Obituary Notice.

From the National Intelligencer.

DIED near St. Stephen's, in the state of Alabama, on the third day of June last, Mrs. Amy Toulmin, wife of Mr. John B. Toulmin, of that place. She was born at Falmouth, in Cornwall, England, on the eighteenth day of May, 1789, and out of four beautiful children, lost three soon after her removal to America. A more amiable woman could not easily be found. Pious, mild, gentle, intelligent, she was certainly one of the greatest ornaments of her sex. She was a woman of extraordinary vigour and exertion. Well educated in literature, as well as in morals, she acquired, after the death of her father in-law, Dr. Joshua Toulmin, pastor of the unitarian church at Birmingham, a knowledge of Weston's most complicated system of shorthand, in which Dr Toulmin's sermons were written. She selected out of several hundred sermons, an octavo volume of most interesting and pathetic discourses. They have reached America.

She was born of a quaker family, and professed the faith of the Friends. Perhaps she was not under the dominion of their full faith and discipline. Certainly she was not an exclusive quaker. She frequented the worship of other Christian churches. Her religion did not consist in dress, in form, or in ceremonies. Yet the quietness of her manners, the zeal of her charity, her diffusive spirit of benevolence, her speedy forgiveness of injuries, though quickly felt at the moment, entitled her to the character of a quaker. No-not exactly; but to the character of an almost perfect Christian.

C.

Unitarian Church in Pittsburg.

THE church announced in our last number as having been commenced by the Unitarian Society of Pittsburg, has been completed, and was opened for the public worship of the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," on Sunday the nineteenth of October.

The services of the day were conducted by the Rev. John Campbell, pastor of the congregation, assisted by the Rev. Mr. Kay, of Northumberland, who delivered a most appropriate and impressive discourse, from John iv. 24. "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."

We congratulate our fellow Christians on the increasing liberality of sentiment and spirit of inquiry, manifested on the present occasion, by the very numerous and respectable audience which attended, and the desire of great numbers to hear, who could not gain admittance for want of room.

Cold Preaching.

THE English clergy have been often charged with a cold and unimpressive manner of preaching. They can at least plead ancient authority for it. The following paragraph is from a set of instructions given by Bonner, bishop of London, to his clergy.

"Furthermore; that no preacher shall rage or rail in his sermon, but coldly, discreetly, and charitably, open, declare, and set forth, the excellency of virtue, and to suppress the abomination of sin and vice."

Doctrine of two Natures in Christ.

Ir is one objection to the doctrine of the Trinity, that it ascribes two natures to Jesus Christ; that not content with representing God as existing in three distinct persons, it divides one of those persons, by assigning to him a divine and a human nature. This extraordinary doctrine is a necessary consequence of the trinity, and is, we think, one of the greatest incumbrances with which it is loaded. If the former be overthrown, the latter falls with it. We consider it peculiarly unfortunate for the advocates of the trinity, that their hypothesis involves a supposition, which is attended with all the formidable difficulties with which the doctrine of two natures in Christ is surrounded.

We shall proceed to state more explicitly, what is understood by this doctrine at the present day, and bring into view some of the most important objections to it, after offering a few observations upon its origin and growth in the earlier ages of the church.

The simple doctrines of Christianity became disfigured by a mixture of human falsehood and error, in

times not very remote from the days of the apostles. The followers of Jesus soon ceased to honour their master as the favoured messenger, through whom the Father had spoken and made displays of power to men, and employed themselves in abstruse speculations about his rank and person. In their attempts to exalt his nature, they forgot the gratitude and respect, which were due to him as a teacher of the will of God. their duty, and their prospects, as a guide and example to direct them on their way, encourage their virtue, and confirm their faith and hopes by submitting to the cross, and rising from the dead. He was revered by those of his disciples who attended him, or occasionally listened to his instructions, as one invested with miraculous power and wisdom; but no sooner had he left the earth, than the imagination or philosophy of the new converts began to throw around his person various disguises, which weakened the effect of those simple and grand virtues which marked his character. The prophet of Nazareth was viewed as God, having only the appearance of a man, by the heretical Docetœ; and regarded as a man, with whom one of the œons or divine intelligences became united at baptism, and whom he forsook immediately before his sufferings, by the no less heretical Cerinthians.

A doctrine somewhat resembling the trinity of later ages was at length struck out, and gradually obtained currency. On the subject of this doctrine, however, the opinions of the fathers of the three first centuries appear to have been somewhat indefinite and fluctuating. Different individuals entertained views, variously modified by their former habits of thinking, conceptions and prejudices. These views were stated by each one in his

own way, and often loosely or carelessly expressed; or if, in a few instances, forms of expression in general use were adhered to, they had never been fully explained, or accurately investigated, and therefore were far from being always understood, or having at all times the same force.*

Arius, having early in the fourth century published opinions, which were deemed false and dangerous by the predominant party, the council of Nice was assembled, A. D. 325, to suppress the growing heresy, and settle the faith of future ages. The labours of this council resulted in the production of the well known document, called the Nicene Creed, in which the Son is declared to be "of one substance with the Father,t very God of very God," "who came down from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made flesh."

The Deity of the Son being acknowledged, it next became an inquiry, in what manner the divine and

* The want of uniformity and precision in the sentiments of the Ante-Nicene Fathers on the subject of the Trinity, is acknowledged by the learned Jesuit Petavius, who was not deficient in tenderness and respect for the Fathers of his church. Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. lib. i. cap. iii, et iv.

† Ομούσιον τω Πατρι. The expression in the original is not wholly free from ambiguity. Oμosov, the term used to express the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, appears to have been employed by the Platonics and Platonizing Fathers, to express, not a numerical, but only a specific identity-not that one thing was numerically of the same substance with another, but partook of the same In this sense it seems to have been employed by the Fathers of the Nicene Council. Succeeding ages, while they have retained the language, have departed from the sentiments of these Fathers. Petavius, in his Dog. Theol. tom. ii. lib. iv. cap. v. has brought together a great mass of learning, on the origin and use of the term μ08010. See also Eusebii Cæs. Epistola, extant in Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. i, сар. viii, and Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. xii.

nature.