effeminacy. To cast reproach and bitter scorn on mani, without shewing him how he may become better, is unfriendly. Act! act! it is to that end we are here. Should we fret ourselves that others are not so perfect as we are, when we ourselves are only somewhat more perfect than they? Is not this our greatest perfection,— the vocation which has been given to us, that we must labour for the perfecting of others? Let us rejoice in the prospect of that widely extended field which is offered to our cultivation! Let us rejoice that power is given to us, and that our task is infinite! W. S. UNITARIAN CHAPELS IN THE COLONIES. To the Editor of the Christian Pioneer. SIR,-Some friends to the diffusion of Unitarian Christianity at home and abroad, feel very desirous to know what Unitarians, and Unitarian families have emigrated to Australia and New Zealand. I have been requested to obtain such information, so far as possible, while taking commercial tours through Great Britain, and by addressing parties likely to feel interested in the inquiry. My success has been very limited at present, but should you deem this letter worthy a place in the Pioneer, I hope it may be a means of awakening the attention of some zealous Unitarians to the importance of embracing opportunities which now present themselves, of aiding the cause of Unitarian Christi-anity in districts free from the disadvantage of a domi nant sect. A gentleman of Halifax has offered to give a piece of land for an Unitarian chapel in Adelaide, South Australia, and to raise in England a portion of the fund needful to erect a suitable edifice. I could mention the names of a few Unitarian residents there, but surely there are many others; and it will be well for those at home, who feel anxious for the spiritual improvement of their kindred or friends, to communicate their names, and any interesting particulars as to their present position. The names of parties suitable for trustees are required. The New Zealand Company, when issuing "terms. for the purchase of lands in Nelson Settlement,” engaged to appropriate £15,000 to religious uses and endowments for colonists of all denominations; £15,000 to the establishment of a college, &c. &c. The present is the most suitable period for our denomination to aim at establishing a claim to a portion of the fund, as an individual is willing to give a piece of land for a chapel, provided he can ascertain that a sufficient number of Unitarians have emigrated to that settlement, to render such course justifiable. The Episcopalians have already obtained a grant of £5000, so that no time should be lost by our despised sect. Whatever may be the number of Unitarians who have left the United Kingdom, for Adelaide, Wellington, or Nelson, it is well known that many who still reside in this part of the world have purchased land in those distant towns, and such of them as value their religious views, so as to feel the responsibility of aiding in their diffusion, will perhaps now step forward. Yours, respectfully, CHARLES LLOYD jun. of Bromsgrove Street, Birmingham. ABERDEEN, March 6. 1842. MYSTERY AFFORDS NO ARGUMENT TO PROVE THE DOCTRINE OF A TRINITY. "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, &c."-Philip. ii. 9. THESE words plainly imply that God and Christ are two distinct beings, that Christ is a being distinct from, and inferior to the God that highly exalted him. This is a truth so self-evident, that to deny it, we may as well deny that two and two make four. To speak of Christ's human nature is nothing to the purpose. It was not the human nature that humbled itself to take human nature. God highly exalted him, and him only that humbled himself to take a servant's form. It was not the form he exalted, but him that took the form. This is unquestionably the fact, and all the attempts made to evade it by the abettors of the common system only involve them in a mass of quibbling and equivocation. The stale device of mystery to which they resort as a plea for their system, does them no good. Nature, to which they appeal for mystery, is full of secrets, but no mysteries of their kind which are palpable contradictions. Besides, whatever mysteries may be in nature, no philosopher appeals to mystery for the support of any theory of the laws of nature, nor would he be listened to for a moment if he did, and to appeal to mystery to support contradictions, is the high road to cut all science up by the root, to crush the human intellect, and bury the world in darkness and superstition. It is in vain, then, for our opponents to advance such a plea for their favourite theory, a plea which they themselves would scorn to advance for theory in any other branch of science whatever. any By their constant appeals to the mysteries of nature, they would seem to insinuate that we denied mystery in the nature of God, while we were forced to admit it in his works; or that we reasoned concerning the one in a way inconsistent with our reasonings concerning the other. The very opposite of this is the fact. We admit mystery in the nature of God as freely as they do, but deny mystery as an argument for any theory of man's invention concerning that nature, the same as we do concerning every law of nature. It is one thing to admit mystery in the nature of God, and another to admit mystery as an argument for man's absurd opinions concerning that nature. The cases are wide as the poles asunder. In all this we are perfectly consistent, and desire our opponents to shew where their consistency lies. At the same time, of this their favourite theme, we would remind them that mystery is Babylon's matter, the chief corner stone of bigotry and priestcraft, their golden image, which, like Nebuchadnezzar, they have set up, and commanded all under pain of death to adore; and when they could not command fire from heaven, they have kindled their own fires on earth to consume those who would not fall down and worship, "When their drum beat at dead of night, The darkness of the scenery." And truly it was dead of night, and a dark moral scenery indeed, where such scenes were acted. And though it be far from what we would attribute to modern Trinitarians generally, yet there still subsists a class of them even to this day, who have lately declared, that with a fork they would pitch the heretics into the fire.* Such are the tender mercies of bigotry, which, of all creatures, is the most tenacious of life. Let its advocates say what they may, the notion of a Trinity is but a human theory, and like every other theory, must be tried by the principles of sound reasoning, without appeals to mystery or mystification of any kind. Indeed, their continual talk of mystery amounts to little else than this modest proposition, that as we cannot comprehend the works of God, and still less God himself, so we should not venture to question their opinions concerning God; a proposition to which we at once demur, and maintain that we have a right and a duty upon us to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." Besides, from the premises of our opponents, the more legitimate conclusion to be drawn, and the more moderate one, too, would be that of the sceptic; namely, that as we can comprehend nothing, and know nothing fully, so we should believe nothing fully, but maintain a cautious universal doubt, a conclusion, alas! to which there is reason to fear that too many have been driven by the hard and tremendous thoughts of God, to which the notion of a Trinity has given birth. Witness, in particular, their heart-withering and terrific notions of original sin and predestination; of a non-elect world of mankind to eternal torment, their wild absurdities of transubstantiation, of worshipping and praying to the Virgin Mary, under the profane heathenish titles of "Holy Mother of God,” and "Queen of Heaven," with a mass of other nauseous *This, I am credibly informed, was lately declared by some of the members of a Cameronian presbytery in Ireland. It is but justice to the rest of the members to state, that they were opposing the monstrous principle, and that their opposition gave rise to the above declaration in favour of it. matter of the same kind, all finding a ready plea in mystery, and being the very flower and first-fruits of Trinitarianism, as it first began to appear in maturity in the days of Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine. The truth is, that once admit mystery as an argument for one opinion, and there is no opinion, however absurd, that may not claim the same privilege. Whatever the Scripture says about mystery, it no where represents the unity of the one God as a mystery, any more than the unity of the one Lord, the one faith, the one baptism, or any other unity whatever. It makes no distinction between the numerical oneness of God, and that of any other single intelligent being in the universe. When it speaks of one man, nobody doubts the meaning, or talks of mystery; and when it speaks of one God, its sets no guard or limitations in the one case more than the other. It asserts God to be one in the common numerical sense of the term, in opposition to polytheism, which asserts the contrary, that there are more gods than one. Moreover, the Scripture having once asserted that God is one, never varies from that assertion, nor even stops to explain it, but leaves it wholly to ourselves to determine the meaning of the word one, or in what sense God is one. And the question then is, in what sense ought we to take the word one, as applied to God? whether in the plain popular sense that a child would think of on hearing of "one God and Father, or in the complex speculative Trinitarian sense, that no child or plain person would think of without suggestion from some other source than Scripture? I affirm, in the plain popular sense, without a doubt, as the Scriptures are invariably written in the plain popular style, for the use of plain illiterate people, for little children and those like them, for the mass of mankind, who are incapable of entering into any far-fetched abstruse speculation, especially where nothing of the kind is suggested to them. While the Scriptures of the Old Testament often expostulate with heathens for their polytheism, and tell them most expressly that there is but one God, they never give them the most distant hint of his being a Trinity, three in one, or one in any |