tutions, to assist in the acquisition of this essential qualification for the Christian ministry. The warmest advocates for these seminaries of learning, do not pretend that they can impart the primary qualification for a Christian teacher, real piety: this must be communicated by an agency, which God alone can exert. To educate young men, on the supposition that they may become the subjects of Divine grace, appears to them highly presumptuous. They require credible evidence of a change of heart, as an essential pre-requisite for admission. But while piety is indispensable to the Christian minister, this alone will not fit him for his work. His business is to teach, and, therefore, he must have learned. In religion alone, it is thought by some, that a man may at once become a teacher, without preparation, or, at least, with no suitable preparation. Here two opposite classes meet, the mere ly learned churchmen, and the enemies of learning among Dissenters. The former suppose their knowledge of language and the sciences, may be immediately succeeded by their preaching the gospel, while they are ignorant of almost every thing which it is the design of their office to teach. The latter plead that the apostles were not learned men; but it should be remembered they had Christ for their preceptor, and they were not allowed to enter on their ministry fully, till the descent of the Holy Spirit. Tarry ye, said Christ, at Jerusalem till ye are endued with power from on high. It is trifling to talk of gifts being sufficient to qualify-supernatural gifts are not intended. Superior natural talents, and superior piety, are as highly valued by the advocates of learning as by others; and if ability be a good thing, then learning, which is acquired ability, is equally desirable. To persons, then, of suitable character, and good natural talents, this institution supplies incalculable advantages. It furnishes them with the means of acquiring knowledge, which they would never possess without it; and by setting them at liberty from the ordinary business of life, they have leisure to improve their talents, and acquire that information which is requisite to fit them for their future destination. They are trained to habits of close and right thinking, to arrange their thoughts with skill and perspicuity, and to speak with propriety and force on the things of God. Nor are the advantages of these institutions confined merely to the few years spent under the roof of an academy; but they lay a foundation of knowledge, on which a superstructure may afterwards be raised, and by the adoption of a plan of study, they acquire the power of adding to their store in future life. I shall conclude this discourse, already extended to too great a length, by addressing a few words to you, my esteemed young friends, who enjoy the advantages of this evangelical seminary. I trust you will look well, not only to the reality, but to the improvement of your personal religion; that, while you are employed in acquiring the various branches of useful learning, your piety may not be suffered to decay. You have need to be on your guard against every thing which might become the means of impairing your spirituality; to which nothing is more unfriendly than levity. Let your cheerfulness be chastened by an habitual sense of the fear of God, and of the importance of eternal things. Keep your passions in subjection, and maintain purity of heart. "Flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, and charity, with all that call on the name of the Lord." Those who bear the vessels of the sanctuary, should be clean: a word to the wise is sufficient. "Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Diligently improve the advantages you enjoy; cheerfully conform to the regulations of the house while you are in it, and revere the counsels of your respected tutors. Cultivate genuine humility, and let this lovely grace be apparent in your spirit and deportment. As you are to be employed in the work of teaching, it is necessary you should acquire the art of communicating your ideas to others, with facility. Hence, some regard is requisite to language and delivery, that you may gain the hearers attention and affection. But, whatever may be your peculiar gift, never make popularity your chief aim. The householder is not to exhibit his stores for the purpose of display, but to feed the family. Never seek to be admired by adopting a gaudy, declamatory mode of preaching. We by no means object to a moderate and judicious use of figure in your compositions; but these ornaments should never be employed for their own sake. Such a mode of preaching is by no means suited to the nature and design of religious instruction; it acts as a distorted medium, like painted glass, which however beautiful to the eye, gives a false colouring to the objects which it dimly exhibits. If you adopt this mode of preaching, you may be admired by the vain and light-minded; but serious and judicious Christians will deeply deplore such a perversion of your talents. Your business is, by manifestation of the truth, to commend yourselves to every man's conscience, in the sight of God, and by the solemnity, simplicity, and earnestness with which you treat divine things, make the hearers forget the preacher, in the majesty and importance of the sub ject. May you, and we, so approve ourselves to God, that when the chief Shepherd shall appear, we may receive a crown of glory, which fadeth not away. On the Connection of the Doctrine of the Trinity, with other Scriptural Truths. (Concluded from page 4.) If Christ be a mere man, and did not atone for the sins of his people, how can we account for his being so often denominated the Saviour? He is styled the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. How can a lamb take away sin, except as being made a sacrifice? But Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Paul delivered it to the Corinthians, among the first principles, "how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures." "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."" In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence." "Now the righteousness of God is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteous ness in the remission of sins that are past; in the forbearance of God to declare at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus." "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." "Now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime ago were far off, are made nigh, by the blood of Christ; for he is our peace." "When ye were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet, peradventure, for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life; and not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." (Or, if it be rendered" the reconciliation," it amounts to the same thing.) "For, as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." Therefore, said Paul, "Yea,doubtless, I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them as dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having on mine own righteonsness, which is of the law, but that which is, through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith." "For it hath pleased the Father, that in Him should all fulness dwell; and having made peace by the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you that were sometime ago alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight," &c. He tells the Thessalonians, " Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." He affirms to Timothy, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." He elsewhere says of the Saviour, He "loved me, and gave himself for me." He remarks to Titus, "After that the kindness and philanthropy of God our Saviour appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life.” Many more quotations might I adduce from the writings of Paul, especially from his epistle to the Hebrews; and expressions equally strong occur in the epistles of Peter, and John, as well as in the last book of the New Testament; which it would require immense critical labour to explain away, or to reconcile to the Socinian scheme. In short, the whole of the sacred writings must be pulled to pieces, to get rid of the doctrines connected with the Divinity of Christ, and, consequently, with the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. Yet when I had an interview with the venerable David Turner, of Abingdon, a few months before his death, he told me, that one of these gentlemen affirmed to him, that "the blood of Jesus Christ had no more to do with our salvation, than the blood of Alexander the Great." The good old man exclaimed, "Where should I be then, with the sins of fourscore years and ten?" "But, Oh!" said he, "it is precious blood!" So said Peter long before him; and all the saints in glory confess the same in their songs. It would be easy to adduce a large number of passages, respecting Christ's care of his people, now he has left this world as to his bodily presence. David said, "JEHOVAH is my shepherd, I shall not want." If Jesus be not JEHOVAH, David was better off than we; but he whom Peter calls "the Chief Shepherd," and who called himself "the Good Shepherd," did not only lay down his life for the sheep, but has declared, "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand." He speaks of his protection as equally securing them from danger, with the protection of the Father, for he adds, “My Father, who gave them me, is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." Accordingly Peter spoke of him, long after his ascension, as "the Shepherd and Bishop of souls." Surely, he knows but little of the worth of his soul, or of the dangers to which it is exposed, who would dare to leave it in the care of a mere man, who is no more in this world. Certainly Paul had an higher idea of him, when he said, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day." Accordingly, in a season of peculiar trial, he says, "I besought the Lord thrice, and he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me, for when I am weak, then am I strong." As he elsewhere declares, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me." Whereas Christ had told his disciples, "Without me ye can do nothing." What an extravagant expression must this have been, even while he was upon earth; but how much more if it were applied to those who lived after he left the earth, and now he resides in some distant region of the universe! What can he there do for us, any more than Enoch or Elijah, who are probably in the same place? Paul, in most of his epistles, invokes "Grace and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ," for the Christians to whom they were addressed: and for Timothy and Titus, he implores "Grace, mercy, and peace," from the same source. Would not Socinians exclaim against us, if we durst to pray for grace and peace from God the Father and Calvin ; from God and Whitfield or Jonathan Edwards? or would they dare to pray for grace and peace from God our Father, and from Socinus or Priestley? Would they excuse us, by allowing that, though we joined the names of those good men with God the Father, yet we, doubtless, did not mean to worship them? or, could they justify themselves by alleging, that they did not mean to ascribe power to influence the hearts of men to Socinus or Priestley, but only to wish they might imitate their virtues? Surely, they who so boldly charge Paul with reasoning inconclusively, might as well, if their views of Jesus were correct, charge him with praying inconsiderately, if not impiously! Who would dare thus to connect the name of God and any good man, in the same devout aspiration? Never did any of the Jewish prophets invoke grace and peace upon Israel, from God and Moses; nor from God Almighty and Abraham: never would Paul have put up a prayer of this sort to our Lord Jesus, if he had not believed him to be, what he expressly called him, "God over all, blessed for ever." Direct declarations in the language of men seem more liable to be explained away, than the more indirect implication of a number of passages, which demonstrate the exalted idea the writers had of the person to whom they refer. I have been very forcibly struck with the metaphorical illustration of our Lord's singular character, in which he is spoken of as related to his church as the bridegroom is to the bride. This allusion is made repeatedly in the Old Testament, particularly in Psalm xlv. whence the apostle quotes that expression, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." See also Isa. liv. 5. But not to dwell upon this, let us notice how the same metaphor is employed in the New Testament. If we conceive of Christ merely as a teacher sent from God, a fallible, peccable man, why is the kingdom of heaven said to be like a certain king who celebrated the nuptials of his SON? Matt. xxii. Does this accord with his being co-ordinate with those who were invited to the feast? Or, does it not represent him as sustaining a unique character? All the propriety of the parable seems lost, if we lose sight of the incarnation of Christ, and the work of redemption. Of the same import is the language of John the Baptist, John iii. 28-36: "I am not the Christ, but am sent before him. He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom: but the friend of the Bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I decrease. He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all." &c. But notice especially the use which the apostle makes of this metaphorical representation, not in a poem, nor in a high flown oration, but in a plain didactic epistle, wherein he intended to enforce the relative duties of persons in the conjugal relation. "Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church: and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it unto himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish, &c. No one ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church, &c. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." Now it is evident that the apostle here represents Christ as standing in that relation to the whole church, or the collective body of good men, even all of our race that shall be finally happy, as the husband stands in to the wife. Is he not represented as more than equal to them all, as giving himself for them, as having a |