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opinion be thus shortly stated. Since all spiritual gifts are represented as being placed under the administration of this person; since blasphemy against him is declared to be an unpardonable sin; since our Lord commands Christians to be baptized into the name of this person as well as into the name of the Father and the Son; and since the apostle Paul prays or wishes for the communion of the Holy Ghost as for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, it is plain that the Scriptures teach us to honour and worship this person as we honour the Father and the Son; and it is not to be supposed that, if he bore to these two persons the relation of a creature to the Creator, we should be in this manner led to consider all the three as of the same nature.

So much force is there in this argument, that the supposition of the Spirit's being a creature has long been abandoned. It has not even that support which the Socinian opinion concerning Jesus Christ appears to derive from the expressions relating to his humanity. The Spirit is nowhere spoken of in those humble terms which belong to the man Christ Jesus: and they who are not disposed to admit his divinity, finding no warrant for affixing to him any lower character, are obliged to deny his existence, by resolving all that is said of him into a figure of speech.

Your business, therefore, in studying the controversy concerning the Spirit, is to examine whether this figure of speech, which is natural in some passages, can be admitted as the explication of all; or whether the impropriety of attempting to introduce it into some places where the Spirit is described be not so glaring, as to leave a conviction upon the mind of every candid inquirer, that the Scriptures reveal to us a third person, whose agency is exerted in accomplishing the purposes of the Gospel: and if your minds are satisfied of the personality of the Spirit, you have next to examine whether the descriptions of this person, being incompatible with the notion of that inferiority of character which belongs to a creature, do not lead you to consider him as truly and properly God.

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CHAP. X.

DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.

FROM the information which is given us concerning the two persons whom the Gospel reveals, it appears to follow that both the Son and the Holy Ghost are truly and essentially God. But this communication of the attributes, the names, and the honours which belong to God the Father, implies that these two persons have an intimate connexion with him, and with one another: and we are thus led, after considering the two persons singly, to attend to the manner in which they are united with the Father. For when reason is able to deduce from Scripture that there are three persons, each of whom is God, that curiosity, which is inseparable from the exercise of our powers, renders her solicitous to investigate the connexion that subsists amongst the three and it is not till after she has made many unsuccessful attempts, that she is forced to acquiesce in a consciousness of her inability to form a clear apprehension of the subject.

I am now therefore to subjoin, to the Scripture account of the Son and the Holy Ghost, a view of the opinions that have been held concerning the manner in which they are united with the Father; a subject which is known in theology by the name of the Doctrine of the Trinity. In stating these opinions, I shall not recite a great deal that I have read without being able to penetrate its meaning; nor shall I attempt to go minutely through all the shades of difference that may be traced; but I shall produce the fruit which I gathered from a wearisome perusal of many authors, by marking the great outlines of the three systems upon this subject, which stand forth most clearly distin

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guished from one another. I shall give them the names of the Sabellian, the Arian, and the Catholic systems. call the third the Catholic system, because it is the opinion concerning the Trinity which has generally obtained in the Christian Church.

SECTION I.

THE point, from which a simple distinct exposition of opinions concerning the Trinity sets out, is that fundamental doctrine of natural religion, the unity of God. Although the heathens multiplied gods, yet, even in their popular mythology, a wide distinction was made between the subordinate deities and that Supreme Being from whom they were derived, and by whom they were controlled; and the more enlightened that the mind of any philosopher became, he rose the nearer to an apprehension of the divine unity. Our notions of the perfection of the divine nature involve the idea of unity; and that nice analogy of parts, which a skilful observer discovers in the works of nature and Providence, is an experimental confirmation of all the reasonings upon which this idea is founded. The law of Moses, which separated the Jews from the worship of the gods of the nations, declares that there is none other besides him, and asserts his unity in these words, Deut. vi. 4, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Our Saviour, Mark xii. 32, adopts the unity of God as the principle of the first and great commandment of his religion. In another place, Mark x. 18, he disclaims the appellation of good, saying, "there is none good but one, that is God." The divine unity is asserted in the strongest terms by his apostles, "To us there is but one God, the only wise God, who only hath immortality."* It is said, that those who were converted "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;"† and we cannot read the New Testament without being strongly impressed with this truth, that the supposition of a number of gods, which +1 Thess. i. 9.

* 1 Cor. viii. 6. 1 Tim. i. 17; vi. 16.

philosophy and Judaism discard, is most repugnant to the perfect revelation made by Him who came from the bosom of the Father, to declare God to man.

If there be truth in this first principle of natural religion, so earnestly inculcated by the general strain of the New Testament, then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost cannot be three Gods, but there must be a sense in which these three Persons are one God. Our Lord has been generally understood to intimate that there is such a sense, when he says, John x. 38, "I and my Father are one;" and his apostle says the same thing with regard to all the three, 1 John v. 7. It is proper, however, that you should be aware of the objections that have been made to this application of these two texts. With regard to the first, it has been said that the words of our Lord do not necessarily imply that unity of which we are speaking, and that, whether we consider the context, or the similar expressions which he uses in the seventeenth chapter of John, his words may mean no more than this, I and my Father are one in purpose, i. e. his power, which none can resist, is always exerted in carrying into effect my gracious designs towards my disciples. With regard to the second text, it has been said that the whole verse is an interpolation, because it is wanting in many Greek manuscripts, and because it is not quoted by any Christian father who wrote in Greek before the Council of Nice. The authenticity of this verse is certainly problematical, for very able judges have formed different opinions concerning it. Mill, the celebrated editor of the New Testament, in the beginning of the last century, after stating at great length the arguments upon both sides, gives it as his judgment, that the verse is genuine. But Griesbach, the latest editor of the New Testament, after a long investigation, declares in the most decided manner that the strongest testimonies and arguments are against this verse; and that, if it is admitted upon the slight grounds which have been alleged in defence of it, Textus Novi Testamenti universus plane incertus esset atque dubius. This was also the opinion of Porson, the late celebrated Greek Professor in England, and of Herbert Marsh, the Editor of Michaelis. I must accede to such authorities-and I have further to say, that even although we should admit this verse, we cannot po

sitively affirm that it teaches an unity of nature in three persons; for it may mean nothing more than an agreement in that record, which all the three are there said to bear.

It is not, then, upon this controverted verse in John's Epistle, nor upon the probability, however strong, that the emphatical words of our Lord, "I and my Father are one,” mean something more than an unity of purpose, that the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ought to be rested; but it is upon the following clear induction. The Scriptures, in conformity with right reason, declare that there is one God: at the same time, they lead us to consider every one of the three Persons as truly God. But the one of these propositions must be employed to qualify the other; and therefore there certainly is some sense in which these three persons are one God. This induction is confirmed by the language of the New Testament, which never speaks of three Gods, but uniformly mentions these three persons in such a manner as to suggest an union of counsel and operation infinitely more perfect than any which we behold.

The force of the induction which I have now stated has been felt in all ages of the church. The earliest Christian writers, who paid the same honours to the Son and to the Holy Ghost as to the Father, declared their abhorrence of polytheism, and considered themselves as worshippers of the one true God. In the second century the word gias, trinitas, was imported from the Platonic school, to express the union of the three persons; and the whole succession of the Ante-Nicene fathers, although their illustrations are not always the most pertinent, discover by innumerable passages that they worshipped the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as constituting what Tertullian calls, in the second century, Trinitas unius divinitatis, and Cyprian, in the third, Adunata trinitas, and Athanasius, in the fourth, αδιαιρετος τριας.

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