ment. Our Lord and his Apostles do not propose any metaphysical explication of the unity of the Divine nature. But they assume it, and declare it as a fundamental truth; and they never insinuate that it is in the smallest degree infringed by the revelation which they give of the three persons. After this example, I advise you never to perplex the minds of the people with different theories of the Trinity, and never to suggest that the unity of the Divine nature is a questionable point; but without professing to explain how the three persons are united, to place before your hearers, as you have occasion, the Scripture account of the Son and the Holy Ghost, as well as of the Father, and thus to preserve upon their minds what the Scriptures have revealed, and what upon that account it is certainly of importance for them to learn, the dignity of the second and third persons, their relation to us, and their power to execute the gracious offices necessary for our salvation. These essential points of Christian instruction, which it is the duty of the ministers of the gospel to impress upon the people, are revealed in the Scriptures in such a manner as to be in no danger of leading into the Sabellian, the Arian, or the Tritheistic scheme of the Trinity; and, therefore, if we adhere, as we ought always to do, to the pure revelation of Scripture in our account of the three persons, we have no occasion to expose to the people the defects of these schemes; and we may reserve to ourselves all the speculations about the manner in which the three persons are united.

I conclude this specimen of the variety of opinions, and of the kind of language which you may expect to find in ancient and modern writers upon the Trinity, with mentioning the books from which I have derived most assistance.

The best writer in defence of the Catholic system of the Trinity is Bishop Bull. His works are published in a large folio volume, more than half of which is filled with the three following treatises: Defensio fidei Nicenæ-Judicium Ecclesiæ Catholicæ-Primitiva et Apostolica Traditio. All the three respect the Trinity, and are often quoted by succeeding writers, who borrow the greatest part of their matter from this very learned and able divine. His principal work is, Defensio fidei Nicenæ, which consists of four parts. 1. The gourages, pre-existence of the Son-2. To oμoovσion, consubstantiality of the Son-3. To ovrai diov, his eternal co-existence with the Father. 4. His subordination to the Father. Bishop Pearson, in his Exposition of the Creed, gives the same view of the Trinity with Bishop Bull; which is the true Athanasian scheme; and he states it as he states every other point in theology of which he treats, with clearness, with sound judgment, and with much learning. Dr. Cudworth, in that magazine of learning, which he calls the Intellectual System, gives a full view of the Christian and the Platonic Trinity. If you consult, when you read him, the ingenious and learned notes which Mosheim has added to his Latin edition of Cudworth, you will be preserved from some errors, and your views of the subjects treated will be much enlightened and improved. When you come down to the last century, Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity is the first book which will engage your attention. As a collection of texts upon the subject it is most useful; as a view of the opinions of the ancient church it is to be read, for the reasons which I mentioned, with suspicion; and as the argu

ment of a very able and acute man, upon a subject which seems to have been near his heart, it is proper that you should read at the same time what was said by his opponents. There are two books by Dr. Waterland. The one, Sermons in Defence of the Divinity of Jesus Christ; the other, A Vindication of Christ's Divinity. And there is an excellent book, not so controversial as Dr. Waterland's, which should be read by every student of divinity. A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, by Dr. Thomas Randolph. Dr. Randolph opposes the principles of Dr. Clarke. But he writes directly in answer to a small book entitled, An Essay on Spirit, which presents a modification of the Arian System. You will read with pleasure a rational intelligible history of Arianism, which Dr. Jortin, who is very far from having any prejudice in favour of the Catholic system, gives in the third volume of his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History. I referred formerly to Ben Mordecai's Apology by Taylor. You will find many able attacks upon all the parts of the Catholic system, in the works of Mr. Thomas Emlyn.-Mosheim, in his valuable work, De Rebus Christianorum ante Christianum Magnum, gives the most complete information as to Sabellianism, and the other early systems of the Trinity; and his Church History joins to a short account of all the variety of opinions upon this subject, references to the authors who have treated of them more largely. Mr. Gibbon has introduced into his second volume a history of the Arian controversy, in which he professes to delineate the three systems of the Trinity. But there is the same inveterate prejudice against religion, and the same constant endeavour to turn into ridicule every branch of that subject, which disgrace so large a portion of the writings of this illustrious historian. Some of the books which I have mentioned will prepare you for reading this part of Gibbon, by enabling you to discern where his account is lame, or unfair. Lardner, Priestley, Lindsey, and the other Socinians of later times, incline to the Sabellian system, and employ every art to represent the other two as contrary to Scripture, to reason, and to the opinions of the primitive church. They have been attacked by many modern writers. But you will need no other antidote to their heresy than the volume of tracts by Bishop Horsley, a formidable antagonist, whose superiority in argument and in learning gives him some title to use that tone of disdain which pervades the volume. It consists of a charge to the clergy of his Archdeaconry, exposing the errors in one of Dr. Priestley's publications; of letters to Dr. Priestley, occasioned by his reply to the charge; of a sermon on the incarnation, and of supplemental disquisitions.

Of other writers who have published particular schemes of the Trinity, I am almost entirely ignorant. From the short accounts of their works which have come in my way, I found that their schemes are only certain modifications of the first or the third systems, by which ingenious men have attempted to satisfy their own minds, or to remove the objections which others had made; and knowing well that, after all our researches, difficulties must remain, and that these difficulties furnish no argument against the truth, I thought that my time might be employed more profitably than by labouring to fix in my mind their nice discriminations, which it might be difficult to apprehend and impossible to retain.

BOOK IV.

OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE, THE EXTENT, AND THE APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY

BROUGHT BY THE GOSPEL.

HAVING given a view of the different opinions which have been held concerning the two persons, who are revealed in the gospel, I come now to treat of the remedy which was brought by the one of these persons, and is applied by the other. It appears to me that the best method in which I can state the most important questions in theology upon this great division of the subject, is by leading you to attend to the opinions which have been held concerning the Nature -the Extent and the Application of the remedy. By considering these three points in succession, we shall exhaust the remaining part of the Socinian, together with the Pelagian and Arminian controversies, and shall thus obtain, without more repetition than is unavoidable upon subjects so closely allied, a complete and connected view of the capital branches of controversial divinity.

CHAPTER I.

DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED.

THE gospel proceeds upon the supposition that all have sinned. It assumes the character of the religion of sinners, and professes to bring a remedy for the moral evil which exists in the world. Our attention is thus called back from the remedy to the disease; for we cannot entertain just apprehensions of the nature of that provision which the gospel has made, unless we understand the circumstances which called for that provision; and we may expect that those, who have formed different systems with regard to the nature of the remedy, are not of the same opinion with regard to the disease. In one point

however, all sects of Christians agree, that there is much sin in the world. The Socinian does not hesitate to say with the Calvinist, that all have sinned; and those fanatics who conceived that they themselves had attained the perfection of virtue, were led, by this selfconceit, to magnify the wickedness of the rest of mankind.

That men are sinners, is a point concerning which those who respect the authority of Scripture cannot entertain any doubt; for it is uniformly taught there, from the period preceding the flood, when, as we read, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great.' At the appearance of Christianity, the angel gave to the son of Mary the name of Jesus," for he shall save his people from their sins."t Jesus himself said, "they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;" and Paul, the apostle of Jesus, in his Epistle to the Romans, builds his whole doctrine upon the position which he proves in the commencement, "that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, and that the whole world is guilty before God." But this position does not rest entirely upon the authority of Scripture. It is abundantly established by the experience of all ages; and they who never received the revelation of the gospel, agree with Christians in acknowledging the fact upon which that revelation proceeds. The violence of human passions, the inefficacy of all the attempts which have been made since the beginning of legislation to restrain them, the secret wickedness which abounds, the horrors of remorse which rack the minds of some, the self-reproach of which those who are less guilty cannot divest themselves, and the dissatisfaction with their own attainments, which the most virtuous feel-these circumstances conspire in affording the clearest evidence, that men do not act up to the dictates of right reason, but that the conduct of all falls short, in one degree or other, of that standard which they perceive it to be both their duty and their interest to follow. Men will differ in their opinion of the grossness and the extent of the corruption of manners, according to the opportunities which they have had of observing it-according to the degree of severity in their natural disposition-according to the sentiments and principles which they had imbibed during their education, or which the reflections and habits of advanced life have formed; but no difference in character or situation can render men wholly insensible to this corruption. Even those, who plead upon system for an indulgence to their own defects, meet with numberless instances where they cannot allow others to plead the same indulgence. The vices of one rank are regarded with contempt or with indignation by another; and the easy accommodating moralist, who resolves the vices of the age into the progress of society, looks back with horror upon the enormities of former times. It is true that the forms of wickedness vary according to the state of society; it is also true that some forms are marked with deeper depravity than others; and it will not be denied by any scholar, that a concurrence of favourable circumstances has at some periods gone far to mitigate the atrocity of crimes, and to invigorate the exertions of virtue. But it is in the writings of the poets, not of the historians of antiquity, that a golden

* Gen. vi. 5.

# Mat. ix. 12.

† Mat. i. 21.

§ Rom. iii. 9.