tween you and me is, What does the Bible teach on the subjects proposed? For our answer to this question, you and I stand accountable to the Judge of quick and dead; and, as ministers of his gospel, and interpreters of his word, we are placed under an awful responsibility. If either of us violate the reason which God has given us in our inquiries are led by partial views, by passion, by prejudice, by thirst for popularity with our friends, or a fear of reproach from those whom we are obliged to consider as opponents-Christ will require from us an account of our conduct. When I think on this, and look back and ask myself whether I have conducted this whole dispute with a view to my account and in the fear of God, I cannot but feel solicitude lest, through the deceitfulness of the human heart, something may have escaped me which may prove prejudicial, in some way or other, to the promotion of real truth. If you see this, my dear Sir, tell me where and what it is. We have no real interest but to know, believe, and obey the truth. And, supposing truth to be what it now appears to me to be, I cannot believe otherwise than that you are endeavouring to inculcate principles radically subversive of the gospel of Christ.. Will you do me the justice to believe that I may have honestly formed such an opinion, without taking my faith from creeds, or grounding it on tradition; and without the spirit that would establish an inquisition, or lord it over the consciences of men, or treat you with disrespect?

In a word, with those who have the convictions that I possess of the nature and importance of the gospel system, it can never admit of a question, whether they are to make all the opposition in their power (provided it be done in the spirit of Christian candour and benevolence), to the prevalence of sentiments like yours. I cannot but view the question between us as amounting to this, whether we shall retain Christianity, or reject all but the name? If I am wrong, may the Lord forgive me, and grant me better views. If you are wrong, my heart's desire and prayer to God is, that the same blessing may be bestowed on you.

Allowing that I and those with whom I act are sincere in our belief, you yourself would say, that we should be justly chargeable with the greatest inconsistency, did we

not feel strong desires to resist the innovations that are attempted in many important points of our theology. Permit me to add, that real charity may sometimes attribute strong feelings and a deep interest on this subject, to ardent benevolence towards those who differ from us, and whom we think to be in a dangerous condition, rather than to party zeal, blind credulity and ignorance, or an exterminating and injurious spirit.

And now, to bring these already protracted Letters to a close, you will permit me respectfully and seriously to solicit that you would look back and review the Sermon which has occasioned these remarks. Have you represented the sentiments of the great body of Christians in this country correctly? Have you produced the real arguments on which they rely? Have you treated them with respect, with gentleness, with tenderness? Has your simple aim been to reason with them, to convince them, and not to hold them up in such an attitude as to excite disgust? I do not ask these questions for the sake of reproach, or to wound your feelings; but I cannot help thinking it a duty incumbent on me to ask them. Look .now, with a Christian eye, on the unhappy and distracted state of the Churches in this land, the glory of all lands! When will our contentions cease! When shall we bring a united offering to our common Lord, if men who stand in eminent and responsible stations treat those whom they profess to own as Christian brethren, with severity, or in such a manner as to wound their feelings!

My dear Sir, I do think these are things which, when we enter our closets to lift up our souls to God, we are all bound by sacred obligations to consider. I do not bring these as charges against you, but I speak of the impressions which your discourse has excited in the bosoms of those who espouse the sentiments which you condemn. If their impressions are without reason, the wrong may indeed fall upon them. But, in reviewing the manner in which you have treated some subjects in your sermon, is there not more reason for those impressions than Christian meekness and benevolence can approve? When the hours of excitement and the stimulus of party feeling are gone by, you and I shall stand at the bar of that Saviour who

searches the hearts and tries the reins of men.

There we shall be obliged to account for the manner in which we have conducted this whole dispute.

We are

O my dear Sir! this is no trifling matter. immortal beings; and our eternal destiny is in the hands of that Redeemer about whose dignity and glory we are contending.

When I think on this, I cannot but apprehend that the question between us is of deep and radical interest, as it respects our eternal salvation. If the God whom I am bound to adore has not only revealed himself in the book of nature, but has clearly disclosed his glory in the gospel of Christ, and I mistake after all a revelation so clear,or, induced by party feeling or erroneous philosophy, reject the testimony which he has given,--the mistake must be tremendous in its consequences the rejection will justly incur the divine displeasure. With all this subject, however, fully before me, I do not hesitate-I cannot doubt respecting it. When I behold the glory of the Saviour, as revealed in the gospel, I am constrained to cry out with the believing Apostle, " My Lord and my God!" And, when my departing spirit shall quit these mortal scenes, and wing its way to the world unknown, with my latest breath I desire to pray, as the expiring martyr did, LORD JESUS, RECEIVE MY SPIRIT!"

APPENDIX.

TWO PASSAGES ADDED BY PROFESSOR STUART, In a late edition of his Letters (pages 23 and 28), are introduced in this form, instead of being inserted in the body of the Work.

By comparing the preceding paragraph (page 23) with the same in the former editions of this work, the reader will see that some of it is modified, to avoid the ambiguity which seemed to be chargeable upon the former editions, or changed, to correct that which, if literally taken, would be erroneous. I had said that "the word person was introduced into the creeds of ancient times, merely as a term which would express the disagreement of Christians in general, with the reputed errors of Sabellius, and others of similar sentiments:" And although I certainly did not mean to say that such a use of it was universal, and without exception, as I well knew the phrase had been variously and loosely used by some of the Fathers, yet I prefer to remove the ambiguity of the phrase by a limitation which, so far as I have been able to examine, seems more accurately to correspond with the state of the case. My belief is, that the leading and most influential Fathers and councils of antiquity did use person as I have now stated.

As the text stood in former editions of this work, it would appear as if I meant to say, that the Nicene Fathers, in their Symbol, had used the word person in the sense alleged. This, however, I did not mean to say,-although it will appear on examination, perhaps, that I might have safely said it. I admit that my expression is of a dubious nature, or even that it will convey the sense which the Reviewer has given to it. I meant to say, that the Fathers who belonged to the Nicene Council, the divines of that age, in their writings, used the word person to designate a distinction in the Godhead, in opposition to the opinions of Sabellius, and others of like sentiments with him.

The Reviewer, however, in the " Christian Disciple,” in admonishing me of an error in respect to this, has perhaps himself fallen into one. He says that the Nicene Creed contains neither

N 3

the word υποστασις nor προσωπον ; whereas, if he had read the Creed four or five lines beyond what I have quoted, he would have found it anathematizing those "who affirm that the Son is of a different hypostasis (vzoσтaσews) from the Father." The sense of TOTσs here, however, some may incline to think, is not that of person, but of substance simply. But Basil, and in like manner Bishop Bull, have contended, perhaps triumphantly, for the meaning of person.-Bull. Opp. p. 114, &c.

The only question of any importance at issue on the present topic is, Did the ancient Fathers use the word person, in respect to the Godhead, to designate beings so distinct, as to have only a specific unity, as the Reviewer, after Whitby and others, has asserted? or did they use it to designate a distinction in the Godhead, in opposition to sentiments like those of Sabellius, and with the acknowledgement of the numerical unity of the Godhead? The question, of course, is, Did the leading and most influential divines and councils maintain the one or the other of these views? If the former, then my allegation is incorrect; if the latter, then the substance of what I have hitherto said upon this subject has not been disproved.

It were easy to occupy a volume with the discussion of this subject; but my limits necessitate me to be very brief. I begin with an inquiry into the meaning of ὑποστασις.

The Antenicene Fathers used this word, perhaps, commonly in the sense of avoia, substance or essence. But some used it to signify person, or distinction in the Godhead. In consequence of the word being differently used by different writers, and in reference to diverse heresies, great disputes arose in the Church about it. At first, the orthodox Fathers in general strongly objected to zooTaσis as applied to designate a distinction in the Godhead, because they averred that it meant substance or essence; and to assert that there were three substances in the Godhead, they said, was anti-scriptural. Thus Dionysius Romanus (about A. D. 250) reprobates those "who separate the Divinity into three different hypostases." (Advers. Saball. as cited in Athanas. Decret. Synod. Nic. p. 220.) And again, "They preach as it were three Gods, dividing the sacred Unity into three hypostases, diverse and altogether separate from each other."

So Athanasius (Epist. ad Antioch.) says, "We speak of one hypostasis,-deeming hypostasis and via, substance, the same.” The opposition to hypostasis, in such a sense, was general in the Latin Churches, because they translated both rooraris and voia substantia, substance; and they refused to say that there were three substances in the Godhead.

How far Origen, and others of his school, were implicated in the condemnation passed by them upon such a use of hypostasis, does not certainly appear. Origen maintains three hypostases;