"Christian church, in general, believed Father, Son and Holy Ghoft to create, as it were, in concert; and every "person in the Trinity to be properly CREATOR.

"THIS will appear further, from another text of the “Old Testament, which they cite very frequently, to the "fame purpose: it is, Pfalm the xxxiii. 6. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of "them by the breath of his mouth: or, as it may be un"derstood, by his WORD and by his SPIRIT. This they

interpreted of the Aóy, or WORD, which St. John speaks of, and of the Holy Ghoft. Which interpreta"tion obtained very early in the fecond century; and was generally received afterwards. It must, indeed, be prefumed, that thofe early writers would not have intirely "founded any doctrine of that moment, on texts so very capable of another conftruction. But, having already “ imbibed the principles of Christianity, from the New "Teftament and catholic tradition, they eafily believed "that those texts intended fuch a sense, when they knew, "from other evidence, that that sense was a truth, whether "taught there or no.

"THERE are two texts more, out of the Pfalms, which "I may put together, being both of the fame import and fignificancy; Pfalm xii. 9. He spake, and it was done; “be commanded, and it flood faft: the other is Pf. cxlviii, 5. He commanded, and they were created.

"THESE the authors understood of the three perfons. "The Father being fuppofed to iffue out his orders, or commands, for the creation, and the Son and Holy Ghost "to execute and fulfil them. This notion obtained among

"the

"the Ante-Nicene and Poft-Nicene writers, and feems to "have been grounded chiefly upon those two paffages out "of the Pfalms, and fome expreffions in the firft chapter "of Genefis. What led the fathers to take the more no"tice of thofe places, was the fingular use they might be "of in their disputes with the Jews and heretics. The Jews denied the divinity, or rather the diftinct perfonality, of the Logos, or WORD. They were not to be con"futed out of the New Teftament, (which was of no authority with the Jews) but out of the Old, which both "fides equally admitted. Hence it became the more neceflary to search the Old Testament, for proofs of the divinity, or distinct perfonality, of CHRIST. Now, it was thought, that no person would be introduced, as giving "out orders, or commands, to himfelf; but that fuch expreffions denoted a plurality of perfons. Who then could "those other persons be, that received the commands? they could not be angels, nor archangels: why? be"cause the orders were fuch as no angels could execute;

they were orders to create man, and the whole universe. "None less than God's own SON and HOLY SPIRIT, could "be equal to fuch a charge."

THE texts in the Old Testament, among the Prophets, are in great numbers, to prove that a plurality in the Godhead was always believed by the worshipers of the TRUE GOD; and it is too evidently the opinion of the oldest defenders of Christianity, to need any mention of them, on that account: Ishall, therefore, in the next chapter, confider fome quotations out of the famous Jofephus Acofta's accounts of Mexico and Peru, which very ftrongly prove

what

what both Strahlenberg and colonel Grant have mentioned, concerning the TRIUNE BEING, worshiped by the Tangutians and Lamas of Thibet, and a proof of the great antiquity of the notion that such a Being was to be worshiped by mankind, however perverted, before its being. made manifest in Christianity.

BUT I cannot forbear, in this place, to fhew that great pains have been taken by a late author, in his Essay on Spirit, to prove the second and third perfons in the HOLY TRINITY to be created Beings, by quotations from several of the prophets, every one of which, fairly confidered, prove the direct contrary: the answers to the following fhort queries will prove it beyond all doubt, and shew. how that learned author entangled himself in his own argumentation, to bring about the degradation of the divinity of the Son and HOLY GHOST.

I. IF CHRIST be the only begotten Son of GOD, Jehovah, is it not a contradiction to all animadverfion, physical or metaphyfical, to call him a created Being? If he was begotten, he could not be created; and, if he was begotten, there never could be an inftant, from all eternity, in which CHRIST was not with the Father; it is abfurd, if not blafphemous, to think otherwife.

2. THE HOLY SPIRIT is allowed to proceed from the FATHER and the SON; if fo, can there have been an inftant, from all eternity, in which the HOLY SPIRIT was not with the FATHER and the SON? Can it, therefore, be faid, that this Divine Perfon was a created Being? By proceeding from, we cannot understand created by, the FATHER and the SON. Therefore the three perfons are truely one JEHOVAH, from all eternity.

Ir is allowed, that by the SON, GOD created the worlds; because all judgment was committed to him.

Now, could the creation of worlds be committed to created beings, who themselves had no existence before a creation?

Does not the creation of worlds, therefore, fuppofe an infinitely OMNIPOTENT, OMNISCIENT, and OMNIPRESENT CREATOR? Now to fuggeft, any created being could poffibly be endowed with these attributes, would be fuppofing that God could create infinite eternal beings, like himself; a most rank absurdity: and as all judgment is faid to be given to the Son, what is this, but saying, that he was OMNIPOTENT, &c. and when the prophets call him the JEHOVAH OF JEHOVAH, the GOD of GOD, can that be an appellation of a created angel? He is alfo called the fecond effence by the prophets, and ancient Jews, who gave this fecond effence the name Michael, and, to the third effence, they gave the name Gabriel. Now, the notion the ancient Jews had of these two DIVINE Effences of the FATHER, will appear from the interpretation of these names, by which both prophets and Jews called them for the former fignifies ficut Deus, the only likeness of GOD, and the latter denotes, the strength and power of GOD. What higher or more divine appellations could be made use of, by any human expreffion, to denote the divinity of the Son and HOLY GHOST, than these? They believed, therefore, three effences in the DEITY: the firft, the FATHER; the second, his essential fimilitude; and the third, his essential strength and power, who is frequently called, in the Old Teftament, the HOLY SPIRIT, the Spirit of

;

GOD, the Spirit of JEHOVAH. Can a created being be the Spirit of JEHOVAH ?

THIS wandering author lays great ftrefs upon its being faid, in the New Teftament, that the law was given by angels: what has that to do with perfons in the bleffed Trinity? Angels are meffengers to do the will of God, and are believed to be ministering spirits; but is it faid, any where, that angels created angels, worlds and men? To conclude, let us fee what Eufebius fays of the notion among the Jews, of three perfons, to each of which they paid divine honours: this writer tells us, as he is quoted by the author of the Effay on Spirit, in his Prepar. Evang. lib. 7. cap. 15. that, "after the fecond effence, comes the "HOLY SPIRIT, which they place in this royal dignity and degree of the principality of those inferior beings, who

may want his affiftance; who, therefore, obtaining the third place, confers on thofe, who are inferior to him, "those excellent virtues which he himfelf received from "another, to wit, from the Divine Logos, his fuperior, "whom we faid before was the fecond to the Supreme, "Unbegotten and Almighty GoD. So, fays Eufebius, all "the Hebrew divines, after that GOD, who is over all, and "after this first-born WISDOм, pay divine worship to the "third and HOLY POWER, which they call the HOLY "SPIRIT, by which they themselves are illuminated, when “ they are divinely inspired." And Zechariah, in his seventh chapter, verfe 12, complained, that "the people “hardened their hearts, left they should hear the law, and "the words which the JEHOVAH of Hofts hath fent by his Spirit, in the former prophets."