cal, necessary inference from these simple facts is, that the Christian Scriptures teach three Gods, and yet that they teach but one God, - a gross absurdity and a direct contradiction." pp. 32, 33.

Again, on the subject of the alleged two natures in Christ he says:

Before, however, leaving this part of our subject, let us hear what one of the most wary of Trinitarians, whom we have already quoted, and whose opinion is greatly respected, really dogs affirm. We readily avow that we pretend not to know in what manner the divine and human natures, which we attribute to the Messiah, are united in his sacred person. We believe that in this respect, especially, "his name is wonderful,” and that "no one knoweth the Son, except the Father." The Scriptures appear to us on the one hand, to teach the existence of such a union as produces a personal oneness; and on the other, to exclude the notion of transmutation or confusion of the essential perfections of either nature with respect to the other.' 'The question of such a union is a question of fact; and its proper, its only evidence, is Divine Revelation.' Again we ask, what is this question of fact? The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ was a man. Granted. The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is God. Denied but for the present granted. Well, these are all the facts. That Jesus Christ is both God and Man, God and Man mysteriously united that the person of Jesus the Christ, the Lord, Redeemer, and Savior of Mankind, comprises the unique and mysterious union of humanity and deity; the human nature with all its proper qualities, the divine nature with all its essential perfections,' is no Scripture fact. This is a mere assertion, a poor inference of the Trinitarian himself. A logical, necessary inference? By no means. The only logical, necessary inference from these facts is, that the Christian Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is Man, and yet that they teach also that Jesus Christ is God - a direct contradiction and an absurd and fearful impiety. But they do not teach either the contradiction or the impiety. They do not teach that Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved of God, was God."-pp. 35, 36.

Farther on, he thus sums up and applies the argument against the Trinity to be derived from the manner in which the Apostles expounded the new faith to their countrymen.

"Without going into an analysis of these several Apostolic expositions of the Christian religion, I appeal to any serious, zealous Trinitarian minister, I ask him whether his con

science would allow him to use the language, and no word more than the language, which the Apostle Peter addressed to the assembled Jews on the day of Pentecost if he were called upon to address an immense body of Jews on the character and mission of Jesus Christ, the very topic of Peter's discourse? I put it to him, whether his conscience would allow him to confine his discourse to the being, and perfection, and providence of God, as Paul did on Mars' Hill, if he were called upon to address a heathen audience; or whether, in speaking to such an audience on the future judgment, he would merely say, 'Because' God hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead'? I put it to him whether, if called upon, as Paul was called upon, to declare his faith in a public court of law, his conscience would allow him to affirm merely that the distinguishing article of that faith was a belief in the resurrection of the dead? I put it to him whether, if sent for in private, as Paul was sent for by a ruler of the land, to expound the religion of Christ, his conscience would allow him merely to reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come? I put it to him whether, on all such occasions, he would not feel it to be his paramount duty to exhibit, in most prominent view, the Deity of Jesus Christ; the doctrine of the Trinity; the fall of man; the universal depravity of man; the doctrine of the atonement; salvation by faith; and the eternal misery of all who rejected those doctrines? Now he, the modern Trinitarian preacher, looks back on the facts of the Christian religion, and on the Savior's method of teaching the truths of his religion, through the long vista of eighteen hundred years, yet he feels an imperative necessity for preaching the Gospel in a way so widely different from the way in which the Apostles and companions of Jesus are recorded to have preached it, that he would tremble in his soul to confine himself, even in his briefest addresses to his own Christian brethren, to the topics and illustration embraced in the Apostolic sermons. He feels that, if he were placed in the position of the Apostles, he would have poured out his soul in advocating his Lord's divinity and atonement, before Jews and Greeks, and bond and free, before magistrates and kings, before the congregated thousands, and in the secrecy of private conference. Why is this? Whence arises this strange difference between the Apostolic sermons and the sermons of Trinitarian preachers? There is one explanation which the elder Trinitarians very generally adopted, although it is quite rejected by their modern brethren. I refer to the notion, that the Apostles suppressed the

great doctrines of the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ, from motives of a politic nature, and that they transmitted these through private oral tradition. The prevalence of this notion from the first to the fourth century confirms our reasoning, that there is a wondrous discrepancy between the Apostolic preaching and the modern Trinitarian opinions and, as we do not believe the Apostles had recourse to any such disgraceful, dishonest practice, it conducts to the necessary consequence, that these opinions are not Apostolic. pp. 42, 43.

The discourse on the comparative effects of the two systems in controversy, abounds in weighty suggestions and thrilling pictures; but we must content ourselves with giving a single

extract.

"We have taken notice of the influence of the popular theology on observant but skeptical persons - what must be its effects on intelligent, conscientious, humane hearts, who implicitly receive it as the only true religion! There are unquestionably many such. But we think we have abundant indications that of these there are few who do not feel it to be a hard bondage. We speak not of the unthinking, indurated, presumptuous thousands who indulge brief questioning of their own eternal salvation, and deal out their deep-mouthed damnation against their fellow-men, with a flippant levity or a brutal satisfaction horrible to hear, - but we speak of those better minds, whose modesty and mercy are not crushed to death by their iron theology. We think we perceive how their free thoughts are fettered, how their charities are restrained, how they are driven to compromise veracity and candor, - how they bid to silence honest, sturdy doubts by pettiest reasons, and instead of meeting these with a bold brow and a free heart, shrink before them into any shallow prevarication that offers a refuge. But we are not left to conjecture the effect on such minds; many of them have recorded their experience. And do they not tell us of their struggles with unbelieving thoughts which will not be suppressed, but which stoutly question the most essential points of their creed, implicit and unshaken faith in which, constitutes their peace, their hope, their safety? Do they not tell us of the writhings of their natural feelings against the stern character of their Deity, not to be appeased without blood, dooming the creatures of his hand to dreadful agonies, and looking on their tortures with fearful complacency? Do they not tell us of their anxious and often fruitless search after evidence of their own conversion, of their lingering suspicions that they are self-deceived, of their burning fears that

sin and Satan will finally prevail against them? Are they not at times haunted with a worse terror than ever oppressed the Atheist's mind? His extreme anxiety is the thought of annihilation -a thought which the wretched only can reflect on with satisfaction, but which no one need anticipate with dread, since consciousness and existence must cease together, whilst the utmost which the popular theology permits to any man, is the hope that he is among the chosen number destined for heaven. He may be included in that vast majority who are reserved for perdition and eternal death. This terror made the life of the amiable, gifted Cowper, one lengthened melancholy, and it has driven some to distraction, and added to the gloomy catalogue of human miseries- religious madness and religious suicide. Then, to think that myriads of our fellow-men are, generation after generation, passing away unconverted, unredeemed, to the regions of eternal woe, to watch by the deathbed of beloved relatives and affectionate friends, who, by sharing our joys, more than doubled them, and by partaking of our sorrows, made them light; whose faithfulness has been unchanged in either fortune; whose very heart-strings are entwined with ours; to see them die, without a sign that they are saved; to stand by their graves, and to think we shall never more behold them but in everlasting torments, were enough to distract the brain, and would drive men mad - but that the holy feelings of the human heart cannot be exterminated, and render the firmest believers in this afflicting creed secretly skeptical and unbelieving."— pp. 72, 73.

We welcome every such new accession to the cloud of witnesses for what we conceive to be incorrupt Christianity. If any one is entitled to speak with authority on the respective merits of Unitarianism and Trinitarianism, it must be one who, like Mr. Wood, is thoroughly acquainted with both, and has had actual experience of the moral influence of both, and this, too, at a time when his heart was deeply interested in the subject, and his mind in a condition to note and record its impressions.

NOTICES AND INTELLIGENCE.

A Compendium of Christian Antiquities: being a brief View of the Orders, Rites, Laws, and Customs of the Ancient Church in the Early Ages. By the Rev. C. S. HENRY, A. M. Philadelphia: Joseph Whetham. 1837. Svo. pp. 332. A great deal of curious Christian learning is here given us in a small compass. We know indeed of no other book, of a similar size, in which nearly the same quantity of information could be obtained, concerning the antiquities of the church; and they, who are acquainted with the value of Bingham's Origines Ecclesiastica, and are told that this volume is hardly more than an abridgment of it, will want no further certificate of the general accuracy of its facts and statements. "The work of Bingham," as we are informed by Professor Henry in his Preface, "has been relied upon as to facts and authorities, as well as followed in its general method; still an attentive comparison will show occasionally an independent reference, and more frequently an independent exercise of judgment upon the materials brought together by Bingham."

We should have been better pleased, if the Professor had either not differed at all from his original, or had stated to us the manner in which he had seen fit to do so, so that we could always distinguish his "independent references" and "independent exercises of judgment" from the references and conclusions of the learned Bingham. No variation from his author should have been allowed in the text. And additional references, or a difference of opinion, could always and easily have been designated in a note. Yet we sincerely thank Professor Henry for this abridgment. It is very interesting to Christian students to know what the early Christians thought and did, though their thoughts and actions are to be regarded only as precedents and not as authority precedents to be observed or not by us, according as we deem them to conform or not to the dictates of reason, and the language and spirit of Scripture.

The Feast of Tabernacles. A Poem for Music. By HENRY WARE, JR. Cambridge: John Owen. 1837. 16mo. pp. 38. -This poem has been set to music by Mr. Charles Zeuner, and was performed at the Boston Odeon the last spring by the choir of the Academy of Music, to the great satisfaction of those who heard it. As we were not among the number of the hearers, we can only speak of the poem as it now appears before us, separated from the charms of melody; and we can truly say that the peruVOL. XXIII. - 3D S. VOL. V. NO. I.

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