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tle likely to spread, for any people, the theatre of manly energy, rigid self-denial, and lofty virtue. Where is the bone, and sinew, and strength of a country? Where do you expect to find its loftiest talent and vir tues? Where its martyrs to patriotism or religion? Where are the men to meet the days of peril and disaster? Do you look for them among the children of ease, and indulgence. and luxury?

All history answers. In the great march of the views of men over the earth, we have always seen opulence and luxury sinking before poverty, and toil, and hardy nurture. It is the very law that has presided over the processions of empire. Sidon and Tyre, whose merchants possessed the wealth of princes; Babylon and Palmyra, the seats of Asiatic luxury; Rome, laden with the spoils of a world, overwhelmed by her own vices more than by the hosts of her enemies-all these, and many more, are examples of the destructive tendencies of immense and unnatural accumlation. No lesson in history is so clear, so impressive, as this.

I trust, indeed, that our modern, our Christian cities and kingdoms are to be saved from such disastrous issues. I trust, that by the appropriation of wealth, less to purposes of private gratification, and more to the purposes of Christian philanthropy and public spirit, we are to be saved. But this is the very point on which I insist. Men must become more generous and benevolent, not more selfish and effeminate, as they become more rich, or the history of modern wealth will follow in the sad train of all past examples; and the story of American prosperity and of English opulence, will be told as a moral in empires beyond the Rocky Mountains, or in the newly-discovered continents of the Asiatic Seas!

REASON AND REVELATION.

(Extract from an Ordination Sermon.)

The Unitarian exercises his reason in settling the foundations of his faith; thus doing as all others do, and must do. But the question arises, does he not set reason above Revelation? So it has been reported every where. No, never. He finds no occasion for such a competition between the dictates of his mind and the doctrines of the Scriptures. What Revelation, teaches,

he believes in, because it is perfectly rational, as well as because Revelation teaches it. Is it inquired, whether he would believe in a doctrine that was entirely irrational, provided the Scriptures contained it? His reply is, that he is not reduced to this alternative of crucifying Reason, or renouncing Revelation, The supposition is impossible. The Bible never does teach any thing but what is reasonable, and therefore nothing but what he can and does believe. It were a daring proposition to advance, that God has contradicted, in one mode of his communication of truth, what he teaches us by another. It is just as absurd to ask, whether we would believe an irrational doctrine because Revelation taught it, as whether we would do a vicious act because Revelation enjoined it. The cases are parallel, but neither is for a moment supposable. The Bible violates neither reason nor conscience: it offers no irrational doctrine for us to believe, it commands no vicious deed for us to do.

To the view now presented of the necessity of intelligibleness in what we believe, and of evidence as a basis for faith, it is objected, that we are surrounded by mysteries, understand little in reality, and believe in many things which we cannot explain. Two things are confounded in such an objection, which ought to be carefully distinguished. I may believe in that which is above Reason, but that is quite different from believing in that which is against Reason. I may believe in mysteries, or, in the popular sense of that word, in many incomprehensible things,-things above men's experience and knowledge. I believe, for example, in the existence of God, which I can neither comprehend nor explain. But observe, I believe in the fact that He exists, which fact is supported by most abundant proof: I do not believe in the mode of his existence; I am not assured how he fills all with his august presence, and I can only believe as far as I have evidence for my belief. So far as his existence is a fact, I believe in it; so far as it is a mystery, I cannot believe in it, because I have no grounds for belief. I believe in the revolutions of worlds around worlds, through all the boundless heavens above and below, but I cannot understand nor elucidate the nature and essence of those centripetal and centrifugal forces which bind those stupendous masses in the exactest harmony as they fly on their swift courses. I believe in the fact for which there is good evidence, not in the mystery,

the how, for which there is none. The secrets of attraction and gravitation cannot be classed amongst matters of faith, because there is no proof what those secrets are. The facts are all that can come within the bounds of credence. Nobody else, any more than the Unitarian, believes in irrational doctrines, that is, doctrines irrational to the believer. It cannot be done. The doctrines must move over from the ground of no reason to the ground of reason, before they can be believed. Evidence of many kinds there is, but evidence of some kind there must be, or belief is dead. The most absurd things in the world have been believed, not as they were absurd, but as they had some basis of reason, however narrow or shallow. To speak of faith without reason, would be to say that there were rivers without fountains, and effects without causes. In exercising his Reason in Matters of Faith, the Unitarian does no more than, nor differently from, all other Christian believers.

Next, turn to the interpretation of the Scriptures : Unitarians are accused of setting their reason up as a standard above the Bible. But they do no such thing. They but do what all do. If they err, then all err, in using their minds to understand the word of God. The Bible is our standard. What it teaches respecting truth and duty, we receive, we believe in, with implicit love and trust. But the grand, dividing question, is, what does it teach? It is not the same thing, the same sense to all. The Bible is nothing more nor less than the meaning of the Bible, and that meaning varies with every mind. It teaches one set of doctrines to the Baptist, another to the Quaker, another to the Methodist. 'Men labor,' as Cecil acutely remarked, 'to make the Bible their Bible.' In fact every sect has its own Bible, inasmuch as each has its own sense of the book. The Scriptures, then, are the standard, but it is a different standard to different men. Religious controversy is the struggle which each denomination makes to render the Bible their Bible. Reformation in the Christian Church is but the constant bringing of man's sense of sacred Writ nearer to its absolute sense, the one God gave it; the advancement of the imperfect human idea up to the glorious clear significance of the divine mind.

Nor is this difficulty of arriving at the absolute truth of the sacred volume, escaped by the instrumentality of creeds. For, if not at first, which is generally the case,

yet afterwards, the creed, like the Bible, conveys different senses to different minds, and so what was designed for an explanation, soon needs itself to be explained. Hence arise ambiguities and discussions; the sectarian banner becomes itself the signal of war; and old churches and assemblies fall to pieces to be re-organized into new ones.

Since, then, the Bible, though the directory of Faith and Practice, is one thing to one man and another to another, according to what each understands it to teach; since there is variance of belief even touching fundamental points, what is done by all, but to fall back on their own minds, enlightened by Revelation, as the last criterion. Each one claims and allows the Supremacy of the Scriptures, but he must rely on his own mind to tell him what they teach. Probably no two persons, who have read the Bible understandingly, and reflected earnestly on religious subjects, think exactly alike. The more men reflect, the more they differ, and the smaller their differences become, because they approximate continually nearer to absolute truth. Modern civilization and free thought multiply sects in profusion, but their influence is to make 'the crooked straight, and the rough ways smooth,' and to unite all upon the essentials of Christianity.

From these remarks, it will be clear to every candid mind, that in regard to the interpretation of the Scriptures, as well as in matters of Faith, Unitarians proceed upon no novel and dangerous principle of using their reason, which is not equally adopted by others as their rule. Precisely like other denominations, they refer to the Bible as their standard, and to their minds to inform them what that standard requires. They would not only read, but understand the word with the faculties God has bestowed for that purpose. They hold that He intended his Revelation should be understood, as indeed with what propriety could it be called a Revelation, if it was not intelligible. Where were the value of Faith if it were placed at random? where the merit of conduct, if action were indiscriminate?

In pursuance, then, of what has been intimated, it is proper to repeat, that Unitarians differ from other Christians not in their using Reason, or exalting it above Revelation, but in their coming to different conclusions by the exercise of that faculty. This is the front and forehead of their offending.'

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TRINITARIANS AGAINST THE TRINITY.

WE extract the following from the report of a Discussion, held in Castlebar, in January, 1837, between the Rev. W. B. Stoney, Protestant Rector, and the Rev. James Hughes, Roman Catholic Priest, of Newport Pratt, County Mayo. The subject under discussion is, "to prove from scripture, interpreted by private judgement, the doctrine of the Trinity," and from the following remarks, it will be seen how effectually the advocate of infallibility-the Rev. Mr. Hughes, from whose speech we make the extract-disproves the doctrine of the Established Church by its own rule of faith, the right of private judgement; and at the same time how forcibly he testifies to the great truth, the simple Unity of God, when he allows the Scripture, and his own good sense to guide him.

"I believe the doctrine of the Trinity on the authority of the Church; and though he (Mr. Stoney) rejects church authority, he would be glad to base his creed on a splice of it. My belief in the Trinity is based on the authority of the church. No other authority is sufficient. I will now show from reason, that the Athanasian creed and Scripture are opposed to one another. The doctrine of the Trinity is this:-there is one God in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. Mind, the Father is one person, the Son is another person, and the Holy Ghost is another person.— Now, according to every principle of mathematics, arithmetic, human wisdom, and policy, there must be three Gods: for no one could say that there are three persons and three Gods, and yet only one God. No human comprehension can fathon this. Can you conceive by any rational rule that these three books, (Mr. Hughes here took up three books to illustrate his argument,) are one book. Each has its own personality-I cannot comprehend how three can be one. Am I singular in my interpretation of the Scriptures? No. This is the construction Arius put upon it, and that is private opinion. I will go down to the North of Ireland, to the Presbyterians-men of great learning-to such men as Mr. Montgomery, and they are most of them Arians. They deny the Divinity (Deity) of Christ. Why so? Because they conceive it impossible that there could be three Gods, and still only one God. The Socinian says

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