ceeds upon the idea, that all inability must be inpocent. If fo, wicked men would be innocent; nay, the more wicked and enslaved in fin they are, the lefs would they be anfwerable to God; the most abandoned men would be blameless; there would be no difference between the worft of vices, and the most excellent of virtues. You see what horrid confequences muft be drawn from thefe, and many other paffages of the word of God itself, except you allow with us the inability of man in an indirect fense; a fenfe which fo far from taking the guilt away, enhances it; a fense from which none of the conclufions, which are so often inferred by you from the Inability of Man, can poffibly be deduced. If you are willing to admit this indirect idea of Human Inability, the main pillar of your Publication is fallen; but if you are unwilling to admit it, and will ftill infift that all Inability must be innocent, then I deem it impoffible for you to give any fatisfactory interpretation to the above-cited and many

other Scriptures.

4. It is not my design to notice all that your Publication contains. With what you reprefent as the peculiar views of Methodists and others, with "Seekings" in the fenfe in which you use the term, with "inward witneffes," -"extatic impulfes,"-" enthufiaftic frames,"

&c. &c. I have nothing to do. not misrepresented the perfons,

If If you have who you fay

pretend to them and rely upon them, they must answer for themselves. These things form no proper part of true religion. The queftions principally to be confidered are,-What is the Revelation which Jehovah has given concerning himself? -What is the real character and condition of man ?-How is he to obtain the favour of God?-How to be poffeffed of that holiness without which no man can fee the Lord.These important particulars will all be spoken to, in the course of the following letters.

LETTER II.

THERE is but too ftrong and reasonable ground of fufpicion, that a writer acts under a prejudiced and difingenuous mind, when he attempts to make his opponents fpeak a language which they have never ufed, and entertain fentiments which they abhor. Yet in your letter upon the Divinity of Christ, and the Trinity, a ftrong inftance of this reprehenfible conduct appears at the very commencement. In page 84, you exprefs your conviction that

there cannot be a Trinity of perfons in the Godhead, because the Scriptures decifively declare that there is but one felf-existent Being," one Jehovah; and you bring the firft Commandment and fome other paffages to prove that God is one; and, in page 85, you think it "highly reasonable to fuppofe the Old and New Teftament will not fo effentially contradict, each other as for one to reveal and infift upon one God only, and the other to reveal three Gods." And in page 92, you represent us as believing three to be one, and one three. Now do you not know that the Trinitarians are as far from fuppofing a plurality of Gods as you ? They are as properly Unitarians as you, in intention at least. They do not apprehend that by holding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to be three divine persons, they are neceffarily guilty of the heinous fin of having other Gods befides the one Jehovah. You take that for granted, therefore, which is the principal thing to be proved; and have argued on a conclufion drawn from their view of the fubject which they neither hold, nor admit to follow. In page 86, you ask, could God die, could God be buried? &c. &c.

But, where did you ever read or hear of any Trinitarian who was weak enough to maintain that Chrift died as God, or was buried as God? We hold that a perfon was born of the Virgin Mary, fuffered,

and was buried, and that he was united to the Divine Nature. It was incumbent upon you, before you adopted expreffions of this kind, either to have fhewn us that Chrift is not exhibited in the Scriptures as partaker of the divine and human nature, or to have demonftrated that should the Scriptures speak a language which feemed to favour this idea, fuch an union is utterly impoffible in the nature of things.

The first thing to be fettled is this-whether, if there fhould be any thing contained in the Scriptures that favors the idea of an union of the Divine Nature with the human in Jefus Christ, and of a Trinity of Perfons in one God -fuch doctrines are inadmiffible of themselves, as being contrary to reafon and common fenfe?

In order to direct our judgment in an inveftigation of this nature, let us bear in mind, that in matters of pure revelation, and particularly when we are prefuming to ascertain what is, and whatis no t poffible with God; a thing may be above the reach of our reason, and yet not be against reafon; a thing may be above our comprehenfion, and yet by no means incomprehenfible in itself. There are many things in Nature, which we are obliged to admit as facts, that are quite above our comprehenfion, and which, had we been asked an abftract

queftion concerning the poffibility of their exiftence, we should have been difpofed to declare impoffible. It is not then our duty to prove that fuch a thing is poffible, as that Chrift fhould be God and Man; it imports you to demonftrate the contrary; and that has never yet been done. It is trifling, it is prefumptuous to plead you cannot understand how it can be. Chriftians are not called upon to understand how it is, but to believe that it is, if it be clearly revealed. You are unwilling to admit such a Doctrine, because it is fo" myfterious," and therefore not likely to be true; and having quoted a paffage in which you confider the Apostle as representing Christ, as no more than Man; and that the Apostle therefore preached him as no more than Man; and that confequently he is no more than Man; you exult over your system as entitled to acceptance, because level to human apprehenfion : "here is no mystery whatever."+

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*Page 87.

† In page 92, you fay, "the Trinity is a mystery, its best friends can neither fully understand nor explain, yet ftrange to tell, the belief of it is made the Gate of "Heaven." By Mystery, I apprehend we may understand fomething which, in its nature or caufe, is not obvious "to the human capacity, and, when made known, may ftill have fomething in it which is not fully comprehended." We profefs to believe fimply what God has revealed. Every Religious Creed must admit things which are to man incompre

henfible.