to that period of our lives when our feelings were so different and so joyous. We dwell with delight on every circumstance connected with so much happiness; and the remembrance of the faith which our parents taught us, appeals then to our tenderest feelings and most deepfounded prejudices. Our reason has been entirely convinced of its falsehood; but dotage and a death-bed are not the time and place for reason to triumph in. How often we hear men of the soundest minds lament that, in despite of rational conviction to the contrary, their first religious impressions will continue to exert an unhappy influence on their feelings. How much more likely is this to be the case in the imbecility of second childhood.

It was so after the Reformation. Many Protestants returned, in the decay of their minds, to the errors with. which their youth had been too deeply imbued, for reason to enjoy a lasting victory. This generation has to war with many other difficulties, in their return to the simplicity of the Gospel, besides argument. But our children will reap the full benefit, and bless our memory for it. We may suffer possibly. We may have to struggle against morbid fears of death, which nature and nature's God would never have inflicted; and in the anguish of a factitious melancholy and desperation, we may even go back, in some cases, for relief to those very doctrines that have diseased our apprehensions. For they first cause the disease, and then offer the remedy. But the remedy is as uncertain, violent and desperate, as the disease is painful and unnecessary.

The disease is unnecessary, I say. It is not natural. This cowering and extreme dread of dying, is the fruit of superstitious fancies. One must be indoctrinated in them before he will tremble so slavishly at a common event,

entirely in the order of nature, and which thousands un dergo every day, and every hour: - twenty-nine millions yearly, according to late tables of mortality, eighty thousand daily, three thousand three hundred hourly, and fiftythree every minute. The Father of the human family has not been so cruel as to attach necessarily this gloomy horror to the exit he has made indispensable to all the myriads of his children.

them, death is not so revolt

Look out through the world. See whether men die with such hideous apprehensions, unless they have been taught and trained to do so. Even where the light of nature is all they have to cheer ing, so shocking a prospect. Men willingly expose themselves to death in multitudes, to death in its most violent and terrible forms, for trivial objects. On the battle-field scores of thousands will meet it in one day without flinching. Count the daring souls that seem to court it on tempestuous oceans. None enjoy life with a keener relish; and yet they give it up without the tormenting anxieties of many who are miserably tired of life, and yet more miserably afraid to die.

The righteous hath hope in his death the righteous everywhere, where the depressing influences of artificial systems of divinity have not perverted their natural confidence in the rectitude and goodness of their Maker. They believe, almost instinctively, that in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is, at least, not punished by him for want of an abstract doctrine.

The uncertain light of nature may not go farther than this. It may yet give assurance of future happiness. But it certainly does not terrify the good with threats of future misery. And is the Gospel of grace, the glad tidings of great joy it was to be to all nations, a less kind

dispensation than that of nature? The Gospel which we hold only confirms nature's judgment of the good, and stamps certainty on their hopes. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ; for the good death has no sting, and the grave no victory.

For let us come to a closer examination of our doctrine. It will not be denied that it gives the cheering assurance of a future life, as clearly as any other. According to any form of Christianity, Christ hath brought life and immortality to light,-hath illustrated immortallife, throwing the light of certainty on it. There is certainly nothing in our opinions to weaken his illustration of this primary truth: for there is nothing in them to obscure the general evidences of the truth of Christianity -nothing, we often repeat, to make Christianity seem less probable; but much in them, far more than in the opposite views, that on the very first blush of the case, makes it seem likely to have come from an infinitely merciful Father.

So far then revelation is of equal value to all: the outworks which defend it, of equal strength for all. The next inquiry is into the nature of the distinguishing tenets; or rather tenet: for but a single point literally and properly divides Unitarians from Trinitarians. What is there then in the nature of the doctrine of the Trinity to support the minds of the dying? Is there confidence in proportion to the number of their divine protectors? Do we need the strength of more than the one Supreme Omnipotent to uphold and give us assurance? Could we possibly have more than the strength of One, however delegated it might be to others from that One? Could we conceive of more than One? Is not the idea of One, in fact, better adapted to tranquillize and re-assure? One strictly in substance and in person? In the confusion

and amazement of the dying man's mind, it is of special importance that the religious conceptions on which it leans for support, should be clear and distinct. It cannot then comprehend, if it ever could, the subtile distinctions and labored sophisms of metaphysical theology. It needs the vivid image of one definite God and Father to sustain its trust, to attract its aspirations. The Savior of the world it may think of too, and will think of with delight and gratitude; but it is as the Son of God, through whom it has been blessed with the Father's gracious assurances. Thus alone it reposes a trust full and undistracted on one all absorbing object.

And what character does it need in this One, to make Him the object of unfailing and affectionate trust? Is it not that character under which Unitarians are so peculiarly, and, it has been almost objected to them, excessively, fond of representing him? The character of a benign Father. As such we delight to contemplate him. As such alone we can regard him with that perfect love which casteth out fear. As such alone, when flesh and heart fail, he is felt to be the strength of our heart and our portion for evermore. But in no modification can a Trinity of persons be viewed as this Father.

But at this point of the argument, the value of the abstract doctrine of the Trinity is generally given up. It is conceded, that it is not this doctrine in itself which is needed to sustain the souls of the dying; but the doctrine of the atonement, which, it is contended, is inseparable from it. But this necessary connexion has never been proved. We see them separated, in fact, in the belief of numberless nominal Trinitarians. The doctrine from which they derive their name they say little about, while they cling fondly to the other. They require to be instructed elaborately in the conventional, fanciful, connex

ion between them, before they can see it. There are many professed Unitarians, moreover, who believe one without the other; and in fact all of them hope for salvation more or less directly through the Savior's death. We do not generally believe in the atonement as a satisfaction of God's justice, it is true; and this is the only view of it under which, with any show of reason, it can pretend to be essentially connected with the Trinity. We do not believe in this; and we think, in our dying hour, we shall repose with a more unmingled confidence in the mercy of our God, for not believing it. For it seems to us incompatible with that instinctive sense of the goodness of a Father, which is worth far more to the meditations of a death-bed than all the ingenuity of all men's labored systems of theology. He is too good to require that his mercy should be purchased for us. We need his pardon. We have no hope but in his pardon. But we believe he pardons freely on repentance. For as a Father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Why do men talk so of needing any better security than the mercy of the All-gracious? There cannot be any better; for there cannot be any other source of security after all. The most complicated systems of salvation, if they were true, must emanate from his mercy at first. To his first free, unbought mercy, therefore, we go back, and will there find peace for our souls.

What is the security which any doctrine of purchased forgiveness can bestow, compared with what it must detract from our filial love and fearless desire for the presence of a gracious Father, attracting us to him by the native kindliness of his character? We may have no fear of punishment, and yet, for all that, feel death an unwelcome change; if it be a change of all our objects of affection on earth, for an object of awe, but not of free