mer opinions with redoubled firmness. Difficulties occurring, Abraham was seized by the same authority; (viz. by an Archbishop from the Mother Church at Rome, appointed to reside near them,) and he saved his life, as did Joseph; and returned to his friends and to his charge. Joseph, however, had been apprehended a second time and carried to Rome, where he died, stating in his papers his unwavering faith in the tenets of the St. Thomé Christians. Abraham lived to a very old age, and before his death expressed with great decision his abhorrence of the innovations of the Popish religion.

After the death of Abraham, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Menezes, appointed a Jesuit to fill the vacant seat at Angamalee. But all to no purpose; the St. Thomé Christians would not acknowledge him; and elected a person, George, who should serve till a Bishop could be procured in the usual manner. This obstinate firmness on the part of these Christians induced Menezes to visit them in person. The appearance of a man of his birth and wealth, full of zeal and devotion, as primate of India, was decisive. George employed every subterfuge, which his natural sagacity and attachment to his sect could suggest; but he could not oppose the bold, indefatigable spirit of Menezes, who, supported by the Portuguese, called a council or synod at Odiamper, near Cochin, and assembled most of the St. Thomé Priests, and four elders from each village. After some explanation of the tenets of the Church of Rome, Menezes proceeded to dictate the law to them; and they not daring openly to oppose, were apparently united to the Roman Church. But the union was neither general, nor sincere, nor lasting. One circumstance connected with this treacherous council, we must not overlook. "We can never," says the historian, "sufficiently lament the loss, which literature, sacred and classical, sustained here-for this blind and enthusiastic inquisitor, destroyed, like a second Omar, all the books written in the Syrian or Chaldean languages, which could.. be collected, not only at the synod of Odiamper, but especially during his subsequent circuit; for as soon as he had entered into a Syrian church, he ordered all their books and records to be laid before him, which he committed to the flames; so that at present, neither books or manuscripts are any more to be found among the St. Thomé Christians." This was a death blow to their improvements, and it broke down the spirit of this quiet people. Soon, too, was overturned that wholesome political system established by Perumal, and an oppressive despotism took the place of a mild limited oligarchy. The consequences which followed to the faithful St. Thomé Christians, need only be hinted at. During the disturbances among them, connected with

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those of the Hindoos, Portuguese, Dutch, and the less and greater Rajahs about Cochin and Travancore, they were the sport of superior and oppressing powers; and about thirty years since, Tippoo's bigoted fanaticism doomed every thing to destruction, by a general conflagration of all the Hindoo temples, and Christian villages. The few inhabitants who remain, are in a state of abject misery.

How different the situation of this people in former times, from the wretched condition in which they now appear; scarcely able to erect a cadjan shed, for their religious meetings, over the splendid ruins, which attest, at the same moment, their former wealth and their present poverty

And why are these once peaceful retreats thus rudely spoiled? why is the traveller, while he approaches these vallies, to stop and listen, in vain, for the sound of Christian bells; and look in vain for that happy people who are called by them, to the house of prayer? The prominent reason is, that the St. Thomé Christians were not of the same sect with their bigoted invaders. The pure light of truth, which had illuminated every step of their progress from the earliest days of Christianity, was not deemed genuine orthodoxy by the church of Rome. These humble Christians of the mountains were Unitarians. "They rejected the Deity of Jesus Christ, and called the Virgin Mary the mother of Christ, not the mother of God. They also maintained that the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father; and not from the Father and the Son. They admitted no images of saints into their churches, where the holy cross only was to be seen. They had only three sacraments, Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Orders; and would not admit transubstantiation in any manner with the Roman Catholics. They knew nothing of purgatory; and their priests were permitted to marry."

Y.

TWO ARTICLES OF PROFESSOR STUART'S CREED.

FOR THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE.

1. "The Son possesses not simply a similar or equal essence and perfections, but numerically THE SAME as the Father."

II. "The Son does in some respect, truly and really, not merely nominally, or logically, DIFFER from the Father."

STUART'S LETTERS.

CAN one body, then, be another? can bread be flesh? or can snow be fire? Unless even this be possible, it is not possible

that the Son should possess numerically the same essence and perfections as the Father; for if one could possess numerically the same essence and perfection as another, then one could be another; or one could be two; and if two, why not six, or ten? If, for the belief of this, you need any of the aids of authority, read the following extracts from Edwards on the Will. "That determination of a thing, which is not different in any respect, is not a different determination, but the same.' 99 "These two different bodies are not different, or distinct in any other respects than those wherein they differ: they are two in no other respects than those wherein there is a difference. If they are perfectly equal and alike in themselves, then they can be distinguished, or be distinct, only by those things which are called circumstances; as place, time, rest, motion, or some other present or past circumstances or relations. For it is difference only that constitutes distinction. If God makes two bodies, in themselves, every way equal and alike, and agreeing perfectly in all other circumstances and relations, but only their place; then in this only is their any distinction, or duplicity." "Suppose that God had placed them" (two spheres perfectly alike both in themselves and in their circumstances, excepting only their place) "one towards the right hand, and the other towards the left; and it should be asked, why God placed them so? why that which is made on the right hand was not made on the left, and vice versa? Let it be well considered, whether there be any sense in such a question? and whether the inquiry does not suppose something false and absurd. Let it be considered, what the Creator must have done otherwise than he did, what different act of will or power he must have exerted, in order to the thing proposed. All that could have been done, would have been to have made two spheres, perfectly alike, in the same places where he has made them, without any difference in the thing made, either in themselves, or in any. circumstances; so that the whole effect would have been without any difference, and, therefore, just the same."-"If, in the instance of two spheres, perfectly alike, it be supposed possible that God might have made them in a contrary position; that which is made at the right hand, being made at the left, then I ask, whether it is not evidently equally possible that, if God had made but one of them, and that in the place of the right hand globe, that he might have made that numerically different from what he did make it, though perfectly alike, and in the same place; and at the same time and in every respect, in the same circumsances and relations ?””

President Edwards then, must, as well as we, maintain that the assertion that "the Son possesses numerically the same essence

and perfections as the Father," is the contradiction, that the Son is the Father. Than this the contradictions are not more palpable, that you are a son and not a son; or a father and not a father; or a scholar and not a scholar; or a christian and not a christian. If the son possesses numerically the same essence and perfections as the Father, then, Father and Son are, not correlative, but identical terms; and, as the former signifies the only self-existent Parent, the latter will signify the same. Will not people, then, begin to say that, though there is but one selfexistent parent, there yet are two? and yet none? for surely there can be no parent, when there is no offspring. Will they not also begin to say that there is a Father, who, having no son, is not a Father; and also that there is a son, who, having no Father, is not a Son? such, at any rate, would be a natural result of a mixture of this novel with the common signification of the terms Father and Son. If the Son possesses numerically the same essence and perfections as the Father, the Father must possess numerically the same essence and perfections as the Son; and hence all the power in heaven and in earth which was given to the Son, was also given to the Father, though he himself gave it; and, as the Son hath power to do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do, the Father hath power to do nothing of himself, but what he seeth himself do; and, as the Son had power to lay down his life, the Father, though the king immortal, had power to lay down his life; and as the Son, addressing his brethren, had power to say, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God;" so the Father, though he had no brethren, and can have none, yet addressing them, had to say, I ascend to myself, and your ! What a farrago must the notion here opposed make of the scriptures? and what a luxury must it give to infidels ?

power

This notion, however, is not more opposite to the scriptures than it is to the orthodox. These have long held that the Father and Son were two distinct persons, not the same, but "equal in power and glory;" each possessing a distinct consciousness, perception, and will; and each "able to understand, to will, and to act, as a free, voluntary, almighty agent;" and this consideration is essential to their fundamental doctrines of compacts, covenants, or atonement. For it is impossible that there should be a compact or covenant made, where there is but one person, or one agent, or numerically the same essence and perfections; and it is not less impossible that, in consequence of such impossible compact, or covenant, the Son, having the same essence and perfections as the Father-and hence having the same will, the same perception, and the same consciousness, and being the same

person or agent as the Father-should, by shedding his blood on the cross, make the great atonement, and appease the wrath of the Father. He, therefore, who holds that the Son possesses 'numerically the same essence and perfections as the Father,' tears up by the root the great tree of orthodox Theology; and he leaves not one fibre from which can grow even that limb of it, which gives to the doctrine of the proper deity of Christ the whole of its orthodox sweetness.

But neither to the scriptures, nor to the orthodox is this notion more opposite, than it is to the assertion, that "the Son does in some respect, truly and really, not merely nominally or logically, DIFFER from the Father." For he, who "truly and really, not merely nominally or logically, differs" from another, cannot pos sess numerically the same essence and perfections as that other, any more than paper can possess numerically the same essence and perfections as silver; or than water can possess numerically the same essence and perfections as powder. He, therefore, who, though maintaining that the Son possesses numerically the same essence and perfections as the Father, yet maintains that the Son does in some respects, truly and really differ from the Father, and that hence there is a distinction in the godhead, acts wisely when he says, "I abjure all attempts to define it." For it would not be easy to define a distinction which does not exist; though not harder than to descry a distinction where there is no difference; or than to destroy the distinction between difference and

sameness.

FOR THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE.

ON THE CHARACTER AND CONVERSION OF PAUL.

[In a Letter.]

REV. SIR,

I SOMETIME since received a line from you, enclosing a very long letter on the character of St. Paul before his conversion, and the nature of that conversion.

I have read your remarks with candour and attention, but I can find nothing which has the appearance of proof, that the change, experienced by Paul, when on his way to Damascus, or while there, was from a state of "enmity and impenitence," according to the general acceptation of those terms; nor do I find any thing which satisfactorily proves, that the ideas I advanced on this subject, are not warranted by the testimony of scripture, New Series-vol. II.

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