in order to arrive at the period when the publication of such a sentiment would have been as perilous to its author, as it was for the adventurous Luther to denounce the Holy Roman Catholic Church. And this new invention, Sir, I believe, is of no worth to the cause. As a fact, it cannot be proved. And as an expedient, it can have little efficiency. While it may, for a moment, seem to afford some partial relief at one point, it causes an intolerable pressure at another. The old Trinitarians held that the Divine Nature of the Son, being truly and properly God, was truly and properly a perYou hold that He is the true God, and yet, as far as Divine, not a true person, in the known acceptation of the And here, Sir, do you not perceive that an unsupportable oppression lies upon the neck of your theory?

son.

term.

The Westminster Divines were unadulterated Trinitarians. They were explicit and said, "There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." And here is no self-inconsistency. For the term, Godhead, does not necessarily express one individual person. As there may be one, two, or more, persons constituting a committee or a directory, so a Godhead may be conceived of, as consisting of one person, or of a plurality. And, Sir, when you, and others, speak of three distinct and equal persons, in one God, you, and they, obviously and necessarily use the term God, in the sense of Godhead. But when, in the same breath, you declare of each of the three persons, that they, individually, severally, and properly, are God, you use the word God, in a different and individual sense. We will take an example from the Athanasian Creed. The Father, who is not the Son, is God; the Son, who is not the Father, is God; and the Holy Ghost, who is different from the Father and the Son, is God; and yet, there is but one God. It is inanifest that the term GOD is here used in different senses, and, in the last instance, in the sense of Godhead; for otherwise the language would be as contradictory, as it would be to say; "Our earth has one moon named A, and another different moon named B, and another, named C, and yet our earth has but

The fact being undeniable, that you, and other Trinitarians, often use the term God as equivalent to Godhead (I do not, however, mean the scriptural, but the catechetical sense of Godhead), the inquiry properly comes up, Is it consistent with the language and instructions of the Bible to affix that meaning to the term, God? The Holy Scriptures not only

teach the doctrine of one God, and mention no other than one, but they also frequently and expressly declare on the contrary, that there is not more than ONE. "The Lord our God is one Lord." I am God and there is no other." "Thou shalt have no other God than me.". "Beside me there is no God, I know not any." "There is no other God but one." "To us there is one God, the Father." "There is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus." It hence appears that either the unity of God must be a proper and perfect unity, or that the Scriptures are calculated to deceive us. And shall we impute such an attribute to, the Holy

Book of God?

Having arrived at your third head, the Confirmation, you announced that the doctrine of the Trinity was purely a matter of Divine Revelation, and could be learned and supported from no other source; and then you proceeded to adduce the proof-texts. These you divided into two classes, the direct; and the indirect. I entirely concede, Sir, the correctness of your remarks, that the doctrine of the Trinity, if true, must be learned from the Holy Scriptures. To the Law and to the Testimony, let every Christian make his appeal. If the doctrine of the Trinity be found there, plainly asserted, let it not, even for the price of life, be denied. We would remember the tremendous malediction-If any man add unto, or take away from, the things of this Book, God shall inflict upon him the plagues denounced in it; and take away his part, his name, from the Book of Life. "See that thou diminish not aught from them." We can have no rational motive for perverting the truth, for deceiving ourselves, or misleading others.

Your first proof-text, was Matthew xxviii. 19; the commission for Baptism. The second, was 1 Cor. xiii. 14; the Benediction. The third was 1 John v. 7; the Three Heavenly Witnesses. The fourth was Rev. i. 4, 5, the Benedictory Salutation of the Apostle to the Churches. You represented that the three names, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, stand on equal grounds, and consequently, by implication, place those signified by them on the ground of equality; so that if any of them be the TRUE GOD, the others, must, likewise, sustain the same character. I have already, Sir, expressed my hesitation to admit this principle of making inferences. It is not correct; it is illegitimate. I could prove the truth of my remark by producing, probably, more than a hundred examples. But I am unwil

ling to spend the time. The proper method of determining Who, and What, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are, is to apply the rule of analogy (Prfoessor S.'s usus loquendi), i. e. inquire what these terms evidently signify in other parts of the Bible.

Who, then, is the Father? In answer, read John, the Gospel, xvii. 3. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." The Father is here called the only true God! And it is the Son, who gives this style and character to the Father. The language seems to be so simple and explicit, as to be capable of but one meaning. It plainly declares one God, and only one; and that the Divine Father is this one God. And this language, and this sentiment, comport, perfectly and obviously with the current language and sentiment, of all parts of the Bible. And, Sir, does this style and character of the Divine Father imply no more than He is one of three co-equal persons in the Godhead? And is it equally true, of the Son, that He is the only true God; and also of the Holy Spirit? What force, then, is there in language? and what dependence can be put upon it? The explicit and solemn declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ is, that the Father is the only true God; and yet according to the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is usually understood, there are two other persons that are severally the only true God. Who is it, Sir, that takes liberty in construing the language of the Sacred Word? Are the ultra-Universalists the only persons who do this? Surely they are not alone.

It cannot be justly said that the text, in John xvii. 3, is but a solitary one, and must therefore, bend, in its interpretations, to the general sentiment of the Scriptures. There is another, 1 Cor. viii. 6, of a very kindred description. "But to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things." The apostle in this passage, utters a truth which he seems to have thought no Christian, nor Jew, was inclined to doubt, for he states it, not as a dogma, or as a conclusion, but as a premise, as a point of doctrine so fully established, that he might reason from it. And, Sir, I could now proceed and adduce text after text, confirming the sentiment that the Father is the only true God. But I must desist. There is no necessity. The truth of it appears, as it were, on every page, in the Bible.

We have, I trust, found who the Father is; and now proceed to inquire Who is the Son? He is Jesus Christ whom

God hath sent into the world, to seek and save that which is lost. He is the Mediator between God and man. He is the Son of God; the only begotten and dearly beloved Son of the Divine Father: He is the Son of God in a sense, in which no other person is. He is the Redeemer; the only Saviour of men. He is the resurrection and the life. By Him God made the worlds; and by Him, he hath appointed a day, in which He will judge the world. It deserves to be noted, that, in the two sacred texts, above considered, the Son is not only distinguished from the Father, but is distinguished from the only true God. The Father is never distinguished from the only true God. The Son is always thus distinguished. The prerogative of the Father is different from that of the Son. The Father hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world, by that man whom he hath ordained. The Father sent the Son, and commissioned him, by commandment, for what he should do, and what he should speak. The Father dwells in the Son; and in the Son dwells the fulness of the Godhead. The Son of himself can do nothing; it is the Father in him, that doeth the work. The Son arose from the dead, and is invested with all power in heaven and earth; and it was the Father who raised him from the dead, and exalted him with his own right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour. The Son had power to lay down his life, and to take it again, and this commandment, he had received from the Father.

We are aware that he said, I and my Father are one; and that he also represented that he and his disciples were one. But he did not say that he and his Father are equals ; nor will any believe that he and his disciples are equal, the one to the other. The oneness of which he spake was, manifestly, a moral union, and not a physical unity. The apostle declares of the Son, that though he was in the form of God, and did not think it robbery to be as God, or equal to God, yet he condescended to forego that honour. The meaning cannot be that he was the same Being, as the one eternal God; for that construction would divest the passage of all consistent meaning; nor can it signify, that the Son was equal to the Father in all essential respects, for then it could have been no object with him to aspire to the honour of being as God, or equal to God, because, on the supposition, such he was and ever must have been. Perhaps the meaning is, that previously to his incarnation the Divine Son was, as the Representative of his Divine Father, invested with a

certain formal glory, and worshipped in heaven; and that He voluntarily resigned it in order to come into this world in the great errand of salvation for mankind. But what the precise import of the passage is, I do not pretend to know; neither do you know, Sir; and perhaps no man will know, on earth, unless it be by the help of inspiration. Let this, however, be as it may, one ground may be safely taken (and we have already taken it), that the Son never was equal to God, in such a sense as is inconsistent with the fact, that His Father alone is the only true God.

Much more, Sir, might be said, and, perhaps, it may seem, ought to be said, under this head of discourse; but the limits I propose to myself do not permit me to proceed; and if what I have already remarked, upon a few of the passages which you produced, be just, and invalidate your construction of them, a further examination, and in detal, becomes unnecessary.

[Remainder in the next number.]

Q. P. O.

Scripture Truth sufficiently Obvious.

STRANGE as it may seem, it is in religion more than in any thing else, that mankind are prone to lose sight of what is most obvious and important, and to labour after what is more remote and subtile, and more doubtful both in respect to its truth and utility. Thus it was that the Israelites were not satisfied with the plain instructions of Moses, but were ready to ask who shall go up to heaven, or beyond the sea, to bring them true and infallible instructions. And St. Paul, in the same spirit, indicates, that there were those among his brethren, who would bring Christ down again from heaven, or, as if setting aside his resurrection, call him from the depths below, to impart God's word anew. And what sort of character does he ascribe to these persons? They have a Godly zeal, he says, but not according to knowledge; and not considering the righteousness of God, that righteousness which God requires, they seek to establish a righteousness of their own. And what direction does the Apostle give? "If thou confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and be