But Mr. Kolhmann is not satisfied with the humble task of abridging and interpolating the arguments, which are to shrink into nothing before the all conquering power of his logic. He even tries his hand at invention, and kindly helps Mr. Sparks to arguments, for which we have searched in vain through his Letters. We will select two or three specimens.

"There are many instances, both in the Old and New Testament, in which the term Word, or Logos, is personified, although in those passages it does not signify a subsisting person.”

p.210.

"But this cannot be, for in the very next verse, he that spoke, continued to say, 'I am he that liveth and was dead. Now the everliving God could not certainly speak thus." p. 248.

"But are we not told, that it is the Father that exalted Jesus? The Father, therefore, must needs be superiour to Jesus Christ."-p. 256.

The above are sent out with marks of literal quotation, and are made the foundation of severe censures, although they are nowhere to be seen in Mr. Sparks's book. But what follows is worse than invention or fabrication. In the Fifth Letter on the Episcopal' Church, is the following passage.

"It is further remarkable, if our Saviour had preached such a doctrine as that of the trinity, that the evangelists should not have stated it explicitly, and taken some pains to explain and enforce it. No doctrine could be more novel, none more important, and none more opposed to the rooted prejudices of the Jews. But when we come to examine, we find nothing said, in the three first Gospels, which can have any direct bearing on the subject, and the introduction to the Gospel of John admits quite as good an interpretation according to the unitarian, as any trinitarian hypothesis. The strong evidence, which the four Gospels contain, that no one in the time of our Saviour, thought him to be God, and the entire silence of the evangelists on the subject of a trinity in any form, are objections to this scheme not easily to be answered." p. 185.

This passage is thus given by M. Kohlmann, as the language of the author.

"The first Gospels say nothing on the trinity, and the Gospel of St. John may as easily bear the Unitarian as the Christian interpretation. These he thinks are objections not easily to be answered "

p. 185. Here Mr. Sparks is represented as making a distinction between unitarians and christians, and of course as ranking himself and his friends among infidels! What makes the thing still more gross and inexcusable is, that the quotation is repeated. Any further remarks on the merits of this work must be superfluous, and a reflection on the sagacity of our readers.

The equal facility with which this author despatches all topics, is truly worthy of our admiration. He has the miraculous faculty of seeing most clearly where all mortals else have found themselves most in the dark. With his torch kindled at the flame of the olden Fathers, he descends into the very caves of Mystery, and drags the lurking monster from his hitherto impenetrable hiding places. The Fathers are his Pythian Oracles, and however ambiguously they may speak, he always takes care to find a recondite meaning plain to his purpose. The Greeks had a saying, 'n añogia THE ETISHung agxn, doubt is the beginning of knowledge. But our author seems to have no respect for this sage apothegm of antiquity, when the Fathers are in question. No doubts are suffered to intrude, and he even believes and venerates, when he reads of miracles in the fifth century.

But far be it from us to censure him, for what a learned professor might call his "patristical" partiality. In the first place, it is innocent; and in the second place, it is the peculiar prerogative of his faith to lean upon the staff of tradition. We think this a broken reed, to be sure, but we have not so much ill

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nature as to wish this prop removed, while it affords. rest and comfort to a single weary pilgrim in the christian journey. We cheerfully resign all other supports, if we can be permitted to retain the simple word of God. The Bible is a strong tower, which will stand firm and stately amidst all the ruins of time; the flight of ages and the wreck of worlds will prove its strength. On this, and this only, we desire to lean.

After all, we cannot discover on what ground Mr. Kohlmann himself claims the title of trinitarian. He repeatedly declares, that the three persons in the trinity "cannot be called three distinct beings." A person, he says, is not a being, but "a mode or manner of existence." If this be all he means by a trinity, he might have spared his two volumes, and suffered the Fathers to rest in peace; for no unitarian doubts that there may be three modes or manners of existence in the Deity. He adds, however, that "each person is true God," thereby making the true God consist in a mode or manner of existence. Now on whichever ground you take him, whether as a unitarian believing God to exist as one being in one nature, or as reducing the Deity himself to a mere mode of existence, you will be equally at a loss to imagine, how he can in any known sense of the term account himself a trinitarian.

Grounds of Christian Union,

WILL it do us any prejudice to have a larger ground of union? Is it not a christian disposition sometimes to yield to the unreasonable humours of others, and,

by somewhat which will do ourselves no prejudice, to consult the good, and promote the agreement of christians? Or is it too great a condescension, too noble an instance of humility, to be more willing to agree than others are, and to comply, as far as is reasonable with them, who will not comply so far as we think reasonable with us? Which of the two is it, that it becomes christians to contend for; who shall stand most upon their guard against union, or who shall step first towards it? Who shall insist most stiffly upon little punctilios, of none or of very small concern to the main of religion; or who shall be most disposed to part with things of that nature, for the sake of what God and their common Saviour love infinitely better? And which of the two sorts of men will come off at the great day of accounts with greater glory, they, who have preferred the union of the christian world before their own humour, or opinions of little importance; or they, who have absolutely refused to yield up the least or most indifferent circumstance to that consideration? [Hoadly.

Foreign Missions.

THE annual meeting of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was recently held at New Haven. During the past year, ending August 31st, it appears that about sixty one thousand dollars have been received into the Treasury. Of this amount more than fifty nine thousand dollars were donations.

A Review of Mr. Eastin's late Controversy in Kentucky, and a notice of Mr. Smith's Sermon on the Unity of God, will appear in our next number.

UCH interest seems of late to have been awakened in the western country, on the subject of free inquiry and rational views of religion. Respectable original works on these topics have been published in hat quarter, preachers are becoming more numerous, and the demand for unitarian writings is daily increasing. Another symptom of awakened attention is the alarm of the orthodox; and this seldom fails to be a true index.

It is a subject of curious reflection, to observe how closely all progress in religious knowledge is pursued by the outcries of orthodoxy. In this respect, an obvious sympathy exists among christians of a certain class throughout the world. Although in other things their creeds are as different as the shades of human thought, and the objects of human desire, yet they all agree in shutting up at a certain point the avenues of religious knowledge, and in sounding the alarm of heresy, if any one ventures to break through these prescribed barriers, and seek a better light and a fairer hope. It has been thus from the beginning. The Jews murdered