"this is not the nature of man, but of God, that he can be "present in every place? If Christ be only a man, why "does man invoke him in prayer as Mediator, since the "invocation of a man must be considered as ineffectual to "the accomplishing deliverance and salvation? If Christ "be nothing more than a mere man, why is our hope put "in him, seeing-'Cursed is the hope that is placed in "man?'"-(Novation de Trinit. cap. 14.) The present Jew reads how his ancestors saw him (Jesus Christ) adored by the Christians in the first century, and he proves it from the Talmud, wherein are divers relations of R. Eleizar, the great friend of R. Akiba, who lived in the end of the first century, and the beginning of the second, concerning the Gospels, and the public worship rendered to Christ by the Christians.-Allix's Judgment, p. 432.

LETTER XX.

SECOND LETTER ON UNITARIANISM.

TO THE REV. CHARLES LE BLANC.

REV. SIR,

WHEN a few years ago the Unitarians set up their new system, by which they deny the Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity, they found the whole Christian world, as I have proved, in the possession and in the uniform belief of the said Doctrines. If from our time we

gradually remount from age to age till we arrive at the very establishment of the Church, we find in every century exactly the same uniform belief; therefore, we conclude, that that constant, that uniform, that universal belief was derived from the Apostles; consequently it contains the true and genuine meaning of the Scriptures respecting the said Doctrines; therefore, the Doctrines of the Unitarians, a doctrine of yesterday, and diametrically opposite to that constant and uniform belief of Christendom, cannot be conformable to the Sacred Scriptures. This reasoning is in perfect unison with the celebrated rule of St. Augustine— a rule founded on the common sense of mankind: "That which the whole Church holds or practises, and which has not been instituted or introduced either by some Pontiff or Council, must be considered as descending from Apostolical Tradition." "Quod universa tenet Ecclesia, nec Conciliis institutum, sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur."-(S. Aug. de Bapt. Cont. Donat. Lib. 4, cap. 24.)—which perfectly coincides with this other maxim of St. Vincent of Lerins: "What has been believed in every place, in every age, and by all, is. incontrovertibly Catholic Doctrine." "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est, hoc est vere proprieque Catholicum."-(St. Vincent Lyrin, Commonit.)

And indeed reason dictates, that a Doctrine which is common to all Christian nations, which embraces all times and all countries, must have had a common origin; and that it cannot be traced but to the founders of Christianity itself, the Apostles of Jesus Christ. For as this Doctrine is coeval with the Christian era, it cannot have had an author posterior to the Apostolic age; and as it is universal all over the Christian world, it must have had an universal source, viz., the preaching of the Apostles all over the globe.

Hence it evidently follows, that the present uniform belief of all Christians touching original Sin, the Mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Redemption of mankind, comes down to us in a lineal descent from the Apostles, and through them from Christ himself. (See St. Matthew xxviii.)

St. Luke (xxiv. 45) informs us, "That he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." On the other hand, the Apostles faithfully discharged the high trust committed to them; they, therefore, instructed their hearers, that is to say, the Christians of the first age, in the true meaning which Christ our Lord had attached to his own words. They did so, especially, with regard to the Fundamental points of his Gospel; such as the Mysteries of the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ. Therefore the Apostles clearly explained to their primitive converts, whether their Divine Master understood by these words, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," three distinct subsisting persons in God; and whether they were, of course, to be worshipped as true God or not. Whether Jesus Christ was no more than a creature, or whether he was true God and true man, and so on.

Had the Apostles not done this, they would manifestly have been deficient in the discharge of their divine commission; they would have exposed their own and all future generations to the danger of going astray from the very object of their worship; to the danger of a monstrous Idolatry, in adoring three persons in God, instead of one, or a mere man in Jesus Christ, instead of a God. Apostles of course explained to the primitive Christians the true meaning of these passages; which the Christians of the present and past ages have invariably understood to imply the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ,

The

of original Sin, &c. &c.; and which Unitarians labour so hard to force into the service of their new fangled system. Now permit me here to ask them, how did the Apostles explain the passages under consideration? what meaning did they affix to the Oracles of their Divine Master, and to their own writings? No other, unquestionably, than that which was delivered by the first generation of Christianity to the succeeding ages; and which was uniformly and invariably handed down to the present time.

Now I ask Unitarians again, in the name of common sense, what interpretation of the Scriptures, respecting the above Doctrines, did the Apostolic age transmit to the succeeding generations? It can be no other than that in which the Christian world at all times, to this very day, has understood the said Scriptures; no other than that which imports the dogma of original Sin, the Mysteries of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ, &c. The inference, therefore, is inevitable; Christians have the true meaning of the Scriptures in this respect, because they have the meaning given by the Apostles; and bear always in mind, that they (the Apostles) had been instructed by their Divine Master on all the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, the Church, "Because to you it is given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given.”(St. Matthew xiii. 11.) And of the Scriptures, whilst with him in this mortal life; and after his resurrection, he gave them a full knowledge of what they did not understand of his Divine Discourses. (St. Luke xxiv. 45.)

The sense of the Scriptures, therefore, thus determined and thus delivered by the college of the Apostles to the Church formed by them, is infallibly correct-it is a revealed Truth, not only because the Apostles, as all must grant, could not err in the interpretation of the Scriptures, but also because, whilst they were explaining and delivering the

true sense of the Sacred Writings, the Lord confirmed their preaching by wonders and prodigies, and thus stamped upon it the seal of his divine veracity and approbation. The Doctrine, therefore, of the Trinity, Divinity of Christ, &c., uniformly believed and maintained to this present day by all Christendom, are Divine doctrines-doctrines delivered by Infallible Interpreters, and sanctioned as such by heaven. Whence it further follows, as two opposite doctrines or meanings cannot be both true, the Unitarian meaning or doctrine being diametrically opposite to the meaning given by the Apostles, cannot be true; and that Unitarians explain the Scriptures, in this regard, in a sense opposite to that in which the Apostles explained it.

From the unanswerable force of this argument, Christians have a well established right to reject the Unitarian explanation of the Scriptures, even without examining or refuting it in detail, as an illegitimate and profane novelty, for this plain reason, that it contradicts the interpretation of the Apostles. And, indeed, may not the Christians of our age address Unitarians in the same dignified language in which the True Believers of the second century addressed the Innovators of their time?" Who are you? when and whence did you come? what are you strangers doing on my property? by what right, Marcion, do you cut down my woods? by what right, Valentine, do you disturb my fountains? by what privilege do you remove my boundaries, Appelles? The possession is mine; I am the old possessor; I am the first possessor; I have the sources, uncorrupted, from the persons themselves from whom the estate was originally derived; I am the heir of the Apostles; according to the provisions of their will, according to their charge of its execution, according to the solemnity of their oath, I claim the right of their inheritance."-(Tertullian, Lib. Præser, cap. 37.)