only adduced as introductory to instances too numerous to be all ex. amined, in which two distinct persons are spoken of, sometimes connectedly and sometimes separately, as associated with God in his perfections. and incommunicable glories, and as performing works of unequivocal Divine majesty and infinite power, and thus together manifesting that tri-unity of the Godhead which the true Church has in all ages adore.! and magnified. This is the great proof upon which the doctrine rests. The first of these two persons is the Son, the second the Spirit. Of the former, it will be observed that the titles of Jehovah, Lord, God, King, King of Israel, Redeemer, Saviour, and other names of God, are ascribed to him, that he is invested with the attributes of eternity, omnipotence, ubiquity, infinite wisdom, holiness, goodness, &c,-that he was the Leader, the visible King, and the object of the worship of the Jews,— that he forms the great subject of prophecy, and is spoken of in the predictions of the prophets in language, which if applied to men or to angels would by the Jews have been considered not as sacred but idolatrous, and which, therefore, except that it agreed with their ancient faith, would totally have destroyed the credit of those writings, that he is eminently known both in the Old Testament and in the New, as the Son of God, an appellative which is sufficiently proved to have been considered as im. plying an assumption of Divinity by the circumstance that, for asserting it, our Lord was condemned to die as a blasphemer by the Jewish san. hedrim,—that he became incarnate in our nature,-wrought miracles by his own original power, and not, as his servants, in the name of an. other, that he authoritatively forgave sin,-that for the sake of his sacrifice, sin is forgiven to the end of the world, and for the sake of that alone,—that he rose from the dead to seal all these pretensions to Divinity, that he is seated upon the throne of the universe, all power being given to him in heaven and in earth,-that his inspired apostles exhibit him as the Creator of all things visible and invisible; as the true God and the eternal life; as the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God and our Saviour,-that they offer to him the highest worship, that they trust in him, and command all others to trust in him for eternal life, that he is the head over all things, that angels worship him and render him service,--that he will raise the dead at the last day,-judge the secrets of men's hearts, and finally determine the everlasting state of the righteous and the wicked.

As to the

This is the outline of Scriptural testimony as to the Son. Divine character of the Spirit, it is equally explicit. He too is called Jehovah; Jehovah of hosts; God. Eternity, omnipotence, ubiquity, infinite wisdom, and other attributes of Deity, are ascribed to him. He iɛ introduced as an agent in the work of the creation, and to him is ascribed the conservation of all living beings. He is the source of the inspira. tion of prophets and apostles; the object of worship; the efficient agerv

in illuminating, comforting, and sanctifying the souls of men. He makes intercession for the saints; quickens the dead, and, finally, he is associated with the Father and the Son, in the form of baptism into the one name of God, and in the apostolic form of benediction, as equally with then the source and fountain of grace and blessedness. These deci sive points I shall proceed to establish by the express declarations of various passages, both of the Old and New Testament. When that is done, the argument will then Le, that as on the one hand the doctrine of Scripture is, that there is but one GOD; and, on the other, that throughout both Testaments, three persons are, in unequivocal language, and by unequivocal circumstances, declared to be Divine; the only con. clusion which can harmonize these otherwise opposite, contradictory, and most misleading propositions, and declarations, is, that the THREE PERSONS ARE ONE God.

In the prevalent faith of the Christian Church, neither of these views is for a moment lost sight of. Thus it exactly harmonizes with the Scriptures, nor can it be charged with greater mystery than is assign. able to them. The trinity is asserted, but the unity is not obscured; the unity is confessed, but without denial of the trinity. No figures of speech, no unnatural modes of interpretation are resorted to, to recon. cile these views with human conceptions, which they must infinitely transcend. This is the character of the heresies which have arisen on this subject. They all spring from the attempt to make this mystery of God conceivable by the human mind, and less a stone of stumbling to the pride of reason. On the contrary, "the faith of God's elect," as embodied in the creeds and confessions of all truly evangelical Churches follow the example of the Scriptures in entirely overlooking these low considerations, and "declaring the thing as it is," with all its mystery and incomprehensibleness, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness. It declares "that we worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance; for there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God." (Athanasian Creed.) Or, as it is well expressed by an eminent modern, as great a master of reason and science as he was of theology: "There is e Divine nature or essence, common unto three persons, incomprehensibly united, and ineffably distinguished; united in essential attributes, dis tinguished by peculiar idioms and relations; all equally infinite in every Divine perfection, each different from the other in order and manner of subsistence; that there is a mutual existence of one in all, and all in one, a communication without any deprivation or diminution in the

communicant; an eternal generation, and an eternal procession without precedence or succession, without proper causality or dependence; a Father imparting his own, and a Son receiving his Father's life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without any division or multiplication of essence. These are notions which may well puzzle our reason in conceiving how they agree; but ought not to stagger our faith in asserting that they are true; for if the Holy Scripture teacheth us plainly, and frequently doth inculcate upon us, that there is but one true God; if it as manifestly doth ascribe to the three persons of the blessed trinity, the same august names, the same peculiar characters, the same Divine attributes, the same superlatively admirable operations of creation and providence; if it also doth prescribe to them the same supreme honours, services, praises, and acknowledgments to be paid to them all; this may be abundantly enough to satisfy our minds, to stop our mouths, to smother all doubt and dispute about this high and holy mystery." (Dr. Barrow's Defence of the Trinity.)

One observation more, before we proceed to the Scriptural evidence of the positions above laid down, shall close this chapter. The proof of the doctrine of the trinity, I have said, grounds itself on the firm foundation of the Divine unity, and it closes with it; and this may set the true believer at rest, when he is assailed by the sophistical enemies of his faith with the charge of dividing his regards, as he directs his prayers to one or other of the three persons of the Godhead. For the time at least, he is said to honour one to the exclusion of the others. The true Scriptural doctrine of the unity of God, will remove this objection. It is not the Socinian notion of unity. Theirs is the unity of one, ours the unity of three. We do not, however, as they seem to suppose, think the Divine essence divisible, and participated by, and shared among, three persons; but wholly and undividedly possessed and enjoyed. Whether, therefore, we address our prayers and adorations to the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, we address the same adorable Being, the one living and true God. "Jehovah, our Aleim, is one Jehovah." With reference to the relations which each person bears to us in the redeeming economy, our ap proaches to the Father are to be made through the mediation of the Son, and by, or with dependence upon, the assistance of the Holy Spi rit. Yet, as the authority of the New Testament shows, this does not preclude direct prayer to Christ and to the Holy Spirit, and direct ascriptions of glory and honour to each. In all this we glorify the mo “God over all, blessed for evermore.”

CHAPTER X.

TRINITY-Pre-existence of Christ.

By establishing, on Scriptural authority, the pre-existence of our Lord, we take the first step in the demonstration of his absolute Divinity. His pre-existence, indeed, simply considered, does not evince his Godhead and is not, therefore, a proof against the Arian hypothesis; but it de stroys the Socinian notion, that he was a man only. For since no one contends for the pre-existence of human souls, and if they did, the doctrine would be refuted by their own consciousness, it is clear, that if Christ existed before his incarnation, he is not a mere man, whatever his nature, by other arguments, may be proved to be.

This point has been felt to press so heavily upon the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ, that both ancient and modern Socinians have bent against it all those arts of interpretation which, more than any thing else, show both the hopelessness of their cause, and the pertinacity with which they cling to oft and easily refuted error. I shall dwell a little on this point, because it will introduce some instances in illustra tion of the peculiar character of the Socinian mode of perverting the Scriptures.

The existence of our Lord prior to his incarnation might be forcibly argued from the declarations that he was "sent into the world;" that "he came in the flesh;" that " he took part of flesh and blood;" that he was "found in fashion as a man ;" and other similar phrases.

These are modes of speech which are used of no other person; which are never adopted to express the natural birth, and the commencement of the existence of ordinary men; and which Socinianism, therefore, leaves without a reason, and without an explanation, when used of Christ. But arguments drawn from these phrases are rendered wholly unnecessary, by the frequent occurrence of passages which explicitly declare his pre-existence, and by which the ingenuity of unsubmissive criticism has been always foiled; the interpretations given being too forced, and too unsupported, either by the common rules of criticism, or by the idioms of language, to produce the least impression upon any, not pre viously disposed to torture the word of God in order to make it subservient

to an error.

The first of these proofs of the pre-exister.ce of Christ is froin the testimony of the Baptist, John i, 15, "He that cometh after me is pre. ferred before me, for he was before me;" or as it is in verse 30, «After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me.”

The Socinian exposition is, "The Christ, who is to begin his ministry after me has, by the Divine appointment, been preferred before me, because he is my chief or principal." Thus they interpret the last

-lause "for he was before me," in the sense of dignity, and not of time, though St. John uses the same word to denote priority of time, in several places of his Gospel, "If the world hate you, you know that at hated me, before it hated you ;" and ch. i, 41; viii, 7; xx, 4-8. If they take the phrase in the second clause εμπροσθεν με γέγονεν in the sense of "preferred," then, by their mode of rendering the last clause, as Bishop Pearson has observed, "a thing is made the reason of itself, which is a great absurdity and a vain tautology."—" He is preferred before me, because he is my chief;" whereas by taking paros us in the sense of time, a reason for this preference is given. There is, however, another rendering of the second clause which makes the pas sage still more impracticable in the sense of the Socinians. Euportev is never in the Septuagint or in the New Testament used for dignity or rank; but refers either to place or time, and if taken in the sense of time, the rendering will be, "He that cometh after me was before me ;" and OTI, in the next clause, signifying "certainly," "truly," (Schleusner sub voce,) the last clause will be made emphatical, " certainly, he was before me," and is to be considered, not as giving a reason for the senti. ment in the preceding clause, or as tautological, but as explanatory and impressive; a mode of speaking exceedingly natural when so great a doctrine, and so high a mystery was to be declared, that he who was born after. John, was yet, in point of existence, before him;—" certainly, he was before me." This rendering of the second clause is adopted by several eminent critics; but whether this or the common version be preferred, the verb in the last clause, he was before me, sufficiently fixes paros in the sense of priority of time. Had it referred to the rank and dignity of Christ, it would not have been, "he was," but "he Is before me," εs not v.

The passages which express that Christ came down from heaven, are next to be considered. He styles himself "the bread of God which cometh down from heaven.—The living bread which came down from heaven.-He that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all;" and in his discourse with Nicodemus, "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." In what manner are declarations so plain and unequivocal, to be eluded, and by what arts are they to be interpreted, nto n thing? This shall be considered. Socinus and his early disciples in order to account for these phrases, supposed that Christ, between the time of his birth and entrance upon his office, was translated into heaven, and there remained some time, that he might see and hear those things which he was to publish in the world. This hypothesis, however, only proves the difficulty, or rather the impossibility of inter preting these passages so as to turn away their hostile aspect from the