tation of Bishop Pearson, he scorns not to seek refuge behind a logical subtilty.

So again, when, at what he calls "the very threshold of his argument," he is met by the objection, God cannot suffer-which, to our minds, has always been tantamount to the truism, God is God-he asks :

Upon what authority do its adherents apply their standing axiom'God is impassible'-to the suffering of one of the persons of the Trinity, emanating from his own free volition and sovereign choice? They hold the affirmative of their hypothesis. The rules of evidence, matured and sanctioned by the wisdom of ages, devolve on them the burden of proof. To the living alone can we appeal; and from them we solemnly invoke the proof of an hypothesis gratuitously advanced, and which commingles itself with the vital elements of Christian faith."P. 25.

This is very true: "the rules of evidence, matured and sanctioned by the wisdom of ages," do throw upon the affirmant of any question the burden of proof. But whose is the affirmative in this matter? It requires little ingenuity, by the addition or omission of a negative particle, to make the disputants on almost any question change places. Thus, in the case before us; "the Deity is impassible," may be called, by one emulous of victory rather than anxious for truth, an affirmative proposition; but a moment's reflection would have satisfied him that it is nothing more and nothing less than the negative of his own corner-stone position-the divine Being is capable of enduring pain and suffering in his own essential divinity. Our author's challenge, therefore, to his imaginary opponents may be retorted upon himself; and with far greater logical propriety may he be called upon to produce, from the Bible, "a passage which intimates directly, or indirectly, that one of the persons of the Trinity has physical and moral ability to suffer." We have, however, no time to waste, and no space to spare for such trifling upon so grave a subject. Let us look at his arguments. And first, Jehovah being omnipotent, could, if he pleased, suffer. This we suppose to be a fair interpretation, and, indeed, the plain English of the charge brought by our author against those who differ from him, when he says, they "hamper Omnipotence by fetters made in the forges of earth;" or when, as in the following passage, he waxes eloquent :

"Would reasoning pride scale the highest heavens, and, standing at the entrance of the divine pavilion, proclaim, in the hearing of astonished cherubim and seraphim, that Omnipotence lacks physical or

moral ability to become the willing recipient of suffering, prompted by its own ineffable love, and sanctioned by its own unerring wisdom?" -P. 27.

And again he asks :-"Would not such an incapacity to suffer imply imperfection and infirmity in the divine nature?"

It becomes us, with lowly reverence, in looking at the question, -What can the Almighty, and what can he not do? to remember that we are but dust; and that while the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children, the secret things belong to God. They belong to him in such a sense that no created being can find them out, or wrest them from him. Hence, whatever may be the pretensions of those who would be wise above what is written, when, in speaking of the Holy One, they pass one step beyond what is revealed, or clearly to be inferred from revelation, they do not assert what may, or may not, be true;-they have not merely entered into the regions of probability, but are bewildering themselves in the darkness of error and falsehood. Their conjectures and hypotheses must, from the nature of the case, be untrue. Else has man fathomed the unfathomable, and robbed God of his secrets; which, if our position be incorrect, are His no longer. From all creatures in all worlds to whom may be proposed the question of Zophar, Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? it must receive a negative answer. Let us keep, therefore, to the record; and, having seen how the theory of our author clashes with the divine unity, turn we our thoughts to other attributes which have been clearly revealed.

Throughout the entire texture of God's revelation, the fact that he is perfectly happy is everywhere inwoven. A familiarity with the Bible precludes the supposition that he can be otherwise for a moment. It results from his inherent, and, we may say it reverently, his necessitated goodness. He is God over all blessed for evermore. So essential is this point even to our conceptions of the Deity, that when to him are attributed those feelings and emotions which among men mar the perfection of happiness, such as jealousy, grief, vexation, anger, we are obliged to attach to them a very different meaning from what the words imply when spoken of frail and erring humanity. Nor is there any difficulty here. What are with us agitating emotions, are with Him fixed principles. God is love, and everything predicated of the divine Being must of necessity harmonize with that glorious declaration. But it is widely different with suffering, which always, even in the opinion of our author, implies pain; and pain can mean nothing less, in the vocabulary of men or angels, than a diminution of hap

piness. Now that CHRIST suffered is beyond dispute. His whole life from the cradle to the cross was one scene of suffering. If, therefore, those "agonies," to quote the language of the volume before us, "reached his very Godhead," he must have been during the three and thirty years of his incarnation less than perfectly happy, by the gross amount of the suffering, the pain, the agony endured. In order to sustain the theory of "a Layman," it becomes necessary, therefore, absurd as is the idea, to subtract this season of suffering from the "for evermore," which the sure word of prophecy applies to the blessedness of him, whom it styles the happy God, To pakaρís Oɛs, 1 Tim. i, 11, &c.

The immutability of the divine Being conducts to the same result. With HIM is no variableness nor shadow of turning. His own declaration is:-"I am the Lord, I change not." The alteration of his feelings and his conduct toward the man, who, yesterday a rebel in arms, a sinner in the way to hell, is to-day a subdued, rejoicing penitent, implies no change in HIM. The character he once loved he always loves; and sin is everywhere and always the abominable thing which his soul hateth. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Of this there can be no doubt; and it follows conclusively and irresistibly, either that the divine Being has never known suffering, or he has always been a sufferer.

In opposition to these arguments from the happiness and immutability of God, our author asserts, first, that the Scriptural passages in which "blessedness" is ascribed to the Deity are "rather ascriptions of praise and thanksgiving than averments of his infinite beatitude." In proof of which position he cites the paraphrase of Macknight, who, it seems, thus renders one passage in which eternal blessedness is attributed to the Creator: "Worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is to be praised for ever." Feeling, however, that this was an untenable position, and of no consequence even were it sound, seeing that Scripture affirmations are not needed to demonstrate the happiness of God, our author, in the second place, puts forth this argument:

"If the ascriptions implied declarations of unchanged beatitude, and reached the past as well as the coming eternity, then Christ suffered not. His passion was but oriental imagery."-P. 259.

A very thin veil, we know, suffices frequently to conceal the absurdity of an argument from him who advances it in support of a darling theory; but this is so thin that we can scarcely persuade ourselves that "a Layman" did not see through it. We will venture the assertion, that of no two things has our author himself more

absolute certainty than of the unchangeable beatitude of God, and the sufferings of Christ: God is for ever happy, Christ did suffer. What follows? That his passion was but oriental imagery? No; but that his sufferings reached not the Godhead, and that the entire theory of the volume before us crumbles into dust, by the fair evolution of the arguments adduced to sustain it.

Still stranger assertions are made:

"A. Being of infinite power, knowledge, wisdom, holiness, justice, and goodness, has within himself infinite resources of felicity. But the felicity of the Deity is subject to his volition. He is not fated to the same unchangeable condition of blessedness whether he wills it or not. His beatitude is, like his glory, rather the emanation of his combined attributes than a distinct attribute of itself."-P. 260.

Something like this is, indeed, to be found in the pages of a learned commentator, with reference to the foreknowledge of God. In an attempt to reconcile, that attribute with man's free agency, he hazards the position that the Omniscient is not obliged to know all things, but that there may be many things of which he chooses to be ignorant. The absurdity was too glaring to gain many proselytes. The proof of both doctrines-the perfect knowledge of God and the perfect freedom of man-is ample, and amounts to demonstration; while the connecting link, by which they are united and made to harmonize, is, and will perhaps for ever be, among the secret things which belong to Him. Our author's idea has, so far as we know, the merit of novelty; and the very fact of his being driven to take the position that "the felicity of the Deity is subject to his volition," ought to have warned him from the dangerous ground upon which he had been lured by the ignis fatuus of ambitious authorship. But he allows himself to be led still further into the thicket ::

"We believe that the beatitude of the Deity is progressive. Progression seems to be a governing principle, pervading the intellectual universe. Its display in man is palpable. Doubtless, it pervades the angelic hosts. Why should it not reach the beatitude of Him who made progressive man in his own image and after his own likeness ?— Who will venture to presume that this enhancement of blessedness (happiness) ascends not even to those who fill the celestial throne?" -P. 262.

We have before adverted to the looseness of our author's language with reference to the divine unity, and need not dwell upon the unscriptural language which speaks of "those who fill the celestial throne;" but simply say, in opposition to the inferential argument, that because men and angels are progressive, therefore

"the beatitude of the Deity is progressive," that it is alike repugnant to Scripture and to common sense. Progression in knowledge, wisdom, happiness, implies necessarily and always imperfection, or at least something short of absolute perfection, and to assert this of the supreme Being is little less than blasphemy. But to pursue this train of thought only one step further, we remark, that suffering of any kind, and for any length of time, is absolutely incompatible with the perfection of God. "Your Father in heaven is perfect," was the declaration of the incarnate Word; and, though "it became him [the Word] for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain. of their salvation perfect through sufferings," yet is it a self-evident proposition that suffering is not essential to the perfection of Deity; and consequently, the Captain of our salvation did not suffer in his divine nature. Indeed, the passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews, just quoted, teaches this truth with great clearness. A broad distinction is there made between the WORD, "by whom are all things," and the Captain of our salvation, who was made "perfect through sufferings:" a distinction, which, if it had not been overlooked by our author, or willfully kept in the background, he had not thus attempted to mar the infinite perfection of Jehovah, the crowning glory of the great I AM.

Now, although it be true, in the language of our author, that "from Genesis to Revelation, both inclusive, there is not a passage which intimates, directly, that one of the persons of the Trinity has not physical and moral ability to suffer," we think that indirectly, at least, and by legitimate inference, we have made it clear that the divine nature is incapable of suffering. Our author's question, therefore, "Would not an incapacity to suffer imply imperfection in the divine nature?" is answered unhesitatingly in the negative. No imperfection can be attributed to any being on account of inability to do what is contrary to its nature. It is written, Titus i, 2, that He who "promised eternal life cannot lie." Jesus said, Matt. xix, 26, “With God all things are possible :" yet it is written, Heb. vi, 18, It is "impossible for God to lie." So again it is said, 2 Tim. ii, 13, "He cannot deny himself." St. James tells us,-and this has a direct bearing on the question at issue, inasmuch as the temptations of the Redeemer constituted a part of his sufferings," GOD cannot be tempted," chap. i, 17. Do these inabilities imply imperfection? Far from it. They result, on the contrary, from the very nature, if we may use that word, of Him who is unchangeably perfect in all his attributes. With as much propriety, we might. predicate infirmity of the divine Being, because he fainteth not,