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any good man to disparage the advantages of natural philosophy or natural theology, as tending to improve the mind; he believes, on the contrary, that the better we are acquainted with the Bible, the greater will be our admiration of the book of nature, inscribed by the same Divine Hand. Nay, he maintains that the most unlettered Christian, who is nevertheless conversant with the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, cannot fail of being a natural theologian, and ready at all times to exclaim "Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands."-Heb. i. 10. However certain, therefore, it may be that the study of natural theology may have led infidels to consider the evidence of the truth of Christianity, yet the notion of Lord Brougham is to be rejected, that the latter is defective without the aid of the former. For, if the instances of conversion to Christianity from the schools of philosophy were a thousand times more numerous than they are, it would nowise lessen the importance of the

beauty of the versification, I will subjoin the stanza which precedes the above chaunt::

"Now forward boldly with repeated song,

And feathery foot and happy heart, his way;
Lo! Zion-ward he took-I look'd, and long
Methought the cherub trio seem'd to pray;
Then in a hymn (while some aerial throng
Of minstrels, loudly join'd the sacred song)
With heavenly accent they attuned this lay."

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fact, that in all ages, from the period of our Saviour's advent to the present day, it has been the privilege and boast of Christianity, that to the poor the Gospel is preached; and not only so, but that they have even enjoyed advantages peculiar to their low condition, the chief of which is the greater docility attending it.

CHAPTER XX.

REVEALED RELIGION.

THE respect due to revealed religion is, we have said, far from requiring that we should speak evil of that philosophy, which sets before us the wonderful works of God, as exhibited in the natural world; yet never was it more necessary than in the present day to take care that philosophers do not draw us into the fatal error of supposing that it is enough for us to know that there is a God that governs the world. Whereas, if we would be heirs of that life to come which the Gospel has brought to light, we must believe not only that there is a God, but that there is such a God as that Gospel has announced to us. A Father-a Redeemer and a Sanctifier-Three Persons, and One God. May I then be excused for once more putting in a protest against connecting personality, as Paley, and others following him, have done, with the essential Unity of the Godhead. When we do this, we cease, I repeat, to be Trinitarians; since Three Persons can no more be One Person, than Three Gods can be One God. It is impossible to say of what vast importance this distinction is to the interests of

Christianity, or how much it lessens the difficulty which some have experienced in becoming reconciled to the doctrine of the Trinity, that doctrine which is the very corner-stone of the Christian fabric.

In their anxiety to meet heretics at all points, the framers of the Athanasian Creed seem to have lost sight of the inseparable connection between individuality and personality, which latter must of necessity imply individual subsistence.

Keep this distinction clear, and there will be no danger of further heresies, on the plea of offended reason, the only reasonable plea that can be urged abstractedly against a clearly revealed mystery.

Instead of declaring that there are not Three Incomprehensibles or Three Eternals, it would be right (if it were right to retain so superfluous a clause at all) to say rather-thus there are Three Incomprehensibles - Three Eternals - Three Persons, in fact, equally possessed of all the Divine Attributes-yet but One God.*

* Suppose, by way of further illustration, that, instead of one Attribute at a time, they had been applied together, thus :

The Father has all the Attributes of the Godhead.

The Son has all the Attributes of the Godhead.

:-

The Holy Ghost has all the Attributes of the Godhead.

And yet there are not three to whom all the Attributes of the Deity appertain, but One only.

What, I ask, would be said of such an exposition of the doctrine of

I have said above that personality and individuality are inseparable. We, in truth, know nothing of the nature of incorporeal spirit. God is a Spirit, and he that would worship Him rightly, must worship Him in spirit and truth. But God, as a Spirit, no man hath known, nor can know. In like manner, man is a compound of body and spirit. Do away with personality, and our identity and individuality disappear. Our spiritual part, that part which makes us living souls, is no otherwise known to us than by its operations. What becomes of it when we die we do not know distinctly. But we do know that, at the last day, the same Almighty Being, who first breathed into his creature man the breath of life, will again restore that spirit which will complete the perfection of our glorified bodies, and give us, no doubt, a consciousness of our identical individuality. So far is this from the spiritless doctrine of the Materialists, that its tendency is to show the real position in which we are placed with regard to our immortal souls. God is not the less entitled to the glorious Attributes with which the Bible invests Him, from His having been revealed to us as Tri-personal. Man is not the less possessed of an imperishable soul, from having no

the Trinity? Yet, without great assistance from the context, the clauses, as they at present stand, are quite as open to objection.

Primitive purity and simplicity are the brightest ornaments of a Catholic Creed. Let cavilling heretics be met upon less hallowed ground than that of the Sanctuary.

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