a conference with Nicodemus, was present by his Godhead in the heavenly regions, could angels be insensible of his presence? and if sensible of his presence, could they withhold their adoration? Credat Judæus Apella, non ego. Let Socinians, and men that are called infidels, believe such an absurdity. I cannot reconcile it to my apprehensions. Our Lord emptied himself, it is true; because when he appeared among mortals, he appeared without the pomp and splendour of his celestial majesty. He suffered no such glory to irradiate and adorn his person as surrounded him on the mount of transfiguration, and will invest him when he comes to judge the world; but was in all things such as we are, sin only excepted. Thus he humbled himself, not by disrobing his eternal Godhead of its essential dignity, but by withholding the manifestations of it, in that inferior nature which he was pleased to assume.

Page 8. Our author seems to mistake the meaning of that royal edict issued out in the heavenly world: Let all the angels of God worship him, Heb. i. 6. He supposes this was a command to worship the Son in the sublime capacity of God over all. This, surely, could not be the sense of the words; because a command of such an import must be needless. This was the natural, the unchangeable, the indispensable duty of all creatures; and such as those superior intelligences could not but easily discern, such as those upright spirits could not but readily obey, without any particular injunction. The command, therefore, I apprehend, is rather referable to the humanity of our blessed Redeemer; to that nature in Immanuel which purged away our sins, by becoming a propitiatory sacrifice. This was made higher than the angels. This had an illustrious name given it, to which every knee should bow. This was exalted into heaven; angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject unto the man Christ Jesus. If this remark be true, then our author's interpretation is erroneous; consequently his round

about argument, derived from a mistaken principle, must fall to nothing.

Page 12. in the note, our objector asks, " Did the people of Israel, upon hearing these words, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, ever imagine that there were three persons then speaking?" This question, I suppose, is intended to invalidate the doctrine of the Trinity. But the great article stands upon a rock,, too impenetrable to be undermined by such an interrogatory; too immoveable to be shaken by such a suggestion. I pretend not to give a categorical answer to the query, but only desire to observe, that the people' of Israel have several intimations in their sacred books, of a plurality of persons in the unity of the divine essence. They were accustomed to hear Moses speak in the plural number, when he relates the wonderful work of creation, Let us make man. Their inspired and royal preacher spoke of the almighty Maker of them, and of all things, in plural terms, Remember now thy Creator, Eccl. xii. 1. in the original, Creators. The prophets acknowledged and teach this grand mystery, particularly the evángelical prophet Isaiah, chap. Ixiii. 9, 10. So that, if the children of Jacob and Joseph were ignorant of this awful truth, it seems owing rather to the blindness of their understandings than to the want of proper discoveries from above. But be the case as it is supposed with regard to the Jews, are we obliged to copy their ignorance? Must their sentiments be our guide? their imaginations the modeł of our creed? Surely for a Christian to argue, or even to surmise, that there is no such thing, because the ancient Jews were not acquainted with it, is altogether as unreasonable as it would be unphilosophical to maintain, that there are no such places as America or Greenland, because they were both unknown to the ancient inhabitants of Canaan. Mr Tomkins cannot but know, that it is the excellency of the evangelical dispensation to take off the veil

from the Mosaical; that we, by comparing their law with our gospel, by applying the interpretation of our apostles to the doctrines of their prophets, are able to see clearly what they perceived but dimly. Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, says St Stephen; as your fathers did, so do ye, Acts vii. 51. If this reproof be compared with the several narratives recorded in the Old Testament, concerning the stiffnecked and refractory behaviour of the Jews, we shall gather, by the clearest deduction, that the Holy Ghost is Jehovah. Perhaps the Israelites, when they heard the psalmist playing upon his harp, and singing this congratulatory hymn of praise, Thou art ascended up on high, thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; yea, even for thy enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them, Psalm lxviii. 18.; the Israelites, I say, upon hearing these words, might not be aware, that the person who ascended up on high was the blessed Jesus; and that the Lord God dwelling among, dwelling in, depraved disobedient mortals, to renew and reclaim them, was the Holy Ghost. But we, by collating Eph. iv. 8. with the former part of the verse, and John xiv. 17. Rom. viii. 11. with the latter, are, to our exceeding great consolation, brought to the knowledge of these glorious doctrines. Page 14. our author observes, "That Dr Watts would prove the propriety of paying divine worship to the Holy Ghost, from the form of administering baptism." This argument he undertakes to invalidate. He proceeds in a very unexpected manner; springs a mine, of which we were not at all apprehensive. What if it should turn to the overthrow of his own tenet? The Doctor maintains, "That baptism is a piece of worship." Our author replies, "That hearing the word, in the public assemblies, may also be reputed a piece of worship." May it so? Then, ex ore tuo; your own concession confutes your opinion. For, if to hear the word with assiduity, with reverence, with an humble expecta

tion of its becoming the instrument of our salvation; if this be a species of worship, it is doubtless a worship paid to him who is the author and giver of the word. Now, we are sure that it was the Holy Ghost, who spake by the prophets, who spake by the apostles, who spake all the words of that life, which in our religious congregations are explained and enforced.

Page 15. Mr Tomkins urges the expression of St Paul, 1 Cor. x. 2. which I cannot forbear suspecting, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of charity, which thinketh no evil, he wilfully misunderstands. It is evident, on the very first glance, that Moses in that place cannot mean the man Moses; but the system of religion, the body of laws, moral, judicial, and ceremonial, which were by him delivered to the Jews. Is it therefore a proof, that to be baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost is no act of worship to that divine person, because it was no act of worship to Moses to have been baptized into an economy instituted by God, and only promulgated by Moses?

For my part, I am steadfastly persuaded, that to be baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost is a very noble and sublime kind of worship; not to say, an indispensable obligation to all other instances and degrees of worship. It is coupled with that greatest of Christian duties, believing; which I take to be a worship of the mind, far more important than any bodily homage, without which all external expressions of adoration are mere formality. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved. I verily think no one will deny, that baptism is, at least, equal in its import to circumcision; instead of which it seems to be substituted. Now, circumcision was evidently a token and ratification of the covenant of Jehovah. It was a visible attestation to the person circumcised, that the Lord was his God, engaged by covenant to protect, bless, and make him finally happy. It was a solemn declaration of an absolute

self-surrender to the blessed God, to acknowledge him for the only Lord, to serve him in all dutiful obedience, to seek his glory, and to be resigned to his will. This seems to have been the meaning of that divinely appointed rite, emphatically expressed in the words of the Jewish legislator, "Thou hast this day avouched the Lord to be thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and to hearken unto his voice. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people," Deut. xxvi. 17, 18. And can we imagine that baptism, which has superseded circumcision, is inferior to it in significancy? Or can we imagine that these solemn acts of recognizing the Lord for our only God, and consecrating ourselves to bis honour, are no expressions of worship?

Though this dedication of ourselves to the service of the Holy Ghost should be implied in the ordinance of baptism, "still it must be granted," replies our author," that this can be no other service of the Spirit than what is enjoined in the New Testament," (page 15.) Thereby insinuating, that it is somewhat different from the service we stand engaged to yield both to the Father and to the Son. But, according to all the allowed methods of speech, the baptized person is dedicated alike to each of the three sacred persons; he avows them all to be the object of his worship, and the author of his salvation. There is no manner of difference in the terms which specify the obligations; and since divine wisdom has made them the same, why should we presume to pronounce them diverse? How unaccountably strange would the baptismal form be on our objector's interpretation: I baptize thee into an obligation to adore, to obey, to worship the Father and the Son; but not to pay the same reverential and devout regards to the Holy Ghost? What writer of ingenuity, in order to support a singular hypothesis, would do such apparent violence to the meaning of the sacred text? What reader of discernment would become a con