This creed has been recently defended by the Rev. T. Hartwell Horne, in "The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, briefly stated and defended, and the Church of England vindicated from the charge of uncharitableness in retaining the Athanasian Creed," &c. Many clergymen, notwithstanding, deem it at variance with common sense and charity.

It is, however, singular that the author of this creed should, after all its strange mysteries, conclude with declaring, that when Christ shall appear to raise the dead, "all men shall give account of their works; they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire!" So that, even in the opinion of the author of this creed (whoever he was), it is not Faith, but PRACTICE, that will determine the happiness or misery of the eternal world.

Mr. Broughton, in his "Dictionary of all Religions,' under the article Trinity, has the following paragraph, which may assist the reader on this most abtruse subject: "The doctrine of the Trinity, as professed in the Christian church, is briefly this: that there is one GOD in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: person signifying here the same as essence, with a particular manner of subsistence, which the Greek fathers called hypostasis, taking it for the incommunicable property that makes a person. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are believed to be three distinct persons in the Divine nature, because the Holy Scriptures, in speaking of these three, so distinguish them from one another, as we use in common speech to distinguish three several persons. There are many instances to this purpose, particularly the form of administering the sacrament of baptism, which runs, 'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;' and that solemn benediction with which St. Paul concludes his Second Epistle to the Corinthians: The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,' &c.; and the three witnesses in heaven,' mentioned by St. John." This passage has for some time been deemed an interpolation, and Dr. Tomline gives it up in his "Elements of Theology. The late Mr. Porson, a profound Greek scholar, has, it is

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thought, in his controversy with Archdeacon Travis, settled the subject. Dr. John Jones, author of an excellent English and Greek Lexicon, has, however, written a pamphlet in behalf of the authenticity of the passage, and contends that it is the grand basis of Unitarianism in the New Testament. He challenges his opponents to come forward to confute him, but they observe a profound silence. The attempt is assuredly perfectly novel, but the erudite author declares that his position is "as clear as the sun at noonday in the firmament." Every lover of truth should read the pamphlet with attention.

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"Each of these three persons is affirmed to be God, because the name, properties, and operations of God are, in the Holy Scriptures, attributed to each of them. Divinity of the Father is out of the question. That of the Son is proved from the following texts, among many others: St. John says, The word was God;' St. Paul, that God was manifested in the flesh;' that 'Christ is over all, God blessed for ever.' Eternity is attributed to the Son: The Son hath life in himself.' Perfection and knowledge: As the Father knoweth me, so know I the Father.' The creation of all things: All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.' And we are commanded to honour the Son as we honour the Father.' The Divinity of the Holy Ghost rests upon the following proofs, among others: Lying to the Holy Ghost' is called Lying to God.' Because Christians are the 'temples of the Holy Ghost,' they are said to be the 'temples of God. His teaching all things,' his guiding into all truth,' his 'telling things to come,' his 'searching all things, even the deep things of God,' &c., are alleged as plain characters of his Divinity. Besides, he is joined with God the Father, as an object of faith and worship, in baptism, and the apostolical benedicton. This doctrine is called a mystery, because we are not able to comprehend the particular manner of the existence of the three persons in the Divine Nature." Bishop Taylor remarks, with great piety, that "He who goes about to speak of the mystery of the Trinity, and does it by words and

names of man's invention, talking of essences and existences, hypostases and personalties, priorities in co-equalities, and unity in pluralities, may amuse himself and build a tabernacle in his head, and talks something he knows not what: but the good man who feels the power of the Father, and to whom the Son is become wisdom, sanctification, and redemption, and in whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is shed abroad-this man, though he understands nothing of what is unintelligible, yet he alone truly understands the Christian doctrine of the Trinity."

It were well if, before we made up our minds on this intricate article of faith, we were carefully to read Dr. Watts's "Essay on the importance of any Human Schemes to explain the Doctrines of the Trinity." This Essay shows, first, that no such scheme of explication is necessary to salvation; secondly, that it may yet be of great use to the Christian church; and, thirdly, that all such explications ought to be proposed with modesty to the world, and never imposed on the conscience. Dr. Pye Smith's "Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, or an Enquiry into the Person of Christ," in two octavo volumes, is among the recent publications in favour of the Trinity.

Bishop Burnet tells us, that before the Reformation it was usual in England to have pictures of the Trinity. God the Father was represented in the shape of an old man with a triple crown, and rays about his head! The Son, in another part of the picture, looked like a young man, with a single crown on his head, and a radiant countenance. The blessed Virgin was between them, in a sitting posture, and the Holy Ghost, under the appearance of a dove, spread his wings over her! This picture, he tells us, is still to be seen in a prayer-book printed in the year 1526, according to the ceremonial of Salisbury; Skippon also tells us, there is at Padua a representation of the Trinity, being the figure of an old man, with three faces and three beards! And, lately reading Thoresby's "History of Leicester," I met with a curious representation of the Trinity copied from an ancient painted window, the date of which was not ascertained. How contrary are these absurd representations of the Deity to the sub

lime declaration of our Saviour, John iv. 24: "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

SABELLIANS.

The Sabellian reduces the three persons in the Trinity to three characters or relations. This has been called by some a model Trinity, and the persons who hold it, Modalists. Sabellius, the founder of the sect, espoused the doctrine in the third century. Of his tenets the accounts are various. Some say he taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one subsistence, and one person with three names; and that in the Old Testament the Deity delivered the law as Father, in the New Testament dwelt among men as the Son, and descended on the apostles as the Holy Spirit. This opinion gains ground in the Principality of Wales. "The Sabellians (says Mr. Broughton) made the word and the Holy Spirit to be only virtues, emanations, or functions of the Deity. They held, that he who in heaven is the Father of all things, descended into the Virgin, became a child, and was born of her as a Son; and that having accomplished the mystery of our salvation, he diffused himself on the apostles in tongues of fire, and was then denominated the Holy Ghost. They resembled God to the sun, the .illuminative virtue or quality whereof was the Word, and its warming virtue the Holy Spirit. The Word, they taught, was darted like a Divine ray, to accomplish the work of redemption; and that being re-ascended to heaven, as the ray returns to its source, the warmth of the Father was communicated after a like manner to the apostles. Such was the language of Sabellians."

Mosheim says likewise, that "Sabellius maintained that a certain energy only proceeded from the Supreme Parent, or a certain portion of the Divine nature was united to the Son of God, the man Jesus, and he (that is, Sabellius) considered, in the same manner, the Holy Ghost as a portion of the everlasting Father."

These various explications are given, that the reader may have a consistent view of the subject. It is a curious circumstance with respect to this system, that whilst one party pronounce Sabellianism to be no other than Unitarianism in a fog, another party charges it with confounding the persons of the ever blessed Trinity.

Between the system of Sabellianism, and what is termed the indwelling scheme, there appears to be a considerable resemblance, if it be not precisely the same, differently explained. The indwelling scheme is founded on that passage in the New Testament, where the apostle, speaking of Christ, says, "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Dr. Watts, towards the close of his life, became a Sabellian, and wrote several pieces in defence of it. His sentiments on the Trinity appear to have been, that "the Godhead, the Deity itself, personally distinguished as the Father, was united to the man Christ Jesus, in consequence of which union or indwelling of the Godhead, he became properly God." The Rev. Mr. Palmer, in his edition of " Johnson's Life of Watts," observes that Dr. Watts conceived this union to have subsisted before the Saviour's appearance in the flesh, and that the human soul of Christ existed with the Father from before the foundation of the world; on which ground he maintains the real descent of Christ from heaven to earth, and the whole scene of his humilliation, which he thought incompatible with the common opinion concerning him. See Dr. Watts's "Last Thoughts on the Trinity," in a pamphlet republished by the Rev. Gabriel Watts. It was printed by the Doctor in the year 1745, three years only before his death. It is on this account valuable, and ought, in justicce to that great and good man, to have been inserted in the last edition of his works. Indeed, the reader is referred to a piece published by the Rev. S. Palmer, entitled, "Dr. Watts no Socinian,” in reply to the Rev. T. Belsham, who, in his "Life of the Rev. T. Lindsay," had intimated that Dr. Watts had become a modern Unitarian. There can be no doubt, however, that Dr. W. had discarded the common notion of the Trinity, though he was not an Unitarian, in the modern