"Thou fair religion! was design'd The god of universal aid, The god, the father of us all, First drawn by thee, thus glow'd the heavenly scene, Till superstition, fiend of woe! Bade doubts to rise, and tears to flow, And spread dark clouds, our view and heaven between ; Drawn by her pencil the creator stands (His beams of mercy thrown aside) With thunder arming his uplifted hand; And hurling vengeance wide, Hope at the frown aghast yet lingering flies, And dash'd on terrors rocks faith's best dependence lies." PENROSE. HAVE we indeed become worthy of anathemas from a certain pulpit, and yet are our errors so numerous, our knowledge of the scriptures so trifling, and our ignorance of theology so great, as to render us unworthy of a serious reply in writing? Does the professor of sacred literature think that he can content us by annotating on the margin of our work, "it is a scripture phrase"when we enquired the meaning of the phrase "Heaven of Heavens ?" does he suppose the subserviency of our own judgment so abject, as te submit to another marginal note that "sense of agency is nonsense or impiety when applied to God as F. would have it," or does he, as we are told he has asserted, contend that we have no religion at all? Among the very numerous errors which the professor stated to exiits in our review of Dr. Griffin's sermon we find none specifically pointed out. The remarks which he has favoured us with we notice, as we will all others he may be inclined to make, with due attention. In the margin of No. 14, p. 214, we find written by the professor "acquirements of God, is saying he is not omniscient or has not been." We cannot judge of the gentleman's motives for making this remark; we have a right however to presume that he in christian charity intended them for our inspection and instruction-with an equal spirit of benevo lence we reply to them. We had quoted the following passage from Dr. Griffin's sermon: "In respect to his knowledge and agency he is omnipresent." On this passage, we had remarked in the sentence underlined by the professor and to which his note was attached" We had hitherto considered knowledge as an acquirement," intending thereby to infer that the attri bution of an acquirement to an originally omnipotent Being was in our opinion incorrect. On this our observation, the professor makes a remark which leaves only a point in dispute between Dr. Griffin and himself-for the professor and ourselves declare the same thing-viz. that to speak of the acquirements of God is to say that he is not omniscient or not been so. "Sense of agency is nonsense or impiety, when applied to God as F. would have it." This is the next annotation.—Now we should not scruple much to confess that we have sometimes written nonsense, but we will defend ourselves against the charge of impiety till we return our breath to God who gave it, and when we shall be convinced that we have written nonsense, it will be only by an argument that contains some sense. The first note of the learned gentleman in No. 15, p. 225, is doubtless intended as instructive-we therefore thank him with all the humility of a man who has no right to a knowledge of theology because he is not installed as a professor. In answer to our remark that we should be glad to be informed of the meaning of the phrase Heaven of Heavens, the professor of sacred literature most improvingly informs us, "It is a scripture phrase." When such instruction is so voluntarily and explicitly given,who can be ungrateful? We bow with the respect due from ignorance to knowledge. The next and last notice of our numerous errors is p. 227.-The shocking crime of which we are here sentenced as guilty, is marked thus with "double tongue of admiration;" "authority in form of a man"!! And can a theologist who advocates or passes over this sentence, "but now in the person of him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, the inhabitants of that world behold God manifest in the flesh-ridicule as absurd the following on which the annotation was made-" Are we therefore, because St. Paul declares that the divine authority was manifested to mankind in the form of a man," &c. Let us be permitted to ask the learned professor under what appearance Moses went to Pharaoh, and if the divine authority was not then made manifest in the form of a man when the Lord said to him "I make thee a God to Pharaoh ?" We have now remarked on all the notes with which the professor honeured our paper. If our ignorance be really so great as he esteems it, he will do an essential service to the public in exposing it still fartherwe have copied faithfully all the notes that have come within our sighthis remarks from the pulpit we heard only by proxy, and perhaps too incorrectly communicated to justify our farther remarks at present. We will beg leave however to assure the preacher that we have some religion, and that our religion partakes so much of Christianity as to induce us to expect that he will not be damned because he differs from us in his opinions. DR. GRIFFIN'S SERMON. NOTES, we presume, are intended for the elucidation of sentences in the body of the work; but what is to be done when notes only tend to make confusion worse confounded. It will indeed require all the rhetoric of all the professors of sacred literature to convince us what possible justification can be obtained from the 18th verse of the 10th chapter of St. John to Dr. Griffin's idea, that the personal union of the human nature with the divine "is so intimate, that with the same lips and in the same sentence he can apply to both natures the same personal pronoun."-What in the name of common sense, what in the name of plain, honest, simple religion can Dr. Griffin mean by this? We admit our ignorance, we cannot comprehend it—but while we are ready to acknowledge the profundity of the Doctor's researches we think that sermons should be calculated for vulgar comprehensions, the congregation should know what is meant by the preacher; it is his duty to explain not to confuse the scriptures. He refers us to John x 18, to prove this union he talks of so intimatę, &c.-What union? our Saviour has talked of none. Jesus has been representing himself, not as a hireling shepherd who would desert his flock in cases of extremity, but as a real owner who would protect his own property, as a father of a family who would sacrifice his life for them. He then observes in the verse to which the Doctor has referred us. "No "man taketh it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it againThis commandment have I received of my Father." Who can tell where in this verse is inferred any thing like a personal union of the human nature with the divine. Again the Doctor refers us to Acts xx. 28, to prove that "the sufferings of the human nature are as meritorious as though they had been the sufferings of the divine-the blood that was shed being the blood of God." The Doctor may retain, if he pleases, his present opinions, we will only prove to our readers, as we think it our duty, that they are not warranted even by the passages to which he himself refers. Indeed we see not in general how so many strange opinions should emanate from simple relations of poets. The simple fact we conceive to be this-St. Paul having called the elders together says to them, after other advice-" Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." What more can by any scientific man be understood by this than a recommendation to the elders to encourage the religion which Christ died to establish, in its original simplicity, labouring “to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it was more blessed to give than to receive." The third inferred or explanatory meaning of this assertion, "That body belongs to one in whom the human nature is raised to a personal union with the divine," is "that the same person that suffered, has the reward of governing the universe and bringing his people to glory: all of which cannot be predicated of either nature exclusively." All these inferences, we presume, are drawn to prove that the human nature has been raised to a personal union with the divine, since the Doctor contends, that they cannot all be predicated of either nature exclusively, and these inferences are themselves to be supposed to be drawn from the New Testament. We trust that it will not be considered as a derilection of the honesty of argument, should we adopt as a position, that any gentleman attempt. ing to establish a new doctrine or the revival of an old one on the foundation of the scriptures, would select from those scriptures such passages as would the most effectually support such doctrine.-Presuming therefore that Dr. Griffin has adopted the strongest passages he could select in his defence, we will examine candidly whether the superstructure is erected as the house of a man founded on a rock or on the sand. The first ground work he adopts is a verse in the tenth chapter of St. John-we have, as we believe, before remarked on what we consider at least as an indelicacy, the selecting of short passages from the scriptures, insulating them from the main subject with which they are connected, and pressing them so separated into the service of particular purposes. This was the method adopted by Mr. Thomas Paine when he undertook to invalidate the authenticity of the Pentateuch-he selected a few passages which were originally only marginal notes, but which had afterwards been subjoined to the respective chapters, to prove to the ignorant, that Moses could not have written any part of the five books. Dr. Griffin, as before observed, refers us to a verse of the 10th chapter of St. John, as a sanction to his observation-that the personal union of the human nature with the divine is so intimate, that with the same lips and in the same sentence, he can apply to both natures the same personal pronoun. Without attempting an explanation of the Doctor's meaning, which we confess in this and many other passages eludes our acutest investigation, we shall only quote a few verses from a work written for the ignorant, and which being intended to be understood, appears to vulgar capacities more intelligible in its native phrase, than when expounded by the Doctor's elucidations. "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy : I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: aud there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I : |