selves, they serve only one.'* I have thought this statement necessary. Equity demands it. It does not change the nature of the error, but it proves that the motive was innocent, and even religious. I am much deceived, if this impartiality is not better adapted to reclaim heretics, than those rash judgments, destitute of proof, which are pronounced against them, and the injustice of which serves only to irritate them.

Such is the origin of Sabellianism. We will now explain its nature. Sabellius conceived of God as only one person, and of the Word, as his reason, or wisdom, and the holy Spirit, as his energy, or operation. Neither the Word, nor the Spirit were, according to Sabellius, separate subsistences, persons; just as the faculties of reasoning, willing, and acting, have no subsistence distinct from that of the human soul, and are not persons, different from the man. Thus the error of Sabellius consisted in annihilating the personality of the Word, and of the Holy Spirit; the Trinity, in his system, being only the Divine nature considered under the three ideas, of substance, of substance which thinks, and of substance which wills, and acts. In a word, Sabellianism, with regard to the unity of God, was pure Judaism, as Basil has well remarked.

obeys, and the Holy Spirit, which imparts knowledge.' Thus the boasted unity amounted to little more than harmony of will, purpose, aud operation. The numerical identity of the Father, Son, and Spirit had not as yet been asserted, though the language which be gan to be applied to them, by the philosophical converts, was such as to give just cause of offence and alarm to the majority of Christians, whom Tertullian calls the simple and unlearned,' and who were advocates for the strict unity of the Divine Nature. Tr. *Adv. Prax. c. III.

Jesus, the son of Mary, is the Son of God, because he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and because the Word, or wisdom of God, which is always in God, and is an attribute inseparable from him, manifested its energy in his person, to reveal to him the truths he was to impart to man, and to clothe him with power necessary to confirm these truths by miracles. The Word never proceeded from the Father, in any other sense than our reason, so to speak, proceeds from us, when it makes known by words and commands, our thoughts and wishes. So the Word, which was in Jesus Christ, is only a Word declarative, which imparted to him the doctrines of salvation, and a Word operative, which conferred on him miraculous power. The union of the Divine Word with the person of Jesus Christ, is not a substantial union, but only of energy, or operation. Thus the Sabellians recognised no hypostatic union of the Divine essence with the human nature of Jesus Christ. It is only an operation of the Divinity, a full effusion of the divine wisdom and energy into the soul of the Saviour.

Such being the system of Sabellius and his followers, it is clear that they never merited the title of Patripassians.

The Sabellians may be vindicated from another absurdity imputed to them by all authors, who have treated of their heresy, though evidently founded on a false exposition of their system. It is said that they Father and Son, that

confounded the persons of the they figured to themselves a God who is the Father of himself, and Son of himself, and as the Greeks express it, a Son-Father. Origen is one of the first,

who advanced this paradox. These sectaries,' says he, under pretext of honoring God, confound the notions of Father and Son, and say that the Father and the Son are one person. They conceive of them as but one subject, and distinguish them only in thought, and by appropriating to them different names.'*

This language is sophistical and inaccurate. Instead of saying with Origen, that according to the Sabellians, the Father and the Son are only one Person, we should say, the Father and his Word are only one Person. The former proposition is false in the system of Sabellius, the latter true.

When the ancients denounce Sabellianism, they perpetually confound the Word and the Son of God, because in the theology of the church the Word and the Son are the same person. But in the Sabellian theology, they are two very different things. The Word is not the Son of God; it is only an attribute, a faculty, a property of the divine nature. It is the man Jesus Christ, who became the Son of God, by the communication of the Word, as Marcellus says in Eusebius. Hence the Noetians reproached the Orthodox with introducing language, which was novel and strange, in calling the Word, the Son of God. This appellation belonged only to the man Jesus, and simply man, by nature, however great by gifts. Sabellianism and Socinianism, as the learned have remarked, differ very little, if in any thing.

* Origen did not know Sabellius, since he died about the year 253, and the Sabellian heresy is referred to about the year 255. But this heresy was that of Noetus, more ancient than Origen.

The Sabellians having distinguished between the man Jesus, who is the Christ and Son of God, and the Word, which is an attribute of the Father, and not his Son, I feel compelled to say, that we cannot with propriety impute to them the extravagant absurdity, that one only and the same Person is the Father of himself, and the Son of himself; that this Person sometimes appeared under the naine of the Father, and sometimes under that of the Son. They never said any thing like this, nor can it be justly inferred from their principles. They made as much difference between the Word and the Son of God, as between an attribute inseparable from the Divinity, and a man whom it pleased God to crown with extraordinary gifts. Far from believing that the Word was personally united with the Son of God, who is the man Jesus Christ, they believed that the presence of the Word in Jesus Christ was only a presence of assistance and operation, which is to cease when the redemption of the faithful shall be consummated by their resurrection and immortality. I hope these explanations will not be displeasing to the reader. Just ideas of things are always agreeable to the lovers of truth.

F. C. D.

STATE OF RELIGION IN FRANCE.

No one can look on the present condition of France without the deepest interest. The political revolution, which she has just passed through, must needs command an extraordinary degree of the public attention. Speculation of course, is busy, in predicting the probable influence of the late changes in her government, both upon her own internal prosperity, and upon her relations with the other nations of Europe. But her religious state and prospects, present a subject at least of equal interest to the christian and the philanthropist. The direction which she shall take in this respect, is connected with many of our brightest hopes of human improvement. What an influence has she already exerted on the religious world! How few of the popular weapons of infidelity, that are not derived from the well furnished armory of the French scoffers of the last century! How much is now in her power to repair the evils, produced by the godless school of wits and philosophers, who are beginning to be appreciated according to their real characters! There is considerable truth in the declaration of a recent French journalist, that the day is not far distant, when France will open a school for the nations. Her local situation, her political importance, her liberal institutions, the strength and vivacity of her national character, give her the means of exercising a great moral influence over other countries.* If regenerated to a firm and enlightened

* See Revue Protestante for Jan. 1830, p. 17, to different numbers of which excellent work we are indebted for several facts and ideas contained in the present article.