correct representation of the New Testament, must depend upon a satisfactory explanation being given of the passages of Scripture which relate to this subject. We hold that there is no royal road in Theology, any more than Geometry, and therefore hear, with more than a feeling of scepticism, the language which is occasionally used of the propriety and usefulness of taking only a general view of the contents of the Bible, and avoiding a particular examination of texts. We are far from intending to deny that there are excellent arguments which such a general view will suggest; that contained in Dr. Toulmin's Review of the Preaching of the Apostles, for instance, which we think to be one of the best of the kind. But the excellent author of that useful tract would have been the last to object to the critical labours of his friends Lindsey, Wakefield, and Priestley. These amiable and pious men, ardently devoted to the pursuit and dissemination of Christian truth, to which sacred cause they sacrificed many of the comforts and honours of this world, are often, indeed, denied the very name of Christians. But by whom are they excluded from the pale of Christendom? By men who, in many cases, shew that they are greatly inferior to these noble men in the comprehensiveness of their views and the extent of their information; who may be lauded by the members of their own fraternity, till they come to persuade themselves that they are men of undoubted eminence in the Church generally; men, we will venture to say, whose names will be utterly forgotten when the names of Lindsey, Wakefield, Priestley, will become increasingly venerated, admired, and loved; for such we confidently expect from the vast increase of knowledge in the days in which we live, and the anticipation of this may reasonably afford us comfort amidst the occasional exhibition of a contracted faith and a bitter spirit.

What have Christians to do with the Athanasian Creed? "The account given of Athanasius' Creed seems to me nowise satisfactory; I wish we were well rid of it."

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.

A VERY well-meaning and sensible acquaintance of the writer of this tract said to him, "If they are for the Athanasian Creed, let them call themselves Athanasians;

but if they be Christians, let them be content with the instructions of Christ and his apostles." There appears much good sense and propriety in this remark.

Every individual, prior to his profession of Christianity, should take the pains to inform himself as to its evidences, and the documents from which he may learn this religion in its original purity.

Individual judgment should always characterize the disciples of Jesus Christ, whose instructions were addressed to the reason of mankind.

A large part of believers, it cannot be denied, take their religious opinions upon trust, and profess them because their fathers did so before. Those who aspire to any degree of mental cultivation will feel ashamed to take their religion upon trust. Why even of yourselves," said the great Master of Christians," judge ye not what is right?"

66

Christians should derive their belief immediately from the Scriptures, caring nothing what may be thought of their religion by fallible men, accountable to God alone, and to his Son, Jesus Christ.

The bond of union in all ages among the brethren has been the belief that Jesus is the Christ. John xvii. 3, xx. 31; Matt. xvi. 16.-See Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity.

This was the belief of Martha, the confession of Peter, the testimony of Jesus, the object of his evangelist John, the creed of the apostles at large.

But who was St. Athanasius? A turbulent and fierce Polemic, appointed Bishop of Alexandria, in Egypt, in the fourth century.

He is not himself to be blamed for the creed which bears his name, which is not even descriptive of his own belief. Athanasius says, "The nature of God is the cause, both of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and of all creatures."-Dr. Clarke's Scriptural Doctrine, 2d ed. p.

276.

The Creed says the Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. The Athanasian Creed had no existence in the time of St. Athanasius; but if it had existed then, it was not written by him, for he spoke and wrote in the Greek language. The "Creed" was com

posed in Latin, and betrays a Roman origin. Who, then, was the author of this Creed, commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius?

Its real author is at least as much unknown as that of the celebrated Letters of Junius. It is considered by Gerard Vossius. that it cannot be proved to have existed earlier than A.D. 600, which is at least 127 years after Athanasius died. The same eminent critic maintains, that it was not received by the church till A.D. 1000.

Many writers have attributed it to Vigilius of Tapsus, on the coast of Africa, who lived in the fifth century. He is notorious for having forged many books in the names of other persons, and on this account may the more readily have been suspected. Whichever may be the correct date of the greater part of this composition, it is at least certain that one clause of this Creed, the whole of which is commanded to be "said or sung" fourteen times in the year in the English Church, and to the whole of which is appended the threat of everlasting perdition, was not inserted in the creed till A.D. 863. These words, determining that the Holy Ghost is of the Son, as well as the Father, constitute one of the particulars which divide the Roman and the Greek Churches. This Creed is not recognized by the Greek Church.

By whomsoever this Creed was written, there ought to be no douht of the impropriety of its introduction into the worship of Christians, because it has no apostolic authority, there being no similar composition in the New Testament; and because it denounces a large and increasing number of professed believers in Christ, of virtuous dispositions and blameless lives, with everlasting perdition.

That great ornament of the English establishment, Archbishop Tillotson, more than a century ago, in a letter to Dr. Burnet,* expressed a wish that his church were well rid of this creed; and there is strong ground for believing that the most learned and sensible of the present clergy would be glad to see it discarded by authority. That it is greatly neglected by the present clergy is

Life, by Birch.

Of this mind was Dr. Tomline, the last Bishop of Winchester and the tutor of Mr. Pitt.

notorious-no Church of the Establishment is secure from

the use of it. The Christian who repairs thither to worship God and promote his own holiness, may find himself unawares "dealing damnation" on his fellow Christians. He may, to be sure, with George the Third of England, shut his book when the creed is read; but this is unseemly in the house of prayer.

During the whole time that this creed has existed in the Romish and the English Church, it has formed a main support in the popular mind of the doctrine of Trinity-inUnity. Even the public teachers of religion, and much more the laity, have been found to refer to it, rather than the Scripture, for a statement of the doctrine.

Where, indeed, does the Bible contain a single statement of the doctrine of Trinity-in-Unity?

The only text in the English version, (1 John v. 7,) which looks at all like that doctrine, is not to be found in the best edition of the Greek original, viz. that of Griesbach, nor in any manuscript of the original, older than the invention of printing.

All Christians believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Matt. xxviii.

Trinitarians maintain that these three constitute one God. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, declares in prayer, that the Father is the only true God." John xvii. 3. The Athanasian creed is a main support of the Trinitarian invocation in the Litany.

Yet even Calvin could say, "This prayer, Holy Trinity, one God, pity us, does not please me, and is altogether barbarous.""

And Luther, "This word Trinity is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but is only a human invention; whence it seems even to sound frigidly, and it would be much better to call the Supreme Being, God than Trinity."*

The word Trinity, however, is perfectly ambiguous, and, even if it occurred in the New Testament, would by no means prove the truth of the Athanasian creed. The Latin word Trinitas was used in the title of a theological

Henry Taylor, formerly Vicar of Portsmouth.

S

treatise, by Novatian, A.D. 250, who advocates a species of Unitarianism. The corresponding Greek word Τριας is first used by Theophilus, A.D. 181; but is employed by him in reference to the Father, the Word, and his Wisdom, which, it is obvious, do not correspond with the three persons of the Athanasian Trinity.

Return, my fellow Christian, to the simplicity which is in Christ.* DISCIPULUS.

A SUMMARY OF UNITARIAN ARGUMENTS.

(Concluded from p. 262.)

So far is the divinity of the Holy Ghost from being evident in the Old Testament, that there is not one single passage therein from whence it can even possibly be conjectured by any one who attends to the Hebrew idiom. The attempts that have been made by Trinitarian expositors formerly, to deduce the doctrine of the Trinity from the Old Testament, have been so inconceivably absurd, that even Trinitarians, of modern times, reject them entirely. The council of Sirmium, indeed, anathematized all who denied that God the Father spake to God the Son, when he said, "Let us make man," &c.† And “ Meyer, who wrote a book De Mysterio Sacro-Sanctæ Trinitatis ex solius veteris Testamenti Libris demonstrato, urges as the text which is the most clear and conclusive of all, Deut. vi. 4: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord:' in which he is not at all singular (says Jortin), many of his cabbalistic brethren having made the same remark on the same text. The famous Postellus observed, that there were eleven thousand proofs of the Trinity in the Old Testament interpreted rightly, that is, Etymologico-mysticocabbalistically." But explanations which imply such gross ignorance, or palpable neglect of Hebrew phraseology, convince no longer.

* In answer to the question at the head of this tract, we may truly say, that no Christian who loves truth, pure doctrine, and brotherly charity, has any thing to do with this creed, but to reject it. + Jortin's Remarks, Vol. II. p. 244, who quotes Socrates' Hist. Eccl. 2, p. 30.

Ibid. Vol. III. p. 100.