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a divine, and such a scholar, as Bishop Pearson. He has indeed fallen into one mistake, which, at the period when he wrote, was very generally, if not universally, received as truth, and which is even yet perhaps maintained by the vulgar, as well as by some theologians. He labours strenuously to prove the identity of the body with which we die, and shall rise again at the last day; and in the popular sense of identity, as we say that the river Thames is now the same river that it was forty years ago, this is unquestionably true; but the good bishop contends, as Calvin had contended before him," that the bodies which have lived and died shall live again after death; that the same flesh, which is corrupted, shall be restored; and that what alteration shall be made, shall not be of their nature, but of their condition; not of their substance, but of their qualities. What is meant by the identity of substance with qualities wholly different, I cannot conceive; and it appears to me surprising, that, even in that age, when natural philosophy was much less understood than now, two such men as Calvin and Pearson, should have held an opinion directly contradicted by St Paul, and nowhere taught in the Holy Scriptures. The resurrection of the same person is repeatedly promised; but if, to constitute that identity, the substance of the same body were essential, no man could be the same person for seven years on earth.

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Highly, however, as you ought to think of

Bishop Pearson, and doubtful as you ought to be of your own judgment when differing from his; still you must admit nothing as an article of Christian faith merely on his authority, or even on the authority of the Greek and Latin fathers, to whom he so frequently appeals, unless you can trace the doctrine up to Scripture. In the relation of visible facts, the fathers are entitled to the same credit with other men of unquestioned integrity; but in questions of doubtful disputation, which can be decided only by criticism and reasoning, they have certainly no superiority over the moderns.

It will be proper to study the Apostles' creed before the articles or confession of faith of any particular church, not only because it is generally received by all churches, but likewise because the most eminent expositors of the articles of our own church, as well as of some others, make frequent references to Pearson's exposition of the creed. I am aware that you have already studied Bishop Tomline's Elements of Christian Theology, as well as the Archbishop of Cashel's Illustration of the Articles claimed by the Calvinists; but you will do well to study these works again, together with Bishop Burnet's exposition of the thirty-nine articles, which, though

* An attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England, which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical. In eight sermons, preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1804; at the Lecture founded by J. Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By RICHARD LAWRENCE, LL.D. &c.

written for the purpose of reconciling the church to King William's favourite plan of comprehending within her pale the Calvinistic dissenters, yet contains much sound reasoning as well as candour. New doubts and difficulties however are daily starting by the enemies of the church, which you will not find it easy to obviate, without taking a view of one or two of the articles, somewhat different from that which appears to have been taken by any of those authors, who probably were not aware of the evils to which I allude. To these I shall draw your attention in my next letter.

LETTER XIII.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE TRINITY AND THE ETERNAL GENERATION OF THE SON OF GOD, AS THEY ARE STATED IN THE FIRST AND SECOND OF THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

To the two first of the thirty-nine articles many objections are daily made-some of them of great antiquity, and others so very modern, that neither Bishop Pearson, Bishop Burnet, nor Bishop Tomline, appears to have met with them anywhere. The Arian and Socinian objections are so universally known, and so ably answered by these prelates, that I shall not attempt to add any thing to the force of their reasonings, farther than to account for the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity not being explicitly stated in the Old Testament. That it is not so stated must, I think, be granted, though there are certainly many passages, both in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Prophets, in which the attentive reader will find plain indications of

some kind of plurality in the Godhead; but the universal prevalence of Polytheism, and the strong propensity of the Israelites to worship, together with their own God, the gods of Egypt and the other surrounding countries, made the assertion of the unity of GOD the most important, and the most. frequently repeated article in the creed that was taught them by Moses. "The Lord our God is

one Lord," is a truth to which he solicits their attention in the most earnest manner in the recapitulation of the law which he made for their use, just before he was to be taken from them for ever ; and the first of the commandments, which were proclaimed to them by God himself from the top of Mount Sinai, is, "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Had the Israelites been told explicitly, that there are in the Godhead three persons of one substance, power, and eternity, it is needless to say that a people so rude as the majority of them appear to have been, and so full of Egyptian prejudices, could hardly have been persuaded that three such persons were not three Gods. Yet even in these two passages, and in many others of similar import, there are indications, undoubtedly understood by Moses and the most intelligent part of the people, of some kind of a plurality in the Godhead, for in both places the Lord their God is, in the original, styled JEHOVAH ELOHIM. About the

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