to take the word "judge" here in its common signification, instead of its legal, would lead us to consequences the most pernicious and absurd. For if this precept were really enjoined upon us and obeyed, that we are not to have a judg ment, not to make up an opinion as to a person's character or conduct, there would be at once an end of all certainty and peace in life; an end of life itself. In one's dealings, for instance, suppose he were obliged to sell to a man without judging as to his character, or his ability to pay, how could he even imagine whether the sale was to be profitable or ruinous. He would not do business long on such risks as this; the operations of society must cease; and after they were gone, individual life would tarry but a little while. Charity, therefore, does not forbid our passing a just judgment, or the most correct one we can, but requires us carefully to take into consideration all the circumstances which go to favor the person, act or thing, we judge. This is what we wish to do at the present time, in speaking of those who labor to prevent the spread of Unitarian views of christianity.

Those who oppose and speak evil of us, may be distinguished into three classes; they who join with the many in condemning a faith of which they have no knowledge themselves: they who have received false views of it from untrustworthy sources; and they who have examined the subject partially and with prejudiced minds. For those who know us fully and fairly, if they are not induced to go with us, at least have no disposition to speak evil of us.

For the first of these classes it may be thought that there is no excuse. That they should go about to denounce and banish from the land, a faith of which they are wholly ignorant; which, for anything that they know, may be the faith most according to the simplicity of the gospel, most agreeable to the truth of scripture, as well as the light of reason, and most directly tending to produce genuine virtue of the heart and life; this may be thought an offence as unpardonable as it is absurd; and we may find it hard to think with patience of those who take such unreasonable steps, and may feel obliged to judge them without the pale even of charity, long suffering as it is. But, these are really the persons to whom we may extend the largest share of this most benevolent feeling. For it would be unreasonable on our part to expect from them a different conduct. They are persons whose education and course of life have never accustomed them to ask for truth on any subject; and, of course, not upon religion, a subject upon which inquiry comes later than on most others. They are

persons who always follow where their companions, many or few, shall lead; their existence, indeed, seems to be merged in the life of those about them; and it would be strange, if they should stand forth from the multitude and insist on examining for themselves, the evidence for a doctrine, new to them, and unpopular with their friends. They really deserve our kindest regard, our most fervent charity; that love of enemies which Christ teacheth, and which manifests itself in endeavors to improve them; the charity that shall go and awake in them the spark of individual life, animate them to seek truth, and teach them self-reliance. Their condition should call forth not only our most lenient judgment, but our warmest sympathy and benevolent effort in their behalf. Whether they can be acquitted of guilt, is another question. Whether, as moral agents, and therefore accountable to God for the use of their talents, they may not stand before him charged with sinful inactivity, and wilful ignorance, is for him to decide. Obviously, however, they are objects of our charity; more so, than the second class who inquire, but are not careful to ask whether they derive their information from a correct

source.

These persons manifest some consciousness that it is their duty to seek truth; and some may be disposed to censure them severely, for taking so much upon trust, and being so little scrupulous about the authority on which they rest their opinions. But if we are not careful we shall require too much of this class also. Their course of education and life is but one degree removed from that of the former class. Through the influence of more intelligent parents, teachers, and society, they have acquired the habit of asking information; but they have not yet come to ask the reason of things; the why and the wherefore. They too rely upon others, upon the general voice. The common belief, the popular opinion is their authority: and naturally so. For with them the teaching of infancy has been continued to mature age, and that implicit confidence which they once gave to parents, they transfer to other friends and teachers, and especially to their spiritual guide; to him they have been directed to look as authority always to be followed: and, in religion, where shall they look, if not to him? Theirs are not habits of study; their occupations allow comparatively little; their opportunities of knowledge are small, his are great; and he is set for them as an oracle of truth. If he mislead them and betray his trust; if he teach them not to seek knowledge, nor show them where they may find it; if he assert decisively that of

which he is not by proper care assured, instead of telling them that he is not satisfied, and enjoining upon them to look and judge for themselves, where, where shall they look for guidance? If their minister deceive them, whose is the burden of guilt? Certainly we should judge them charitably; they do only what the world has always done in ages past; they cling with the multitude to old opinions, and will not look at the evidence for others; they oppose advancement as dangerous innovations. Thus man has received almost every great discovery of truth at the sacrifice of blood. The discoverers have sealed the doctrine and blessed the world with its light, by the surrender of their lives. Again, we say of these, as of the former class, God knows whether to the utmost they have used their light, and striven for more, and he must pass the final judgment. But we truly see occasion in their circumstances to be as lenient in our feelings towards them as truth and justice will allow.

But how shall they be viewed, who have felt the duty of inquiring for themselves, and have performed it, but have neglected the best means of information and suffered prejudice to blind them to the force of truth? With charity, still we say, though they may be persons whom opportunity and duty imperatively commanded to investigate fully and fairly. They may be those to whom the best authorities were easily accessible, and on whom rested the strongest obligations impartially to seek the truth; for they may be those who are to serve as authority to many persons that have not other means of knowledge. Still, we repeat, there is abundant cause for charity towards even these. Consider the difficulties with which they may have to contend, in bringing themselves to weigh evidence impartially. Were their favorite views imbibed in infancy from the teachings of parental love? Are they combined with all their early happy, recollections; associated with all their holy feelings, past and present? Were those the views that first awakened their indifference, and led them to the joys of pardoned sin, and an immortal hope? Do they feel that those views were the instruments of their reform, their salvation? Then must they not be dear; dear as a right eye, or a right arm? as difficult to give up? And must not the evidence for their truth present itself to the mind with a peculiar force? May not the brightness of evidence, so near the heart, obscure the distant, though it be the stronger light? And may we not therefore think tenderly of persons in such error? Imagine us not to be vindicating their course. No; truth is above all other treasures; and

though it may call us to give up what is intensely dear, and we may seem to sacrifice our all for it, our friends, our hope of riches and of honor, yet it is but seeming. God does not permit us to lose anything by seeking Him, the fountain of truth. And truth, which manifests Him, should be our choicest treasure; able amply to stand in place of any other, with which we may be called to part. Thus the Saviour authorises us to judge in the strong language by which he calls upon us to leave all and follow him. We may not imagine how severe a judgment God shall mete to them who are unfaithful to their means of ascertaining truth. Into His secret counsels man entereth not. But, by our sympathy, with true affection, by our remembrances of early piety, by our respect for sacred and deep feeling, by our joy in the peace of holiness and the hope that never dies, we may feel for a brother whom these holy things have led astray, who has sacrificed truth to an idol of his affections.

Let us then have charity. Let us not destroy the peace this virtue gives to our own souls. What happier or more precious feature is there of our faith, than that reliance on the great, essential, commonly acknowledged truths, of the christian faith, which allows us to take every man who receives Christ as his master, by the hand and greet him as a brother? Never, never part with this. It redeems life from a desert waste, to a garden of all sweets; from a solitary, cheerless way, to a path of enchanting beauty, radiant with the light of holy love.

Again, let us be charitable. We can wait patiently and calmly, amid injury and reproach, for we shall one day be relieved. The time will come when the question between us and our brethren will be decided upon its own merits. And when that time shall come, we have no fear for the issue. This is all we have ever asked, to have the question upon its merits; and we shall have it so. Until we do, we can wait in peace and love, and walk about among men till it is a familiar thing to see us, and till, if we are faithful to our cause, many hearts shall soften towards us, and many feel within themselves that it was as unmanly, as it was unchristian, to look coldly on those to whom the interests of the community and the country, of the cause of God and of man, were as dear as to themselves.

Buffalo, March 14th.

A. C. P.

[We would direct the attention of our readers to the series of letters, the first of which follows this note, as containing a statement of some of the principal reasons for our dissent from the doctrine of the Trinity. We would express our thanks to the respected author of these letters and add the hope that our readers and ourselves may be often favored with communications from the same able pen.]

LETTERS ON THE DEITY OF CHRIST.-No. I.

ART. IV. To the Rev. Nathaniel West, Pastor of the Presbyterian Society at Meadville.

REV. AND DEAR SIR:-In a discourse which you delivered some time since to your congregation, you told them "That it was as God that our Saviour presented himself to the Jews, and that it was as God that they rejected him." I must acknowledge that I was struck by this assertion. Not that it is not such as we might naturally expect from a Trinitarian; on the contrary, it appears to me to be in perfect harmony with the Trinitarian faith, and almost necessarily required by it. But I was struck with your assertion, because it presents the doctrine of the personal Deity of Christ, in a form so much more tangible than that in which I have been in the habit of meeting with it. Some of the Catholic writers have contended, that the doctrine of the Trinity has not been revealed in the Scriptures, but was transmitted by oral tradition from the Apostles; and in placing it on this ground, this doctrine becomes certainly less assailable by proofs drawn from the scriptures. But Protestants, who reject, or at least who pretend to reject, the authority of tradition in matters of faith, appear to me to have been generally very shy of fixing any period, when the doctrine of the proper Deity of Jesus had been announced to the world. You, however, sir, appear not to have any such hesitancy, and present this doctrine to us in a shape in which we can apply to it the evidence of scripture, and test its truth. Whether Jesus of Nazareth announced himself to the Jews as the supreme God, as you hold; or whether he only claimed to be the Christ of God, his messenger and representative, as I believe, is certainly not an unimportant question, but one well deserving the most serious consideration of all who call themselves christians. It is this question which I now purpose to examine, and I invite you, sir, to accompany me in this investigation. Both of us are Protestants, and reject the authority of tradition. Both of us receive the scriptures as containing the records of God's revelations. Let us then together go to these records, and see what they teach us concerning the Saviour.