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Roman Catholics and Unitarians contend that Protestants are inconsistent in believing the doctrine of the Trinity, and rejecting Transubstantiation ;—and, I am sorry to observe, that several Romish advocates are ready to abandon the Scriptural evidence of a plurality of persons in the Deity, conceding that it is contrary to reason, and unfounded in revelation, and supported solely by the authority of the Churchthus undermining the main pillars of Christianity, in order to establish their own peculiar dogmas. This is a base and treacherous proceeding, which demands the loudest reprobation. The Bible clearly teaches the fact, that there is a Trinity of persons in GoD; but it does not explain the mode of the Divine subsistence, because we have

not faculties to comprehend it. "Can a man, by searching, find out God?" Man is a riddle to himself, and how can he understand the nature of a Being who is infinite in all his attributes? It is impossible for the human mind to believe what is plainly a contradiction. But there are things which seem to be contradictions, but are not so in fact. Man is mortal and immortal. But not in the same sense. He is mortal as to his body, and immortal as to his soul. Christ is equal and also inferior to the Father; equal in his original and immutable nature, and inferior

same sense.

in his assumed condition as Man and Mediator. God is one, and God is three; but not in the This would be a contradiction, and no evidence whatever could bring a rational creature to receive it. The divine Being exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and these threeotherwise perfectly distinct, are one God—and each of them viewed apart is God. This account of the Deity is revealed as matter of fact; and as such we receive it, without presuming to inquire "how these things can be ;" for if we are told of "earthly things,” and we understand them not, how can we understand when we are told of "heavenly things?" It is said, indeed, that it is impossible to believe what we do not know; but this is sheer absurdity. Unless we reject the Bible, we must believe that the human soul exists after the death of the body; but in what manner no man can pretend to tell. Shall we reject matters of fact, established on the most unquestionable evidence, because we cannot comprehend their causes? A principle of this kind, reduced to practice, would break, “with one fell swoop," the springs of human action, dissolve into atoms the frame-work of society, and suddenly extinguish all the luminaries of the intellectual world.

Thus do we give our cheerful assent to those

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truths which are taught us with sufficient evidence, although they may be above our limited comprehension. As children must learn and believe many things before they can understand their principles, even so must the wisest of men; for here we see through a glass darkly, and know only in part. But it does not hence follow that we are called on to receive evident contradictions, or to reject the testimony of our senses. Without the testimony of the senses there can be no testimony whatever! All evidence rests ultimately on the accuracy of our sensations. If these be delusive and lead us astray, it is impossible that we can be set right. God gave the senses to be our guides through life. Were they false and treacherous, when diligently and honestly employed, God himself would be the deceiver of his creatures, which is impossible. As he cannot contradict himself, so he does not require us to believe what the senses reject. The author of the Bible is the Creator of the human mind, to whose faculties and principles there is a constant appeal in the volume of inspiration. By those faculties we know that God exists-that he has made the world that he has spoken to man. What were all the miracles which his messengers were enabled to perform, but appeals to the senses of mankind for the proof of their

mission? The man that tries to subvert the authority of the senses, is endeavouring, though unwillingly, to undermine the very "pillar and ground of the truth." Let no one deceive you, then, with a "voluntary humility," in impugning the evidence of the senses. It is a false humility, neither sanctioned by the teaching nor the example of JESUS.

There are certain principles of the understanding by which we perceive self-evident truths or axioms. We know intuitively that two and two are not five. Even God himself could not make us believe that two and two are five, without changing our nature. The same remark applies to all first principles. The denial of them shocks the human mind, and does violence to our constitution. Now, Sir, as Transubstantiation spurns the testimony of the senses, outrages all the principles of reason, and mocks the commonsense of mankind, it cannot be from God. If the dogma were really in the Bible, it would utterly destroy its claim to be a revelation from him. Archbishop Tillotson truly said, that an absurdity so monstrous, were it evidently contained in Scripture, would sink Christianity. itself. Bring what arguments you may in favour of the Bible-appeal to all the evidences, external and internal, that support it-still, if it teach

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that a wafer is a living man, it thereby furnishes against itself evidence a hundred-fold more powerful than any that can be brought in its favour. Were we to receive the Bible with this mill-stone about it, we should, in order to be Christian, cease to be rational; and our faith in the God of revelation would involve a renunciation of the God of nature. We must believe that our eyes are deceivers, and see nothing that is before them. The touch at once verifies their testimony, but it still is an illusion. The smell interposes, and corroborates the evidence of its fellows; and last comes the taste, and at once pronounces them all in the right. Hearing cannot interfere in this question. It can only testify as to the utterance of certain sounds by the Priest; but as to their meaning or trans-, forming power, it can say nothing for or against. Here, then, are four competent witnesses that have been our faithful friends and unerring guides through life-that have never in a single instance deceived us, except perhaps when disordered by sickness-whose testimony is not. confronted by any conflicting evidence of the same kind on the opposite side; for even the Roman Catholics that swallow the wafer can perceive nothing more in it than their opponents. Shall we not believe these witnesses?

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