wound on a remote portion of our body, while all our nobler faculties are occupied with some active and animating pursuit, how little do we feel it! Such and infinitely less would be the sufferings of humanity to a being enjoying at the same moment the unutterable glory of God. But this is not all—Jesus died. Then if Jesus was God, it is an inevitable inference, that God died. But here I will stop, because these things, although they may be called orthodox, are not fit to be spoken, and verge on blasphemy. I submit it to every pious and enlightened Christian, that the Living God, the immortal King of Ages, cannot take it on himself to die in any form or nature whatever. But if he could, what would death have been to one who all the while never ceased to live in transcendent glory? Something less than it is to us, when a single hair dies on our heads, and drops unnoticed to the ground."-Pp. 26, 27. The following view of the evidence for Unitarianism bas always appeared to us extremely important: "Though studious of brevity, there is one consideration adduced by Unitarians, which appears to me so powerful that I cannot omit it. It is that of the negative evidence which the scripture affords in their favour. Let it only be considered that in the three first gospels, and Acts of the Apostles, there is not a single passage in which the deity or pre-existence of Christ can with any appearance of reason be even pretended to be mentioned: nothing occurs from which we should be led to view him in any other light than that in which Peter represented him on the day of Pentecost, a man approved of God by signs and wonders which God did by him in the midst of us. Now I ask, is it possible that three of his best-informed followers should have left formal memorials of his life and doctrine, and one of them an account of the preaching of his apostles after his death, without taking any notice of so astonishing and essential a fact, as that he had declared himself to be not only a man, as he appeared to be, but in very deed the Almighty God, the creator of the universe, descended from heaven and dwelling personally among mankind, had such been really the case? I say, if these Christian memorialists, undertaking as they do to give us sufficient accounts of their master's life and discourses, have indeed left us narratives so miserably defective as this would imply, farewell to the credibility of the gospel history; such writings, in the judgment of all impartial critics, will be esteemed destitute of good faith, and unworthy of credit. But the negative evidence for Unitarianism is not confined to these books alone: it may be boldly said, that there is not a single explicit and unequivocal declaration either of the deity or preexistence of Christ in the whole of the New Testament. The passages which are brought to prove these doctrines are either corrupt readings, or mistranslations, or ambiguous sentences which will admit of another interpretation. If this new, grand, and most astonishing doctrine had really been a part of the gospel, the apostles would most assuredly have enforced it in statements as plain and explicit as language could supply, and insisted on it with that pointedness and frequency which its novelty, importance, and apparent difficulty would have demanded. That they have not done so, is the best possible proof that they were entirely unacquainted with it, and that those who now endeavour to discover it in some obscure expressions which their writings occasionally present, are labouring under a great error, and seeking what they will never truly find."-Pp. 43—45. Pious men have been strongly affected by what they have regarded as a presumptive argument against the Unitarian faith from the nearly universal prevalence for ages of the contrary doctrine ;-this is well inet by our author. "I have known some to whom it has seemed impossible to believe, that God would suffer an error of so great magnitude as Unitarians represent the doctrine of the Trinity to be, to overrun the church so long and so extensively, and especially to obscure the faith of so many pious minds. It becomes us not to imagine what God would or would not do, but to remember what he has done. For how many centuries was not the whole church overrun with all the errors of Popery? The Reformation even to this day has had but a partial diffusion, and by far the larger part of Christendom is still involved in all the corruptions of the Greek and Roman churches. Yet candour must admit, what is an undoubted fact, that multitudes of persons as pious and devoted as any Protestants, have lived and died in those communions, and even been zealously tenacious of their errors. Among Protestants themselves, how many men of deep piety and fervent prayer, have eagerly contended for the most opposite opinions! It is clear then, that the order of Providence has not in fact preserved either the church at large or its most pious members from gross prevailing delusions, in numberless instances; and there is therefore no reason to suppose that it must have done so in the instance in question. Is not a great and general apostacy of the church the burthen of NewTestament prophecy? Shall we then, when the existence of this apostacy is pointed out, turn round and say, that it is impossible that God can have suffered such a thing to happen? As regards pious individuals, if their piety have been sincere, their salvation has been secured, whatever may have been the errors of their creed. If this be admitted, it is sufficient to justify the ways of God, and quiet all our anxieties.”—Pp. 45, 46. We can only quote one more passage, but we have al ready given the reader sufficient knowledge of the panphlet to convince him of its value. The Physician is an swering the cry of heresy, so commonly set up by angry polemics, domincering priests, fanatical preachers and ignorant believers, against Unitarians : "When a doctrine is denounced as heretical, this alone is enough to frighten many minds not only from embracing it, but even from examining the subject. In such a case it is well to remember that the cry of heresy is one which has always been in the mouths of the enemies of religious freedom and improvement. Have not the best men, the greatest benefactors of mankind, suffered the reproach of heresy in their day, from the apostles of Christ down to the martyrs of the Reformation? If Unitarianism be indeed heresy, its opponents must admit that it was the earliest on the list, and sprung up in the very footsteps of the apostles. But Unitarians think that the Trinitarian doctrine is indeed the heresy, if such hard names must be used, as being an innovation on that of the apostles, and contrary to the rule of Christian faith. They trace the growth of this doctrine from the first modest insinuation of it by Justin Martyr, through the mystical speculations on the Logos of the early Fathers, to the audacious decisions of the antichristian councils of the fourth and fifth centuries. It was then, when the Church was already deep sunk in corruption of every kind,. that by violence and intrigue such as would disgrace in our own days a borough election, this doctrine was at length carried by vote, and imposed on the Christian world on pain of excommunication and other injurious penalties."-P. 59. A Royal Theologian; or, the King of Prussia's Letter to the Duchess of Anhalt, Coethen, on her Change of Religion. WE have not been able hitherto to insert this curious piece of theology, though we always meant to preserve it in the Christian Reformer. His Majesty of Prussia is very angry with his sister for becoming a Roman Catholic; he terms her new profession a " sinful" as well as "dreadful act." We have no liking for the Roman Catholic religion; but we should have thought that the avowal of her conversion by the Princess, if sincere, and there seems no reason to doubt it, entitled her to commendation instead of re proach.-The King is fearful of inconvenience to himself from his sister's change of faith-the inconvenience of -being suspected, as he has been already, of a popish lean : ing. In this, there is something selfish.-But the Sovereign of Prussia has studied the controversy; let him then decide for himself, but not for another.-The train of his reading accounts for his being the sort of Protestant that he is he has evidently studied the Bible with the Confession of Augsburg by its side.-Luther's Prayer Book has been reformed under the royal sanction: this is good but had it been reformed earlier or further, the Princess might have been retained in the Protestant communion; for they are the Protestant unscriptural doctrines derived from the Church of Rome which give this church all her power of proselyting. The worshiper of One God, even the Father, would not be likely to be brought over by any sophistry to kneel before a wooden or breaden God.-The King expresses in the conclusion a right royal notion and feeling with regard to "faithful vassals." LETTER. Berlin,-1826. I cannot describe to you the very astounding and painful împression that your letter, confirming the previously circulated report (which I regarded as a fable) of you and the Duke having become converts to the Catholic religion, has made and indelibly fixed upon me. For who in this world could ever have anticipated such a thing? Speaking according to the sincere feeling and conviction of my heart, and in compliance with the duty which conscience dictates, I must plainly tell you, that in my judgment a more unfortunate and sinful resolution could not have been adopted than that you have just carried into effect. Had you confided to me when I was in Paris the slightest hint of your intention, I should, in the most earnest and solemn manner, have conjured you, by every thing you hold most sacred, to abandon a design, the execution of which tends to place me personally in a very disagreeable situation. For even 1 (wherefore I know not) have been suspected of an inclination to Catholicism, though, on the contrary, I have always had, and must ever retain, an unfavourable opinion of that church, on account of the multitude of her anti-scriptural doctrines. It is now, however, highly probable that this notion respecting me will be revived, and that it will be believed that I was aware of the whole affair, and had an understanding with you in it. But how could you preserve so complete a silence on this transaction, especially when, in your letter, you thus express yourself respecting me:- "That person for whom I have ever been accustomed to experience in my heart the united feeling of filial and fraternal love"? Now can any one believe that a father or a brother would, as a matter of course, approve of his daughter or sister becoming a Catholic-that is to say, taking the most momentous step a human being can take, without any previous consultation with him? Certainly not! Yet you would appear to have acted on this supposition-and why? Because you had reason to expect on my part a prohibition against the awful and dangerous proceeding on which you were resolved. You have, however, accomplished your purpose,― you have rashly bounded over the immense chasm which separates the two religions-you have renounced the faith of your relations, the faith in which you were born, nursed and educated.-May God be merciful to you! For my own part, I can only, from the bottom of my heart, lament and deplore the gross error, the delusion into which you have fallen. Assuredly, O most assuredly, you would have been safe from all risk of committing this dreadful act, had you, instead of giving your mind to the polemical writings of either Protestants or Catholics, read with care and attention your Bible, and in particular the New Testament. This is what I have done; for at a period of controversy some years ago I endeavoured to make myself intimately acquainted with the peculiar grounds on which both religions rest, and for this purpose I applied myself assiduously to the Bible, and sought therein the doctrines taught by Christ and his Apostles. This investigation led me to quite the contrary conclusion to that at which you have arrived; for since then I have been more satisfied in my mind, and more than ever penetrated with the truth of the old Evangelical system, as established by the Reformation and Luther, and by contemporaneous, or at least recently posterior symbolic writings, in particular the Augsburg Confession, which, next to the Holy Scriptures, form the foundation of the Evangelical Creed. This most strictly corresponds with the religion of Jesus Christ, as delivered to us by the apostles themselves, and by the fathers of the church in the first ages of Christianity, before a Popedom existed. It was far from the intention of Luther to found a new religion. His only object was to purify the old faith from the base alloy and dross which had been introduced into it by Popery, and which had accumurlated to such an extent, that more value was placed on this impure mass than on the genuine doctrine, which lay buried and almost annihilated under it. I did not hesitate to examine Catholic Missals and Catholic Catechisms, which I not only perused, but studied. Against these I placed the old Evange lical Liturgies and service books of the first half of the sixteenth century (that is, of the time of the Reformation), compared them with each other, and thus again recognized the perfect accordance of the Evangelic doctrines with the religion of Christ, and, on the contrary, the decided departure therefrom of the Catholic doctrines in many cardinal points. Neverthe |