fulfilment of prophecy, altogether reject the Revelation of God; it is also marked by increasing confidence discovered in the writings of others, who, admitting the Scriptures to have come from God, maintain principles subversive of the very basis of Christianity. The Antitrinitarian of the ancient Socinian school is making use of all the torture of criticism to new model our translation of the Scriptures to serve his own purpose; and to accomplish this, he has not hesitated to adopt the most unfair means.* And while increased energy has thus been given to an experienced phalanx of disciplined troops, a novel sect has sprung up among us, consisting chiefly of deserters from our own ranks, who, however they have differed in minor points from the Socinian

* " Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert, the infidel authors of that famous work, the Encyclopédie, which deluged Europe with principles utterly subversive of religion and morals,-speak thus of the Unitarian system. The Unitarians have always been regarded as Christian Divines, who had only broken and torn off a few branches of the tree, but still held to the trunk ; whereas they ought to have been looked upon as a sect of philosophers, who, that they might not give too rude a shock to the religion and opinions, true or false, which were then received, did not choose openly to avow pure deism, and reject formally and unequivocally every sort of revelation; but who were continually doing, with respect to the Old and New Testament, what Epicurus did with respect to the gods, admitting them verbally, but destroying them really. In fact, the Unitarians received only so much of the Scriptures as they found conformable to the natural dictates of reason, and what might serve the purpose of propping up and confirming the systems they had

school, have concurred with it in "denying the Lord that bought us;"-maintaining that the Creator and Saviour of the world is himself a creature, and that the Instructor, Comforter and Sanctifier of the universal church has no personal existence. But these, like the ignes fatui of the heath, drew attention, flitted for a moment, and are extinct. Like those meteors, their doctrinal stations were occupied for too short a time, and their motions were too wild and rapid, to deceive any persons but those who had previously lost their way. The illusion is at an end, and is only worth recording as an instance of the folly of man, when left to the guidance of his own understanding.

Under these circumstances of trial to the faith and hope of Christians, it becomes us to employ all the means of offensive and defensive warfare, with which we are graciously furnished. And I am fully persuaded that the view which I have endeavoured to give you of the connexion which subsists between Revelation and the true Philosophy, between Theology and Physics, is one of

embraced. A man becomes a protestant. Soon finding out the inconsistency of the essential principles of Protestantism, he applies to Socinianism for a solution of his doubts and difficulties; and he becomes a Socinian. From Socinianism to Deism there is but a very slight shade, and a single step to take; and he takes it." Richardson's Athanasian Creed vindicated. Pp. 8, 9. Such was the opinion of Unitarianism held by these shrewd though wicked men.

the most powerful instruments, whether of attack or defence, which we possess. If historic evidence, supported by an existing miracle, exhibited to the whole world in the national preservation and present state of the Jews, and deriving additional confirmation from a long succession of events affording the clearest accomplishment of prophecies found in our Bible,—if all this be disputed, we appeal to the evidence of the senses, which our opponents possess in common with ourselves, and in the use of which they may find the truths of our religion so interwoven with the very frame of nature, that they must destroy the latter, drag the sun from its position in the expanse, and exhaust that expanse of its circulating fluid, ere they can overturn the doctrine of Scripture, and wrest from us the consolations of our hope towards God. It is well said by Mr. Jones in his "Trinitarian Analogy," that though "Socinians have taken great pains to displace a text, which asserts the doctrine of the THREE IN ONE, their labour will never be successful, till they can prove the world itself to be an interpolation."

It was observed by the great Lord Bacon, that the works of God minister a singular help and preservation against unbelief and error: our Saviour having laid before us two books or volumes to study; first, the Scripture, revealing the will of God; and then the creatures, expressing his power; whereof the latter is a key

to the former." And a greater than Bacon has said the same, and even more, when we are informed that "the invisible things of God from* the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power and Godhead.” Rom. i. 20. This then shall be the subject of my present letter.

Moses begins his history with the creation of the universe; and he tells us who made it, in what order it was made, and of what it consists. In bringing the Creator of all things to the notice of his rational creatures, he introduces him by a noun of plural termination, which, in opposition to all the known rules of syntax, is there made to agree with a singular verb, but which, in various other passages of Scripture, is construed with verbs, adjectives, and participles, in the plural number. Now, when it is considered that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," who can doubt that there is a mystery contained in this unusual grammatical construction? To think otherwise is to suppose that the Omniscient Spirit of Jehovah has used language calculated to mislead the minds of men whom it is his office

*ATO which is the preposition here used, has been considered to denote the means or the efficient cause of the discovery made. The preposition is often used in this sense. Comp. Math. vii. 6; xii. 38; xvi. 21; Mark viii. 31; James i. 23. But see Poole's Synopsis in locum.

to instruct, in the most material point of Divine Revelation.

The active part of matter is also introduced by the historian to our notice by a noun in the plural number, which signifies the disposers or placers.* It is "a descriptive name of THE HEAVENS, or of that immense body of celestial fluid, subsisting in the three conditions of FIRE,

אלהים Thus also

denotes the consubstantiality of the three conditions of the celestial fluid,-while on and denote those conditions, separately considered. denotes the consubstantiality of the Persons in Jehovah, while other singular names describe those Persons in their distinct characters. "In this Trinity none is before or after other; none is greater or less than another."

"Since we have shown that the creation must be originally representative of the divine perfections, it follows evidently that to paint forth in a sensible manner by material pictures, the infinitely active and omnipresent essence of the Deity, that gives life, light, and order to all things, nothing is more proper than the creation of an infinitely active etherial matter that fills all, penetrates all, and overflows all. It is true that created matter must always be finite; because, as we have shown, God's creating power can never be exhausted, nor can he produce without himself an absolute infinite of any kind; and in this sense, as in all others, the picture is always infinitely inferior to the original: but we may conceive, this etherial matter as eternally augmenting by the continual external activity of the divine nature. In this immense ocean of etherial matter we may conceive by the same rules of analogy, three distinctions, conditions, or principles: a fiery active principle' that diffuses itself every where, and is the first original spring of motion in the universe; · an etherial luminous fluid,' that transmits the action of its flaming source or centre to all points of the circumference; and an elastic aerial fluid' dilatible and compressible,