it be wrong, let the churchmen answer for it. But this does not satisfy me; and since I have seen one that has forsaken all rather than live a disciple of Athanasius, after a thorough examination of the system; and that you have now said some things against it that shew the folly of believing it, and make it a faith the most preposterous and unreasonable, I am determined to enquire into the merit of it, and see if christians ought to acknowledge the supreme dominion and authority of God the Father; — that the Father is absolutely God, the great God in the absolute supreme sense by nature; and the Son, only a God by communication of divinity from the Father, that is, by having received from the Father, the Supreme Cause, his being, attributes, and power over the whole creation: — or, if they ought to ascribe supreme authority, and original independent absolute dominion to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; three distinct supreme gods, and yet but one supreme God, as the church informs us in her famous creed, and thereby makes us swallow a contradiciton, as I have often thought, and a doctrine against which a great number of texts can be produced. This I will examine. My reason shall be no longer silent in so important a case. If a

Trinity in unity of equal minds or gods is not to be proved by the inspired writings, the doctors preaching it, and by creed requiring it, will be no justifiable plea or excuse for me, I am sensible, in the great rising day. I had better, in such case, leave all as you have bravely done, were my father so orthodox and furious a bigot as to force me to be a religionist against my conscience. What I have to beg of you, Sir, (Miss Harcourt continued) is, that you will to-morrow, oblige me with your thoughts on the texts I have marked, as produced by orthodox divines for their mysterious religion. If you make me sensible that those texts do not prove the doctrine they are brought for, and of consequence, that the doctrine of the trinity as by them taught, is the work of uninspired writers, I shall renounce it to be sure. I will no longer mistake contradictions for mysteries. The schemes and inventions of men shall not pass with me for the revelations of God (36) .


Here Mr. Harcourt came up to us, and desired to know, (if it was a fair question) what we two had been talking so