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dents of the Scriptures, and were all in the end led to dissent from the views, which you regard as so unquestionable. Let me call your particular attention to a part of Dr. Watts's "Solemn Address to the great and blessed God" in reference to this subject:

"Dear and blessed God, hadst Thou been pleased, in any one plain scripture, to have informed me which of the different opinions about the Holy Trinity, among the contending parties of Christians, had been true, Thou knowest with how much zeal, satisfaction and joy, my unbiassed heart would have opened itself to receive and embrace the divine discovery. Hadst Thou told me plainly, in any single text, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three real distinct persons in Thy divine nature, I had never suffered myself to be bewildered in so many doubts, nor embarrassed with so many strong fears of assenting to the mere inventions of men, instead of divine doctrine; but I should have humbly and immediately accepted Thy words, so far as it was possible for me to understand them, as the only rule of my faith. Or hadst Thou been pleased so to express and include this proposition in the several scattered parts of Thy book, from whence my reason and conscience might with ease find out, and with certainty infer this doctrine, I should have joyfully employed all my reasoning powers, with their utmost skill and activity, to have found out this inference and ingrafted it into my soul." "Hadst Thou informed me, gracious Father, in any place of Thy word, that this divine doctrine is not to be understood by men, and yet they are required to believe it,

I would have subdued all my curiosity to faith, and submitted my wandering and doubtful imaginations, as far as it was possible, to the holy and wise determinations of Thy word."*

Such are the words of that great and good man, whose hymns are sung every Sunday in thousands of churches, and often, no doubt, in your church as in mine. Can you really in your heart believe that upon a question of opinion on which he and you differ, hang, as you express it, "the issues of eternal life and eternal death?"

Let me add an example nearer home. You are doubtless aware that before you took up your abode in Hampstead, there lived and died here a pure and high-minded woman, gifted alike with poetic genius, and the sweet and simple charities of domestic life. I need say nothing of the respect in which Mrs. Joanna Baillie was held, or of the genuineness of her Christian life, so far as human judgment can discern. Leaving for a season, as Milton had done before her, the sublime regions of poetry, for the holiest and sublimest of all regions, that of religious truth, she took as her subject therein, the nature and dignity of Christ, and with singular candour and remarkable

*Vide Quarto edition of his works, published in 1810, or A Solemn Address, &c., extracted and printed for the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, London.

A View of the General Tenor of the New Testament, regarding the Nature and Dignity of Jesus Christ; including a collection of the various passages in the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, which relate to that subject. To which are now added, A Correspondence with the Bishop of Salisbury, together with Remarks on the Pre-existence of Christ and on Toleration and Fanaticism. By Joanna Baillie, 2nd edit.

boldness, tracked out for herself a middle path of belief, amidst all the conflicting arguments and influences which agitate, and, I fear, unnecessarily divide the Christian world. Indeed, her mode of theological study itself, was such as strongly to recommend her conclusions to our notice. Leaving unopened the whole range of polemical divinity, she went straightway to the New Testament, assuming that she carried with her good intentions and a clear common understanding, which she considered all that could be necessary, in order to become wise unto salvation; and, reading through the successive books she wrote down everything that appeared to her to have any reference to Christ's nature, dignity, and offices. The result in her mind was a conviction that a person of plain sense, who, unacquainted with any creed, should read the New Testament with serious attention, would regard Christ as a most highly exalted being, who was with God before the creation of the world, who, endowed with wisdom and power, came upon the earth to reveal the Father and all needful spiritual truth, and who is now sitting at the right hand of the divine throne.

Should not such instances as these shew you, who avowedly approach this subject, "in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling," the meaning of those words of St. Paul (2 Cor. x. 7), "If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's?"

In reply to this, you may say that in the judgment you express with regard to those who do not hold

Trinitarian opinions, you are simply repeating what you find in Scripture; for when you make that awful assertion-too awful I should have thought, even if true, for any human being to clothe it in his own words-that on belief in the deity of Christ depend "the issues of eternal life and eternal death," you give two texts as your authority. But had you simply quoted these texts, I submit they would have no such application as that which you give them. On the contrary, the two verses immediately preceding John iii. 36, would seem to exclude the idea of Christ as the supreme Deity. "He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God; for God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." The divineness of Christ's teaching and power is expressly declared; but if he were himself the supreme Deity, would the expressions be used," He whom God hath sent," "God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him," "The Father hath given all things into his hand?" The application of ch. iii. 36, is, I cannot doubt, to those who reject Christ as the divinely-appointed Saviour, and whose spirits are not quickened by him. "The state of wrath" (says Olshausen) "continues (uévei éπ' avтóv, remains upon him) till he (that believeth not) surrenders himself to the redeeming power of Christ Absolute permanence of wrath is here indicated only so far as an altogether permanent åπeiðeîv (disobedience) is presupposed."*

The substance of the second text you adduce is, that if we abide not in the doctrine of Christ, we

* Vide Commentary.

have not God, and that if we abide in the doctrine of Christ, we have both the Father and the Son. But it is you, Rev. Sir, who have made this a question of metaphysical belief. If Christ have led us to the Father, if Christ be the manifestation of the Father, if no man can come to the Father save through Christ, has not every Christian, of whatever denomination, both the Father and the Son? And can any man have the Father without the Son?

From the estimate you have been led to form of some of my Unitarian* friends, I trust you do not doubt the sincerity of our religious convictions. Is it then, simply from "false conclusions of the reasoning power," that we are in danger of eternal death? Yet our Lord himself has said, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." And St. Paul writes, "The word is nigh thee, (Romans x. 8, 9, 10,) even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with

* As you use the name Unitarian with a protest, let me say that there are some among us who would not have chosen a doctrinal name at all. The name which my congregation more properly bears is, perhaps, that of English Presbyterians, used not as having any reference to a Presbytery, but as representing "the broad principle and Catholic spirit of our Presbyterian forefathers;" but to this name also there are some grounds of objection. And so I think there would be to any name but that of Christian, though some addition to this may be required at present for the sake of convenience.

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