tians had a great share in the conversion of those learned Pagans who lived in the ages of persecution, which, with some intervals and abatements, lasted near three hundred years after our Saviour. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and others, tell us, that this first of all alarmed their curiosity, roused their attention, and made them seriously inquire into the nature of that religion which could endue the mind with so much strength, and overcome the fear of death, nay raise an earnest desire of it, though it appeared in all its terrors. This they found had not been effected by all the doctrines of those Philosophers whom they had thoroughly studied, and who had been labouring at this great point. The sight of these dying and tormented martyrs engaged them to search into the history and doctrines of him for whom they suffered. The more they searched, the more they were convinced; till their conviction grew so strong, that they themselves embraced the same truths, and either actually laid down their lives, or were always in a readiness to do it, rather than depart from them. And I am, Rev. Sir, Your obedient Servant, A CATHOLIC LAYMAN. POSTSCRIPT. You say that "the word Trinity was not used till near the close of the second century.-The terms Person and Substance, were not introduced till the third century." And what then? Suppose even that these terms had never been used, would it be less true that there is but one God, or one Divine indivisible nature, and that, in that one God, there are three, as Christ (St. Matt. ult.) and the Apostles express it (St. John v. 7),-the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,—one that begets, one that is begotten, and one that proceedeth from both? This is what the Scripture clearly teaches, and this, and nothing more, we understand by the Trinity-one Substance in Three Persons. You say that I do not recollect that "Trinitarians are making two wills in Christ, and one opposed to the other." We will recollect that we are making two wills in Christ, as we are believing in two natures, but we do not recollect that the human will of Christ is opposed to his divine will; but on the contrary, we are assured that it is perfectly subject to it :-" Not as I will, but as thou wilt." But suppose for a moment that these wills were opposed to each other, would it logically follow, that they cannot be in one and in the same Christ? As little as it follows, as the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the law of God and the law of the members (Galatians v. 17) are opposite to each other, they cannot exist in one and the same man, without making two beings in him. I now, in conclusion, defy you to produce one instance from the Old or New Testament, in which the word God, used absolutely and definitively, in the singular number, and without any restrictive epithet or clause, signifies anything else than the supreme and only True God. Mankind never took the word God, when announced in that manner, in any other than in the proper and literal sense. But You say, "that St. Thomas was the only disciple who ever addressed our Saviour under the title of God." even supposing this to be true; what then? Is it not enough that one Apostle should have styled him the True God, and that in the presence of the others that Christ should have reproached him for not having belived before that he was such? Did St. Thomas speak truth or not, when he said, "My Lord and my God"? Next, if the other Disciples did not believe him to be True God from But I am far from for if the other Dis the beginning of his divine ministry, this only proves that they were dull and hard of understanding, and slow in believing, what the Prophets had foretold of the Son of Man, for which Christ often reproved them. granting your statement to be correct; ciples did not address him under the explicit title of God, they addressed him under other titles which are equivalent in signification to them: thus Nathaniel in his very first interview with Christ, answered him and said, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God."-(St. John i. 49.) All the Apostles, by the organ of St. Peter, said to him, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God "—(St. Matt. xvi. 16); "And Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God."-(St. John vi. 69, 70.) Christ, as I have often remarked, cannot be the true and natural Son of God, which the sense of these words necessarily imply, without being the Supreme God; for he cannot be the natural and true Son of God without possessing the same indivisible nature with the Father, and of course being consubstantial with the Father.-See Acts xx. 28; Romans ix. 5. There the Apostle neglects nothing to break the obstinacy of the Jews, who refused to acknowledge Christ as their God. First he calls him God, by prefixing the emphatic article. 2ndly. God above all things; that is, supreme; in which sense, the Apostle writes to the Ephesians (iv. 6), "One God and Father of all, who is over all." 3rdly. "Blessed God," which glorious title is given to God, St. Matt. xiv. 61, especially when the praises for ever are added-2 Corinth. xi. 31; Rom. i. 25. This text seems, indeed, to bid defiance to all the ingenuity of the enemies of the Divinity of Christ. Of course Unitarians reply, It does as long as you let it stand as it has stood for eighteen centuries. To make it speak Unitarian language, you have nothing else to do, but first to alter the punctuation, and next to transpose the article, and to change the participle being, existing, into the relative, whose this being done, all the difficulty vanishes. And is it not thus, let me ask, that Unitarians answer those Doctors who give us the plain and natural sense and fair translations of the Scriptures? Is it thus they express their doctrines in the words of Jesus and his Apostles?without addition or comment? (See a flying sheet, entitled "An Answer to the question-Why do you go to the Unitarian Chapel?") Unhallowed audacity! Sacrilegious attempt! And are Christians any longer to listen to teachers of this stamp? Deists, &c. may rejoice at such a work, at such pure, sincere, and rational Christianity? but not Christians. This mode of changing, shaping, and fashioning the word of God into whatever form we may fancy, being once admitted, there is no text of Scripture that may not be made to speak the reverse of what it actually does. "The unwise said in his heart, There is no God." You will have exactly the reverse by changing simply no into a, and thus saying, there is a God. Socinus himself, overpowered with the strength of the text, constantly rejected the Unitarian interpretation, and maintained that the words "Blessed for ever," are to be referred not to God the Father, but to Christ. LETTER XXVII. TO THE REV. CHARLES LE BLANC. WE MUST ENQUIRE WHO WERE THE PERSONS TO WHOM JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF FIRST COMMUNICATED HIS DOCTRINES, REV. SIR, It appears to me most extraordinary, that a man of your vast acquirements and great talents, who professes to be a sincere enquirer after truth, and esteems it to be the most valuable of all acquisitions, should make choice of such wretched guides as you do, to lead you to the knowledge you are in search of. For it is natural to think that the most prudent, the most likely way to arrive at the knowledge of the truths taught by Jesus Christ, 1st, would be to enquire, who were the persons to whom Jesus Christ himself first communicated his doctrines? 2nd. Who were the persons whom he himself commissioned and authorised to teach the Doctrines he had delivered to them? 3rd. What promises of security he had made in favor of those who should believe and adhere to the Doctrines taught them by the persons who were duly authorised and commissioned to teach them? And lastly, in what light he would look upon those who would obstinately refuse to receive and believe those persons authorised by him to teach his truths? You well know that the Apostles were the constant attendants and companions of Jesus Christ; that from the commencement of his preaching, till his Ascension into Heaven, they were ear-witnesses of his Doctrines, and eye-witnesses of his Miracles; that he gave them a commission and charge to preach to all nations the same doctrines which they had heard from him; that to preserve them from ever departing |