are gathered by avarice, and hatred, and lust of sinful pleasures. More sensualists and worldlings have been driven by despair to suicide, than fanaticism, in its wildest delirium, ever counted among its victims. Say not that the possession of piety is the prelude to the loss of happiness. Ask the traveller, who has seen mankind in all varieties of character and condition; ask the philosophical observer of human nature, who is accustomed to trace effects to their causes, and to search out the springs of conduct; ask the politician, whose business it is to understand our social condition, and provide for its evils; ask the wise men, of all classes, and all ages; ask the good men, who bless the world; ask the bad men, who are its curse; and, with one united testimony, they will bear witness to the fact, that the portion of our race exhibiting most signs of contentment, is that which bears the most evidences of religion. A FALLACY EXPOSED. It is with great reason contended that the theory of a double nature in Christ, implies a contradiction. For it makes the same being, at the same time, finite, and not finite. To this there is always one answer on the other side. "We may as well say of Christ, he is both God and man; as of man, he is both mortal and immortal." The fallacy lies here. The terms in the one case are not opposites; in the other they are so. Mortal is not opposed to immortal, in this use of the words. But God is opposed to man. The two natures cannot exist together, because that which the one implies is directly opposite to what the other implies. Man is mortal. Man is immortal. In the first proposition we affirm only, that man's present life has an end. In the second, do we affirm that man's present existence will not terminate? Surely not. We only affirm that he has another life, after this has terminated. Mortal and immortal are not then contradictory. Immortal does not signify "not mortal." It does not mean that man shall not die at all; but that he shall live again, though, being mortal, he must die once. He is both mortal and immortal. But if we were to say, he is mortal, and he is not mortal, using mortal each time in the same sense, we should do just what the Trinitarian does, when he says Christ was God and man,-assert a contradiction. Finite and infinite are opposites. There is no sense of infinite which is not contradictory of finite, but there is a sense of "immortal" which does not contradict " mor tal;" and that is the only one in which we ever use the word. To affirm that Christ is God, is to affirm that he is an infinite being. To say of Christ, he is man, is to say he is a finite being, that is, a being not infinite. Both he cannot be. Man may be mortal and immortal, because mortal means nothing which immortal excludes or denies. But Christ cannot be infinite and finite, because the two terms are not compatible-the one excludes and denies what the other implies. Immortal does not signify “not mortal," that is, never to die," in this use of it; it only means, that having died, man shall rise again—that he has another interminable life-not that the present life shall not terminate. But the words God and man cannot be thus understood. They apply in no such manner as this. They are not compatible, like mortal and immortal, but incompatible, so that what is God cannot for that reason be man; the human exclude the divine properties. The same being at the same time cannot know all things, and not know all things-be omnipresent, and yet circumscribed within the narrow outline of a human form; be almighty, and not almighty; a suffering being, and not a suffering being; incapable of death, and yet not incapable of death; human, and not human; divine, and not divine. It is possible, that the fallacy we speak of may gain some attention, from the circumstance that the terms "mortal" and "immortal" are, in the supposed propositions, applied to the soul and to the body separately. But we ask, whether that which "mortal" implies here, does not respect the soul and body together? A man is mortal. His present constitution or life, which implies both soul and body in union, shall cease. The soul shall quit the body, not less than the body the soul. And so the term immortal does not, in this use of it, concern the soul alone, but the whole man, the whole nature. "This mortal shall put on immortality." Not this spiritual shall be immortal. So that the terms do not apply, as the Trinitarian is wont to apply his language, the one to one nature, to one part of the complex being, and the other to another part of the same being. Man is mortal. This proposition implies something which concerns both parts of our constitution. In the mortal struggle, not only does the dust return to dust, but the spirit returns to God. The mortality affects the soul, as well as the body; for mortality is not corporeal decay, but a dissolution of the whole frame, a separation of one part from the other; of the soul from the body, not less than of the body from the soul. Man is mortal, not man's body. The present life it is that ends. And as soul and body are conjoined in that life, they are both concerned in the event that terminates it, although not in the decay which succeeds the mortal struggle. The mortal stroke does not fall on the body without the soul, not one part of us, one nature alone, but on both; and it changes the relations of both, passing on the soul a change not less momentous than on the body, though of another kind. Thus it appears that the analogy supposed by the Trinitarian is even less than has been granted. The propositions, man is mortal, man is immortal, both respect the whole being, and are used here, not in opposition, but in harmony; in reference to the whole man; implying only that his present life shall cease, and that afterward he shall have a life which will not cease, but be perpetual. Now will the advocates of the double nature in Christ pretend that the terms he uses are not differently applied? He can apply them in no other way than he would if there were no personal oneness at all, but the two natures were two distinct beings altogether. He cannot say of Christ, he is God and man also, as we say of man, he is mortal and immortal also. It is one part only of the complex being, which he intends by each term, whereas the other terms respect man, the whole complex being or nature. But in truth, there can be but one nature to one being; for the nature of any being includes all which makes that being what it is. The soul alone is not the human being's nature, but the soul and body in union, make man what he is. So Christ's nature is all that which makes him what he is. Now if he be God, his nature, his whole nature, all that constitutes his being, is divine. But in that case, he cannot also be human, for no part of what he is, is human; he is all divine. He cannot be divine and not divine, any more than we can be human and not human. We can say of man, the whole complex being, he is mortal, and immortal; because here "immortal" does not signify "not mortal," does not imply the contrary fact, but an additional and subsequent one. But we cannot say of Christ, he is God and not God, he is man and not man, for these are contradictory, as it would be to say of ourselves, our present life ends, and our present life ends not, or of a dead body, it is dead, and it is not dead. Infinite excludes finite. Immortal does not exclude mortal. Christ could be called both mortal and immortal, as he was both; but he cannot be called finite and infinite, for both at once he could not be. These last terms, and all which the word "God" suggests and includes, have no signification compatible with each other. To the same individual, of whatever parts his nature may con sist, they cannot each apply. [For the Unitarian Advocate.] "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee—in the grave, who shall give Thee thanks?-PSALMS VI. 5. WHEN in its last dark home is laid This frame, of life bereft When, with this busy heart and head, Will then, my God! no voice of praise No humble prayer contrition raise- |