Son of God, who condescended to be born of a Virgin of the race of David, existed before the Morning Star and the moon." P. 15, Col. 2: "I will endeavour to convince you from the Scriptures, that he who appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and is called God, is distinct from the God" (that is, from the person called God) "who created all things; distinct, I say, in number, not in council and sentiment." These last words shew that he means distinct

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in person only not in nature, since they have the same will, counsel, and sentiment. Then he proves his assertion,first from Gen. xix.: "The Lord (Jehovah) rained brimstone and fire from the Lord (Jehovah) out of heaven."Second, from Psalm cx. 1: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."-Thirdly, from Psalm xlv. 6: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." There is no need of transcribing anything more from St. Justin's writings, since you, Rev. Sir, and all who have read his works, know that every part of this Dialogue, where Justin speaks, was intended to convince Tryphon that there is a plurality of Persons in God; that each of these Persons is truly and properly God; that one of these persons came into the world, and was born of a Virgin for the redemption of mankind; that this Person, when incarnate, was called Jesus Christ; and that Jesus Christ was consequently both God and Man.

The illustrious St. Augustine remarks, that "if we consider these three things in the soul of man, viz. memory (it should be sentiment, instead of memory), intelligence, and will, we shall find that, from these three, all things which we do, emanate.... for we do nothing, but what is done

conjointly by these three."-(Contra. Serm. Arianonum. c. 16.) "If, moreover," adds an ancient council, "we look upon the Person of the Father as the understanding (should be sentiment, not understanding), it is evident that the Word (or intelligence), which is born of this understanding, is the Son; and the will, which proceeds from the understanding and the Word, designates the Holy Ghost. However, we cannot appropriate the understanding, by which the Father is designated, to the Son or to the Holy Ghost; nor the Word, which is taken for the Son, to the Father or Holy Ghost; nor the will, by which we understand the Person of the Holy Ghost, to the Father or Son."-(Gon. Tolet. 15.)

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE REV. CHARLES LE BLANC.

THE DECISION, OR DECREE OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE, IS A CONVINCING PROOF THAT THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST WAS THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOSTLES AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

REV. SIR,

What I have undertaken in this letter to shew is, that the Divinity of Christ was the doctrine of the Apostles and of the Christian Church, and I prove it demonstratively as follows:

1. The Fathers who assembled in the Council of Nice, had each of them his diocese and his flock, over which he had been constituted Bishop by the Holy Ghost (Acts xx.); and it was the duty of each one of them to teach his flock the faith and duties of Christianity. This duty they generally performed in their own person, by the Sermons, Instructions, and Exhortations, which they delivered to the people on every Sabbath-day, when they met to celebrate the Divine Mysteries. And as there can be no doubt but that they had always taught the very same faith which they themselves believed, and which they professed in the Council of Nice, it will follow hence, and from what we read in the works of the undoubtedly orthodox Ante-Nicene Writers, that they had always taught the people that Jesus Christ was not only man, but also God, equal to his Father; and and that there were three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, subsisting in the Divine nature, which we call the mystery of the Trinity.

2. As these Bishops taught their flocks the doctrines of the Divinity of Christ, and the Trinity of Persons in God; so it cannot be doubted but that the people believed and professed the doctrine taught them by their pastors, whom they believed to have been appointed by the Holy Ghost to feed and govern them. From which it will follow, that the doctrine they professed and defined in the Council of Nice, was the public faith of all the Churches which they governed, and not merely the private opinions which the Fathers entertained in their own breasts.

3. As the Legates of the Bishop of Rome presided in that Council, and the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, were personally present in it, and all voluntarily assented to and signed the Creed, it certainly was the public faith of all the Patriarchal Churches.

4. The faith defined by the Fathers in the Council of

Nice was, at that time, certainly the same as that of all the other Bishops and Churches, who made no opposition to their decision. And as Dr. Priestley says that "three hundred and eighteen was far from being the whole number of Christian Bishops in that age," it will follow, that it was the public faith of all the other Churches which did not oppose the decision of the Nicene Fathers, although the Bishops of the said Churches were not personally present in the Council of Nice. And consequently may be said to have been the public faith of the whole Christian world.

5. This being the faith of the two hundred and ninetyfive Bishops in the Council of Nice, and of the Churches which they represented, and over which they presided; and also of all other Churches which held communion with them, though their Bishops were not personally present in that Council; it will follow, that these doctrines must have been handed down to them from the Apostles; for here St. Augustin's rule is verified to the letter: "That which is received and professed by the whole world, and cannot be shewn to have been first established by any Council, cannot be looked upon in any other light than as taught by the Apostles."

* Every one of the errors which the Catholic and Apostolic Church, "The Ground and Pillar of Truth," has condemned, appeared at their commencement to be most plausible; but there is not one of them, had they been adopted, but would have entirely destroyed Revelation: it was a small opening in the vessel, but an aperture which would have allowed the ocean to penetrate. It is absolutely necessary, says Luther, to interpret Scripture in the sense which reason understands; yet still Luther wished to preserve the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real Presence, mysteries equally as incompre ́hensible as the Infallibility of the Church, which he rejected. This principle of pride stimulated Calvin, Calvin denied the Real Presence; and from Calvin sprung up Socinus, who denied the Trinity and the Incarnation. Why do you stop there? exclaim the Deists. A Divine Revelation is repugnant to Reason: we never can comprehend or explain how Jesus Christ, sent of God, can be equal to God. There is no religion but natural religion: thus sprung

6. The Bishops assembled at Nice declared, the faith they professed was delivered to them by their predecessors in their respective sees, who had received the same by uninterrupted tradition from the Apostles. And consequently it was not, like Arianism, a newly invented doctrine, but had been the public faith of the successors of the Apostles, and of all the Apostolical Churches in the preceding ages, which indeed had been but few, as this Council was held only 225 years after the death of St. John the Evangelist; and consequently it was very easy for them to trace the constant tradition of their doctrine through so short a period.

7. If all the world had not been convinced that what the Nicene Fathers said, was true, viz. that their doctrine had been handed down to them from the time of the Apostles, doubtless some one would have contradicted their assertion, and pointed out the time when, and the author from whom

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Naturalists, the Atheists, who reject natural religion, who have denied God; and in fine, the Sceptics who doubt of every thing, of the existence of Jesus Christ, of man, and of the universe. They, whose proud and overbearing spirits, three hundred and odd years ago, rejected the Supremacy of the Pope, they never dreamt what would follow; they never thought that men like them, adopting their errors, would deny God, the Immortality and Reality of the Soul, and even the existence of the Body. The visible power of Jesus Christ in the Papacy once rejected, the Trinity and Incarnation have likewise disappeared; Religion is insulted, God has withdrawn himself from their societies; and we even meet with men who tell us, and who live daily under the light of Christianity, that bodies and souls are of one substance; that everything is God--stones, plants, and animals; that all creatures are God, as God himself. The disciples of these wretched men, who have refused to believe the Catholic Church, have been struck with so great a blindness and hardness of heart, as to deny their own existence, and even as a great French theologian says, "à s'anéantir dans ce qu'ils appellent l'humanité." Oh! what a terrible punishment for pride, the rigorous consequence of the inflexible logic of the spirit of man! a sublime manifestation of the government of God in regard to his Church, and of his ever guiding and leading her into all truth.