evident from the offices which he held. He was the editor of your Magazine, and was, therefore, the caterer for your spiritual wants. He was a preacher among you, and had his name upon your plan, up to the time of his leaving Leeds. He was one of your principal preachers; being employed in occasional services, such as the opening of chapels, when your most gifted men are sought after; and having three large letters, V.D.M. appended to his name, which must be nearly equal in importance to R.E.V. This gentleman published a book, which was advertised on the cover of the Protestant Magazine for February, 1829, under the following title: "The triumph of scriptural and rational truth displayed, in a complete refutation of the absurd and unauthorised doctrines of the eternal generation of the divine Logos, and the hypostatical union of two spiritual natures in Jesus Christ; with a critical analysis of the popular doctrine of the trinity in unity, as the mode of existence of the supreme God, its gross absurdities pointed out, and its total inconsistency with the testimony of scriptures clearly proved. The essential divinity of both the Logos, and the Holy Spirit, as the offspring of the Father, demonstrated; and the generical identity of the former, with the race of Adam, as the fountain of human nature, amply shown." This title, which was advertised, is an enlargement of the one prefixed to the book. This work, as the production of the editor of your Magazine, and an accredited preacher upon your plan, would, we may calculate with some certainty, be read rather extensively in your connexion. In this title the author declares he has pointed out the "gross absurdities of the popular doctrine of the trinity in unity, as the mode of existence of the supreme God." Every one knows, who knows anything on the subject, that what Mr. T. calls the popular, is the orthodox doctrine. All orthodox christians hold the "hypostatical union of two spiritual natures in Jesus Christ." This Mr. T. says, is absurd and unauthorised, and affirms he has given of it a complete refutation. And he professes to have demonstrated the generical identity of the Logos, (who, he admits, possesses essential divinity,) with the race of Adam. A few extracts from the book will illustrate still further his orthodoxy: "Hence we conclude that those terms, trinity and unity, being self-contradictory, and totally destructive of each other, one of them must be abandoned for the establishment of the other. If, therefore, the unity be the true mode of the divine subsistence, the trinity of equality must be given up. But if the trinity be the true mode, then the unity cannot be maintained.*....I beg leave to denounce the whole Athanasian system of the incarnation of the deity, as a tissue of falsehood; a compilation of absurdity and blasphemy, the disgrace of christianity, and the shame of its professors. Its votaries should blush while they avow themselves to be its disciples.† .... I conclude that the only-begotten Son of God must be an essentially divine Being; but that as a generated being, he cannot be eternal nor self-existent, nor intrinsically omnipotent. ..... The Son is a distinct hypostasis from the Father; and though essentially divine, is nevertheless inferior both in rank and power to the Father. §.... We must conclude, that the Son, is inferior, even in the attributes of his divine essence, to the Father; with whom, as a begotten Son, he can be neither co-equal nor co-eternal."|| On “ the hypostatical union of two spiritual natures in one personal Christ," he says, "I have already said something relative to the natural impossibility and irrational absurdity of this dogma. Let us now examine for a moment its moral character also. I esteem it as the fundamental error of modern christian theology, existing among a great majority of those who, because they hold this error, as an adjunct to the doctrine of the trinity in unity, are exclusively complimented with the title of the orthodox. It is, sir, the prolific parent of almost every heresy that has ever inThe Triumph, etc., p. 16. †Ib., p. 25. Pp. 44, 45. § P. 48, note. [P. 50. 66 fested the christian churches since its unhappy introduction thereto."* On the same doctrine of the divine and human natures in Christ, he says, on the next page, “I charge this dogma with the crime of producing flat and unequivocal idolatry in the orthodox churches of christianity. And in the name of that God who is thus insulted by it, I call upon the advocates, votaries, and worshippers of that idol, to come forward, and defend their compounded deity from those charges, if they can, or else for ever to abandon both their belief in its existence, and their confidence in its godhead..... I impeach the doctrine of the trinity in unity, as the supposed mode of the existence of the supreme God, because I nowhere find it revealed in scripture, and because, if admitted, it would not only undeify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, considered in himself alone, and render him dependent for his Godhead, upon his association with the Son and Spirit, as co-partners in essential Deity; but would also impose upon him, who is in himself a system of infinite perfection, the imperfection of being only a constituent portion of a perfect being.f....Neither the trinity in unity, the eternal generation of the Son of God, nor the hypostatical union of two natures, constituting one person in Jesus Christ, are subjects of divine revelation..... The grand and fundamental principle of all sound theology is the unity of the Godhead. This must subsist in one simple uncompounded Being, who is of the purest essence, and comprising in himself alone, all the attributes of infinite perfection. Consequently he cannot be composed of three persons; for it is essential to a person, that he should possess all the identifying faculties of a self-conscious, and self-determining being, distinct from all other beings. Without these qualities, if a person could exist at all, he could not be either a rational or an intelligent being; but must be very imperfect, and, in fact, an idiot!" This I think *The Triumph, etc., p. 51. † Ib., p. 123. || Ib., p. 144. Ib., p. 158. is speaking out! If there be three persons in one God, he must be an idiot! As Mr. Tucker speaks about the divine nature of Christ, it may perhaps be worth while to learn from this profound theologian what sort of a divinity the Saviour really is. In scripture he is sometimes styled God, and sometimes man, which the orthodox believe, refer to his two-fold nature; but Mr. T. contends he possesses but one nature, which is both divine and human. "The divinity of the Son," he says, 66 is moulded into a human form." The spirit which animated the body of Christ was "the divine Logos ;" and he prepared himself for this union by "contracting his mental powers to the capacity of a man: yea, of an infant, the embryo of a man.... The divine Logos entered the womb of a virgin, as the animating spirit of a miraculously conceived human infant; to whose body, being thus united, he became therein a perfect man child, and was born, suffered, and died, as a man." Mr. T. philosophises upon this subject in the following manner: "Nor would the natural and physical economy of human nature admit of any other arrangement than this; for the organisation of an infant's brain, could not, in the regular course of nature, sustain the operation of an adult intellectual power upon its tender fibres. And to have forced this out of the regular order of nature, would have been a monstrous anomaly therein, of which we cannot accuse its divine Author. Hence I conclude, that the incarnated Logos, that he might in all things be made like unto his brethren,' in the assumption of a human body, took that body upon him, subject to all the mental infirmities incident to an association therewith, during its conception in an embryo state, as well as during the progressive expansion of its intellectual organisation, exactly as these events occur in other men."* You may now form a tolerably correct notion of Mr. Tucker's sentiments on the divinity of Christ, and on * The Triumph, etc., pp. 38-40. 66 the trinity. According to him, our blessed Saviour is a mere creature, and not eternal in his existence. He is not almighty. He is as changeable as any other creature; and at the time of his incarnation his mental powers were compressed to suit the embryo state. And as in that state human beings have no ideas at all; and as our Lord's case is said to be an exact resemblance of what occurs in other men ;" it follows, that during this period, "the divine Logos" had not a single idea! A divinity deprived of all knowledge and reason, and possessed of no power to acquire either, beyond what is common to human beings? Who can forbear laughing at such folly, and trembling at such blasphemy! Such is Mr. T.'s account of Him who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!" As to a trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead, the whole vocabulary of his abusive terms is exhausted against this doctrine; and it is impiously asserted, that if such were the mode of the divine existence, God must be an idiot! : I have shown that Mr. Tucker was one of the heads of your party. As it regards him, I might have used much stronger language than that of suspicion. The extracts I have given make his heterodoxy awfully manifest, and I could have added many more pages full of citations to the same effect. An important fact has come to my knowledge; that of a local preacher among the Protestants having embraced Mr. Tucker's opinions this he avowed in the house of one of our friends; and with the zeal of a new convert recommended Mr. T.'s book with its ribaldry. Yet the leaders' meeting have the hardihood to affirm, that the suspicious I mentioned "are completely false;" and they go on to say, "We boldly assert, that we never heard a single imputation of that nature whispered against any of the parties referred to." The title page of Mr. T.'s book bears the date of 1828; the book was advertised on the cover of their Magazine for February, 1829; it was sold by Mr. Barr, the printer of their Magazine, and the seller of all their trash; and yet, up |