"Such a view of the immensity and omnipresence of God was presented to the view of Solomon, as he lifted his eyes to heaven, to offer that memorable prayer at the dedication of the temple. Elevated on a brazen scaffold, in the centre of an open court, with the heavens for his canopy, and surrounded by the many thousands who had assembled to attend the feast of tabernacles, he kneeled ;-while breathless silence held the immense concourse, and every eye was fixed on their king, the royal suppliant kneeled; and spreading forth his hands towards heaven, offered this prayer to the Being for whose honour he had reared, and to whose service he was dedicating, that magnificent edifice. While his eye surveyed the heavens, which God had SPREAD out as a tent to dwell in;-while his sublimated mind rose to the contemplation of that infinite Being who suspended from His throne, as a mote, the heavens and the earth;-while, from that amazing height, be looked down upon the speck which he had called a temple, he cried aloud, Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!

Three questions constitute the heads of this discourse. "Does He whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, dwell in any place? Will He condescend to dwell with men on the earth? Can we presume to hope that He will dwell in the house which we have built ?"

This is a happy division; and these different heads might have been pursued if not with more advantage, at least with greater ingenuity. But the preacher is satisfied with one common answer to the three questions, which, with some modifications, amounts to this: That " a person or agent," who is neither the first, second, nor third person in the trinity, but a person compounded of the whole Godhead, and a human nature* (1) dwells now in heaven," where the glories of the omnipresent God are in him collected to a point, and exhibited from a single throne to every eye”; (2) has dwelt upon earth in different ages and in different forms; and (3) still dwells

The Professor has attempted to give us his meaning more carefully in a note.

By this is meant, (1) that the union is so intimate, that, with the same lips, and in the same sentence, He can apply to both natures the same personal pronoun." (John 10.-18;) [Who ever heard of a personal pronoun's being applied to a nature, or to any thing but a person ?] (2) "that the sufferings of the human nature are as meritorious as though they had been the sufferings of the divine; the blood that was shed being considered the blood of God;" (Acts 20. 28;) [But if the union is so intimate, that the blood which was shed may be considered as the blood of God, we would ask why the sufferings may not for the same reason be considered as the sufferings of God? The Professor surely is not ignorant, that Acts xx. 28. cannot now be fairly quoted for this pure

in the church, where " the glory of all his perfections meets the eye of his people in one blaze from the face of Jesus Christ." All this may be thought a very clear and edifying answer to the questions in the text, but we doubt whether it would have been as satisfactory to Solomon, as it seems to be the professor.

Indeed the doctrinal part of this discourse is a bewildered and bewildering account of the manifestations of God to his creatures, and seems to be intended as a statement of the doctrines of the trinity, and of the deity of Christ. On this subject the language of the Westminster confession, which the professor has received, as the symbol of his faith, has at least the merit of simplicity, and precision.

"In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance power and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

"The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did when the fulness of time was come, take upon him man's nature-so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead, and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, and confusion; which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man."

On the other hand, the Professor says that this Son of God, or mediator, is "not the second person in the trinity as such ;” "nor did he ever conduct the affairs of fallen man as the second person in the Trinity, but only as the Christ." Now as this Christ" is an agent uniting two natures in one office," and always conducted the affairs of men in this character, it is to be presumed he has always united the two natures, in his intercourse with men. Of course this is a fourth person, differing from either of the other three, who yet retain their distinctive and unchangeable properties.

It is to be hoped that we have now arrived at that final adjustment of the Divinity, which in the opinion of the Professor is the orthodox doctrine. If so, we are now presented with four, (perhaps five) persons, who are to be the objects of our worship. We have, 1st. the three original persons of

pose-see Eclect. Rev. vol. v. p. 1.]—(3) "that the same person that suffered, has the reward of governing the universe, and bringing His people to glory; all of which cannot be predicated of either nature exclusively, (Matt. 28. 18. Acts 5. 31.)

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, who altogether make but one God; we have, next, an agent or person called Christ, who is neither of the former persons, but a being in whom two natures make but one person, as before three persons made but one nature; and after all these compositions, and decompositions, we have, lastly (it is to be hoped) Him who, though supposed to unite all these diversities, is al most forgotten in the scheme, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom Solomon directed his sublime invocation, when he said in the opening of his prayer, O Lord God of Israel, THERE IS NO GOD LIKE THEE in the Heaven nor in the Earth.

We are not expressly informed by the Professor, whether the God who appeared to the Patriarchs was then precisely the same being with the Christ or mediatorial king as now existing. According to St. Austin, and the Westminster confession, he was not; since he did not consist of the two natures divine and human till after his incarnation, which took place only in the fulness of time. But as the Professor has not been explicit on the pre-existence of Christ's human nature, there is yet room for the introduction of other persons; for if the union of the divine nature to the human in the fulness of time was sufficient to constitute a new person, we know not why the former inhabitations should not have constituted other persons. For, as the Professor says, then he dwelt in a luminous cloud, now in the humanity. At least, if the Christ, during his intercourse with the Patriarchs, was not then a person consisting of two natures, which the Professor does not say, nor the second person in the Trinity, which he expressly denies, it is fair to ask, what was he? He might have been according to the present scheme another person, as much distinguished from Christ by peculiar properties, as any one of the persons in the Godhead from any of the others. Those who wish to know something of the confusion of the technical theologians on this part of their creed, may consult Dr. Watt's Dissertations on the Trinity ; and if they would see this confusion fairly exemplified, let them read the present discourse.

All this darkness and embarrassment about a Trinity, or / quaternity, results from a strange disposition to convert the divine appearances mentioned in the scriptures, or modes of communication with mankind, into distinct persons or intelli

sons.

gent agents. By the same method of interpretation not only the word and spirit, but the breath, the mouth, the presence, the glory, the Shechinah, the oracle of God, may all assume a distinct personality, and be regarded as so many divine perTill theologians on the one hand are more attentive to scripture phraseology, and are willing to make proper allowances for the idioms of the eastern languages; and till the common people on the other will consent to take their understandings with them to the perusal of their bibles; it will be always easy to make up as many persons in the Godhead, as the fashion of the day may determine to be orthodox. Till such technical babble is relinquished, men will go on to talk about God, in terms which no wit of man can reconcile with the doctrines of Jesus Christ, or with the first and plainest notions of the human mind.

In Dr. Griffin's scheme, this agent or mediatorial person is at once" the representative of the whole Godhead," and of the whole human race. In this character, it seems, "he has held and distributed gifts from the beginning of the world, because he had given security for the payment of their price ;” yet notwithstanding this after he had paid that price," he received more formally," the gifts which he had always distributed. And what are these gifts?" The greatest of them," says the Professor, "is the holy spirit" (that is, the third person of the Godhead)" whom as his agent and representative, Christ sent forth to dwell more sensibly among his people." Thus Christ, the representative and agent of the whole Godhead, sends one of the persons of the Godhead as his representative and agent; and this double representation, it seems, could not have taken place except upon security's being given for the payment of a stipulated price. But to whom is this paid? The professor does not answer. It would have been too much to have given the only answer which the scheme admits; it was paid to that very God, who according to the orthodox creed consists of the two senders, and the two sent. And this, then, is that evangelical doctrine, "which if a mand o not believe, he shall without doubt perish everlastingly!" It is surely time that all such jargon as this were banished from the pulpit; or if men will persist in the use of such unscriptural language, in professed explanation of the mode of the divine existence and operations, it is time that plain christians should know that it is the language of the schools, and not of Jesus Christ; and that it is no breach of reverence for God, or of christian decorum,

to state it in all its nakedness. We have said more on this subject than we should have done, had not the preacher devoted so large a portion of his discourse to a superfluous account of the doctrine of the Trinity, which neither the text nor the occasion required, and which in the present instance is recommended neither by novelty of thought or perspicuity of statement. Nothing so much exposes the religion of Jesus Christ to the contempt of mankind, as such pitiful attempts to dogmatize on this unsearchable subject.

The preacher proceeds to give a history of the undertaking which has resulted in the opening of this new house of publick worship. It clearly appears from the statement in the sermon, that a new church was wanted in the capital, to accommodate the increased number of inhabitants. It is then explicitly declared, that this church is raised to support the doctrines of Calvinism, as contained in the Westminster confession of faith, and to promote revivals of religion. That these are good purposes he proves from the good effects these doctrines have produced in New England in former days, and yet more clearly by a long roll of Calvinistick preachers in Boston, which we readily agree with the professor might easily have been doubled. "The happiness of New England," he thinks, is a monument "to the honour of our forefathers' sentiments." Two things however are wanting to complete the proof drawn from the tendency of Calvinism; one is to show that the peculiarities of Calvinism, and not the truths which it has in common with other systems, have produced these effects; and the other is to show, that wherever these peculiarities have ceased to be preached, the virtue and happiness of New England have declined. But this defect it was no doubt supposed the readers would supply for themselves. The other argument, drawn from the quotation of names and authorities, has this singular advantage, that it may be made to suit all places, periods and sects. To be sure its weight is infinitely greater in the Romish church than in any other portion of christendom; but, though its force has been a little impaired by the reformation, still, if seasonably introduced, and especially if good care is taken to select only such names as will tell, it may answer an occasional purpose, and come in aid of the Catechism, and the Assembly of Divines.

The preacher proceeds to state the doctrines, which, it is said, our fathers believed. In this statement there is a great