that every one that believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting; " his infinite liberality, wisdom, and power, in contriving for the restoration of mankind so ineffable a mystery as that of the Incarnation. "But God who is rich in mercy, through his exceeding charity with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ, (by whose grace you are saved,)" (Ephes. ii. 4, 5); in consequence of which, one and the same person as capable of suffering as man, and of giving infinite dignity to his sufferings as God, and likewise in inventing such a mode of redemption as should be at once the most painful and ignominious to the Redeemer, and most lenient and glorious to men. O wonderful condescension of thy mercy towards us! O inestimable love of Charity, thou hast delivered up thy Son to redeem the servant! O sin of Adam! which was cancelled by the death of Christ! O happy guilt! which was to have so great a Redeemer !

You assert, Rev. Sir, "that by this our doctrine, we make God the author of sin, and the punisher of crimes in men, by which he has rendered it impossible they should not commit." You refer me to the Unitarian Miscellany, No. 1, Vol. 1, page 19. To which I answer,-By confounding ideas, you Unitarians endeavour to throw dust into the eyes of your readers. No, Rev. Sir, God is not the author of original sin, whether we consider it in Adam, our first parent, or in his posterity. And first, God is not the author of original sin as far as relates to Adam himself, for as such, it is manifest, it has no other cause than the free will of Adam, who, contrary to the positive prohibition of God, committed it by his own free choice and determination. Nor is God the author of original sin, as far as that sin exists in and affects the posterity of Adam. For what is original sin, when considered in the posterity of Adam?

It is assuredly not their actual sin,-i. e. not a sin committed by their own physical free choice, but by the physical will of Adam, which was morally their own, which principally consists in the privation of sanctifying grace, and in the exclusion from the kingdom of heaven if this grace be not restored. Now this privation of sanctifying grace, for the very reason that it is a privation or negation, does not require a certain, determinate, efficient, and positive cause; it is sufficient that God, in consequence of the sin of Adam, ceases to preserve the supernatural habit of sanctifying grace in man; and this is all God does in regard to original sin in the children of Adam: he, therefore, can with as little reason be said to be the author of that sin, as of all other sins, merely because he permits them. You likewise assert, that it is cruel in the extreme to doom poor innocent children, who happen to die without baptism, to eternal torments, and that for a fault which they could not help committing. I answer, by demanding of you to inform me, before the bar of public opinion, who damns these poor children to eternal torments? Christians most certainly advance no such doctrine; they indeed hold it as an undoubted doctrine, "that unless those children be reborn of water and the Holy Ghost, and thus receive the sanctifying grace, which in the present order of things is a means absolutely necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven, they cannot enter it, and they thus suffer what is called the pain of loss, which consists in the exclusion of the Beatific Vision, which being an extraordinary favour, altogether undue to man, God might have refused him even if he had never sinned." As to the sensible and corporeal pains, which God has designed for the punishment of actual sins, by sins committed by the ill use of our senses, it is the general opinion of the best Divines, and the common persuasion of all Christians, that they do not suffer them.

In conclusion, permit me to ask, why do Unitarians separate these great truths? Why do they presume to erase from the history of religion, that which constitutes its chief beauty and comfort?—that mystery which is the clue to all others, without which, as Paschal remarks, (Pensees de Paschal, "Quod stultum est Dei, sapientius est hominibus,") Religion becomes an inexplicable enigma, and man a more inconceivable mystery to himself, than this mystery is to him. Original sin is a folly in the eye of the vain sophister, but this folly is wiser than all the wisdom of men,-"That which appeareth foolish of God, is wiser than men." (1 Cor. 25.) He who has revealed to us these two great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, makes us find the image of them in ourselves, in order that they may be ever present with us, and that we may understand the dignity of our nature.

I answer your letter just received as follows:-If the Evangelist, by the term Word, intended to designate nothing more than a Divine attribute, how does it happen that through the whole chapter, the "Word" is spoken of as a subsisting person, and that it is expressed by personal pronouns,-he-him-by him, &c.? Again: "We know (1 Ep. St. John v. 20) that the Son of God is come, and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God-and eternal life." Here the emphatic article is prefixed, the

true God therefore is meant. But the Son of God is that true God; therefore, the Son of God is meant.

St. Thomas solemnly proclaimed the Divinity of his loving Master, when on seeing him after his resurrection, he broke out into the short but comprehensive exclamation,"My Lord and my God."-(St. John xx. 28.) St. Thomas, therefore, meant the true and supreme God. Did Christ censure him for it? By no means; but on the contrary, reproached him rather for not having believed sooner: "Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou has believed; blessed are they who have not seen and have believed."

I further argue, that from an equality of honour and of worship due to God only," That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father; he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent him." -(St. John v. 23.) Therefore, the Son enjoys a perfect equality of nature and consubstantiality with the Father; therefore, he is true God. See Hebrews, chapter i. v. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. In these few verses, the Apostle may be said to have erected an impregnable fortress in defence of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, a fortress which has already baffled the long and continued efforts of the enemies of the Son of God, of the Simonians, the Cerinthians, the Ebionites, the Sabellians, the Arians, the Nestorians, the Eutychians, &c. &c. &c., and will for ever stand proof against the infuriate attacks of the Unitarian Philosopher. This chapter, in its admirable and sublime conciseness, contains so clear, so full, and so complete a promulgation of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, that even the wild and ridiculous criticism of the Unitarians, either does not at all approach it, or whenever it does, runs into such disgusting absurdities, as clearly to shew the truth of the maxim,-Magna est veritas et prævalebit; Truth is great, and will in fine triumph.

Although I readily agree with all the interpreters of the Scriptures, that the word worship, adoration, the Latin adoratio, is taken at times in the Old Testament as an homage of inferior reverence, or even only as of civil respect; yet I defy you to shew me one solitary instance from the New Testament, in which the above expressions do not signify the true Divine worship, supreme adoration, the "Cultum Latriæ," which is due to God only.

LETTER XXII.

FOURTH LETTER ON UNITARIANISM.

TO THE REV. CHARLES LE BLANC.

REV. SIR,

I have just received your letter, and in reply, I beg most sincerely to declare, that the very pretension of Unitarianism to be the doctrine of the Bible, the whole system of its general principles and particular tenets, stands so plainly and so diametrically opposed to the clearest dictates of the Sacred Volume, that this of itself is enough to disgust ninety-nine in the hundred of all who are able to read: they shake their heads and say, "No, no; this will never do. True or false, this is not the doctrine taught in the Bible: these men should honestly confess that they did not learn their system there, and either abandon it, or renounce Revelation."