tious spirit, and a talent fitted for disputation; and as he could have no hopes of getting into that bishopric unless he could drive Arius out of Alexandria, who was the principal presbyter in the church next to the bishop, this he effected by fomenting a dispute about the Trinity between Arius and the bishop: on which account, having got Arius excommunicated, he had him then banished from Alexandria. Which when done, no sooner was the old bishop Alexander dead, but Athanasius, though then a young man of about twentyeight years of age, by the assistance of a set of murderous ascetics, forced himself at once into the bishopric, without ever passing through any of the intermediate degrees; and when he was dispossessed of it on account of his irregularities by a numerous council of bishops, he forced his way into the see again more than once or twice, over the murdered bodies of his antagonists, and waded into his cathedral through seas of blood."

I cannot conclude this letter without a few words on the use of reason as applied to revelation. You admit (p. 17) that "the conclusions drawn by reason are as much the voice of God, speaking to man by the faculties which he hath given him, as any information which can be derived from his written word." But you add (p. 18), " Admitting the use of reason in divine things, the next inquiry is, whether the conclusions of reason are paramount on this subject, and exclude every other evidence; whether revelation must go for nothing when reason

cannot fathom it; whether all is darkness beyond what we cannot see; in a word, whether the conclusions of reason are the utmost limit to which the belief of man can go?"

In the first place, let us understand what we mean by these terms, reason and revelation. The former may be correctly stated to be "that inspiration of God which has given man understanding, -that faculty or power by which man is enabled to see right from wrong, and to discern truth from To reveal is to make known: revelation, therefore, must be a making known of something before unknown or imperfectly understood. Now reason is the test to which revelation must be applied. To use the words of a learned dignitary of the Church, Dr. Bullock, formerly Dean of Norwich," If I cannot depend upon the plainest dictates of reason, how can I be assured that any doc

trine is a revelation come from God? If I receive it without consulting my reason, then, for aught I know, it may be an imposture; and I am every way as liable to embrace an error as the truth. But if I embrace it upon the trial and conviction of my reason, then, it is plain, I admit the principles of reason are to be depended upon; which, if I do, I cannot consistently admit anything as true which contradicts it."

On this principle, the soundness of which is self-evident, I must contend that a revelation which cannot be fathomed by reason is no revelation. It is an abuse of terms to say that anything is made

known or revealed which reason cannot comprehend. Apply this to our belief in the existence of God. The fact of the existence of one great, selfexistent, almighty power, is so far from being contrary to reason, that every exercise of our rational powers must inevitably lead to this conclusion. That what is made must have a maker, is a truth which commands our belief; and this is what is revealed of God. Revelation tells us that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth:" not how. There is nothing said about the process by which creation was effected,the simple fact is revealed that fact commands the assent of our reason, and further than this we believe nothing, because we know nothing. As to the manner in which God exists we know nothing, and we believe nothing. Here Revelation is silent. The subject is too vast for the grasp of finite minds. Poor weak mortals have talked about essences, and hypostases, and subsistences, and told us that "God doth infinitely transcend not only a predicamental substance, but a metaphysical entity;" and when they have invented this jargon, they call upon us to prostrate our understandings and believe it. They are not content with Revelation, which teaches us that "God is," but they must tell us how. The former proposition being a revelation, we can understand and believe; the latter being an addition of men, we neither understand nor believe. When Paul says, "To us there is One God, the Father," there is nothing in the proposition which

we cannot understand; but when we read in the Athanasian Creed that "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but One God," we have no conception of what is meant. We have certain words presented to our view; but they no more convey any idea to our minds than if they were written in unknown characters. Can we, then, be said to believe these words? If the Creed had said "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God," I might say "This is an unscriptural doctrine, but I can understand your proposition. I do not believe it, but I know what you mean." But when it is added, "and yet there are not three Gods, but one God," I am quite at a loss to know what is meant. The two propositions are self-destructive, and become nothing more than a heap of unmeaning words, to which no idea can be affixed.

How widely different is this sort of language to that which was employed by our Saviour and his Apostles! Their teaching appealed to the understanding and to the heart. Clear, simple, sublime, ennobling; everything that could better the human heart; everything that could remove the mists and clouds of superstition, that could reveal God in the most endearing of relations, that could elevate and dignify the character, and cause the graces and virtues of which humanity is capable to blossom and bring forth fruit; all these marks of benevolent and divine origin were stamped upon the

words they uttered. How different, how opposite, has been the language of human creeds! "This narrow, forbidding mode of exhibiting Christianity is easily explained by its early history. Monks shut up in cells; a priesthood cut off by celibacy from the sympathies and most interesting relations of life; and universities enslaved to a scholastic logic, and taught to place wisdom in verbal subtleties and unintelligible definitions: these took Christianity into their keeping; and at their chilling touch this generous religion, so full of life and affection, became a dry, frigid, abstract system. Christianity, as it came from their hands, and has been transmitted to us by a majority of Protestant divines, reminds us of the human form, compressed by swathing bands, until every joint is rigid, every movement constrained, and almost all the beauty and grace of nature obliterated. Instead of regarding it as a heavenly institution, designed to perfect our whole nature,-to offer awakening and purifying objects to the intellect, imagination, and heart, -to develop every capacity of devout and social feeling,-to form a rich, various, generous virtue, -divines have cramped and tortured the Gospel into various systems, composed in the main of theological riddles and contradictions; and this religion of love has been made to inculcate a monkish and dark-visaged piety, very hostile to the free expansion and full enjoyment of all our faculties and social affections."

From such teachers of religion we appeal. From