been zealous for *what you call "the glory of God," when it was, in fact, and when stripped of its disguise, the glory of your own opinions and forms. What avails your sound opinions, and your barren and unfruitful lives? Have you considered that you are not your own, but that you are God's property? What revenue of praise does he reap from you, and what good have men received from you? While contending for the opinions of men, do you not feel that there is no life in them; that they are cold and lifeless as moonshine; that they neither warm, nor cheer, nor purify your hearts; that they are but the shadows of truth, and that in feeding upon them, you only feed upon the wind. Have you ever felt the power of the love of God? have you ever breathed in an atmosphere perfumed with the fragrance of his grace, while contending for your speculative abstractions? Does not experience teach you that you seek the living among the dead, when you visit the sepulchres of the sectaries, when you look for salvation in and through their speculations? These opinions for which you now contend are the ghosts of departed philosophers, who could not find peace in their lifetime, and now cannot rest in their graves.

Will you not, then, eat the bread of God, and drink the water ef life, by coming to Jesus and receiving him as the Son of the living God and the Saviour of men? Has he not taught you that none can

reveal the Father but himself; that none can know the Father but he to whom he reveals him! Why, then, will you not come to him and learn from him, seeing that he has told you that he alone can teach you that he alone can reveal the Father to you? 'Tis vain for you to go to Moses, to those who preceded him; and it is still more vain for you to go to those who have succeeded the Apostles, and who have endeavored to supplant them by new theories, to "know the living God and his Son Jesus Christ, which is eternal life," as he has taught you.

Do you not acknowledge Jesus to be the Great Prophet, the Great High Priest, and the Almighty King of his own kingdom? If he be the Great Prophet, why not be taught by him? Moses would have rejoiced to have lived under him, and yet you would rather be under Moses or Calvin than under this Great Prophet. May he not say, "If I be your Prophet, where is my honor? Do you sit at my feet? Do you hearken to my voice? Do you take your lessons from my instructions? Do you think that I speak less clearly, less intelligibly, less forcibly, less authoritatively, than your compeers?" Yes, were you to be asked these questions, what answers could you give

You say he is your High Priest. Have you reposed confidence in his sin offering? have you fled to him as your intercessor? have you been reconciled to God through him? If not, call him not your High Priest, for he is not. By one offering of himself he has perfected the conscience of all them who obey him. If by him you are not reconciled to God's government, to others he may be a High Priest,but to you he is not. Had you come to him as your High Priest, you would have found peace with God, and you would have rejoiced in him as your shield and hiding place.

But you say he is the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, and he is your King. Then you obey him; then you must submit to his government. But have you vowed allegiance to him? When, and where? When did you make the vow? when did you enlist? when did you say "Thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people?" Tell me, when did you make this vow? And tell me, did he receive you into his kingdom? If so, surely you must wear the livery of your Master, and bow to the ensign which your King has raised.

"If I be your King," may he not say, "where is my reverence and where is my fear? Are my commands obeyed-are my instructions regarded? Do you expect me to promote and honor you in my kingdom without any proof of your loyalty? Who has ever done so? Who has rewarded cowards, traitors, and neutrals, except with chastisement? Call me not Lord, Master, nor King, unless you regard and honor me as such."

You

No, my friends, unless you act consistently with your convictions and concessions, better, infinitely better, you had made none. only treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. You had better remember that the King has declared that he that knew his Master's will, and preared not himself, shall be beaten with many stripes. And, adds

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