I commend in unqualified terms, the motives of both your correspondents respecting the Academy, and I sincerely hope they will be the means, through the medium of your excellent publication, of inducing many opulent Dissenters to patronise the only Institution from which they can expect a succession of well educated Ministers. I am fully sensible that the labour of the Tutors, particularly the Theological Tutor, must be incompatible with their health, and I heartily wish the funds would admit of another. That the labour of the principal Tutor is very great, I was a witness when the Academy was under the direction of that excellent man, the Rev. George Walker, who laudably exerted himself, to the utmost of his great abilities, to discharge the arduous duties of his office. Happily for his pupils he succeeded; till the whole weight of the Institution was thrown unexpectedly upon his shoulders, by the sudden exit of his colleagues. This was too much, long to be endured; but with a patience all his own, he upheld the Institution for four years, fulfilling the duties of three persons, to the satisfaction and advantage of the Students, from whose minds, a grateful sense of his exertions for their good, blended with a kindness sui generis, will not soon be effaced-they will be remembered to the verge of life with filial affection and thankfulness, by many of his quondam pupils; by none more than by, Sir, Your's sincerely,

April 4, 1807,

J. B.

A ERIEF STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, AS IT APPEARS TO A PLAIN UNDERSTANDING.

Ir is somewhat remarkable, that among the first Dissenters from the establishment, though many of them objected to the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed, few or none objected to the main substance of it. In the year 1695, warm debates arose within the pale of the established Church itself, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. It was vehemently contended on one side, for three distinct persons in the Godhead ; on another, for three distinct characters or modes of acting; at length, a considerable number of Dissenters adopted the latter of these opinions; but to this day, the majority of Dissenters seem to be as zealous in defence of the former, and denounce against their opponents the same penalties temporal and eternal, as St. Athanasius himself did, or whoever personated

that popular Saint. What could induce any one, at first, to impose a numerical paradox as an article of religion, and attempt to terrify those, whom he could not hope to argue into a persuasion of it, 'tis hard to say, but it is still more difficult to account for the tenacity with which this mysterious article of Faith is still maintained, where neither Church authority nor Church emoluments can have any influence.

To think that the Creator of all worlds, the Omnipresent Deity, whose glory, whose providence, and whose attributes, are co-extended with the remotest stars-to whom this world is but a point, an atom, infinitely less than we are able to conceive-should divest himself of this boundless majesty-crowd all his wonderful attributes into a human body-languish, suffer and die-yet remain immortal, omnipotent, immutableand throughout the infinity of space, continually act, with undiminished energy, as the great source of life and happiness to all,himself the infinitely blessed, ever-living, and only true Godto believe all this, perhaps requires as wide a stretch of human credulity, as to maintain (with the Roman Catholics) that the Omnipresent, having first shrunk into the form and state of man, is still further contracted into their consecrated waferyet all the while, retains all the fulness of the attributes, all the immensity of the nature of the Godhead! If there should be found in the holy Scriptures (besides mistranslations and interpolations, &c.) any obscure text, that seems to clothe the Ambassador of God with some of the attributes of God himself-or to claim equal reverence for him who declares himself sent, as for the Being who sent him; is it not manifest injustice to the Scriptures, and to ourselves, to strain such expressions into a meaning directly opposite to the plainest declarations of Jesus Christ himself, instead of interpreting them by the general tenor of the history, and by the maxims of common sense?-When Jesus, taking a piece of bread, breaks it, and gives to his diciples-saving, This is my body," we are not, I hope, at this day, required to believe that he was then holding, not the bread, but his own body, in his hand. When again, he says that," he and his Father are one"-are we to understand him as asserting that he was his own Father? and when immediately afterwards, he tells us that he and his disciples are one-does he mean that he had but one disciple, and that his disciple was himself? If we could be reconciled to the self-contradiction and bad arithmetic of the Trinitarian system, we should find after all, that it is a mere question of arithmetic-for three Beings exactly similar in essence, and agreeing in action, necessarily coincide in our imagination into one,

and therefore the moral effect of this Creed would be but nugatory, were not the attributes, as well as the person of the Deity divided, and some unamiable views associated with the first person in the Trinity, which have lessened the comforts of social life, and produced gloom and austerity in the minds of individuals; witness Calvin himself. But there is another doctrine connected with this, the moral tendency of which is far from being so innoxious; concerning which, I have a few thoughts to offer, if what I have now written, shall be thought worthy of your notice.

Norwich, Mar. 5, 1807.

ANTI CALVINIST.

THE PROTESTANT'S APPEAL AGAINST THE CATHOLIC. To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.

SIR,

YOUR Catholic Correspondent, in his zeal against the Protestants, has not only given a false colouring to their sentiments, but has either forgotten or discarded the doctrines of his own Church. Permit me therefore to call his attention for one moment to, what appears to me, a more correct view, both of the Protestant and Catholic belief of Christ.

The first Reformers, and the majority of the Protestants of the present day, believe Christ to have a twofold nature, that he is, and was God from all eternity, and that in time he took upon him the nature of man, which human nature was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. Thus far I believe both Protestants and Catholics are agreed; but the latter have been induced by their zeal for the Virgin Mary, to call her the mother of God, though this is not true upon their cwn, any more than upon Protestant principles; neither of them believing that Christ derived his Godhead or divine nature from the Virgin, but that he was God from all eternity; hence the Protestants have justly objected to Mary being called the "Mother of God." The above distinction between the divine and human nature of Christ which is admitted by the Romish Church, is entirely overlooked by your Correspondent.

Q.'s apology for his fraternity's praying to the Virgin Mary, is a curious morceau; certainly the pen of a Popish advocate never produced such an apology before. In what part of the Roman Ritual, does he find Christ and the Virgin put upon an equality? In what part does he find Deity ascribed to the latter? The difference between us and the Papists is, that we pray to a Being acknowledged by us both to be God as well as man; they pray to a Being considered by themselves as a mere creature. If Idolatry, therefore, consist in worshipping the creature instead of the

Creator, although Q. has failed in his charge of idolatry against, us, it still reverts with unabated force against himself and brethren.

CANDIDUS.

DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

To the Editor of the Monthly Repository.
SIR,

As you favoured my former communication with a place in your Repository, I now, according to my promise, send you a very short defence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, founded on modes of argument admitted, and acted upon, by orthodox Protestants. The matter lies in small compass.

Orthodox Protestants admit that the scriptures contain doc-. trines which are above reason, that Christians must believe what they cannot comprehend, that we are called not to reason but to believe, and that the use of reason is, in certain instances, superseded by the awful mandates of Heaven, which require an implicit assent to the words of scripture. On this orthodox Protestant ground, which we Catholics have ever approved, I take my stand, and feel the defence of Transubstantiation, perfectly easy. I find it in the express words of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said, "My flesh is meat indeed :" and he told the Jews, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." At the institution of the holy Eucharist, he said of the bread, "This is my body," and of the cup, "This is my blood." I know Protestants say it is unreasonable to suppose the bread and wine are changed into the real body and blood of Christ; but who are they, that they should presume to set carnal reason, (for they acknowledge on other occasions that reason is carnal,) in opposition to the express words of scripture I grant that transubstantiation is above reason, and that it cannot be comprehended; but that ought to be no reason for its rejection, at least, with orthodox Protestants; they have only to proceed in the same way as they do in several other cases, to believe what they cannot comprehend, not to reason, but believe, and every obstacle to their reception of the doctrine of transubstantiation, is at once removed. Orthodox Protestants believe several other doctrines, and hold them to be fundamental doctrines of the gospel, which are as much above reason and as incomprehensible, as transubstantiation. It is as much contrary to reason, and above all human comprehension, that three are one and one three--that we are all guilty and sinful before we are capable of acting wrong-that the sins of the

guilty should be imputed to an innocent person, and his righteousness imputed to the guilty-that a person who was true and very God should be born and die; as for bread and wine to be changed, by some unknown operation of divine power, into the very body and blood of Christ. The plain fact is, reason has nothing to do with any of these things, but to assent, without cavil or objection, to the truth of them: and if Protestants will be so weak, as to follow the blind guide, reason, it is not only the doctrine of transubstantiation, but the above doctrines, which themselves hold to be most sacred, they must renounce.

Imagining that I have sufficiently proved my point, and shewn that transubstantiation stands on the same ground as several orthodox Protestant doctrines, only that the former has the advantage, being more fully expressed in scripture; for though Christ never said, there are three persons in one, God, nor uttered one word concerning original sin, nor said that the sins of men were imputed to him, nor that he was God Almighty, which things Catholics and orthodox Protestants agree in believing; he did say of the bread, "This is my body;" and of the wine, "This is my blood." I shall conclude with observing, that by this time it must appear, that we Catholics have been very ill-treated by Protestants. They have ridiculed and abused us for believing what is above reason and cannot be comprehended, while themselves have all the time been doing the same thing; and so by condemning us they have condemned themselves, and have been guilty of an inconsistency not chargeable on us, that of rejecting some things because they thought them unreasonable, while they retained others equally unreasonable.

Feb. 5, 1807.

I remain yours, &c.
Q.

P. S.-If you favour this short defence of Transubstantiation with a place in your Miscellany, I shall not trouble you further on these subjects, only before I lay down my pen, I wish to say one word on the subject of persecution, which I detest as much as any of you Protestants. I think it a little hard that the persecuting temper and conduct of our forefathers should be so often thrown in our teeth, while Calvin and other Protestant leaders, who were great persecutors, are almost idolized by the persons who are ever reflecting on us for the crimes of former generations of Catholics: I am glad, however, to find the persecuting temper and conduct of Calvin, and other Protestants, is justly exposed and censured, in the Apology for Servetus, re yicwed in your Repository for January.