makes an atonement, and that receives the atonement; the same Being that appeases, and that is appeased;—at once suffering, and not suffering-wrathful, and not wrathful-dying, and not dying. These are strange things to affirm of one and the same Being; and to our own minds, they carry evident absurdity and contradiction on the very front of them. In fact, we have often said, that no atonement could be made, unless Jesus Christ was distinct from God; because it is folly to say, that God could make atonement to himself. We will leave our Trinitarian brethren to get out of the dilemma as well as they can. To us it appears insuperable; and to them also, we think, will it appear so, if they will exercise their reason. least, such is our opinion.

At

But, as in the case of original sin, we will contrast our author with himself. And we give from him the following sound doctrine, in opposition to the above fallacious one, which we have adduced from his work:

"Virtue, I need not tell, when proved and full
Matured, inclines us up to God and heaven,

By law of sweet compulsion strong and sure;
As gravitation to the larger orb

The less attracts, through matter's whole domain"-(p. 9).

We cordially approve of this. We think it at once philosophical and scriptural. And, according to our poet, virtue assimilates us to God and heaven; and this by a "law of sweet compulsion strong and sure." We are well aware, that did we state this of ourselves, our orthodox brethren would lift up against us the voice of reprehension; and they would probably "cry aloud and spare not." But our author has saved us the trouble, and, by doing so, averted any unpleasant consequences that hence might have arisen to us. He has said, that virtue is like God, and that, very naturally, for this reason, it assimilates us to God and heaven. And if we attain to this assimilation, what can we want to make us happy?

Besides, we have the same sentiment urged again and again by our author; which shows he felt impressed with its importance:

"Virtue takes place of all, and worthiest deeds
Sit highest at the feast of bliss"-(p. 122).

"Not in mental, but in moral worth,

God excellence placed; and only to the good,
To virtue, granted happiness alone"-(p. 139).

We cordially approve of this doctrine. And our author

represents the punishment of the wicked hereafter, as arising from their disregard of it:

"And to their everlasting anguish still,

The thunders from above responding spoke

These words, which through the caverns of perdition
Forlorn echoing, fell on every ear:

'Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not' "-(p. 14, 15).
"And from above the thunders answered still,

'Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not''

-(p. 20).

This is the ground of the punishment of the wicked; they knew their duty, but they did it not. It must then follow, that in their probationary state, they had the power to do their duty; and doing it, would have saved them from suffering, and brought them to bliss.

As to what constitutes this duty, our poet has before informed us: viz. "virtue." And he has defined in what virtue consists: "worthy deeds, moral worth, excellence, goodness." We are satisfied.

The Almighty is represented as addressing the assembled multitude of saints and angels, previous to the grand solemnities of the day of judgment. And in this address, he thus alludes to his Son:

"Did I not send Immanuel forth, my Son?"-(p. 378). He also expressly addresses the Son himself: "So saying, He, the Father Infinite,

Turning, addressed Messiah, where He sat,

Exalted gloriously, at his right hand”—(p. 381).

We know not, whether we could wish for clearer proofs than are here furnished us, of the inferiority and subordination of Jesus Christ to God. For we cannot imagine how the same being can be his own Father and his own Son; can send forth himself; can sit at his own right hand; and can turn round to himself, and address himself.

At the same time, we do not think this address at all in good taste. It is derogatory to the Almighty. It is not the infinite Jehovah, the universal Father, the God of love, that is speaking; but the contracted, austere, boisterous, and passionate sectarian.

At the conclusion of this address, we are told, that
"The Son beloved,

Omnipotent, Omniscient, Fellow God,

Arose, resplendent with Divinity”—(p. 382).

"Fellow God!" Then, of course, there is another omnipotent, omniscient Being besides himself; equally resplendent with Divinity, and equally God! That is, Two

Gods. If not, we would ask, then, what is meant by Fellow God?

To the following, we can cordially subscribe:
"Messiah, fairer than the sons of men,

And altogether lovely. Grace is poured
Into thy lips, above all measure poured;

And therefore God hath blessed thee evermore"-(p. 393). We most heartily believe these things of the blessed Jesus; but for the very reason that we do so, we cannot believe him to be a Fellow God with God himself.

We give a more qualified assent to the lines which we next adduce; though we should think it impossible to prove from them, equality between the Father and the Son: "Thus the Messiah, with the hosts of bliss,

Entered the gates of heaven, unquestioned now,
Which closed behind them, to go out no more;
And stood, accepted, in his Father's sight;
Before the glorious everlasting Throne,
Presenting all his saints; not one was lost,
Of all that he in Covenant received;
And, having given the kingdom up, He sat,
Where now he sits and reigns, on the right hand
Of glory; and our God is all in all”—(p. 394).

These lines are evidently founded on that portion of the burial service, 15th chapter of the 1st of Corinthians, where Jesus Christ is spoken of as delivering up the kingdom to God, and being subject to God, that God may be all in all; a passage, which, we think, decidedly proves the inferiority and subordination of Jesus Christ, to the One God the Father; and we know not, how any unprejudiced person can resist its force.

Our author, of course, maintains that arithmetical contradiction, of three being one, and one three. And he calls it a Christian mystery (p. 132); but we think we have more properly designated it—an arithmetical contradiction. For so would every youth pronounce it, who had only just entered upon the science of figures, if the abstract proposition were presented to his notice.

(To be Continued.)

Orthodoxy and its advocate Dr. Wardlaw, in conflict with the New Testament.

THE evidence in favour of the great and distinctive doctrines of Unitarianism, is by no means confined to the detail of texts usually adduced as vouchers thereof. On the con

trary, it is wrought into the very texture of the language in which a knowledge of the New Covenant is conveyed to man. Proof after proof turns up as you peruse the histories and the epistles, of Jesus and his apostles, not only in express assertion, but in obvious and indubitable implication. A thousand suggestions present themselves, independently of what are considered the proof passages, which, while the latter assure you that Unitarianism is true, carry home to the heart the conviction that it cannot be false. Taking it as your companion in your progress through the books of the Testament, you find light and harmony in every page you read-you have then reason and revelation wedded, as they ever ought to be, in most accordant bonds. Not so with reputed orthodoxy. If we know any thing of the power of words, and have, in any good degree, learned to judge of their meaning, apart from the perverting influence of pre-conceptions, we are warranted in declaring, what is our firm conviction, that the common theology constantly clashes with the clearest assertions and implications of the sacred books of the New Testament. The operation of Procustes, is, it appears to us, incessantly necessary, now abridging, now lengthening out the meaning of Scripture, in order to make even the appearance of correspondence between it and the leading notions of orthodoxy.

Our convictions of this nature have been strengthened in looking over a volume of sermons recently published by Dr. Wardlaw of this city-a volume, in which the learned opponent of Unitarianism spares neither misrepresentation nor uncharitableness to bring into disrepute our views of the Gospel;-a volume, which we do not think calculated to add much to his reputation either as a writer or a theologian. In two discourses on "Christ crucified," Dr. Wardlaw tells his readers, among other matters, many of which are equally well founded, that to preach Christ crucified, is to preach his supreme divinity. That to preach Christ crucified, is the first and the last duty of the Christian minister, is beyond a question. That is a Scripture doctrine; if so, to preach the Supreme Divinity of Christ, must be to preach in the very teeth of a leading feature of the Gospel; for what is it but to preach the supreme Divinity of a mortal-to preach that the Supreme Divinity was crucified-to preach, in words recently used in an orthodox periodical, that the "Im

mortal God breathed his last." Now this is to preach a manifest contradiction-it is to preach that the immortal was mortal. But any doctrine which contradicts the Scripture, cannot be a Scripture doctrine; and, therefore, Dr. Wardlaw, to be consistent, must desist preaching a crucified Christ, or that Christ is very and eternal God. In the same discourses, to preach "Christ crucified,” is to preach him as the only medium of acceptable worship and obedience. If he be the very and eternal God, he is the object, and not the medium of worship. "But he is the medium of worship," says Dr. Wardlaw, and proves his assertion from the Scriptures. Granted: how, then, can he be the object of worship? Here the Scriptures and orthodoxy are at issue, and as Dr. Wardlaw insists that he is the medium, and implies that he is the object too, orthodoxy is also at issue with itself. If I am the medium of conveying thanks to another, I cannot be, at the same time, that other who receives the thanks conveyed through me; and if I am the ultimate receiver of the thanks, I cannot be the medium of presentation. But Christ, it is said, is the medium of our worship as man, and the object as God. That is-if we understand the subtlety, which, we think, no one ever did-Christ hears our prayers with one ear as the medium, and with the other as the object of worship. In reference to this, and the thousand and one other dreams of a similar nature, woven into the very warp and woof of orthodoxy, we have only to remark, that if, as Dr. Wardlaw in this volume assures us, "truth can operate upon the mind and heart only when understood," no one can understand these subtleties, so no one can be bettered by them; and, therefore, they are, it is fair to infer, the figments of men, and not the revelations of God. Of them, moreover of the doctrine of three persons in one God, and two natures in one person, Christ et hoc genus omne, we are warranted to use the language which Dr. Wardlaw, in a thoughtless moment, used in this volume against the dreams of the modern millenarians: "I do still, I confess, retain a very strong impression of the previous improbability of the thing itself." Surely the good Doctor will, on thinking over the matter, find it to be previously quite as improbable, that a crucified Christ should be the immortal God, and that the same intelligent agent should both know and not know the day of judgment, as that there should be a "personal advent and reign of the Son of God upon this earth."