very numerous, in which divine properties are said to be ascribed to him," with equal facility. It is too late, how-ever, for you and me to rest our faith upon the number of passages that inculcate a doctrine. We have conceded the Bible to be of divine authority. The simple question is, what, according to the rules of interpretation in all other cases, does any passage mean? This being ascertained, only two courses are before us; the one, to receive its meaning as the guide of our faith; the other to reject its authority, and deny our obligation to believe the decisions of the Scripture. If the New Testament does teach, that Christ is not really divine, but a finite creature, and this can be made out by an unbiassed interpretation of it; I will either receive this doctrine, receive it implicitly, (for, if I am not deceived in respect to myself, I only desire to know what God has taught in order to believe it;) or else I will reject all claims to inspiration in the sacred writers, and follow their instructions, only so far as they coincide with my own speculations. I am fully satisfied that there is no middle part here; and that a man who investigates for himself, extensively and independently, must eventually follow one or the other of these courses.

Convince me then, that you apply the principles of interpretation which you have laid down, in an unbiassed manner; and that the New Testament does, according to them, clearly teach, that Jesus is not, and cannot be divine; and you will make me a convert to the doctrines, (at least some of them,) which you embrace. Where the apostles lead me, I will go; or else renounce all deference to them. While I have a being also, I will cherish a grateful remembrance of any man, who shall convince me by sound reasoning, that I am in an error and am wandering from the paths of life.

But you will allow me to say, what you will doubtless affirm of yourself; "I cannot be convinced, until I am satisfied that my principles of interpretation are wrong, and my application of them erroneous." You have described, (p. 14.) in what manner you avoid the conclusion drawn from those texts which call Christ. God, and which apparently ascribe divine attributes to him. On the principles of exegesis there disclosed, I shall remark in another letter. I will at present say only, that they appear to me far from being well established.

Your candour will easily concede, that the positions which I have just laid down are correct, and are such as become every sincere lover of truth. I am very ready to grant, that we ought not to expect to convince you and your friends, by using reproachful epithets, or severe appellations. We cannot convince you, by appealing to our New England Fathers, or their Creeds; to the ancient Fathers of the Church, or any body of men whatever. You may always reply to us, Åre not men fallible? And have not the best of uninspired men cherished some errors? Give us the reasons why our Fathers received the doctrines in question, and then we will hear you: the fact that they did receive them is a part of church history, but certainly no theological argument. The papal hierarchy is supported by the Fathers; and there never has been a sect in Christendom, who could not, sooner or later, make an appeal to Fathers, whom they respected.'

Nor can we convince you, by a tenacious or unreasonable opposition to all critical examination of the New Testament; or by throwing out hints in our sermons or writings, that critical studies belong only to those, who have a wish to be heretical or skeptical; or by a forced and mystical explanation of various passages of Scripture, and converting them to the support of sentiments, which they never were designed to support. The sound rules of interpreta tion, will soon sweep away every vestige of such defective opinions about the word of God; and orthodoxy must stand or fall, by the simple decision of the Scriptures, interpreted according to the general laws of language.

On the other hand; you will as cheerfully concede too, that we cannot be convinced, by calling us hard names; by misrepresenting our sentiments; by proving that Calvin helped to burn Servetus; by affirming that our sentiments come from Creeds and Confessions of human authority, fabricated by superstition and philosophy; by representing us as gloomy, superstitious, malignant, and unsocial; by appropriating to Unitarians all that is kind and noble, and generous and exalted, and leaving to us the opposites of these virtues; by affirming that we are desirous of infringing Christian liberty and establishing an Inquisition to defend our sentiments, and exhorting others to resist such tyranny; or by representing us as admitting in words, that God is kind

and paternal, while we think meanly of him, and treat him as the heathen did their Jupiter, Such things may add fuel to the fire of controversy; but can the lover of truth and of the word of God be convinced by them? They are the arts indeed of controversialists-and arts like them, I am sorry to say, are not confined to any one party. Passion has more control over disputants, than they are aware of. Zeal for what they believe to be truth, is what they think inspires them; while perhaps their words, or the spirit of their representations "breathe out threatenings," if not "slaughter," to their opponents. I hardly dare trust my self to write this paragraph, lest I should catch the spirit while I am describing it. I know in some measure how frail I am; but I think I do sincerely disapprove of such a spirit, in whatever party it may be found.

In consulting writers of different views and sentiments, one is grieved to find how much of this spirit has been indulged. I have seen it even in many great and good men. Possessed of feelings naturally ardent, I feel that there is reason to tremble for myself, lest I may, in some respect or other, transgress the laws of Christian propriety in these letters, and hinder something of the conviction, in the minds of some, which they might possibly produce.

In one thing, we shall certainly be agreed. The sober inquirer after truth, must be convinced by reason and argument. All else is nothing to him. And where these lead him, he will go. The path of truth is the path of duty. The approbation of God, for a sincere, candid, honest, believing heart, is worth infinitely more than all the honour which party zeal can bestow, or the world is able to give.

LETTER IV.

Reverend and Dear Sir,

In my last Letter, I endeavoured to offer reasons, why I believe that Christ is truly divine. You will very naturally expect me, to take some notice of those texts, on which you would specially rely, to prove his inferiority to the Father. This I must do; but in as summary a manner as possible. Not because it would not be easy to say much, even

more easy than to write briefly, and yet with perspicuity; but because there would be danger of protracting the subject, and tiring the patience of both writer and reader.

Let me begin then, by stating certain things, which are intimately connected with the subject in question. While I believe that Christ is truly divine, I believe that he is as truly human; that he was a real man, and lived, acted, suffered, and died as a man. He resembled however, man in his primitive state, i. e. Adam, as he came out of the hands of his Maker. He was pure and sinless. But he possessed all the feelings, and all the innocent infirmities of human na. ture. I know no proposition that can be proved from the N. Testament, if this cannot; nor do I know of an opinion, more inconsistent with the whole history of Jesus, than that of the Docetæ, who averred that Christ was a man in appearance increly, and not in reality.

I regret that I am not able to find in your sermon an intimation that Christ was truly and properly a man. All that you appear to maintain, is, that he was a being distinct from the Father, and inferior to him. Perhaps I must retract, therefore, my sentence against the Docetæ, iest I should seem to have treated your opinion with severity. But the state of my mind in regard to the weight of evidence, I cannot retract. If the evidence be not overwhelming, that Christ was perfectly a man; I cannot conceive it possible, that any point in theology or morals is capable of being established, by the language of the New Testament.

The Gnostics maintained, that from the supreme Divinity proceeded certain Eons, who were a kind of lesser gods, (dii minores;) and one of which (Christ) created the world. This Eon descended upon Jesus at his baptism, and forsook him at his crucifixion. In what important respect that opinions differ from this, which holds that Christ had a superangelic soul united to a human body, I confess, I cannot see. The Socinian theory seems to me incomparably more rational, and more tenable, than any shade of the Arian hypothesis. If the evidence be not complete, that Christ was really a man from his birth, actions, sufferings, death, and affirmations respecting himself; then how is it to be proved, that Christ ever existed at all? And will any one refuse his assent to the proposition, that Christ possessed a divine nature, because he cannot see how a union of the divine and

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human natures could take place; and yet believe that a human body was united to a soul not human? To what order or class of beings, then, does this new compound, and strangely mixed person belong? He is not divine; he is not human, for a human soul is surely essential to human nature; nor is he angelic, for angels have no corporeal forms. Are we to be freed from mystery, then, by such a theory? It seems to me, if there be mystery in any theory, which has ever been proposed, respecting the person of Christ, it may surely be found here. I will not say, (as you do about the twofold nature of Christ, in which we believe,) that “it is an enormous tax upon human credulity;" but I can say, that it appears to me as much like such a tax, as any theory, with which the Church has hitherto been agitated. I can never bring myself to view it as probable, in any degree, unless I find it in the Scriptures. But there, I find that the Logos, who existed before the world was made, was God; that God, who created the universe, I cannot then admit him to be a superangelic being simply, until I am convinced, either that John was mistaken, or that his language has a different meaning, from that which it appears to have.

As to the theory, which maintains that Christ was God's own proper Son, before the creation of the world, (of course before his incarnation;) and God's own Son in the same sense, or in as real and proper a sense, as Solomon was the Son of David; it is natural to ask first, Who then was his Mother? And secondly; How much does such a theory of Divinities in the Christian system, differ from that, which admitted a Jupiter and his progeny to be gods, among the Greeks and Romans?

We do then, (if you will allow me to use your own expressive words, though applied by you in a connexion somewhat different,) "we do maintain, that the human properties and circumstances of Christ, his birth, sufferings and death-his praying to God, his ascribing to God all his power and offices; the acknowledged properties of Christ, we say, oblige us to interpret" them of human nature; and to draw the conclusion, that whatever could be predicated of a real man, pious and sinless, might be predicated of him. How would he-how could he have assumed our nature, (except as the Docetæ affirmed that he did, viz, in appear.