need of explanation, I shall just quote one or two passages from Archbishop Tillotson. Speaking of the Athanasian creed, he says, " he wishes we were well rid of it." "It is enough," says he, "to believe what God says of these matters, and if any man will venture to say more, every other man surely is at his liberty to believe as he sees reason." Yet, in a sub"I I desire it may sequent page, he adds, be considered, that the doctrine of the Trinity, even as it is asserted in scripture, is acknowledged by us, to be still a great mystery, and so imperfectly revealed, as to be, in a great measure, incomprehensiAnd therefore, ble by human reason. though some learned and judicious men may have very commendably attempted a more particular explication of this great mystery, by the strength of reason, yet I dare not pretend to that, knowing both the difficulty and danger of such an attempt and my own insufficiency for it." Here then is a mystery, so imperfectly revealed, so difficult and dangerous to explain, that the highest and most learned dignitary of the Church dare not at

tempt it; yet the poor, illiterate day-labourer is required to believe it, under pain of everlasting damnation !!

Before I close this part of the subject, I have yet a question or two which I wish to ask. I asked before, whether you would not experience greater satisfaction in your own minds, if you were able to give an answer which should at once carry perfect conviction to yourselves, and set at defiance the arguments, the reasonable arguments, of those who opposed you? I now ask, whether you would not, if you could obtain it, greatly prefer a satisfactory argument, drawn from reason, to sheltering yourself behind the shield of mystery? May I not, must I not consider this as a last resort, a sort of forlorn hope, to which you would not have had recourse, could you have been victorious in the regular mode of attack?

I ask further, why do you disbelieve the doctrine of transubstantiation? that the bread and wine in the sacrament are really and truly the body and blood of Christ? Now listen to your own arguments in favour of a Trinity. This is a

mystery.

But the universal, the most holy and Catholic Church declares it to be true. It declares, with quite as much authority, and certainly with as important sanctions, either in a temporal or spiritual point of view, as the Athanasian creed and the churches which have adopted it, that the scriptures inculcate its truth. It cannot indeed be explained. But what of this? Reason has nothing to do with the question. We cannot tell how any thing is accomplished. But we can tell you, that our Saviour himself expressly declares, "This is my body which is broken for you; this is my blood, which is shed for the remission of sins." An expression this, to which no Trinitarian, with all his fondness for a literal interpretation, can find an equal in favour of a Trinity in Unity.

I have yet to turn your attention to the scripture arguments in proof of a Trinity in Unity. If I should say, that this will not detain us long, I shall probably be answered, Then the reason is, because you will not do justice to the subject. This I must leave to you to determine.

Allow me, however, to call

your attention 1st. You will

to one or two observations. recollect that I mean to have separate Lectures on the Personality of the Holy Spirit, and on the Divinity of Jesus Christ, consequently that all those passages which are adduced to prove either of these facts, separately and distinctly, cannot with propriety be brought forwards at present, when our consideration is to be confined to a Trinity of persons in the Unity of the Godhead.

2nd. I do not find, either in the Old Testament or in the New, either of these expressions, Trinity in Unity," or

Three persons in one God." Consequently, you must grant me, that the phraseology has not a divine, but a human origin.

3rd. I do not find, either in the Old Testament or in the New, the word Trinity used at all. Consequently the word forms no part of a divine revelation, whatever may be thought of the doctrine, which the word is commonly used to imply. At any rate, therefore, a word of human origin, conveying under its aus

pices doctrines not amenable to, not cognizable by, human reason, naturally brings with it a degree of suspicion.

4th. I do not find in the Old Testament a single passage which is alleged to contain the doctrine of a Trinity of persons in the Unity of the Godhead. You will not urge in opposition to this the Hebrew word Abhim, as being in the plural number; because, taking it upon your own ground, granting that you will not allow, either in English, in Latin, or in Greek, a king to speak of himself in the plural number, nor, in the Hebrew, even the Almighty, yet this word being in the plural no more proves three than twenty, or twenty than a hundred.

Upon the same ground you will not object to me the phrase in the first chap. of Gen." Let us make man in our own image;” because, if this Hebrew phrase us, must imply that God was speaking to others, it does not at all show, whether he was speaking to his angels, or to one other God, or to five hundred. Besides, you will probably allow the Jews to be as good interpreters of