I fancy that by fome parts of it your good fenfe as well as your feelings of benevolence must be shocked. Many enquiries concerning it will, upon the leaft feflection, offer themselves to you which cannot be easily answered. You may ask how we can be justified freely by the grace of God if a full equivalent has been paid for our redemption? How it is poffible that God should make fatisfaction to himself for the fins of the world? And how, if three perfons acting different parts and sustaining different characters are each of them equally God, there can be but one God? Or, if this is poffible, and three perfons make but one nature, how it can be pof

a

fible

a Such it seems (in the opinion of Trinitarians) is this union of the divine and human nature in Chrift while yet the individuality of each is preferved, that it makes all that is true of the one equally true of the other. If this cannot be imagined, it must be impoffible for an attentive perfon to join in one part of our eítablished worship without fhuddering. I mean,

that

fible that two natures should make but bne person in Jesus Christ?-You might farther ask, how a fin committed at the creation can be imputed to those who did not commit it, fo as to fubject them to wrath and punishment? How, in particular, this can be true of innocent babes of whom Chrift fays, that of fuch is the kingdom of heaven? How, if, by denying to the greatest part of mankind the means of falvation, he has devoted them to eternal mifery, he can be a just and a benevolent being? And why, if we have not free-will and can do nothing, it does not follow that we have NOTHING TO DO?"

Thefe and numberlefs other questions may be asked concerning the doctrines taught by this fyftem; and it seems indeed to be, in most parts of it, a system in

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that part of the Litany which fupplicates the mercy of God-by his holy nativity and circumcifion-by his faftings and temptations-by his agony and bloody fweat-by his precious death and burial.

inconfiftent with reason, injurious to the character of the ever-bleffed Deity, and in the highest degree comfortless and difcouraging. I will add, that it seems to me no less contrary to scripture than to reafon; and I will just mention to you two inftances of this.

The fcriptures tell us that Chrift died for all; that he was made lower than the angels for a little time to tafte death for every man; and that he is the propitiation, not for the fins of Chriftians only, but for the fins of the whole world. But the advocates of this fcheme tell us the contrary; that Chrift died only for the elect, and that his dying for all means only his dying for fome men of all ranks and conditions.-In like manner; the fcriptures tell us that the one living and true God is God the Father of whom are all things, and, who fent Chrift into the world. This is life eternal, fays our Saviour himself, to know thee the only true God, and Jefus Christ whom thou bast sent.

There

There are Gods many, fays St. Paul, and there are lords many, but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things; and one Lord Jefus through whom are all things. I need not point out to you you the repugnancy between fuch declarations and fome parts of the system I have reprefented. In truth, were any man (fuppofed unacquainted with the controverfies which have arifen among Chriftians) to fet himself to invent a system of faith fo irrational and unfcriptural as to be incapable of being received by Chriftians, he could fcarcely think of one concerning which he would be more ready to form fuch a judgment. And yetOh! miferable imperfection of human beings--it is the system of christian divinity which has been for many ages generally

received in the Chriftian church. It is the fyftem which formerly all our chil

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dren

In the Church Catechifm it is taught children with the addition of a doctrine very like to transub

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dren were made to imbibe with their mother's milk, and to consider as most facred. It is the system inculcated in all the establifhed formularies of faith; and, particularly, in those of England, Ireland, and Scotland. And, what is worst of all, it is the fyftem to which the established clergy in Britain and Ireland declare their affent on entering their office as public teachers, and without believing the very abfurdeft part of which, one particular creed pronounces that we cannot be faved".

I must, however, obferve to you, that this fyftem is held by different divines with very different degrees of ftrictness, - fome carrying it much higher than others.

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ftantiation; for it is fcarcely poffible a child fhould have any other meaning when he is made to say, "that the body and blood of Chrift are verily and in"deed taken and received in the Lord's fupper."

In Scotland, if I am not miftaken, the clergy are required not only to declare their belief of this system, but that they will "conftantly adhere to it," that is, never grow wifer.