alter the received text without very strong reason. The Christian scholar will apply this rule, with conscientious impartiality. He will hold the scales of criticism with an equal hand, and never allow them to receive the slightest inclination for the purpose of favouring any hypothesis. The particular texts, whose diversity of readings entitled to critical attention, is of importance to the deduction of theological doctrines, are not numerous since either the sense afforded by each reading is the same, or what portion of particular testimony is lost in one instance is gained in others.*

We must, also, put in the rank of fallacies, those arguments which, from scriptural testimonies to

"If a corrupt line or dubious reading chances to intervene, it does not darken the whole context, nor make an author's opinion or his purpose precarious. Terence, for instance, has as many variations as any book whatever, in proportion to its bulk; and yet with all its interpolations, omissions, additions, or glosses (chuse the worst of them on purpose), you cannot deface the contrivance and plot of one play; no, not of one single scene; but its sense, design, and subserviency to the last issue and conclusion, shall be visible and plain through all the mist of various lections. And so it is with the sacred text; make your 30,000 as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum: all the better to a knowing and serious reader, who is thereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool; and yet, with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter; nor so disguise Christianity but that every feature of it shall still be the same." Dr. Bentley's (the glory of classical criticism) Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, part i. p. 112.

the unity of the Deity and the real and proper humanity of the Messiah, at once infer that the divine nature cannot imply a plurality of subsistences, and that the Messiah cannot possess any other nature in addition to that of a mortal man. The fact asserted in the orthodox doctrine is by them advanced as a miraculous fact; as the most stupendous of miracles: and it is therefore to be judged of, not by reasoning from the natural constitution of things, but by its own proper and peculiar evidence. If the orthodox are in an

error, they must be convinced of it by other means than the reiteration of premises which they cordially admit, but whose connection with the conclusions of their opponents must appear to them an arbitrary and injurious assumption.

It has appeared to me, that one of the distinguishing failings of the Unitarian theology, is a propensity to generalize too soon and to conclude too hastily, both in criticism and in argumentation. It seems the habit of its advocates to assume a few of the broadest facts in the scheme of Christianity, which are obvious to the most rapid glance and, with a sweeping hand, they either crush down all the rest, and leave them unregarded; or they force them into an unnatural and disfiguring subordination to the favourite assumptions. Unlike the cautious and patient spirit of true philosophy, which is always open to the collection and the careful estimation of facts, and which regards nothing as more hostile to its ob

jects than a precipitate and foreclosing generalization, the Unitarian spirit rather resembles that of the old scholasticism which spurned laborious investigation and slow induction, and would force all nature into its ranks of predicaments and predicables. This may be one reason, among others, why these notions meet with so ready an acceptance in young minds, inexperienced, flirty, and ambitious, half-learned and ill-disciplined. Here is a theology, easily acquired, discarding mysteries, treading down difficulties, and answering the pleas of the orthodox with summary contempt: a theology complimentary to the pride of those who deem themsslves endowed with superior discernment; and which, in practice, is not ungenerously rigid against any favourite passion or little foible that is decently compatible with the world's code of morals.

This in part proceeds on an implied opinion that the system of divine revelation is a system extremely brief and simple: an opinion which, however, is only an assumption; and which, like other assumptions, should be brought to the test of proof. Analogy is not in favour of it. We do not find such a meagre simplicity in the objects of natural knowledge. The things and the facts which the face of creation presents, are various and complicated to a degree which ever active discovery only proves to be inexhaustible. The simplest organized being, the veriest atom of dead matter, or the most familiar event in the course

of nature, each indicates an overwhelming profusion of causes and occasions, operations and results; each can furnish questions before which human science stands dumb; each is filled with mysteries. Such is the field of nature and can it be believed that the world of God's MORAL and SPIRITUAL government, the system in which he has determined to uncover his highest glory, and from it to derive his loftiest praise, the " things which angels desire to look into,"-is it to be imagined that THESE are not arrayed in the complicate and magnificent characters of his infinite intelligence?

If presumptions from nature lie against this opinion, the testimony of revelation is not less unfavourable to it. In the scriptures, both prophetic and apostolic, the gospel is constantly represented as replete with wonders and mysteries, the astonishment of the intelligent universe, the matchless display of Jehovah's grandeur and excellency, and destined to be the loftiest theme of immortal praise. But on the Unitarian hypothesis, we may well ask, what is there to excite or sustain the language of amazement, triumph, and exstatic joy which characterizes the inspirations of the prophets and apostles, when they burst forth on this transcendent theme?

* To adduce examples would require the transcribing of numerous and ample passages. The reader may turn to the following: Ps. xcvi. Is. xxxv. xlii. 6—12; li. 3—11; lx. lxi. lxii. Eph. iii. 8-10, 18, 19.

That many of the general principles and rules of interpretation, which are laid down in the "Calm Inquiry into the Scripture Doctrine concerning the Person of Christ," and in other writings of the same description, are just and important, is readily acknowledged: but there are others which, both in their theory and in their application, violate all sober and equitable criticism. I would solicit any candid and reflecting Unitarian to direct his serious judment to this point. I would ask him, whether he could himself devise any forms of expression, in accordance with the characteristic phraseology of the scriptures, for conveying the doctrines of the Deity and atonemeut of Christ, which might not be evaded or neutralized by the apparatus of criticism and interpretation which is in the established use of his party. The force of the plainest terms might be enervated and even annihilated, by giving the reader his option of a number of constructions elaborated by profound thought and versatile contrivance, each of which shall be eulogized as very ingenious and plausible, and what may be

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* For example, "John i. 1.". " and the word was God," or a God," i. e. an inferior God derived from the Supreme, and delegated by him; or, "God was wisdom;"-or, "the word,

i. e. the teacher, was a prophet endued with miraculous powers;" -or, if the conjecture of Crellius and others be allowed, Ocou for Oɛos, "the word was God's," the teacher was sent from God." Calm Inq. p. 218. Yet I incur no hazard in saying, that there is not one of these which-you-please accommodations, which is not a defiance of every principle of rational criticism: as will, I trust, in the proper place, be made abundantly manifest.