much difficulty.-But death? the death of whom? -the death of a God?-What! a God? a God of our own die ?-Much about this time, perhaps a little earlier, perhaps a little later, it may have happened to the child to hear of the Gods of the heathens-Gods in multitudes-not one of them subject to death. In such a case, how inferior will this comparatively new God be apt to appear to him, in comparison of the least of these ancient ones! But if God the Son was thus mortal, what should preserve his Father from being mortal too? If it was the Son's turn to die at that time, may it not one of these days be the Father's turn? and then what is to become of the world and all that live in it?

For the removal of this difficulty, what answer is left, but the doctrine of the two natures? Jesus (the child must be told) had two natures-the human and the divine: he was a man and a God; that is the God-for there is but one God-at the same time. It was the man only that was crucified, and, dying under the operation, was then buried. The God did not die: in the case of God, no such thing as death took place: it is not in the nature of God, that is to say, of the one God, to die. Well, then, while one of these persons, viz. the man, was dying, the other of them, the God, the one God, whereabouts was he?-Have a care, child, what you say. Two persons ? no such thing. Man one, God one: these one and one, which you in your ignorance take for two, are not two persons: they are but one.-How but one person? One man, is not that one person ? and one God, is not that another person? One and one, do they not make two?– In answer to any such questions,

nothing remains but to chide the poor child for his ignorance to insist upon his understanding in this case the difference between a nature and a person, and thereupon to plague him till he declares himself satisfied, that though Jesus had two natures, he had but one person, and that, in that instance at least, so far as personality was concerned, a God-no, not a God, but God-yes, God, and man together, were one and the same.

Now, to any practical purpose, whether this or any part of it be true or no, is not, to child or man, worth inquiry. How should it be? For to human conduct, take it in any of these ways, what difference does it make? But, in regard to all this, or any part of this, to force a child to declare-to declare most solemnly and seriously, that he believes it, believes it just as he believes in the existence of the person by whose words and gestures the words are forced into his mouth, and this in a case in which any such belief is as plainly impossible !-in this lies the mischief:and, so long as in a habit of falsehood and insincerity, and that a universal one, there is any thing mischievous, this mischief will be as real as the pretended belief is false.

(5). [He descended into hell.]—Of the matter of fact here asserted, the truth being admitted(though for the admitting it no warrant was ever so much as attempted to be found in any part of Scripture that bears any relation to Jesus, and though as well might it have been asserted, that, while a visit was then paid to hell by Jesus, a visit was at the same time paid to heaven by the Devil) -still, on this as on so many preceding and

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succeeding occasions, comes the question-supposing the fact ever so well established, to what possible good use force a child, as soon as it can speak, to say that it believes this, or so much as use any endeavours to cause it actually to believe any such thing?

When, against this proposition, the monstrous absurdity of it, coupled with its utter destituteness of all warrant from Scripture, is brought to view, the observation made by way of answer-and that probably enough a true one, is—that in this particular the translation is incorrect; for that in the original Greek the word rendered in English by hell, did not on this occasion mean that which on every other occasion it is commonly understood to mean-viz. the abode and place of torment of the damned.

But, besides that of this observation a necessary effect is to give birth to another question,viz. if not hell, what other place then is on this occasion to be understood ?—(a question, to which an answer would not, it is supposed, be very easy to be found)-another observation is, that in the case of at least nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of those whose salvation is understood to be in so material a degree dependent -dependent, in some way or other-upon this Catechism, no such mistranslation is known or so much as suspected. In the conception of this vast majority, the place of torment appointed for the Devil and his angels,-this is the place to which the visit of this Son of God-himself God -was, in his own divine person, paid.

Of this perplexity, added to so many ot her preplexities, what is the result? That, in the

minds of a very large proportion of the whole number, a very large proportion, if not the whole, of this discourse, called a Creed and the Creed, produces the same effect as, and no more than, so much inarticulate sound. Not but that if, in the instance of the whole number, such were the case with the whole of this same creed, it would be all the better; always excepted the mischief of the lie which the child is taught and compelled to utter, in thus seriously and solemnly declaring that he believes it.

(6). [I believe in the Holy Ghost.]—Mere sounds without sense: mere words without meaning: not only void of all meaning, which to any such young person can be of any use-not only void of all meaning which to any person can be of any use, —but without any thing attached to them that can be called meaning.

What is the Holy Ghost ?-Answer. The same as the Holy Spirit.

What then is the Holy Spirit? · Answer. The Spirit of God.

What then is this Spirit of God, that, when you believe this God, this should not be enough, but that you must believe in this Spirit of God besides? Believing in a man, what more do you do by believing in his Spirit likewise?

"The Lord be with you," says the Minister to the congregation in one part of our Liturgy. Not to be behind hand with him either in piety or politeness, nor yet to give him back his compliment without variation, as if for want of words, "And with thy Spirit," returns the Chorys, under the command of the clerk. In any such

variation of the phrase, has imagination in its extravagance ever soared to such a height as to fancy itself to be possessing and employing a re-agent, having the effect of decomposing a human person, in such sort as to convert him, polypus like, into two persons, of which himself is one and his spirit the other?

If believing in God be not enough, without believing in the Spirit of God besides, how came this to be enough? To believe in the Spirit of God in addition to God himself, how can this be sufficient, when, besides the Spirit of God, according to the flowery texture of the same language and the same Scriptures, there are so many other things belonging to God, viz. the hand of God, the arm of God, the finger of God, the word of God, the power of God, the glory of God, and so forth each of them not less susceptible, than the Spirit of God, of a separate existence.Oh, silly men-yes, if sincere, 66 more silly than "any sheep, which on the flowery plains shepherd "did ever keep"-ye string words upon words,and then, for every word believe, or pretend to believe, that a correspondent really existing object is brought into existence.

The Holy Ghost being, at the end of the account, something which is the same as God and at the same time distinct from God,-and being something in which, day by day, the child is obliged to say that he believes,-by the sense of this obligation, should it happen to him to be induced to put himself upon the look-out for something determinate to believe in,-of such his inquiry, what, if any thing, will be the result?

In the same instructive prints which present to