revealed, he may well believe to be not the less real, because it is not in a direct way disclosed to him. As to the modus existendi of the Godhead, he is content to believe that it must of necessity involve more or less which is beyond the circle of his present knowledge or even conception.

And now I have only to entreat the reader, if he has doubts about the views that have been given, that before he comes to a final decision, he would traverse the whole ground of examination. He has no right to decide hastily, by merely a partial view of the subject. If, when he has plunged deep into ancient and modern investigations respecting this great topic, and deliberately and often searched them out, he shall judge me to be erroneous and inconclusive in my reasonings, then I may hold him bound to give his reasons for such a judgment. If I must stand condemned, he will suffer me to insist that the sentence of my judge shall be openly declared, in order that it may be examined. The days of the Nicene Council, who could bring the emperor of the world to publish their sentiments by the thunder of imperial edicts and of arms, is past. The menacing 'tones of the Vatican too are echoing fainter and fainter every year. The cry of Dixerunt sancti Patres is at last, almost every where, beginning to soften its high-raised notes. The still small voice of reason and of eternal Wisdom in the book of God, we would fain hope, is beginning also to speak with more efficient power than in ages past, to the souls of men. If any one will show that he has been a listener to this, and give satisfactory evidence to the world of the fact; if his testimony shall convict me of error, I promise to be among the first who will listen to him, and among the most persevering in receiving his instructions. Let him discuss, and he will be read. Let him do it in the spirit of love, and he will find friends, even if they should deem him to be erroneous. Discussion in the spirit of love and candor, will always promote the interests of truth; zeal for tradition, and the fathers, and systems, and metaphysical definitions of things beyond the boundaries of human knowledge, is never likely to achieve much that is useful or commendable.

It may be proper for me to say, that the results of this reexamination of the doctrine of the Trinity are, in their essential parts, the same as those which I some years since advocated in my letters addressed to the Rev. Dr. Channing, and the Rev. Dr. Miller, on the subject of the Trinity and Eternal Genera

tion. Some of the detail which has respect to these views, in particular a few things of a patristical nature, I have found reason to regard in a somewhat different light from what I once did, inasmuch as I have now made a protracted and repeated examination; and accordingly I have not shrunk from representing such details according to my present convictions. If any industrious opponent should take the pains to point out some of these minor discrepancies, he is welcome to the task. My only reply is and will be: I never claimed perfection nor infallibility; and am well aware that I have never exhibited the one or the other. I have not yet, although somewhat more than half a century old, become too old to change opinions when I find reason for it; nor too assuming and haughty to proclaim my retractions; even if the reproach of those who think and feel that all truth and right and piety are theirs, should be incurred thereby.

I merely add, that for my own part I feel bound to say, at the close of this protracted effort to discuss and explain some of these very difficult subjects, that I rise from the discussion a more thorough Trinitarian than ever. I do believe with all my heart, in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as revealed in the Scripture; and my only hope of salvation hangs on what is connected with this belief. But I have no zeal for the system of an emanation-Trinity, as taught in the Nicene school, nor for the metaphysical and modal one of more modern theologians. When it can be shown that either the one or the other of these is revealed in the Bible, then may we become disciples of those who show it. Until then, it is better for us to remain simple scriptural believers, and attached merely to the School of Christ.

ARTICLE II.

IMMUTABILITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS.

By T. C. Upham, Prof. of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics, Bowdoin College.

WHETHER Rectitude is something based in the nature of things, fixed, eternal, and immutable, or is erected on the foundation of one's personal interests or of mere positive enactment and law, either human or divine, is a question in the theory of morals, which has ever excited great interest, and has been attended with no little perplexity. Moral philosophers have been nearly equally divided upon it. On the one side, if we are allowed to take into view the general characteristics and tendencies of their systems as well as what may have been expressly said on this matter, we may venture to arrange the names of Plato, Cicero, Cudworth, Grotius, Clarke, Butler, Price, Wollaston, Degerando, Cousin, Stewart, Dewar, Edwards, Emmons, Appleton and others. On the other side, we should probably not err in placing Epicurus, Hobbes, Condillac, Mandeville, Locke, Hume, Rochefoucauld, De Stutt, de Tracy, archbishop King, Helvetius, Paley, Bentham, Dymond, etc. On both sides of this interesting and important question, are to be found men of the highest moral worth, as well as of the most distinguished intellectual ability. It is to be expected, therefore, that whoever offers an opinion in this stage of the discussion, when so many learned and able men have failed in bringing it to a termination, will do it with some degree of diffidence in his own judgment. It is perhaps due to the writer of this article to say, that he feels no small reluctance in treating on this obscure and difficult subject; and that nothing but a conviction, perhaps a mistaken one, of its great importance to the interests of morals and religion, has induced him to make the attempt. I shall throw what I have to say into distinct heads; and state the argument, as it exists at present in my own mind, as briefly and clearly as possible.

1. The doctrine of the permanent nature of Rectitude and of the immutability of Moral Distinctions seems to find support, in the first place, from the views which men are generally found to take of things in their nature or essence.-Every thing, which

exists, necessarily has a nature; not merely in the general sense of that term, but a specific nature of its own. "Every thing," says bishop Butler, "is what it is, and not another thing." In other words, there is something, (although perhaps that something is wholly unexplainable,) which renders the thing, that exists, what it is in distinction from every thing else; some element, some distinctive quality, some primordial characteristic, something, (we do not profess nor consider it necessary to be exact in the expression of it,) which is truly and absolutely essential both to its existence and the mode of its existence; and without which it would not be what it is. And this is equally true, whether the thing in question be made known to us as something material or immaterial; whether it is objective or subjective, an object which the mind contemplates exterior to itself or an internal and purely mental modification; whether it be regarded as an independent entity, an attribute, or a mere relation. This seems to be self-evident and undeniable; because, if the thing, which exists, has not a specific or distinctive nature, then it is not a distinct existence, but is identical with something else. And this is so clear, that we need not hesitate to assert, although God, to the full extent of his omnipotence, can create, things even out of nothing, and can modify them with every possibility of modification, He cannot do either, without giving them a nature; without imparting some distinctive element. These simple and common-sense views we may apply to everything which exists or is conceived to exist, to the whole universe of mind and of matter, of thought and of objects of thought.

(1) Beginning with those things, which are addressed to the senses, we may remark in illustration of what has been said, that every kind of color has something in it by which it is distinguished from every other color, which is truly diverse from it. Every variety of the sensations of taste also, such as sweet, bitter, acrid, sour, has its specific nature, (whether we consider the sensation merely or include the outward cause that produces it,) which stamps and characterizes it as such a sensation, and not another one. All the varieties of sound, numerous as they are, have each their peculiarity, their distinctive trait or quality, and which cannot fail really and forever to separate them from all other varieties of sound. In no one of these cases can one sensation or perception be another; each stands by itself in its own nature and essence, and it is not possible even

to conceive of them as interchangeable.-(2) If we turn our attention to those objects of thought, which are internal, and which are not so closely connected with and dependent on outward causes, as those things just mentioned, we shall find it to be the same. We are able, by means of that original suggestion, which constitutes one of the effective elements and characteristics of our mental structure, to frame the abstract notions of existence, unity, identity, succession, number, power, time, space, and the like. And all these have respectively a nature, appropriate and peculiar to themselves. Although we are unable to give a verbal definition of Unity or of Time, yet every one knows what is meant by these terms; every one has a knowledge for himself, sufficiently clear and satisfactory for all the common purposes of reasoning and practice. But while, in themselves considered, they lie clear and distinct in our perceptions, we also perceive with the entire clearness of intuition, that they are not the same; that each has its appropriate sphere; that they stand truly and forever apart from each other. The same may be said of Space and Power. Both of these are made known to us by the original, the suggestive power of the mind alone; and as the mind is the source, so it is the measure of the knowledge which we have of what we thus term. And we may confidently assert, that the mind pronounces them not only wholly distinct, but wholly unlike. And it is utterly impossible for the human mind, (as we doubt not every one will find on fully making the experiment,) to conceive of Power becoming. Space, as of Space becoming Power, as much so as to conceive of the actual identity of UNITY and TIME, or of the identity of mere EXISTENCE and SUCCESSION. And it is the same with every other simple notion, which we form, whether of external or of internal origin; that is to say, whether wrought in the mind by the presence of some external object, or flowing from its own fulness. Whatever we perceive or feel to exist, which is elementary and simple, we never can perceive or feel to exist otherwise than it is; and perceiving it to be just what it is and nothing else, we cannot possibly perceive it to be something which is different.(3) We might carry these illustrations into the Emotive or Sentient part of our nature. As an example, every man is capable of putting forth, or what is perhaps a more proper expression of the fact, of experiencing the emotions of pleasure and pain; and although it is admitted we cannot give an availa