BY THE REV. WILLIAM JONES.
PHILADELPHIA:
1838
THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF A TRINITY PROVED BY ABOVE A HUNDRED SHORT AND CLEAR ARGUMENTS, EXPRESSED IN THE TERMS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE, COMPARED AFTER A MANNER ENTIRELY NEW.
TO WHICH IS ADDED, A LETTER TO THE COMMON PEOPLE, IN ANSWER TO SOME POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE TRINITY.
BY THE LATE REV. WILLIAM JONES, M.A. P.R.S.
RECTOR of NAYLAND, SUFFOLK.
Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God.—Psalm 38. 15. Not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.-1 Cor. 2. 13.
TO THE REVEREND AND WORTHY THE VICE-CHANCELLOR, THE HEADS OF HOUSES, AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, FOLLOWING DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE EVER-BLESSED TRINITY, IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.
Tax pious and learned author of the following defense of the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, published, in the year 1766, a Third Edition of this invaluable Work, in the preface to which he observes, That the republication of this Work, though merely accidental, is not unseasonable at this time, when we are taught from the press, (in a book published the same year, entitled "The Confessional,") that the only sure way of reducing Christianity to its primitive purity, is to abolish all Creed and articles. But the great rock of offence with this writer is the Trinity; to get rid of which, he would at once dissolve our whole ecclesiastical constitution and form of worship.' These principles, alas! correspond closely with the sentiments of too many in the present day. Had this zealous advocate (who has so ably defended this primary doctrine of the Christian faith) lived amongst tie ,now, would he not have forcibly recommended the republication of this work as peculiarly seasonable at this alarming crisis? in a clay like the present, when the inestimable word of God, and the precious doctrines which it inculcates, are slighted and despised b the philosophic infidel on the one hand, and the degrading Socinian on the other? With a view to counteract, in some degree, these increasing and destructive errors, the Publisher of this New Edition, at the request of several friends, has reprinted this excellent Work, with a wish that it may be read by every lover of the truth, as it is highly calculated to instruct, settle, and establish the unprejudiced and impartial reader. With a sincere wish that many happy and blessed effects may result from the perusal of it, the Bookseller has undertaken to offer this new Edition to the public at a cheap price, in a small Pocket Volume, for more general distribution; and that it 'may be always at hand for reference or constant perusal; for all those who are desirous of information on the important points upon which it so clearly treats.
February 10th, 1820.
My Bookseller having solicited me to republish this little Treatise, I have corrected the typographical errors of the last edition, and enlarged some passages of the work itself.
The attempt of the late Bishop of Clogher, to propagate Arianism in the Church of Ireland, induced me to keep the Doctrine of the Trinity in my thoughts for some years; and I had a particular attention to it as often as the Scriptures, either of the Old or New Testament, were before me. This little book was the fruit of my study; of which I have seen some good effects already, and ought not to despair of seeing more before I die.
Many other observations have occurred to me since the first publication, which I should willingly have added. But some readers might have been discouraged, if I had presented them with a book of too large a size: and the merits of the cause lie in a small compass.
The, republication of this work, though merely accidental, is not unseasonable at this time, when we are taught from the press, [In a new Work entitled' The Confessional.] (and the author seems to be very much in earnest,) that the only sure way of reducing Christianity to its primitive purity, is to abolish all Creeds and Articles. But the great rock of offence, with this writer, is the Trinity; to get rid of which, he would at once dissolve our whole ecclesiastical constitution and form of worship.
This wild project furnishes a melancholy confirmation of the censure passed upon us by some learned Protestants abroad; who have reflected upon England as a country productive of literary monsters; where some old heresy is frequently rising up, as old comets have been supposed to do, with new and portentous appearances. And the reader, whose sight can penetrate through the vehement accusations of Popery, Bigotry, Persecution, Imposition, and other fiery vapors with which this author has surrounded his performance, will discover little, if anything, more than Arianism at the center.
The Scripture is the only rule that can enable us to judge, whether that or the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity is more agreeable to truth: therefore, I have confined myself to this unexceptionable kind of evidence for the proof of the latter, and have made the Scripture its own interpreter. But our adversaries, though they allow the sufficiency of the Scripture, and unjustly pretend to distinguish themselves from us by insisting upon it, do nevertheless make such frequent use of a lower sort of evidence to bias common readers, and show the expediency of what they are pleased to call Reformation, that I have thought proper to exhibit a specimen of their method of proceeding in that respect, by adding to this edition, A Letter to the Common People, in Answer to some Popular Arguments against the Trinity.' These arguments are extracted chiefly from a small book entitled, An Appeal to the Common Sense of all Christian People;' a thing very highly commended by the author of The Confessional. But in this author's estimation, every writer that opposes the faith of the Church of England, is ipso facto invincible: and consequently, this retailer of Dr. Clarke's opinions, whoever he is, must come in for his share of merit and applause; which I by no means envy him.
So far as the Scripture itself hath been thought to furnish any objections to the received doctrine, I judged it the fairer and the surer way, to answer them as they were offered by Dr. Clarke himself; and have, therefore, no apology to make for neglecting some of his disciples, who have not made any improvement on his arguments, as I do not find that this gentleman hath, the second edition of whose Appeal was published in 1754, since which there have been two editions of the ‘Catholic Doctrine' in England, and one or more in Ireland.
'Which book,' says he, has passed through two editions without any sort of reply that I have heard of. This looks as if able writers were not willing to meddle with the subject, or that willing writers were not able to manage it,' p. 320. The Rev. Mr. Landon published an answer to this book in 1674, printed for Whitton and White: and he has mentioned another himself in a note. But bad the case really been as he hath reported in his text, it will by no means follow, that a book is therefore unanswerable, because it hath received no answer. If this he good logic, I could present him with a conclusion or two, which he would not very well like.
By all the observations I have been able to make, the greater number of those who disbelieve the Trinity upon principle (for many do it implicitly, and are credulous in their unbelief) do not profess to take their notions of God from the Bible, but affect to distinguish themselves .from the common herd by drawing them from the fountains of Reason and Philosophy. We cannot be persuaded, that the Trinity is denied by reasoners of this, complexion, because the Scripture hath not revealed it, but do rather suspect, that some philosophers dissent from this point of Christian doctrine, because they are not humble enough to take the Scripture as a test of their religious opinions. In which case, the whole labor of collecting texts, and framing of comments, and fishing for various readings, is an afterthought. It is submitted to rather for apology than proof, to reconcile readers of the Scriptures to that doctrine, which they would be more jealous of receiving if they knew it to have been originally borrowed from another quarter. He that would deceive a Christian, can seldom do his work effectually without a Bible in his hand: a consideration which may help us to a sight of the consequences, if persons were permitted to teach in our churches without any previous inquiry concerning their religious sentiments, and so allowed to take the same liberty, either through mistake or ill design, as was taken by the arch-deceiver is the wilderness, [] who never meant to use the Scripture for edification, but only for destruction; not to apply it as an instrument of good, but to turn it, so far as he was able, into an instrument of evil, The Bible was given us for the preservation of the kingdom of Christ upon earth, as the Book of Statutes in this kingdom is intended to secure the authority of the government, together with the life, peace, and property of every individual; and we want no prophet to foreshow us the consequences, if all the malecontents in the nation were allowed to be public interpreters of the laws.
These considerations I leave the judicious to apply as they find occasion. I use them chiefly as hints, for the Matt. 4. 5. benefit both of such as may be in danger of wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction, and of such philosophers as those alluded to by St. Paul, [Rom. 1. 22. 2 Cor. 1. 21.] who through the profession of fancied wisdom fell into real folly, and purchased a reputed knowledge of things natural' and metaphysical, at the lamentable expense of losing the knowledge of God.
Pluckley, Jan. 1, 1767.
The Christian religion is best known and distinguished by the God proposed in it, as the object of our faith and obedience: and as there is no true religion, but the religion of Christians, so there is no true God, bat the God of Christians.
Before the coming of Christ, and the fulfilling of the law, God was known by the name of Jehovah, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. The Israelites, who were the seed of Abraham, and drew their whole religion from a divine revelation, and the knowledge of the true God; and the people of every other nation, who were ' aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,' were also without God in the world.' [Eph. 2. 12] Though they talked much of God, and wrote much of him, and offered him many sacrifices, yet they knew him not: the being they served was not God, but another in the place of him, falsely called by his name. And though some modern Christians have forgotten there was any difference, yet the very heathens themselves, upon some occasions, were ready enough to allow it. Naaman, the Syrian, when he was cured of his leprosy by the prophet Elisha, made a public confession of it—' Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.' [2 Kings 5. 15.]
The same is affirmed by the inspired Psalmist—' All the gods of the heathens are idols;' and God himself declares them all to have been vanities. [Psalm 96. 5. Jer. 14. 22]
The case is now with the Christians under the Gospel, as it anciently was with the Jews under the law: they believe in the only true God; while the unchristian part of mankind, who are by far the majority, either know him not, or willfully deny him; as Pharaoh did the God of the Hebrews when he was told of him. And we are now get to such a pitch of undevotion and ignorance, that among those who profess and call themselves Christians, there are too many who are almost come to be heathens, without knowing it. For there is a fashionable notion propagated by most of our moral writers, and readily subscribed to by those who say their prayers but seldom, and can never find time to read their Bible, that all who worship any God, worship the same god: as if we worshipped the three letters of the word God, instead of the Being meant and understood by it. The Universal Prayer' of Mr. Alexander Pope was composed upon this plan, wherein the Supreme Being is addressed as a common Father of all, under the names, Jehovah, Jove, and Lord. And this humor of confounding things, which ought to be distinguished at the peril of our souls, and of comprehending believers and idolaters under one and the same religion, is called a catholic spirit, that shows the very exaltation of Christian charity. But God, it is to be feared, will require an account of it under another name; and though the Poet could see no difference, bat has mistaken Jove or Jupiter for the same Father of all with the Lord Jehovah, yet the Apostle has instructed us better; who, when the ' Priest of Jupiter' came to offer sacrifice, exhorted him very passionately to turn from those vanities unto the living God;' [Acts 14. 15.] well knowing that he whom the priest adored under the name of Jupiter, was not the living God, but a creature, a nothing, a vanity. Yet the catholic spirit of a moralist can discern no difference; and while it pretends some zeal for a sort of universal religion, common to believers and infidels, betrays a sad indifference for the Christian religion in particular. This error is so monstrous in a land enlightened by the gospel, and yet so very common amongst us at present, that I may be pardoned for speaking of it in the manner it deserves. And let me beseech every serious person, who is willing to have his prayers heard, to consider this matter a little better, and use a more correct form: for God, who is jealous of his honor, and has no communion with idols, will certainly reject the petition that sets him upon a level with Baal and Jupiter.
The true God is He that was ' in Christ reconciling the world to himself;' there is none other but He; and if this great characteristic be denied, or any other assumed in its stead, a man is left without God; after which he may call himself a Deist, if he will; but his God is a mere idol of the imagination, and has no corresponding reality in the whole universe of beings.
The modern Jews, by denying their God to have been manifest in the flesh, are as effectually departed from the true God, as their forefathers were, when they danced before the golden calf, and called their idolatrous service a feast to the Lord.' For the being of God is not an object of sight, but of faith; it enters first into the heart; and if it be wrong there, the first commandment is broken; if a figure of it be set up before the eyes, then the second is broken likewise. The first forbids us to have any other God; the second. to make any graven image of him. Now though we make no image, yet if with the heart we believe in any God different from the true, the idolatry, indeed, may be less, but the apostasy is the same. And this seems to be the case of the Jew.
The Mahomedans are another set of infidels, who abhor idols, but have in express terms denied the Son of God, and set up an idol of the imagination, a god in one person. They inveigh bitterly against the Christians for worshipping three Gods; for so they state the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity, as some others have done beside them.
In answer to all these abominations of the Deist, the Jew, and the Mahometan, and to show that no unbeliever of any denomination can be a servant of the true God, it is written—' Whosoever denies the Son, the same hath not the Father:' [1 John 2. 23] and again—' Whosoever transgresses and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. [2 John 1. 9] And let the Socinians, who have not only vindicated the religion Of Mahomet, but preferred it to the Christianity of the church of England, which with them is no better or other than a sort of paganism or heathenism,' [See Leslie's Theological Works, fol. vol. 1., p. 218, where the reader may end a great deal more to the same purpose; and particularly an Epistle of the Socinians to the Morocco Ambassador, in the time of Charles II, a great curiosity, wherein their whole scheme is laid open to the bottom by themselves.] let them consider what a share they have in this condemnation And to bring this matter home to the Arians; it is to be observed, that every article of the Christian faith depends upon the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity. If that be given up, the other doctrines of our religion must go with it; and so it has been in fact, that the authors who have written against the Trinity, have also disputed away some other essential parts of Christianity; particularly the doctrines of the Satisfaction and of Original Sin.
The whole Bible treats of little else but our creation, redemption, sanctification, resurrection, and glorification, by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit; and the reader will find hereafter, that there is neither name, act, nor attribute of the Godhead, that is not shared in common by all the persons of the Trinity. If, therefore, the persons of Christ and the Spirit are not God in the Unity of the Father, then the prayers and praises we offer to them, as the authors of every blessing, will not be directed to the Supreme Lord and God, beside whom no other is to be worshipped, but to his creatures and instruments; which overthrows the sense of our whole religion, and drives us upon a sort of second-rate faith and worship, which, beside the blasphemy of it, can be nothing but confusion and contradiction. It is no wonder, then, that the Arians and Socinians, with their several under-sects and divisions, who have fallen into this snare, and departed from the divine Unity, while they pretend to be the only men who assert it, have never yet been able to agree in the forms of religious worship. Some of them allowing that Christ is to receive divine worship, but always with this reserve, that the prayer tends ultimately to the person of the Father. So that Christ is to be worshipped, only he is not to be worshipped: and if you should venture, when you are at the point of death, to say with St. Stephen, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit' [Acts 7. 59] and confess the person of Jesus to be 'the God of the spirits of all flesh' [Numb. 16. 22.] by committing your own spirit into his hands, you are to take care not to die without throwing in some qualifying comment to assure him you do it only in hypocrisy, not meaning him, but another. Others, again', knowing this distinction to be vain and indefensible, and the same for substance with the Latria and Dulia by which the church of Rome excuses her adoration of the blessed Virgin,- etc. have fairly got rid of it, by denying to the person of Christ any divine worship or invocation 'at all; which is the case with our Socinian Unitarians here in England; for those of Poland are quite of another mind.
How far such differences as these must needs affect a Liturgy, it is very easy to foresee; and that it will forever be as impossible to frame a Creed or a Service to please all those who bear the name of Christians, as to make a coat that shall fit men of all sizes.
Hales, of Eton, in his sarcastic and malicious Tract upon Schism' proposes it as a grand expedient for the advancing of Unity, that we should consider all the Liturgies, that are and ever have been and remove from film whatever is scandalous to any party, and leave no thing but what all agree on.' He should have dined this sentence a little sooner; and advised us fairly and honestly to leave nothing; for that will certainly be the event, when the objections of all parties are suffered to prevail; there being no one page of the Liturgy, wherein all who pretend to worship God as Christians are agreed.
Prayer, and divine worship, and religious confession, are the fruit and breath of faith; and ' out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh [Matt. 12. 34.] so that until we are agreed in matters of faith, there fs neither hope nor possibility of our agreeing in any form of worship. God is the fountain head, and religion the stream that descends from it. Our sentiments as to religion, always flow from the opinion we have formed of the Divine Nature; and will be right or wrong, sweet or bitter, as the fountain is from whence they are derived. It is the having a different god, that makes a different religion. A true God produces a true religion; a false god, a false religion. Jews, Turks, Pagans, Deists, Arians, Socinians, and Christians, all differ about a religion, because they differ about a God:
These few observations will be sufficient, I hope, to raise the attention of the reader, and persuade him that a right faith in God is a much more serious affair than some would make it; that it is of the last concern, and hath a necessary influence upon the practice and holiness of our lives; that as no other devotion is acceptable with God, but that which is seasoned with love, and charity, and uniformity, the very Mark and badge whereby his disciples are to be known from the men of this world, it- is the principal duty of every Christian to know in whom he ought to believe, that, with one mind and one mouth ye may glorify God; [Rom. 15. 5.] for a right notion of God, will as surely he followed by a sound faith and a uniform profession in all other points, as false faith and a discordant worship will grow from every wrong opinion of him.
All that can be known of the true God, is to be known by revelation. The false lights, indeed, of reason and nature, are set up and recommended as necessary to assist and ratify the evidence of revelation: but inquiries of this kind, as they are now managed, generally end in the degradation of Christ and the Christian religion: [You may have a proof of this from the Essay on Spirit,' by comparing the book with its title, which runs thus—. The Doctrine of the Trinity considered in the Light of Reason and Nature] till it can be shown, therefore, that the Scripture neither does nor can shine by a light and authority of its own, the evidence we are to rest in must be drawn from thence; and as we all have the same Scripture, without doubt we ought all to have the same opinion of God.
But here it is commonly objected, that men will be of different opinions; that they have a right to judge for themselves; and that when the best evidence the nature of the case will admit of, is collected and laid before them, they must determine upon it as it appears to them, and according to the light of their own consciences: so that if they adhere as closely to their errors, after they have consulted the proper evidence, as they did before, we are neither to wonder nor to be troubled at it.
This very moderate and benevolent way of thinking has been studiously recommended by those, who found it necessary to the well-being of their own opinions, that not a spark of zeal should be left amongst us. And surely it is no new thing, that the advocates of any particular error, next to themselves and their own fashion, should naturally incline to those who are softest and stand least in the way. Hence it is, that however magisterial and insolent they may carry themselves in their own cause, they always take care to season their writings with the praises of this frozen indifference; calling that Christian charity, which is nothing but the 'absence of Christianity: and any the least appearance of earnestness for some great and valuable truth, which we are unwilling to part with, because we hope to be saved by it, is brow-beaten, condemned, and cast out of their moral system, under the name of heat, want of temper, fire, fury, etc. They add, moreover, that articles of faith are things merely speculative: and that it is of little signification what a man believes, if he is but hearty and sincere in it: that is, in other words, it is a mere trifle whether we feed upon bread or poison; [See and compare Deut. 8. 3. Amos 8. 11. Acts 20. 28. James 3. 8. 1 Tim. 4. 1.] the one will prove to be as good nourishment as the other, provided it be eaten with an appetite. Yet some well-meaning people are so puzzled and deceived by this 'sophistry, that they look upon concord among Christians as a thing impracticable and desperate; concluding a point to be disputable because it is disputed; and so they fall into a loose, indifferent humor of palliating and thinking charitably, as it is called, of every error in faith and practice; as if the Church of Christ might very innocently be turned into a Babel of confusion.
Now, that men do maintain opinions strangely different from one another, especially on subjects wherein it most concerns them to be agreed, is readily confessed; we are all witnesses of it: and, allowing them to be equally informed, there are but three possible sources from whence this difference can arise. It must be either from God, or from the Scripture, or from themselves. From God it cannot be, for it is a great evil; it is the triumph of Deists and reprobates, and the best handle the enemies of Christianity ever found against it: and God is not the author of evil. Nor can it be from the Scripture: to draw it thence, is but another way of imputing it to God. The Scripture is his word; and he is answerable for the effect of his words when written or reported, as when they are suggested at first hand by the voice of his Holy Spirit. It remains, therefore, that the only source of this evil mast be the heart of man: and, that it really is so, will be evident from the Scripture, and the plainest matters of fact. The account we have of this affair is, in short, as follows:—Ever since the fall, the nature of man has been blind and corrupt; his 'understanding darkened,' [Ephes. 4. 18.] and his affections polluted: upon the face of the whole earth there is no man, Jew or Gentile, that understand and seeks after God: [Rom. 3. 11.] the natural man, or man remaining in that state wherein the fall left him, is so far from being able to discover or know any religious truth, that he hates and flies from it when it is proposed to him; he 'receives not the things of the Spirit of God. [1 Cor. 2. 14.] Man is natural and earthly; the things of God are spiritual and heavenly; and these are contrary one to the other: therefore, as the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, so the wisdom of God is foolishness with the world. In a word, the sense man is now possessed of, where God does not restrain it, is used for evil, and not for good: his wisdom is earthly, sensual, [1 Cor. 3. 19.] devilish;' [James 3. 15.] - it is the sagacity of a brute, [Jude 1.10.] animated by the malignity of an evil spirit. This being the present state of man, the Scripture does, therefore, declare it necessary, that he should be 'transformed by the renewing of his mind, [Rom. 12. 2.] and restored to that sound mind [2 Tim. 1. 7.] and light of the understanding,' [Eph. 1. 18.] that 'spiritual discernment, [1 Cor. 2. 14.] with which the human nature was endued when it came from the hands of God, but to which it has been dead from the day that evil was brought into the world.
And where the grace of God, that should open the eyes, and prepare the heart to receive instruction, [Prov. 20. 12; 16. 1. ] has been obstinately withstood and resisted; this blindness, which at first was only natural, becomes judicial: from being a defect, it is confirmed into a judgment; and men are not only unable to discern the truth, but are settled and rivetted in error: which is the case with all those to whom God sends strong delusion that they should believe a lie, and have pleasure in unrighteousness.' [2 Thess. 2. 11.] It is then they sit down in the 'seat of the scornful as fools that make a mock at sin,' [Prov. 14. 9.] and despisers of those that are good;' [2 Tim. 3. 3.] hating and railing at their fellow-creatures, only because they are endowed with the fear of God! This is the last stage of blindness; and it is referred to in those words of the Apostle—' If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost [2 Cor. 4. 3.] as also in that lamentation of our blessed Lord over the city of Jerusalem—' If thou hast known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. [Luke 19. 42.]
The absolute necessity of God's grace to lighten our darkness, has often been largely and faithfully insisted upon by the writers and preachers of the church of England: but since the spirit of Deism has crept in among us, it has been openly slighted and contemned by some, and too much neglected by others; which has given an opportunity to several sorts of enthusiasts to make a wrong use of it: such as our Quakers, Methodists, and particularly the Reverend Mr. William Law, who, after writing so excellently upon the vanity of the world, and the follies of human life, (on which subjects he has no superior,) has left us nothing to depend upon but imagination, and reduced the whole evidence of Christianity to fancied impulses and inspiration; so as to render the Scriptures useless, and the appointed means of grace contemptible. I have observed the like to have happened in many other instances; that where any essential point of doctrine has been dropped by the writers of the church, or at least not brought out to view so often as it should have been, it has been taken up by others, (as all tares are sown while the husbandmen are asleep,) and employed under some false state of it, to the no small disadvantage of the church and the Christian religion.
To illustrate this subject a little farther, 1 shall make it appear by a few plain examples, that where mankind have been divided in their opinions with regard to any Divine truth, it has not been owing to the ambiguity of its terms, or the defect of its evidence, but wholly and solely to the state and temper of the hearer. And thus Christ himself has instructed us in his parable of the Sower; that where the good seed of the word perishes, it is to be imputed to the ground, and not to the seed. How else can we account for it, that when St. Paul laid the evidence of the gospel before a large assembly of Jews at Rome, some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not,' [Acts 28. 24.] though the same things were spoken to all! Such in general was the success of the apostolical preaching; some few receiving the word with gladness, while others opposed themselves and blasphemed. And though it be supposed, that words are more misunderstood than facts, and may admit of a greater latitude; yet here we shall find, that the same spirit which has divided mankind in what are called the more speculative points of faith, will also divide them in the plainest and most striking matter of fact.
The resurrection of Lazarus was a matter of fact, seen and attested by a competent number of witnesses: but how, different was the effect of it upon different persons! for while it had its free course with many of the Jews, and moved them to believe on Jesus, it only moved the chief priests to hate him the more; and they consulted how they might put Lazarus also to death.' [John 12. 10, 11] When Jesus cured the blind and cast out devils, some rightly concluded—' Rabbi, thou 'art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou does, except God be with him:' [John 3. 2.] yet there were not a few, and they of the most learned and knowing too, who concluded far otherwise, that he 'cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils. [Matt. 12. 24.] So, likewise, when the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles and inspired them with the gift of tongues, some devout men were amazed and confounded at the miracle; plainly seeing the hand of God in it, and asking what it meant, what was the end and design of it g and being informed by St. Peter's discourse, that it was to confirm the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, ' received his word gladly, and were baptized;' [Acts 2. 41.] while others, to avoid the conclusion, ' mocking said, These men are full of new wine. [Acts 2. 13.]
Here is a great multitude assembled together; all of them witnesses to the same fact: yet, in their opinions of it, they are as far asunder as drunkenness is from inspiration. But in this case no Christian will raise a doubt about the real inspiration of the Apostles: or deny the power of God to have been sufficiently manifested, because some were so profane and senseless as to ridicule it, under the name of drunkenness.
This self-deceit always operates by the assistance of some false principle contrary to the Scripture, which gets possession of, the heart by ministering to the passions. And, till that be dispossessed, no truth will be suffered to enter which can in the least affect to destroy it. A man in such circumstances may see the truth staring him in the face; and the clearer he sees it, the more he will be enraged at it. He may be convicted, and left without a word to say, but what will expose the hardness and perplexity of his heart: but till it be emptied of its evil treasure, and he becomes as a little child that has nothing of its own to oppose to the revelation of God, he cannot be converted: but will either shut his eyes, and deny the evidence that is offered to him, or pretend is a nice point, very difficult to be understood; and so give a perverse turn to it, though it be ever so plain and intelligible.
Till the disciples of Christ resigned themselves up to be led into all truth by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, they were in the state of mind I am now describing; dull of hearing, and doubtful, and slow of heart. They were often warned of it; particularly in the following words:— I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.' [John 16. 12.] And as the Divine Wisdom made choice of such men for the good of those who should come after, so these things are written of them for our admonition. They had laid it down, as a first principle, that their Master's kingdom was to be of this world; and formed all their reasonings and expectations accordingly. One was to sit at his right hand, another at his left; and they were ever disputing which should be the greatest. Any occurrence that flattered this notion, was gladly received and made the most of; and everything that could not be reconciled with it was thrust out of sight. When the Son of man began to teach them, that he must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again; [Mark 8. 31.] all these things were so destructive of their principle, that Peter began to rebuke him, as if he had heard blasphemy. Christ took an opportunity of inculcating this doctrine afresh, when they were in a state of conviction at seeing him perform a miracle; endeavoring, as it were, to surprise them into a confession of its truth: but the time was not yet.
While they wondered everyone at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood not this saying; it was hid from them that they perceived it not. [Luke 9. 43, 44.] The terms were clear and intelligible enough; and the ideas conveyed by them were all common and familiar: but if that saying were admitted, they must part with their beloved principle; therefore it follows, that they were afraid to ask him of that saying;' lest he should carry on the subject, and leave them no way to escape. They had already heard more than they would believe; and therefore, as to anything farther, thought it best to remain in the dark.
In short, where there is a taste and relish for 'the things that be of men,' more than for 'the things that be of God,' and some principle is imbibed wherein the passions are strongly engaged, men are to be persuaded of any thing and of nothing: ready to take up with any despicable pretense, to prop and support their favorite opinion; and deaf to the plainest words and most infallible proofs, if they tend to establish the other side of the question. For example: that a Messiah was to deliver their nation, was allowed by all the Jews; and they were well agreed as to the time of his coming, and the place where he should be born. It was to be shown, that Jesus of Nazareth was the person; and for a proof of it, they were bid to compare the Scripture with the things he did and taught.
But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him;' [John 12. 37.] and as if he had left the proof of his mission obscure and defective, they came very formally to him to 'ask a sign of him,' after they had seen so many signs; and called out to the very last for better evidence, bidding him 'come down from the cross,' that they might see and believe. [Mark 11. 32.] One would take these Jews to have been sceptics, who would persevere in their doubting against every proposition that could be offered. But if we judge from their behavior upon some other occasions, there never was a more credulous generation upon the face of the earth. They could receive full satisfaction from the most childish and inconsistent tales that ever were invented. The self-contradiction of Satan casting out Satan;' or the report of a few heathen soldiers, who witnessed what was done ' while. they were asleep,' could pass for, good gospel; while the most evident miracles, and the clearest prophecies, were all nothing to the purpose where they did not like the conclusion. And, for the same reason, the whole gospel itself, while it is the savor of life to some, is a savor of death to others! as different as life and death! yet nevertheless one and the same gospel. It is like the pillar that stood between the camp of Israel and the host of Egypt, which was a cloud to the one, and light to the other. Exodus 14. 20. But who will deny that the light was clear to the Israelites, because the Egyptians saw nothing but a cloud of darkness?
Behold, then, the true source of all our religious differences: they proceed from the blindness and corruption of the human heart, increased and cherished by some false principle that suits with its appetites: and all the prudence and learning the world can boast, will exempt no child of Adam from this miserable weakness: nothing but the grace of God can possibly remove it. Where that is suffered to enter, and the heart, instead of persisting in its own will, is surrendered to the will of God, the whole gospel is sufficiently clear, because no text of it is any longer offensive. Of this happy change we have the best example in the Apostles of our blessed Savior; who, when they first entered the school of Christianity, had a veil upon their hearts like the rest of their countrymen, and were strongly possessed by a spirit of the world, promising itself the full enjoyment of temporal honors and preferments. But the sufferings and death of their Master having showed the vanity of such expectations, and served in a great measure to beat down this earthly principle, they were ready for conviction; and then 'their understanding was opened, that they might understand the Scriptures.' [Luke 24. 45.] The evidence that before was dark and inconclusive, became on a sudden clear and irresistible; and they, who had lately fled from disgrace and death, as from the greatest of evils, could now 'rejoice that they were found worthy to suffer.' Their opinion was altered, because their affections were cleansed from this world: that mire and clay was washed off from their eyes in the true waters of Siloam, and now they could see all things clearly.
What has been here said upon the conduct of our Savior’s disciples and the unbelieving Jews, may be applied to all those who dispute any article of the Christian faith; and particularly the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, as revealed to us in the holy Scriptures. For we shall certainly find that some false principle is assumed, which flatters the pride of human nature. It abhors restraint and subjection; and is ever aspiring, light or wrong, to be distinguished from the common herd, and to exalt itself against the knowledge of God.' [2 Cor. 10. 5.] What this principle is, we shall very soon discover: it is publicly owned and gloried in by every considerable writer that of late years has meddled with this subject. I shall instance in the learned Dr. Clarke; because he is deservedly placed at the head of the Arian disputants in this kingdom.
He affirms, in his first proposition, that the ONE Goo, spoken of in Matt. 19. 17., and elsewhere, is only one PERSON; and then adds, this is the first principle of natural religion.
So, then, here are two different religions; by one of which it is proved, that the one God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: that he is, therefore, three persons. But it is the first principle of the other religion, that he is but one person: though how that can be reconciled with the practice of the whole heathen world, who were so far from discovering this one person, that they held Gods many and Lords many, [1 Cor. 8. 5.] is not very easy to determine. And whence comes this religion! It is confessed to be drawn from nature! It is the gospel of the natural man, unsanctified by divine grace, and uninstructed by any light from above; and owes its birth to that fountain of darkness and self-conceit, from whence has sprung all-the confusion and imagination that eve; was introduced into the religion of God. And what wonder, if nature should operate as strongly in an Arian or a Socinian against the mystery of the Trinity, as it did in the Jews against the law and the prophets, and in the unconverted disciples against the doctrine of the cross If it be laid down as a first principle, that God is but one person; then it will be utterly impossible, so long as this principle keeps possession, that any person, of common sense enough to know the meaning of words, should quietly receive and embrace a revelation in those parts of it, where It teaches us that God is three persons: these two principles being so diametrically opposite, that while he holds to the one, a voice from the dead will not persuade him of the other. Therefore, I say again, we ought not to wonder, if that man should remain forever invincible, who BRINGS to the Scripture that knowledge of God, which he is bound, as a Christian, to RECEIVE from it.
What, then, will be the consequence in this case l The practice of the Deist, who carries on this argument to its proper issue, is to deny the Scripture revelation, because his natural religion is contrary to it; and they cannot both be' true. But the partial unbeliever, who _allows the Scripture to be supported by such external evidence as he cannot answer, while his reason objects to the matter contained in it, must follow the example of the Jews, and reconcile the Scripture where he cannot believe it. Thus they treated the law of Moses. 'We know,' said they, 'that God spoke unto Moses: John 9. 29. therefore, they readily granted his law to have a divine authority: but as it would not serve their turn in its own proper words, they put a false gloss of tradition upon the face of it, to hide its true complexion; and then complained that the Scripture was not clear enough: and if you used it as a testimony to Jesus Christ, they would stone you for a blasphemer.
What shall we say, then l that the Jews were of a different opinion from the Christians I and that this was their way of understanding the Scripture? No: God forbid. For if we will believe the Scripture itself, it was their way of denying it. Had ye BELIEVED Moses,' says our Lord, 'ye would have believed me:' and he Jives us, upon this occasion, the true grounds and reasons of their unbelief; because they ' received honor one of another, and had not the love of God in them.' [See John 5. 35.] Every hypothesis of human growth, which was pretty sure to agree with their complexion, and reflected some honor upon themselves by exalting the nature of man, that can make a religion for itself, and comes in its own name, that they would gladly receive. But if anything was offered to them in the name of God, to be received for the love of him, and the spiritual comfort of a pure conscience, and the hope of a better world, it was rejected as an encroachment upon their natural rights, and an invective against the innocent pleasures of a carnal Jerusalem. And so it is with us at this time: for if an author does but hang out the sign of nature and reason in his title-page, there are readers in plenty, who will buy up and swallow his dregs by wholesale: but if God, of his infinite mercy and condescension, shows to them the way of salvation, his words are to be abstracted from the evidence upon which he requires us to believe them, then put into this alembic of reason, and demonstrated to be no poison, before they can be brought to taste them. And if they should happen to be a little disagreeable to flesh and blood, and the operation should miscarry, the fault is charged upon God, and not upon themselves, who ought to have gone another way to work, as they will certainly find.
We conclude, therefore, because Christ has affirmed it, that every degree of doubt and disputation against the words of God, is just so much unbelief; proceeding not front the head or understanding, but from the heart [Heb. 3. 12.] and affections. And the world is filled with the vain jangling , of uncertainty, for this short reason—' all men have not faith.’ 2 Thess. 3. 2.
I GREATLY rejoice in the determination of the publisher to furnish the Church of Christ, and the public, with Jones' excellent little manual on the Trinity. A number of years ago the writer found a single English copy of it, in a bookstore, at New York, and being pleased with it, resolved to purchase it. Upon inquiring as to its price, the bookseller asked about its character, and then refused to sell it, determining at once to publish a large edition of it, believed to have been the only edition ever published in this country. That edition was soon disposed of; and although its reading has been blessed to many, both for confirmation in the faith of the doctrine, and conviction of its truth, as' taught in the Scriptures, yet it has not been on sale in our bookstores for a number of years.
It is true, that controversy on this subject does not, at this time, prevail very extensively in our country; but the doctrine is so important in itself, and so mingles itself with the whole work of our salvation, that we may not only consider it as fundamental, but as eminently calculated to promote practical religion. If God is ever loved supremely, or served acceptably, he' must be known, and known as he is; and this can be, only as he makes himself known in the revelation of his holy Word. No man knows the Son but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.' This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou host sent.' Only by this doctrine, made known to us in the holy oracles, (for it is a doctrine of pure revelation,) do we become acquainted with our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier—are we taught the relations which subsist between God and us, and the duties and comforts which arise out of them.
It is not denied that the doctrine is highly mysterious, and has been impugned by those who would be wise above what is written.
It is true that some men profess to be ignorant how a doctrine which is mysterious can be either true or useful. But this assumption is contradicted by so many facts, that we may well fonder how men of sense and reflection have ever entertained it. Can they free from mystery the spirituality, the eternity, the immensity, the omnipresence, the omniscience of God? Can they tell how the soul and body are united in man, and how they act on each other? Can they reconcile the absolute dependence of man with his moral agency and accountability? Can they fully explain what they call the laws of nature; will they unfold to us the generation and changes incident to the being of an insect? Can they unfold the mystery contained in the growth of a blade of grass? Can they explain to us why a grain of corn is not quickened, except it die? Or are all these things untrue, because they are mysterious? Why then should these vain pretenders to philosophy assume the right to call in question the truth of a doctrine of pure revelation because it is mysterious? Why should we have authenticated mysteries in all God's works, only excepting that of redemption? Instead of rejecting the Bible as a divine revelation because it contains mysteries, we might rather deny it this character, if it contained none. Nor in this case would the objector have been slow in assuming this ground. Then he would have said, it is too plain and obvious to be from God. Is the Bible a divine revelation? That point once determined, as it is by many incontestable proofs, our whole business with it is included in these three things: 1. The belief of what it teaches. 2. A right understanding of its truths, so far as we can know them. 3. A humble and conscientious obedience to its requirements. Then we shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.
I am glad to see this little manual republished, because it contains a sufficiency of information on the doctrine of which it treats, drawn immediately from the sacred volume, for all the ordinary purposes of Christian edification, in a manner so plain as to be easily understood. The conclusions are independent alike of critical investigations, and elaborate argumentations. They depend entirely, as they should do, on the plain testimony of the Scriptures, so that they cannot very well be denied or evaded, without at the same time rejecting the Scriptures themselves, which men are not fond of doing, unless they are prepared openly to assume the garb of infidelity. This is as it should be. If men will deny any of the essential doctrine of revelation, let the testimonies of that revelation force them into the ranks to which they properly belong. Then they will no longer be able to wound Jesus in the house of his professed friends. Then we may guard against them in their own proper character. The cause of Christ suffered infinitely more from the enemies of this doctrine, in the eastern part of our own country, while they succeeded in identifying themselves with its friends, than since they were forced into open daylight.
This little volume is sufficiently elaborate on the divinity of the Father and the Holy Spirit; but it very properly expands its strength on the proper divinity of the blessed Savior,—because that point has been most vehemently assailed. But, perhaps, one of its principal excellencies consists in the method adopted to accomplish this object. This has been done by comparing Scripture with Scripture, particularly the New Testament with the Old; thus making the Bible its own interpreter, and giving the greater confidence to the faith of God's people, by more than doubling the witnesses of this truth, and furnishing a divine commentary on a large portion of the testimony.
This will be found to be not only invaluable in itself, but, if I am not widely mistaken, it opens a mine which is capable of furnishing a large quantity of the most precious ore. It has been thought, and not without good reason, that The Lord God' of the Old Testament, is none other than the second person in the adorable Trinity. This, perhaps, might be inferred from a passage already quoted from Matt. 11. 27. ‘No man knows the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him;' compared with John 1. 18., and 6. 46., and 14. 9. With the Father, as such, it would seem as if we, sinners, could have no communion excepting through the Son; at all events, it is evident that Christ is sometimes meant by the covenant God of Israel. This appears very clearly from comparing Gen. 48. 15, 16, with Job 19. 25.
The Hebrew word which is translated ' Redeemer,' signifies one who is near of kin, and is used in both of the passages to which I have just referred. In the latter passage, it is generally admitted to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ; and in the former passage, Jacob identifies the God of his fathers, and the God of providence, who had fed him all his life long, with the redeeming Angel, who is near of kin to him. If this construction be correct, it will warrant us in applying to the person of the Savior all those passages in the Old Testament in which the word Redeemer is used in connection with the phrases,' The Lord God," The Lord of Hosts,' 'The Holy One of Israel.' And then it will be manifest that the incommunicable names of God, Jehovah, are very often applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. How far will this fall short of a demonstration that these sacred names, as used in the Old Testament, unless the context forbids it, are applied to the Savior?
It is very well known that Christ is sometimes called the angel of the Lord' in the Old Testament, and is designated as The Word,' in the New Testament: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' In the Old Testament the phrases, The angel of the Lord,' and' The word of the Lord,' frequently occur; and, probably, sometimes under circumstances where their application to Christ is easy. It is submitted to Biblical critics, and especially to those well acquainted with the grammatical and idiomatical construction of the Hebrew language, whether there is anything in either, which, in very many instances, forbids the substitution, in our language, of The angel, Jehovah,' and The word, Jehovah,' for The angel of the Lord,' and The word of the Lord? This point satisfactorily settled in favor of such a construction, would go far towards sealing the death-warrant of Unitarianism, unless its advocates should come out boldly and repudiate the inspiration of the Scriptures, and then we might deal with them as acknowledged infidels, and no longer 'enemies within the camp.' If there is anything in this and the preceding paragraph which has a foundation in the Scriptures, then it is incumbent on the friends of truth, who have the necessary leisure and qualifications, to cultivate this field, and bless the Church with a new treatise on the Divinity of Christ. Should any of them succeed, he would not be accounted' The least among the sons of the prophets.' But should it be found, upon investigation, that the phrases to which I have referred, cannot with propriety be rendered according to my suggestion, still, he who should present Christ to the Church, in bold relief, and with all the evidence of which the case admits, as the Lord God' of the Old Testament, would bestow upon her a great benefit, and be entitled to her lasting gratitude.
Let it not, however, be supposed, that the little volume now presented to the public in a new edition, is of small value. The favor with which it has been received, and the good which it has done, are sufficient proofs of its character and worth. If its author had written nothing else, his memory would be deservedly held more sacred by the friends of our divine Redeemer, than that of many who have written huge volumes to defend or illustrate his cause. The friends of the doctrine which it inculcates will rise from its perusal with new confidence in its truth, and its opposers may find that it rests on a broader and firmer foundation than they had before imagined, and be convinced that it is fully and clearly taught in the Scriptures." Its very littleness may commend it to some, and its clear light convince others. May He, for the honor of whose name it was written, give it a wide and speedy circulation, and bless its perusal to all who shall read it.
CORE. C. CUTLER. Philadelphia, January, 1838.
I cordially concur in the above recommendation.
SAMUEL B. WYLIE.
CHAPTER 1.
Isa. 8. 13, 14. Sanctify the LORD OF HOSTS HIMSELF, and let HIM be your fear, and let HIM be your dread: and HE shall be for a sanctuary; but for a STONE OF STUMBLING and Rocs OF OFFENCE to both houses of Israel.
1 Pet. 2. 7, 8. The Stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a STONE OF STUMBLING and ROCK OF OFFENCE.
Instead of reasoning upon these words of the Prophet Isaiah, according to any private interpretation, I add another passage of Scripture, wherein they are expressly applied to the person of Christ; and then shew what must be the result of both. If the Scripture, thus compared with itself, be drawn up into an argument, the conclusion may indeed be denied, and so may the whole Bible, but it cannot be answered. For example.
The Stone of stumbling and Rock of offence, as the former text affirms, is the Lord of Hosts himself; a name which the Arians allow to no other but the one, only, true, and supreme God. [See an Essay on Spirit, p. 65. Clarke's, Doctrine of the Trinity, c. 10, 3, 402] But, this Stone of stumbling, and Rock of offence, as it appears from the 'latter text, is no other than Christ, the saw Stone which the builders refused; therefore, Christ is the LORD OF HOSTS HIMSELF: and the Arian is confuted upon his own principles.
Isa. 6.5. Mine eyes have SEEN the King, the LORD OF HOSTS.
John 12. 41.. These things said Esaias, when he SAW HIS (CHRIST'S) GLORY, and spoke of HIM.
Jesus is the person here spoken of by St. John; whose glory Esaias is declared to have seen upon that occasion, where the Prophet affirms of himself, that his eyes had seen the Lord of Hosts; therefore, Jesus is the LORD OF HOSTS.
Isa. 44. 6. Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the LORD OF HOSTS, I am THE FIRST, and I am THE LAST, and BESIDES ME there is NO GOD.
Rev. 22. 13. I (Jesus) am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, THE FIRST and THE LAST.
These titles of the first and the last are confined to him alone, besides whom there is no God; but Jesus hath assumed these titles to himself: therefore, Jesus is that God, besides whom there is no other. Or thus: there is no God besides him who is the first and the last: but, Jesus is the first and the last, therefore besides Jesus there is no other God.
Isa. 43. 11. I, even I, am the LORD, and BESIDES ME there is NO SAVIOR.
2 Pet. 3. 18. OUR LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
Jesus Christ, then, is our Savior, or, as he is called, John 4. 42, The Savior of the World. But unless he were God, even the Lord, Jehovah, as well as man, he could not be a Savior; because the Lord hath declared, there is no Savior beside himself. It is therefore rightly observed by the apostle, Phil. 2. 9, that God, in dignifying the man Christ with the name of JESUS, hath given him a name above every name, even that of a Savior, which is his own name, and such as can belong to no other.
The argument drawn from this text will be equally convincing whichever way it be taken—Jesus Christ is a Savior, therefore he is Jehovah, the Lord. Jesus Christ is Jehovah therefore he is the Savior. The best observations I have ever met with upon the name Jehovah, and its application to the second Person of the Trinity, are to be found in a Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity from the Exception of a late Pamphlet, entitled An Essay on Spirit,' by the learned Dr. T. Randolph, President of C. C. C. in Oxford; which I would desire the reader to consult from p. 61 to 71, of Part I.
Rev. 22. 6. The LORD GOD of the holy prophets SENT HIS ANGEL to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done:
Rev. 5. 16. I, Jesus, have SENT MINE ANGEL to testify unto you these things in the churches.
The angel that appeared to St. John was the Angel of the Lord God, and the Lord God sent him: but he was the angel of Jesus, and Jesus sent him: therefore, Jesus is the Lord God of the holy prophets.
Luke 1. 76. And thou child shalt be called the Prophet of THE HIGHEST, for thou shalt GO BEFORE THE FACE Of the LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS.
Matt. 11. 10. Behold I send my messenger BEFORE THY FACE, TO PREPARE THY WAY before thee.
John the Baptist goes before the face of the Lord, that is, of the Highest, whose prophet he is, to prepare his way. But, he was sent as a messenger before the face of Christ, to prepare his way; who, therefore, is the Lord, and the Highest.
The two following texts are but a repetition of the same argument: but as they speak of Christ under a different name, they ought to have a place for themselves.
Luke 1. 16, 17. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord THEIR GOD: and he shall go before HIM.
Matt. 3. 11. He that cometh AFTER ME is mightier than I, etc.
Here again, the Baptist is said to go before the Lord God of the children of Israel: but it is certain he went before Jesus Christ, the only person who is said to come after him: therefore Jesus Christ is the Lord God of the children of Israel. And the same title is given to him in the prophet Hosea, — I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God; which can be no other than the voice of God the Father, promising salvation by the person of God the Son.
Matt. 11.10. Behold I send MY messenger before THY face, to prepare THY way before THEE.
Mal. 3. 1. Behold I send MY messenger to prepare the way before ME.
As this prophecy is worded by St. Matthew (as also by St. Mark [Mark 1. 2] and St. Luke 7. 27.) there is a personal distinction between Him who sends his messenger, and Christ, before whom the messenger is sent—I send MY messenger to prepare thy way before THEE. But the Prophet himself has it thus—I send my messenger to prepare the way before BEE. Yet the Evangelist and the Prophet are both equally correct and true. For though Christ be a different person, yet is he one and the same God with the Father. And hence it is, that with the Evangelist the Persons are not confounded; with the Prophet the Godhead is not divided. This argument may serve to justify an excellent observation of our church in the Homily upon the Resurrection—' How dare we be so bold to renounce the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? for where one is, there is God all whole in majesty, together with all his power, wisdom, and goodness.'
Ps. 78. 56. They TEMPTED and provoked the MOST HIGH GOD.
1 Cor. 10. 9. Neither let us TEMPT CHRIST AS some of them also tempted.
These texts do both relate to the same rebellious acts of the Israelites in the wilderness. In the former of them, the person they tempted is called the most high God; in the latter he is called Christ; therefore, Christ is the most high God.
John 3. 29. He that hath the Bride, is THE BRIDEGROOM—(meaning Christ.)
Another title of eminence, that chews Christ to be upon an equality with God the Father, is to be collected from the following Scriptures.
Psalm 23. 1. The Lord (Heb. Jehovah) is my SHEPHERD. John 10. 16. There shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.
If Christ be not the Lord in Unity with the Father, there must of course be two distinct beings, to whom the Scripture has appropriated-this character of a Shepherd; and that would make two: Shepherds. But Christ has affirmed there is but one Shepherd, ' that is, himself, THE SHEPHERD of the Sheep, 5. 2; whom St. Peter calls the chief Shepherd, 1 Pet. 5. 4. So again-Psalm 100. 3. Know ye that the Lord he is God--we are His people, and the SHEEP of HIS pasture.
John 10. 3. HE (that is, Christ himself) calleth HIS OWN SHEEP.
And again—John10. 16. Feed MY Sheep—said Christ to St. Peter: which, in the language of St. Peter himself, 1 Pet. 5. 2, is-Feed the Flock of God.
But, according to the Prophet, Isa. 44. 5. Thy Maker is thine HUSBAND, the LORD OF HOSTS is his name.
And the church, which is the bride of Christ, can no more have two distinct husbands, than Christ can have two distinct churches. As the church is the bride, the body, the building of God; and as there is one bride, one body, one building; so is there, on the other hand, one God, who is the Husband or Bridegroom; one Christ, who is the Head; one God with the Lamb, who is the light of it. Compare also Jer. 3. 1; and 31, 32. Ezek. 16. Hos. 2. Matt. 9. 15; 25. 1. 2 Cor. 2. 2. Eph. 5. 23. Rev. 19. 7. 21. 2. 9.
Here follow some single texts, to which I add no parallels; there, being no danger of mistaking their application.
John 20. 28. And Thomas answered and said, MY LORD, and MY GOD.
Rom. 9. 5. Of whom as concerning the flesh CHRIST came, who is over all, God BLESSED for EVER. amen.
2 Pet. 1. 1. Through the righteousness of OUR GOD and Savior JESUS CHRIST.
The Greek is—the very same, as to the order and grammar of the words, with the last verse of this Epistle—which is thus rendered in our English version—of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so, without doubt, it should be in the other passage: there being no possible reason why should not signify, our God, as well as our Lord. It is not my design to cast any reflection upon the wisdom of our excellent and orthodox translators, (whose version, taken altogether, is, without exception, the best extant in the world,) or to advance this as any discovery of my own: for the translators themselves have preserved the true rendering in the margin; declaring it, by their customary note, to be the literal sense of the Greek.
There is another expression, Tit. 2. 13, that ought to be classed with the foregoing. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing, of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.' Of which a great man, deep in the Arian scheme, gives this desponding account Many understand this whole sentence to belong to one and the same person, viz. Christ: as if the words should have been rendered, " The appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Which construction the words will indeed bear; as do also those in 2 Pet. 1. 1. But it is much more reasonable, and more agreeable to the whole tenor of Scripture, to understand the former part of the' words to relate to the Father.' As for the whole tenor of Scripture, it is a weighty phrase, but very easily made use of in any cause, good or bad; so I shall leave the reader to judge of that, after it has been exhibited to him in the following pages. As for the reasonableness of the thing itself, let any serious person consider, whether the doctrine of the Scripture is not more rational under the orthodox application of these words, than under that of this author. For to allow, as he does, that Christ is God, but not the great God, is to make two Gods, a greater and a lesser, which is no very rational principle. And I make not the least doubt but this author, had he been dressing up a system of natural religion, would have protested against a notion so absurd and impious. But when the Scripture was to, be dealt with, he chose it as the lesser of two evils, the greater of which was the doctrine he had subscribed to.
2 Cor. 5. 19. GOD WAS IN CHRIST reconciling the world to HIMSELF.
It is allowed on all hands, that the world was reconciled by Christ Jesus to the one, only, great, and supreme God. But, this very same God (for the word is but once used in the whole sentence) was Christ manifest in the flesh, and reconciling the world to himself. And was there no other passage of Scripture to be found, this alone is sufficient to overthrow the whole doctrine of Arianism; which, as far as the Scripture is concerned, depends upon this one assertion, that the word God, in Scripture, never signifies a complex notion of More Persons than one; but always means one Person only, viz. either the person of the Father singly, or the person of the Son singly."' Which is absolutely false; for here it signifies both. The text considers God as agent and patient at the same time, and upon the same occasion; as the reconciler of the world, in the Person of the Son; and the object to whom the reconciliation was made, in the Person of the Father; yet there is but one word (God) to express them both. So that the word God, though of the singular number, is of a plural comprehension. And thus I find it to have been taken by some of the most eminent writers before the council of Nice, says Irenaeus putting the singular name of God, for the two persons of the Son and Spirit. And the same word, in the language of Origen (if we are allowed to take the version of Ruffinus as genuine,) includes the whole Three Persons. And our excellent church has used the word God in the same comprehensive sense; as in the blessing after the communion service—' GOD ALMIGHTY, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'
John 14. 11. I am in the Father, and the Father IN ME.
Compare this with the foregoing article.
1 Cor. 5. 20. We are ambassadors for CHRIST, as though God did BESEECH you by us. We PRAY you in CHRIST'S STEAD, be ye reconciled to God.
The usefulness of this text to our present subject, lies in these words—' In Christ's stead we pray, as though God did beseech'—where the interchanging of the names God and Christ, shews the same Per- son to be entitled to both.
1 John 5. 20. We are in him that is true, even in his SON JESUS CHRIST; THIS is the TRUE GOD and eternal life.
Col. 2. 8, 9. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for IN DWELLETH ALL THE FULNESS of the GODHEAD BODILY.
The apostle foresaw, that a thing calling itself Philosophy would set all its engines at work to destroy the notion of Christ's true and absolute Divinity—' For in him (says he) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.—Philosophy will dispute this: and undertake to demonstrate the contrary. But if you listen to such vain deceit, it will overthrow your faith, and spoil you for a disciple of Jesus Christ; therefore—beware.'
John 1. 1. The WORD WAS GOD.
Isa. 9. 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the MIGHTY GOD, the EVERLASTING FATHER.
Jer. 23. 6. This is the name whereby he shall be called, the Lord (JEHOVAH) our Righteousness.
Isa. 2. 17, 18. The LORD ALONE shall be EXALTED, in that day: and the mom he shall utterly abolish.
'Idolatry is the reverse, and direct opposite to Christianity (or, the day of Christ.) To destroy this, was the great end of Christ's coming into the world.—But except he were God, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, his religion would be so far from destroying idolatry, that it would only be a more refined and dangerous species of it. The Prophet therefore concludes all, that so he might acquit the worship of Christ from all charge of idolatry, with this positive assertion; that it would prove the most effectual means of putting an end to all false and idolatrous worship: " the idols he shall utterly abolish." The like conclusion we meet with in the apostle St. John; who having affirmed that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life, immediately subjoins and closes all with this advice,—" Little children, keep yourselves from IDOLS."' This remark is taken from the first volume of " An Essay upon the proper Lessons;" written, as I am told, by a gentleman of the laity. There needs no apology for setting it down; it being of good use in the subject I am upon. And it also gives me an occasion of returning thanks to the pious and learned author of that excellent work, not for myself only, but for many sincere friends to the religion of Christ and the church of England, among whom his labors are not without their fruit; and I am confident they will not be without their reward: but the author must be content to wait for it, till Wisdom shall be justified of all her children.'
Rev. 1. 8. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the LORD, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the ALMIGHTY.
If the reader will be pleased to examine the 13th, and 17th verses of this chapter, it will appear that this 8th verse was undoubtedly spoken from the mouth of Christ: who, therefore, has a just title to every name and attribute expressed in it: and among the rest, to that of the Almighty.
Origen, who certainly was no Arian, though often represented as such, by some who would be pleased to have the vote of so celebrated a genius, has the following observation.—' Now that you may know the omnipotence of the Father and the Son to be one and the same, as He is one and the same God and Lord with the Father, hear what St. John had said in the Revelation—" These things, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."' For who is the Almighty that is to come, but Christ? THE texts that follow, with this mark prefixed to them, are such as have been abused by the Arians to support their heresy: and, to the best of my knowledge, there are some of every sort. But when the Scripture is brought to declare its own sense of them, they will either appear to be nothing to the purpose, or confirm and preach the faith they have been supposed to destroy.
Matt. 19. 17. Why tallest thou 'ME GOOD? there is none good but one, that is, GOD.
The objection is founded upon the Greek, which runs thus- There is none good but 15, one; and that (one) is, God. Whence it is argued, that the adjective Bic being in the masculine gender, cannot be interpreted to signify one being or nature (for then it should have been EN, in the neuter,) but one Person; so that by confining the attribute of goodness to the single Person of the Father, it must of course exclude the Persons of the Son and Holy Ghost from the Unity of the Godhead.
To say the truth, I think this is the most plausible objection I have ever met with; and I have sincerely endeavored to do it justice. If it is capable of being set in a stronger light, any man is welcome to add what he pleases to it. For supposing the word AK to signify one person, (and in that lies the whole force of the argument,) then if one person only is good, and that person is God's, it must also follow, that there is but one person who is God: the name of God being as much confined hereby to a single person, as the attribute of goodness. But this is utterly false; the names of God, Lord, Lord of Hosts, the Almighty, Most High, Eternal, God of Israel, etc. being also ascribed to the second and third Persons of the blessed Trinity. Take it this way, therefore, and the objection, by proving too much, confutes itself, and proves nothing.
The truth is, this criticism, upon the strength of which some have dared to un-deify their Savior, has no foundation in the original. The word Bic is so far from requiring the substantive person to be understood with it, that it is put in the masculine gender to agree with its substantive and is best construed by an adverb. If you follow the Greek by a literal translation, it will be thus—' There is none good—but the one God;' that is, in common English—but God only. And it happens that the same Greek, word for word, occurs in Mark 2. 7,—' Who can forgive sins—but God only: so it is rendered by our translators; and we have a plain matter of fact, that sec in this place cannot possibly admit the sense of one person, because Christ, who is another person, took upon him to forgive sins. In the parallel place of St. Luke's Gospel, [Luke 5. 21.] the expression is varied, so as to make it still clearer, another adjective of the masculine gender; which, though it agree with its substantive eios, is rightly construed as an adverb—either the alone God, or God only. [Matt. 4. 4.] And the Greek itself uses one for the other indifferently in word only. 1 These. 1. 5. The utmost that can be gathered, therefore, from these words, is no more than this: that there is one God (in which we are all agreed,) and that there is none good beside him; which nobody will dispute. Whether in this God, there be one person, or three, remains yet to be considered: and the Scripture is so express in other places, as to settle it beyond all dispute.
If it should be here asked for what reason Christ put this question—' Why call thou me good?' I answer;' for the same reason that he asked the Pharisees, why David in Spirit called him Lord; [Matt. 22. 43] and that was, to try if they were able to account for it. This ruler, by addressing our Savior under the name of good Master, when the inspired Psalmist had affirmed long before, that there is none that doeth good, no, not one; [Psa. 14.3] did in effect allow him to be God; no mere man, since the fall of Adam, having any claim to that character. And when he was called upon to explain his meaning, for that. God only was good; he should have replied in the words of St. Thomas—' My Lord, and my God;' which would have been a nobler instance of faith, and have cleared up the whole difficulty. If the case be considered, this man was a very proper subject for such a trial. Fully convinced of his own sufficiency, he comes to Christ in the presence of his disciples, to know what good thing he might do to merit everlasting life. Whence our Savior takes occasion to correct his mistake as to the nature of goodness; and having tried this good and perfect man in a tender point, sent him away grievously dissatisfied.
1 Cor. 15. 24. Then cometh the END, when HE shall deliver up the KINGDOM to GOD, even the FATHER.
Luke 1. 33. He (Jesus) shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of HIS KINGDOM there shall be NO END.
This of St. Luke, being a contradiction in terms to that of the apostle, shews the former to be spoken only of Christ's humanity; as the latter relates only to his Divinity. When both are laid together, it is evident to a demonstration, that Christ is perfect God, as well as perfect man. As man, he received a kingdom, which again, as man, he shall deliver up, when his mediatorial office, for which he took the nature of man, shall be at an end. But there is a kingdom pertaining to him, which shall have no end. And this cannot be true, unless he is a person in that God, who after the humanity has delivered up the kingdom, shall be all in all. The distinction in this case between the God and man in the joint person of Christ Jesus, is warranted by another part of the chapter, wherein the apostle has given us a key to his own meaning. ' Since by man (says he) came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' Here, it is evident, he is drawing a contrast between the man Adam and the man Christ; so that unless it be done on purpose, no reader can easily mistake the meaning of what follows—' Then cometh the end, when he (that is the man Christ, the second Adam) shall deliver up the kingdom,' etc., for so it must be, according to the tenor of the apostle's discourse.
The New Testament abounds with expressions of this nature: but they have no difficulty in them, if it only be remembered that Christ is man as well as God; which the Arians are willing upon all occasions to forget. And it has been chiefly owing to an abuse of these texts, that they have been able to put any tolerable gloss upon their heresy. The Old Testament, seldom speaking of Christ, but as a Person of the Godhead before his incarnation, does not afford them so many opportunities; and hence it is, that most of them confine their inquiries to the New, which is the history of him after his incarnation, when he appeared as the first born of many brethren, [Rom. 8. 29.] anointed above his fellows (mankind;) receiving authority and dominion from God, who, by a power superior to that of his human soul and body, put all things in subjection under the feet of it.
But some, for whose sake he thus humbled himself, and became obedient to the flesh, instead of receiving it with humility and devotion, even cast it in his teeth, and made it an argument against him: vainly imagining that they do honor to their supreme God; while they say with Peter—' Lord, be it far from thee; this shall not, it cannot, be unto thee.' And it is worth their while to consider, whether they may not fall under the same rebuke, when it will be too late to retract and change their opinion.
A solemn advocate of theirs, whom I take to be a dissenter, tells us—his present concern is with the New Testament only. And another writer of some figure, who, you are to suppose, is addressing himself to a young clergyman, puts it into his head, that he may reject arguments brought from the Old Testament to prove the Trinity, as trifling, and proving nothing but the ignorance of those that make use of them.' And I could wish that were all: for I had much rather be accounted a fool in their judgment, than find myself under a necessity of charging them with the horrible guilt of denying the Lord that hath bought them.
Acts 10. 42. That it is HE which is ORDAINED Of GOD to be the judge of quick and dead.
This passage will help us to detect, once for all, that common fallacy of our adversaries, in misapplying such words as relate only to the human nature of Christ, and erecting arguments thereupon to the degrading of his supreme Essence. Christ is ordained of God, it is true: and the nature that receives power, must be inferior to the nature that confers it. But is his Godhead therefore ordained? They tell you it is: and their scheme requires it: but the Scriptures declare the contrary. GOD (saith St. Paul) hath appointed a day wherein HE will JUDGE the world in righteousness by that MAN, caps, (IN that MAN,) whom he hath ORDAINED. [Acts 17. 31] The supreme God that was manifest in the flesh, and IN Christ reconciling the world to HIMSELF, shall remain in the same personal union with him, till he has judged the world, and is ready to deliver up the kingdom. And though-our Judge shall even then retain the character of a man, yet as God who ordained him shall be present with him in the same person, the act of the last judgment is equally ascribed to both natures. In the text just above cited, it is said—He (God) will judge the world; though it immediately follows, that a man, even the man Christ, is ordained to this office. And so we have it again in the Epistle to the Romans—' We shall all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.' For it is written, ' As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow 'to ME, and every tongue shall confess unto God.' [Isa. 45. 23.] We are to give an account of ourselves at the judgment-seat of Christ. And how does the apostle prove it? Why, because it is written, that we shall give an account of ourselves to the Lord God, who swears that he lives. But unless Christ who is a man, be also this living God and Lord, this proof is not to the purpose.
Acts 10. 40. Him GOD raised up, and SHEWED HIM openly to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.
John 21. 1. After these things JESUS SHEWED HIMSELF again to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise SHOWED HE HIMSELF.
The former text takes something from Christ, as man: in which capacity he was at the disposal of the Father. But the latter restores it to him again as God; under which character he is at his own disposal, and in - unity with the Father. The same is to be said of the two articles which follow.
John 3. 16. God so loved the world, that HE GAVE his only begotten Son.
Ephes. 5. 25. CHRIST also LOVED the church, and GAVE HIMSELF for it.
Eph. 4. 32. Forgiving one another, even as GOD, for CHRIST'S SAKE, hath FORGIVEN you.
Col. 3. 13. Forgiving one another—even as CHRIST FORGAVE you.
John 6. 38. I came down from heaven, NOT to do MY OWN WILL, but the WILL of HIM that SENT ME.
Matt. 8. 2. And behold there came a leper and worshipped him, saying LORD, if THOU WILT, thou canst make me clean. And JESUS said, I WILL, be thou clean.
Acts 14. 29, 30. And now, LORD—grant—that signs and wonders may be done by the NAME of THY HOLY CHILD JESUS.
It seems here, that signs and wonders were not to be wrought by Jesus Christ, as the author of them; but by a higher power of the Lord, put into action by the name, merits, or intercession, of the Holy Child Jesus. Yet St. Peter makes this same Jesus, though in heaven, the immediate author of the signs and wonders wrought by his disciples upon earth. ' Eneas (says he,) Jesus Christ makes thee whole.' Acts 9. 34.
Matt. 20. 23. To SIT on my right hand and on my left, is NOT MINE TO GIVE, but (it shall be given) to them for whom it is prepared of MY FATHER.
Yet our blessed Savior has promised elsewhere, to bestow this reward in his own right—' To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne.' Rev. 3. 21. This is sufficient to rescue the text from any heretical use that may have been made of it. But still there remains some difficulty, which, with God's help, I shall endeavor to clear up. It will appear to any person, not ignorant of Greek, that the original in this place does reserve to Christ that act of power and authority, of which the English version, by inserting a few words, seems to have divested him. The Greek is this—it is not mine to give, but to them for whom it is prepared. For in the eleventh verse of the foregoing chapter, there is an expression exactly parallel—save they to whom it is given. Now, there can be no grammatical reason, why we should not take—in the same manner; and then the text will affirm what it now seems to deny. For to say, that Christ cannot give any particular reward, save to them for whom it is prepared of his Father, is the same as to say, that to such he can and will give it; according to the common maxim—.Exceptio probat regulam in non exceptis.
The scope of the text, therefore, is to show, that nothing can be granted, even by Almighty power itself, where there is not a suitable merit or disposition in the persons who claim it. ' God shall give this honorable place to those for whom it is prepared, by an invariable rule of justice; whose victory of faith being foreknown and accepted, a seat is allotted them according to it.' And the two passages being laid together, supply us with this principle. As if our Savior, who is the speaker in both places, had said—' Though it be not mine to give, yet, to him that overcomes, will I (even I myself) grant to sit with me in my throne; because for him this seat is prepared.' It is not owing to a defect of power in the Trinity, or in any person of it, that the Divine purpose cannot be changed: but because it is impossible for the power of God to break in upon the order of his distributive justice. And it is upon this account only, that we read of Christ, Mark 6. 5. 'He could there do, no mighty work.' For the power of doing a miracle was always present with him; but the place being improper, because of their unbelief, made the thing impossible. In the same manner, that declaration of the Lord in Gen. 17. 22, is to be accounted for, ' Haste thee, escape thither, for I CANNOT do anything till thou become thither.' No man would hence conclude that the hand of God is straitened, or his power limited; but only that he does, and by his own nature must, act agreeable to the disposition of things and persons, known to himself.
1 Cor. 8. 6. To us there is but ONE GOD, THE FATHER.
If we compare this with that expression of St. Thomas,—John 20. 28.—MY LORD, and ray GOD, we have the following argument:
To us there is but one GOD, the FATHER.' But TO us Jesus Christ is GOD: therefore, the gospel has either preached two Gods to us, one distinct from the other: or that one God the Father is here the name of a nature, under which Christ himself, as God, is also comprehended. And the same may be proved of it in several other places.
Matt. 23. 9. Call no man your father upon earth, for ONE IS YOUR FATHER, which is in heaven.
Matt. 23. 10. Neither be ye called masters, for ONE IS YOUR MASTER, even CHRIST. John 3. 13, which is in heaven.
Dr. Clarke has a particular section, [] wherein he pretends to have set down the passages that ascribe the highest titles, perfections, and powers, to the second person of the Trinity. Yet he has wholly omitted the latter of these verses; though, by a rule of his own making, it allows to Christ a higher title than any other in the whole Scripture. It is the same author, who has laid so great a stress upon the word one, which he has insisted upon it can signify nothing else, but one person; and the criticism is thought to be of such use and importance to his scheme, that his book begins with it; and in the course of his work it is repeated three times, nearly in the same words. But the passage now before us, if he had produced it, would have turned his own weapon against himself. For the word is s, is here an attribute of Christ; and if we argue from it in this place, as he has done in the other, it must Chap. 2. sec. 3.
prove, that one person only is our Master, and that this person is Christ; which excludes the Persons of the Father and-the Spirit from the honor of that title; and so reduces that learned author’s reasoning to a manifest absurdity.
We are to conclude, then, that as the phrase, one Master, cannot be meant to exclude the Father; so neither does that other, one is good, (supposing that were the sense of the Greek,) or, one is your Father,' exclude the person of Christ. And if the reason of the thing teaches us that it cannot, so the Scripture assures us in fact that it does not: the title of Father, being also ascribed to the second person of the Trinity. For Christ, the Alpha and Omega, says of himself, He that overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his GOD, and he shall be MY SON. [Rev. 21. 7] Isaiah calls him The Everlasting FATHER. [9.6] And again it is written, They are the CHILDREN OF GOD, being the children of the RESURRECTION [Luke 20. 36] but, says Christ, I am the RESURRECTION [John 11. 25.] therefore he is God, and hath us for his children. If this be the case, the word Father cannot always be a name that distinguishes God from another Person of God: but is often to be understood as a term of relation between God and man: or, as a modern divine of our church has well expressed it, 'A word not intended for God the Father only, the First Person of the Trinity; but as it is referred unto the creature made and conserved by God; in which sense it appertains to the whole Trinity.'
John 14. 28. My FATHER IS GREATER than I.
The two preceding articles will sufficiently justify what the church has asserted with a view to this passage, that Christ' is inferior to the Father as touching his manhood.' And the stream of the whole Scripture is against that use the Arians generally make of it; who stand in need to be reminded at every turn, that in the person of Christ, there is a human soul and body, the nature of a man, which as it cannot lay claim to what is spoken of Christ in unity with the Father, so must it receive to its own account whatever seems to degrade and disjoin him from the Father. It is, indeed, hard to say, which of the two heresies is the most unreasonable and unscriptural; that of the Socinians, which never considers Christ as anything but a mere man; or that of the Arians, who never look upon him as anything but a supposititious God. Between these two gross errors, lies the true Catholic faith; which, as it allows him to be perfect God and perfect man, is never offended, or put to its shifts, by anything the Scripture may have said about him in either capacity.
1 Cor. 11. 3. The HEAD of Christ is GOD.
The name of 'Christ does here stand, as in other places out of number, for the man Christ; otherwise it must follow, that as Christ is God, God is the head of himself; which is a contradiction; or that one God is the head of another God; which also is a contradiction.
The text is capable of a good illustration from Gen. 3. 15, where we read, that the heel of the promised seed should be bruised: by which, the church has always understood the sufferings of his human nature, metaphorically represented by the inferior part in man. So in this place, his Divinity or superior nature, is as aptly signified by the head or superior part of the human body.
Mark 13. 32. But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither THE Son, but the FATHER.
It is declared of Christ in another place, that he increased in wisdom;' [Luke 2. 52.] why should it be incredible, then, that during the whole term of his humiliation in the flesh, something should still be left, which, as man upon earth, he did not know? If you suppose him to be ignorant of this matter as God, how is it that St. Peter confesses him to be omniscient, without receiving any rebuke for it, or being reminded of any particular exception? — LORD, thou knows ALL THINGS. [John 21. 17.]
John 1. 18. No man hath SEEN God at any time.
John 14. 8, 9. Philip saith unto him, LORD, SHEW US THE FATHER. Hast thou not SEEN ME, Philip? He that hath seen ME hath SEEN THE FATHER.
These words (says Dr. Clarke) do not signify, that he who hath seen the presence of Christ hath seen the person of the Father.' No, surely: but that he who hath seen all that was visible of Christ, hath seen the person, to whom was joined that invisible and Divine Nature, which the Scripture has Called by the name of the Father. And to shew that Christ (though he was God manifested in the flesh) [1 Tim. 3. 16] is yet no other than the same invisible God, whom no man hath or can see and live, we are told, that when he shall appear (glorified, not with any secondary Divinity, but with the FATHER'S OWNSELF) [John 17. 5.] we shall be like him (fashioned like unto his own glorious body, [Phil. 3. 21] and conformed to his image) [Rom. 8. 29.] for we shall SEE him As HE Is;' which no man ever yet hath done.
1 Cor. 15. 27. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that HE IS EXCEPTED which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be SUBDUED UNTO HIM.
Phil. 3. 20, 21. We look for THE SAVIOR, the Lord JESUS CHRIST, who is able even to SUBDUE ALL THINGS TO HIMSELF.
It is manifest, therefore, that the exception in the former text, is not meant to set one Person of God above another Person of God; but only to distinguish the power of the Divine nature from that of the human in its greatest exaltation. As Christ is man, all things are subdued unto him by ANOTHER; as Christ is God, he himself is that other, and able to subdue all things to HIMSELF. And this will be sufficient to confirm the reader in what I have already observed, that the cause of Arianism borrows its chief support from the humiliation of Christ in the flesh. Search the very best of their arguments to the bottom, by a diligent comparing of the Scripture with itself, and they all amount to this great absurdity. Man is inferior to God; therefore, God is inferior to himself: and this they prove, by imputing to Christ's Divinity what is said only of his humanity.
I have now presented to the reader's consideration the most noted texts, which, under the management of Arian or Socinian expositors, may seem to have favored their doctrine. Many, I hope, will be of opinion, that the Catholic cause is rather beholden to them, particularly in this last instance, for the opposition they have made against it; inasmuch as the objections they have drawn from the Holy Scriptures have directed us to some very clear proofs, which might otherwise have escaped our notice. If there be any other texts more for their purpose than what I have here set down, they have my free consent to produce and enlarge upon them as much as they please. In the meantime I shall proceed to give the reader some further satisfaction, and endeavor to convince him, with the blessing of God, that while heresy is obliged to glean up a few scattered passages, hard to be understood, and, for that reason, easy to be wrested by men of perverse inclinations; the faith of the church has the suffrage of the whole Bible, speaking in such words, as need not to be, refined upon by any metaphysical expositions, but only applied and considered.
Jude 1.4. Denying the ONLY LORD GOD, and OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
As there is no article before Greek, the first and second comma are both meant of the same person: and the plain sense, when freed from the ambiguity of the English version, is this—' Denying the only Lord God and our Lord,' Jesus Christ. This literal sense of the Greek may be supported by the parallel Greek of Phil. 4. 20.
There being here no article before Greek, it would be violent and unnatural to refer to one person and to another: whence Grotius paraphrases the expression by—and thus may the other be rendered with equal strictness and propriety, and though we do not rest the proof of the Trinity on any single passage, yet is the more natural construction of this text very strong and conclusive for it.
If this should be denied, I think the sense also is capable of demonstration. The words include this proposition—There is one supreme Governor. Now if this term be applied to Christ, it must follow that He is that one supreme Governor, in the Unity of the Father. But it is applied to him in the parallel place of 2 Pet. 2. 1, 'Denying the Lord that hath bought them' And if it should be doubted, whether this latter text be meant of Christ, it is demonstrated by another—' Thou was slain, and has redeemed us unto God by thy blood.' [Rev. 5. 9.] If this chain of reasoning be inverted, the force of it will be clear and undeniable. 1. Christ hath bought us. 2. He that hath bought us, is the Lord, or supreme Governor. But, thirdly, there is one only supreme Governor. Therefore, Christ is he.
Jude 1. 24, 25. Unto HIM that is able to PRESENT you faultless before the PRESENCE of HIS OLORY—to the ONLY WISE GOD OUT SAVIOR.
Eph. 5. 27. That HE (Christ) might PRESENT it to HIMSELF a glorious church, etc.
It is the only wise God, who is able to present us before the presence of his glory: but Christ is to present us, as members of the church in glory, to himself: therefore, he is the only wise God, to whom also appertains the presence of glory, for that is no other than his own presence, himself.
This is another express instance, that the only God, is not God in one person, but the Unity of the Trinity. For if you confine this phrase, with the Arians, to the single person of the Father, then of course you exclude the Person of Christ, and then, it is manifest, you contradict the Scripture. For though it be affirmed in this 'place, that the only wise God is to present us before his own presence, yet the same is elsewhere expressed by Christ presenting us to himself. Which is no way to be accounted (or, unless you believe Christ to be a partaker in the Being, attributes, and offices of the one, undivided, only wise God, our Savior. Then there is no further difficulty.
Eph. 3. 2. 3. The dispensation of the grace of GOD, which is given me to you ward: how that BY REVELATION HE (God) made known unto me the mystery.
Gal. 1. 12. I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but BY THE REVELATION Of JESUS CHRIST.
1 Kings 8. 39. THOU, even THOU ONLY KNOWEST the HEARTS Of all the children of men.
This, it seems, is the privilege of God only; but this God is Christ; for, says he, Rev. 2. 23. All the churches shall know that I am HE, which searches the reins and HEARTS.
Indeed this latter verse speaks plainly enough for itself, without being compared with the former. It implies, that there is One only who searches the hearts of men, and that Christ is he. And the Greek will very well bear it; as the learned reader will easily perceive. It is thus: There is One that searches, I am HE.
2 Pet. 1. 4. Exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be PARTAKERS of the DIVINE NATURE.
Heb. 3. 4. For we are made PARTAKERS of CHRIST, if we hold the beginning of our confidence (in the precious promises of God) steadfast unto the end.
What St. Peter proposes, as the end of our hope in the promises, is to be partakers of the Divine nature: but this, according to St. Paul, is to be partakers of Christ; therefore, Christ is in or of the Divine nature; the same Almighty God [Gen. 17. 1.] and Lord, who declared to Abraham, 'I am thy shield, and thy EXCEEDING GREAT REWARD.' [Gen 15. 1.] So that these being compared together, are decisive for the Catholic Homousian doctrine, at which the Arians, from the council of Nice to this very day, have been so grievously offended. And it has not been without reason. For if the word consubstantial be applicable to the Person of Christ, it makes short work with their heresy. To this end it was fixed upon and agreed to by the bishops of the whole Christian world4 as the most proper bar and badge of distinction between the Arians and themselves.
I say, of the whole Christian world: though a late author calls this (Ecumenical Council, summoned for the condemnation of Arius, 'a famous contest; as if one half of the world had been divided against the other.' And, he says, it was determined by a majority of near twenty to one; whereas in truth, there were but five out of three hundred and eighteen, who denied the Catholic faith. I mention this to show how some things may be represented by some sort of people, who, if they are not ignorant, must think it their interest to impose upon you. What would you think of a man, who having been present at an assize, should bring a report of it home to his family, and tell them he had been at a famous contest where there was a majority of near ten jurymen, six witnesses, and a judge, against the criminal?—See Ded to an Essay on Spirit, p 9, 10.
But they object, that the term is not scriptural; nay, there are some of no ordinary figure amongst them, who have not stuck to call it an invention of popery; though it is well known, that at the time this was adopted by the church, there was no such thing as popery in the world.' But the name is found to be of great use in amusing weak people, who have no ready stock of learning to contradict them, and, in some cases, I fear no good desire of being better informed; who can think it a notable proof of their zeal as protest-ants, that they take a pleasure in seeing their poor mother, the episcopal church of England, the honor of the Reformation, and the dread of popery, painted and dressed up for a Jezebel, by men of her own household; who have shipwrecked their consciences by subscribing articles they never believed, and are growing fat upon the provision allotted by the providence of God, only to support the church in her journey through this world to the kingdom of heaven. A sight that would raise the indignation of a Mahomedan! and almost move a papist himself to pity and pray for us!
But I would hope there are some few amongst the favorers of Arianism, who are not gone quite so far out of the way, and would be ashamed of such low and base artifice, as can only serve to expose and discredit their cause with any man of common learning and honesty. To these I address myself: and now the Scripture is before us, let me ask them a plain question or two. Is not the word essence or substance of the same signification with the word nature? and have not the Fathers of the church thus expounded it? and is not this phrase of the same nature as conclusive for the Divinity of Christ, as that other of the same substance? why then should that expression of the Nicene Creed be thought so offensive, when there is another in the Scripture so near of kin to it, that the Arians must be sensible they could gain nothing by the exchange? for the Divine nature, we all agree, can be but one; three Divine natures of course making three different Gods. But the Scripture, compared as above, has asserted Christ to be of this Divine nature. And if people were once persuaded of that, all further disputes about the word consubstantial would be at an end. But peace and unity for Christ's sake, is a blessing of which God has deprived this church for the punishment of its sins: and as we do not seem to be in any posture of repentance, it is to be feared he will never restore it to us again in this world; but suffer us to go on from bad to worse, till the measure is filled up.
It is a rule laid down by St. Paul, that God swears by HIMSELF for this reason, because he can swear by NO GREATER. Heb. 6. 13.
But Christ has sworn by himself:
Isa. 45. 23. I have sworn by MYSELF—that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
Which words being compared with Rom. 14. 10, 11, are proved to be the words of Christ. 'We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ: for it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess unto God.' Christ, therefore, has sworn by HIMSELF: so that if the apostle's rule be applied, he must for this reason be GOD, and there can be No GREATER.
Eph. 4. 8. When HE (Christ) ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Yet the Scripture here referred to, expressly affirms the person who ascended, etc., to be the Lord God.
Ps. 68. 17, 18.---The chariots of GOD are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the LORD is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, Thou heist led captivity captive, etc.
Heb. 9. 20. This is the blood of the TESTAMENT which GOD hath enjoined you.
Heb. 5. 16. Where a TESTAMENT is, there must also of necessity be the DEATH of the TESTATOR.
God is a Testator: but, argues the apostle, every testator must die, before the last will or testament enjoined by him can be of force. Therefore, if you keep close to the terms, the natural conclusion is, that GOD, being a Testator, should die, to make way for the execution of his testament. But it being impossible that the Divine nature of God should be capable of death; it follows, that the person who was capable of death, and did die as a man, was also God the Testator. And it is to express the strict and perfect union of the two natures in the single person of Christ, that what is true only of one, is predicted of both. Of this, two more examples shall be added in the articles that immediately follow.
Rev. 5. 9. Thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to GOD by THY BLOOD.
A distinction is here observed between the two natures of Christ: and, the act of redeeming us by the shedding of his blood, is ascribed to the Lamb, the Messiah's humanity. But in another place it is imputed to his Divinity, ' Feed the church of GOD, which he hath purchased with his own BLOOD [Acts 20. 28.] not that God, strictly speaking, has any blood of his own, to shed; but that he who shed his blood for us, as man, was God as well as man: or, in other words, that God. and man were united in the same person; something being predicted of God, which cannot possibly be true without such a union. So again:—
Zech. 12 4. In that day, saith THE LORD, (v. 10,) they shall look on me, whom they have PIERCED.
But, according to the evangelist St. John, this Scripture saith, John 19. 37. They shall look on HIM (Christ,) whom they have PIERCED.
As it stands in the prophet, the Lord (Jehovah) was to be pierced. So that unless the man Christ, who hung upon the cross, was also the Lord Jehovah, the evangelist is found to be a false witness, in applying to him a prophecy that could not possibly be fulfilled in him.
Phil. 1. 10. That ye may be sincere and without offence, till the DAY of CHRIST.
2 Pet. 3. 12. Looking for and hasting to the coming of the DAY of GOD.
Isa. 40. 10. Behold, the LORD Gob will COME---HIS REWARD IS WITH HIM.
Rev. 22. 12. Behold, I (Jesus) come quickly, and MY REWARD IS WITH M.E.
Amen: even so come, LORD JESUS.
CHAPTER 2.
John 3. 6. That which is BORN OF THE SPIRIT.
1 John 5. 4. Whatsoever is BORN OF GOD.
The same individual act of Divine grace, viz. that of our spiritual birth, is ascribed, without the change of a single letter, to God, and to the Spirit. Some capacity then there must be, wherein the Scripture makes no distinction between God and the Spirit: and this is what the Scripture itself calls the Divine nature; under which God and the Spirit are both equally comprehended.
Acts 13.2. The HOLY GHOST said, Separate ME Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I HAVE CALLED them.
Heb. 5. 4. No man taketh this honor to himself, but he that is CALLED OF GOD.
The shorter way is to ask the same Saul, who it was that appointed him to the work of the ministry? and his answer is no other than this, Paul, CALLED to be an apostle, SEPARATED unto the Gospel'—' By the commandment of GOD OUR SAVIOR [Rom. 1. 1, and 1 Tim. 1. 1.]
Matt. 9. 38. PRAY ye, therefore, the LORD OF THE HARVEST, that HE Will SEND FORTH laborers into his harvest.
Acts 13. 4. So they being SENT FORTH BY THE HOLY GHOST.
In this act of sending forth laborers unto the work of the gospel, the Holy Ghost is proved to be the Lord of the harvest, to whom Christ himself has directed us to PRAY. Wherefore, they are not to be heard who advise us to alter the third petition in the Litany; a work to which I am sure the Holy Ghost hath not called us, and such as will never be consented to by any laborers of his sending.
Luke 2. 16. And it was revealed unto him BY the HOLY GHOST, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
I set down the proposition, because it slays the Arian with his own weapon. It shows the prime agency and authority in this affair to have been that of the Holy Ghost, acting in his own right, and not as the minister or instrument of a higher power; for then, according to them, it should have been. For my own part, I lay no stress upon it; because I perceive, upon a review of the Scripture, that these two prepositions are used indiscriminately.
Luke 5. 28. And he BLESSED GOD, and said, Lord, now let thou thy servant depart in peace, according to THY WORD.
This word was the word of the Holy Ghost; who, therefore, is entitled to the context, and is God and Lord to be blessed or praised; not under any imaginary restrictions and limitations according to a certain degree of power delegated to him,—an evasion you will meet with in some modern writers,—but the Scripture, and common reason instructed by the Scripture, disclaim and abhor it, as an inlet to all sorts of idolatry.
John 14. 17. HE (the SPIRIT of truth) dwelleth with you, and shall be IN YOU.
1 Cor. 14. 25. GOD IS IN YOU of a truth.
2 Tim. 3. 16. All Scripture is given by INSPIRATION Of GOD.
2 Pet. 1. 21. Holy men. of God spoke as they were MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST.
John 6. 45. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all TAUGHT of God.
1 Cor. 2. 13. Not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the HOLY GHOST TEACHETH.
This latter verse would prove the Holy Ghost to be God by itself: for I cannot find that man, in the style of the Scripture, is ever opposed in this manner to any being but God only. I will subjoin a few examples of it.
John 1. 13. Nor of the will of man, but of God.
1 Thess. 4. 8. He therefore that despises, despises not man, but God.'
Rom. 1. 29. Whose praise is not of men, but of God.'
Acts 5. 3. Why hath Satan filled thine heart to LIE to the HOLY GHOST?
Acts 5. 4. Thou hast not LIED unto men, but unto GOD.
Dr. Clarke affirms, that the Person of the Holy Ghost, is nowhere in Scripture expressly styled God.' And then adds, by way of authority, 'see the text, No. 66.' [] And what text would you suppose this to be? Why, it is no other than that of Acts 5. 4, where he is expressly styled GOD. The Doctor refers us to it, because he has added a long perplexed comment to help us to understand it, I suppose; though a child may see the force of it without any comment at all. The substance of all he has said may be reduced to this, 'Ananias lied to God, because he lied to the apostles, in whom God dwelt by his Spirit.' Thus he has tried to evade it; even by producing one proof of the Holy Ghost's divinity, as an answer to another. For if the Scripture assures us that God dwelleth in us, and our only argument for it is because the spirit dwelleth in us; who can the Spirit be, but God himself? as it is proved in the following article. But before we proceed to it, I must beg the readers to observe how he has used and represented Athanasius's opinion upon the text. 'Athanasius himself (says the Doctor) explains this text in the same manner: He that lied (saith he) to the Holy Ghost, lied to GOD WHO dwelleth in men by his Spirit. For where the Spirit of God is, there is God.' The difference, then, between this author and St. Athanasius, is no more than this; the former takes occasion to deny that the Holy Ghost is GOD, the latter to prove it, and both from one and the same text; which, if you believe the Doctor, they have explained in the same manner.
1 John 3. 21. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward GOD.
1 John 5. 24. And hereby we know that HE abideth in us, by the SPIRIT which he hath given us.
The apostle's reasoning is this: 'The Spirit abideth in us, and hereby we know that HE (God) abideth in us.' But unless the Spirit be a Person in the Unity of God, the conclusion is manifestly false.
1 Cor. 3. 16. The TEMPLE Of GOD is holy, which temple are you.
1 Cor. 6. 19. Know ye not that your BODY is the TEMPLE of the HOLY Ghost?
Matt. 4. 1. Then was Jesus LED up BY THE Spirit, to be TEMPTED, etc.
Luke 11. 2-4. OUR FATHER which art in heaven—LEAD us not into TEMPTATION.
It is not my business in this place to shew particularly in what manner and for what end God leads us into temptation. That it is no way inconsistent with the Divine attributes, is plain from the case now before us: for Jesus was led up into the wilderness to meet his adversary and be tempted by him. And it is also plain from that petition in the Lord's Prayer, that our Father which is in heaven would not lead us into temptation: it being needless and absurd to pray that God would not do, what by the necessity of his nature it is impossible for him to do.
In this case, God is not the tempter: he only introduces us to the trial; and always provides, if we have the grace and prudence to embrace it, a way for our escaping, that we may be able to bear it.
But when Jesus was tempted, the leading him into temptation was the act of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, as often as we repeat the Lord's Prayer, we address ourselves inclusively to the Person of the Spirit, under the one name of OUR FATHER; and certainly, he also is our Father, of whom we are begotten and born, even of the Spirit: and again, 'as many as are LED by the SPIRIT of God, they are the SONS of God.' (Rom. 7. 14.) See Art. I. of this chapter.
2 Cor. 1. 3. Blessed be GOD, even the GOD Of ALL COMFORT.
If all spiritual comfort (sent from heaven) be of God, how is it consistent, that the churches had rest, walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, [Acts 9. 31] unless the Holy Ghost be a Person in the Unity of God? and how can he be styled, by way of eminence, THE Comforter, [John 14. 26] if there be a God distinct from him, who claims that title? for then he is not the Comforter, but one of the two; and two Divine Comforters, like two Almighties, would make two Gods; which is not a principle of Christianity, but of heathen idolatry. And the same reasoning will hold good as to another of his titles. For the Holy Ghost is called, by way of eminence, THE SPIRIT, [John 3.6] i.e. the true and principal, the Head and Father of all other spirits. Yet we are told that God is a Spirit: [John 4. 24] so that unless the Spirit be also God, we must believe in two supreme, distinct, and independent Spirits. And thus we justly argue for the Divinity of Christ; that because GOD is LIOHT, [1 John 1. 5.] and Christ is Light: [John 1. 9.] therefore, he is and must be God; even the minx God, because he is the TRUE Light. [John 1. 4, 7, 8, and 8. 12.]
1 Cor. 2. 11. For what man knows the things of a man, save the SPIRIT of a man which is IN Him? Even so the things of GOD knows none but the SPIRIT of GOD.
The spirit of a man knows the things of a man, for this reason, because it is in him. For the same reason, the Spirit of God knows the things of God, because it is in the Godhead; than which nothing further need be desired to prove the co-essentiality of the Holy Ghost. [] If you take it otherwise, there can be no parallel between the two cases. For how strange would it be to say, the human spirit knows the things of a man, because it is in him; minor so, the Divine Spirit knows the things of God, because it is out of him! This text brings the matter to a short issue. The church affirms the Spirit to be in God, as a Person of the same Divine nature; the Arians deny it, and will understand him to be out of God; not a Person of the Divine nature, but one inferior to, and distinct from it. To see on which side the truth lies, a man needs no other qualification but that of faith to receive the Scriptures as the infallible word of God: which the Arians, in most of their writings, have freely confessed it to be. If once they come openly to deny this, they are no longer Arians, but infidels of another denomination, with whom a different course is to be taken.
1 Cor. 2. 11. The THINGS OF GOD knows no man.
1 Cor. 5. 14. But the natural man receives not the THINGS OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
Here again, the Scripture makes no distinction, further than that of personality, between God and the Spirit of God; but renders unto God the things that are God's, by rendering them to the Spirit, who is God.
Deut. 6. 16, and Matt. 4. 7. Thou shalt not tempt the LORD thy GOD.
Acts. 5. 9. How is it that ye have agreed to tempt the SPIRIT of the LORD?
The Spirit is here substituted as the object of that particular act of disobedience, of which, according to the law and the gospel, the only object is the Lord our God: therefore. the Spirit is the Lord our God.
Dr. Clarke denies that in any place of Scripture there is any mention made of any sin against the Holy Ghost, but only of a blasphemy. He that can distinguish blasphemy from sin, must be an acute reasoner; when it is of all sins the greatest. But is it no sin against the Holy Ghost, to lie to him, to grieve him, [Eph. 4. 40.] or to tempt him? Why, then, did the Lord swear in his wrath against those that grieved him, if it were no sin? and why was that commandment given in the law, ' Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God?' And if the Spirit be tempted, is not the Spirit the object offended by that temptation? This is the very thing that learned man was afraid of. He would have proved blasphemy to be no sin, lest the Spirit should appear to be the object of sin; for that would have proved him to be God, the author and giver of the law; and that, again, would have spoiled his Scripture doctrine: so, the short way was to deny it.
Gen. 6. 3. And the Lord said, MY SPIRIT shall not always strive with man.
The Spirit of the Lord strove with the inhabitants of the old world, endeavoring to reclaim them by grace, and waiting long for their repentance. But this is called (1 Pet. 3. 20) the long-suffering. of God that waited in the days of Noah.'
Luke 11. 20. If I, with the FINGER of God cast out devils.
The parallel place in St. Matthew's Gospel has it thus:
Matt. 12. 28. If I, by the SPIRIT of God, cast out devils.
The finger of God is a metaphorical expression for the immediate power and agency of God: and to say that devils were cast out by the finger of God, is the same as to say that they were cast out by God himself: but it appears from the text of St. Matthew, that this particular act of the finger of God, that is, of God himself, was the act of the SPIRIT; therefore, the Spirit is God himself.
Ezek. 8. 1-3. The hand of the LORD GOD fell there upon me; and HE (the Lord God) put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head, and the SPIRIT lifted me up, etc.
In this text, the name of the Lord God, and the name of the Spirit, do both belong to the same Per. son. For though it be said, that the Spirit lifted up the prophet, yet was it no other than the Lord God who put forth the form of a hand and took him: therefore, the SPIRIT is the LORD GOD.
Acts 4. 24, 25. They lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art GOD, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is. Who, by the mouth of thy servant David, hast said, etc.
The terms LORD and PGD are here used to express the Divinity of him who spoke by the mouth of his servant David. But it 'was the Person of the HOLY GHOST who spoke by the mouth of his servant David; for, saith St. Peter, ' This Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the HOLY GHOST by the mouth of David spoke,' etc. Therefore, the terms LORD and GOD are certainly used to express the Divinity of the HOLY GHOST. So again:— ' It was the LORD God of Israel, who SPOKE by the month of his holy prophets, since the world begun.' Luke 1. 68, 70.
But then, it is written—' Well SPAKE the HOLY GHOST by Esaias the prophet,' [Acts 28. 25] etc. Therefore, the Holy Ghost is the LORD GOD of Israel.
Psalm 139. 7. Whither shall I go from THY SPIRIT? or, whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, THOU art there.
The Psalmist, to acknowledge the omnipresence of the Holy Ghost, says, Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?' and by what is immediately subjoined, he shews this to be the omnipresence of God himself; If I ascend up into heaven, THOU art there.' So that the terms thou, and thy Spirit, are equivalent; 1. e. equally conclusive for the immediate presence of the Divine nature itself.
It was said by the angel, Luke 1. 32, ' He shall be great, and shall be called the SON of the HIGHEST.' But the reason given upon this occasion WHY Christ was called the Son OF GOD, is this, and this only, viz. because he was begotten by the Holy Ghost—' The HOLY GHOST shall come upon thee, and the power of the HIGHEST shall overshadow thee; THEREFORE, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,' ver. 35.
When Jesus is called the Son of God, we understand the supreme and true God, besides whom there is no other. The devils themselves allowed it, and said—' Jesus, thou Son of God MOST HIGH!' [Luke 8. 28.] But the Person in God, whose Son Jesus is said to be in this place, is the Holy Ghost, by whose power (called the power of the Highest) he was begotten of the blessed Virgin, and thence called the Son of God.
Therefore, the Holy Ghost is God, and the Highest.
The prophet Isaiah, in his 6th chapter, tells us, he saw the LORD of Hosts: and at verse 8, that he heard the voice of the LORD, saying—' Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not, [Isaiah 6.9] etc.
Yet these very words, which the prophet declares to have been Spoken by 'the Lord, even the Lord of Hosts, were spoken by the Holy Ghost.—' Well SPAKE THE HOLY GHOST, by Esaias the prophet, unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand,' [Acta 28. 26, 27.] etc.
Therefore, the HOLY Ghost is the - LORD OF HOSTS.
The article of the Holy Ghost's supreme and absolute Divinity being now established in the plainest terms, I shall proceed to answer, from the Scripture, the objections usually made against it from thence.
Matt. 19. 17. There is none Good but one, that is GOD.
If this be a good objection to the Divinity of Christ, it must be equally strong against that of the Holy Ghost, for it is argued' from this passage, that the attribute of goodness is confined to the single Person of God the Father; who, therefore, is a being superior to, and different from Christ and the Holy Ghost. The error of this argument has been fully shewn above: for it -is not one Person, but one God, whom the Scripture has asserted to be good; and I now have an opportunity of confirming it, and of proving withal, that in the Unity of this one God, besides whom no other is good, the Person of the Holy Ghost, is and must be included. For it is written—' Thy SPIRIT IS GOOD; [Psalm 143.10] so that if the same inspired Scripture which declares the Person of the Spirit to be good, does also as plainly declare, that none is good, but God only; then the Spirit is God, even the only true and supreme God; and we are as well assured of it, as if it had been said, ' There is none good but one, that is, the Spirit, who is one with God.' The Hebrew in this place is yet stronger than the English. It is not good, but goodness itself, that is, Divine, essential, uncommunicated goodness, besides which there neither is, nor can be, any other of the like kind. There is one sort of goodness communicated to men upon earth; as we read, Psalm 112. 5, 'The good man showed favor,' etc., and, Acts 2. 34, that Barnabas was a good man, and full of faith,' etc. There is another sort of goodness to be found only in heaven, and that is the goodness of God, which is essential; but this goodness is also an attribute of the Spirit; who, therefore, is proved to be very God; and by that argument, too, for the sake of which, some have denied him to be God.
Matt. 3. 16. The Spirit OF God.
The Spirit, say they, is not God, because he is only the spirit of God. But so likewise the human spirit, whence the apostle has taught us to borrow an idea of the Divine, is the spirit OF a man; yet, was it ever pretended, that the spirit, for this reason, is one being, and the man another? No, certainly: and the same must be true of God, and the Spirit of God; as far as the being of the same man, who is one Person, can be an image of the same God, who is three Persons. But there is the plainest testimony of Scripture, that the Spirit, though said to be the Spirit OF Jehovah, is also called by the express name of Jehovah himself. For it is written, Judg. 15. 14, that the Spirit OF Jehovah came upon Sampson.' Yet, at chap. 16. 20, it is said, that Jehovah himself DEPARTED from him.' Till it can be shewn, then, that the Person who came upon him was one, and the Person who departed from him was another, it is undeniable, that the Spirit, though said to be or Jehovah, is strictly and properly Jehovah himself.
Heb. 2. 4. GOD also bearing them witness with gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will.
Hence it is objected, that the Holy Ghost is subservient and subordinate to the will of another; therefore he cannot be the supreme and true God. But if this own will of God should prove to be no other than the will of the Spirit, this imaginary objection of the Arians, which, if it be an error, must also be a blasphemy, will turn to a demonstration against them. And that the will of God really is the will of the Spirit, is manifest from 1 Cor. 12. 11, All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he (even he himself) wills.
Rom. 8. 26. The Spirit itself makes intercession for us.
The Spirit is not God because he makes intercession with God; and God, as it is imagined, cannot intercede with himself. But it is a matter of fact, that he has actually done this: therefore, it is wicked and false to say that he cannot. For God reconciled the world TO HIMSELF, and it was done by intercession.
The other objections I meet with, are all of this stamp: as that the Spirit is said to be given, to proceed, to be poured out, to be sent; and they argue that it is impossible for God to give, to proceed from, or to send himself. But here the question is begged, that God is but one Person, in which case it might be a contradiction: but the Scriptures demonstrate, as it will be seen in the following chapter, that God is three persons; and then there is no contradiction in any of these things. It is also to be Observed, that the giving, proceeding, sending, and ministration, of the eternal Spirit to Christ in glory, are terms that concern not the Divine nature, but relate merely to the acts and offices, which the several persons of the blessed Trinity have mercifully condescended to take upon them, for conducting the present economy of man's redemption and sanctification.
By this time, I take it for granted, every pious reader must have observed, how copious and conclusive the Scriptures of the Old Testament are upon the subject of the Trinity; and that without having recourse to them upon every occasion, it is impossible for me, or for any man, to deal fairly and honestly by the apostolical doctrine of the church of England. Our Lord himself has told us, that every scribe, or teacher, instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, should bring forth out of his treasure things NEW and old. [Matt. 13. 52.] It was his own practice. He ap-pealed, at every turn, to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, for the testimony of his own doctrine; and the church has followed his example, from the days of the apostles, almost down to the present times. And so far is the Old Testament from being no part of the Scripture, that it is the book, and the only book, the Gospel calls by the name of the Scripture. It was this book, which the noble and faithful Bereans searched every day of their lives, to see whether the gospel then preached, and afterward published in the New Testament was agreeable to it; with the intention either to receive or reject it, as it should appear to be recommended by this authority. It was this book, for his skill in which, Apollos is praised as one 'mighty in the Scriptures;' the same Scriptures, of which St. Paul was bold to affirm, for the benefit of a brother Christian, ' that they were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus.' As long as this faith flourished in the church, these Scriptures were much read, and profitably understood: but now it is dwindled into a dry, lifeless system of morality, they are become in a manner useless; and some (it grieves me to say) even of those who have undertaken to teach others, want themselves to be taught again this first element of Christianity, that the New Testament 'can never be understood and explained, but by comparing it with the Old.
Of this error and its consequences, we have a sad example in the celebrated Dr. Clarke; a man whose talents might have adorned the doctrine of Christ, had not his faith been eaten up by a heathen spirit of imagination and philosophy. He published a work, entitled, The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity;' a work of great pains and premeditation. In a short preface, he allows the subject to be of the greatest importance in religion—not to be treated of carelessly —but examined by a serious study of the WHOLE SCRIPTURE. And to convince the world that this and no other was his own practice, he affirms in his Introduction, p. 17, and prints it in capitals, that he has collected ALL the texts relating to that matter. Yet, his whole collection is finished and shut up without a single text from the Old Testament! I cannot find that he has even mentioned such a book. The Christian revelation, says he, p. 1, is the doctrine of Christ and his apostles. This, he calls, p. 4, ‘The books of Scripture;' and again, p. 5, The books of Scripture—not only the rule, but the whole and the only rule of truth—the only foundation we have to go upon.' And he proves it thus—' because no man has since pretended to have any new revelation.' An argument that will prejudice few people in favor of his sincerity. For though there has been no new revelation SINCE the books of the New Testament, as we all confess, does it follow that there was no old revelation BEFORE them? and did this author never read, ' that the same God, who spoke in these last days by his Son, spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets? [Heb. 1. 1.] yet he affects to know nothing at all of the matter.
And as to the use he makes of the New Testament, who would expect that a man who has made nothing of one-half of God's revelation, should be very nice in his treatment of the other? In the first place, he has not vouchsafed to follow the apostle's direction of ' comparing spiritual things with spiritual,' thence to collect their true meaning; but sets down his texts in such an order, as makes them to be all single and independent of one another; and that gives all possible liberty to the imagination to thrust in what sort of comment it pleases. When he refers to any parallel place, (which I think is never done, but on one side of the question,) the reader is not directed to the text itself, but to the meaning he has fastened upon it. At the beginning of every chapter, he sets down his own opinion at large, as the title of it: and you are to believe, that all the passages of that division do certainly prove it; which, if cleared of his comments, and compared with other texts, are found to prove no such thing, but the very contrary. And this he calls ' the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity: but if we call it by its true name, it is, ' Clarke's doctrine of the Scripture;' that is, of half the Scripture. How it came to Pass, that he should thus boldly set down his own resolutions upon the most profound article of the Christian faith, without consulting all the evidence that relates to it, or rightly examining any part of it—how this came to pass, God is to determine to whom all things are naked and open. All I have to do with him, is to rescue the word of God from such deceitful handling. And I have prevailed with myself to make these few reflections, because I find some modern objectors, of a lower class, have used this book in conversation and in print, as the oracle of the party, taking the Scripture upon trust, as his principles would give him leave to retail it. I know it will be accounted a hard thing, and called invidious, to rake thus into the ashes of a writer, who is not alive to answer for himself. And I confess, I am very far from taking any pleasure in it. But is it not much harder, that the ashes of this man should be scattered over the land, to breed and inflame the plague of heresy, till the whole head is sick, and the heart faint, and the whole body full of putrefying blains and sores 1 Arianism is now no longer a pestilence that walketh in darkness, but that brazens it out against the sun's light, and destroys in the noon day. It is a canker, which if it be encouraged much longer, will certainly eat out the vitals of Christianity in this kingdom: and when the faith is gone, the church, in all probability, will soon follow after it; for if the holy oil be wasted and spilt, the lamp that was made to hold it will be of no farther use.
CHAPTER 3.
The Hebrew name so often used in the Old Testament, which we have translated by the word God, is Elohim, a noun substantive of the plural number, regularly formed from its singular, [Deut. 32.17,and Heb. 1.11.] and very frequently joined with plural verbs and plural adjectives, to express a plurality in the Divine nature: though for another obvious reason, it is generally constructed with verbs and pronouns of the singular number, and gives a good sense, though the grammar of it be somewhat irregular.
The Jews would persuade us not to consider this word as a plural noun, but on some particular occasions. Whoever will be at the pains to examine their reasoning, will find it to be very childish and inconsistent, wholly owing to their hatred against the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the notion of a Trinity. But when the Jew is become a Christian, and the stumbling-block of the cross removed out of his way, he can allow the name of Elohim to be plural, as readily as other men; and it is one of the principal points he chooses to insist upon, to convince the world that his eyes are open, and he is sincere in his profession of the Christian religion.
John Xeres, a Jew, converted here in England, about forty years ago, published a sensible and affectionate address to his unbelieving brethren, wherein he lays before them his reasons for leaving the Jewish religion and embracing the Christian. The Christians (says he) confess Jesus to be God, and it is this that makes us look upon the Gospels as books that overturn the very principles of religion, the truth of which is built upon this article, the Unity of God. In this argument lies the strength of what you object against the Christian religion.' Then he undertakes to prove that the Unity of God is not such as he once understood it to be, a unity of Person, but of essence, under which more persons than one are comprehended; and the first proof he offers is that of the name Elohim. 'Why else (says het) is that frequent mention of God by nouns of the plural number? as in Gen. 1. 1, where the word Elohim, which is rendered God, is of the plural number, though annexed to a verb of the singular number; which demonstrates, as evidently as may be, that there are several persons partaking of the same Divine nature and essence.'
Gen. 1. 26. And GOD said, Let us make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness.
No sensible reason can be given, why God should speak of himself in the plural number, unless he consists of more persons than one. Dr. Clarke contrived the plan of his ' Scripture Doctrine' so as to leave out this difficulty, with many more of the same kind. Others there are who tell us it is a figurative way of speaking, only to express the dignity of God, not to denote any plurality in him. For they observe, it is customary for a king, who is only one person, to speak of himself in the same style. But how absurd is it, that God should borrow his way of speaking from a king, before a man was created upon the earth! And even granting this to be possible, yet the cases will not agree. For though a king or governor may say us and we, there is certainly no figure of speech that will allow any single person to say, one of us, when he speaks only of himself. It is a phrase that can have no meaning, unless there be more persons than one to choose out of. Yet this, as we shall find, is the style in which God has spoken of, himself in the following article. Though it be impossible to apply this plural expression to any but the Persons of the Godhead, there is a writer who has attempted to turn the force of it by another text, in which, as he says very truly, the weakness of the argument will appear at sight.' God invites the people by the Prophet Isaiah, and says, ' Come now, and let us reason together,' chap. 1. 18. Upon which he remarks, that, if this form of expression puts the children of Israel upon an equality with God, then we may allow some force in this argument.' And so we may if it does not. For, Let us reason, refers to an act common to all spirits; and, therefore, no Christian ever thought of arguing from it. But, Let us make man, refers only to an act of the Godhead. All spirits can reason: but only the supreme Spirit can create. Therefore, the author, instead of answering the expression, hath only brought together two texts as widely different as God and man.
If the king were to say to another, ' Let us see,' or, ' Let us breathe,' no man would be so weak as to think that the expression denoted, any equality or co-ordination in the person so spoken to. But if he should say, ' Let us pardon a malefactor condemned by the law,' then the expression would admit of such an inference. And the objector might have been aware of these distinctions, if he had not prematurely settled his faith before he had consulted the Holy Scripture.
Gen. 3. 22. And the LORD GOD said, Behold, the Man is become LIKE ONE OF us.
The Jews are greatly perplexed with this passage.
They endeavor to put it off, by telling us, God must here be understood to speak of himself and his council, or, as they term it, his house of judgment, made up of angels, etc., to which there needs no answer but that of the prophet, Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?' [Rom 6. 34. and Isa. 40. 13.]
Gen. 11. 6, 7. And the LORD said—Let us go down and there confound (Heb. Let us confound) their language.
Another instance of this occurs in Isaiah, 6. 8, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom Shall I send, and who will go for us?' Upon the plural word nobis, us, there is a short note of Junius and Tremellius, which contains the substance of all that can be said upon the occasion—'For this (say they) is a consultation of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' And it shall be proved to be so, in a proper place, from an inspired comment upon this chapter of Isaiah.
Gen. 20. 13. And it came to pass, when GOD caused me to wander from my father's house, etc.
The Hebrew is—God, they caused me wander; which, however strange it may sound to an English hearer, is the strict grammatical rendering of the original. And the expression is affirmed by Junius and Tremellius, with other commentators out of number, to respect the plurality of the Person in the Godhead. They have a short note upon it to the following effect: which I mention, not in the way of an authority, but only to shew how clear the case is to a Hebrew reader, whose mind is without prejudice. And though others may have attempted to conceal such evidence as this under a heap of critical rubbish, yet if we are to come to no resolution till those who dislike the doctrine of a Trinity have done disputing about the words that convey it, the day of judgment itself would find us undetermined. And if we would but attend to this state of the case, and apply it also to other points of doctrine, I am well convinced it would shorten many of our disputes, and make the word of God a much more easy and intelligible book than it passes for at present.
Gen. 35. 7. Because there GOD appeared unto him, etc.
Here again the Hebrew verb is plural—God they appeared, or were revealed to him. So again in 2 Sam. 7. 23: Even like Israel, whom God went to redeem:' which, in the original, is being in the plural. A celebrated Latin translator of the Old Testament has ventured to render it—iverunt Dii ad redimendun: but Dii in Latin, is not answerable to Elohim in the Hebrew; and, in strictness, may be thought to countenance the notion of Tritheism, or a plurality of Gods; which is abhorrent from the express doctrine of the Scripture; and against which the name Elohim is purposely guarded, by its being connected so very often with verbs and pronouns in the singular.
Deut. 4. 7. What nation is there so great, that hath GOD so nigh unto them? etc.
In the two preceding articles we have seen the name of God connected with plural verbs: it is here joined to a plural adjective, whose termination is the same with its own; for the original has it—Elohing Serebing—Deus propinqui—God who are so near. Another instance of which we have in Joshua 24. 19, Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God.' For the Hebrew reads it—Deus sancti ipse—he is a God who are holy ones. And again, Psalm 58. 12, Doubtless, there is a God that judges the earth the Hebrew of which is—Deus judicantes in terra—a God (i.e. Divine persons) who are judging in the earth.
Several other nouns there are beside the name Elohim, as well adjective as substantive, that
110 THE PLURALITY AND are set down in the plural number, where it cannot be denied that the being of a God is to be understood by them.
Mal. 1. 6, If I be a MASTER, where is my fear?' The Heb. is Adonim, in the plural—If I am Masters, etc.
Isai. 54. 5, ' For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name.' Here also the Hebrew substantives for thy Maker and thy husband, are both plural. And to prove that cannot signify thy Maker, in the singular number, it is also found connected with the word Jehovah in its singular form without the inserted as in Isai. 51.13, And forgets the Lord, thy Maker'.
Eccl. 12. 1, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth,' etc. The Hebrew of which is—Remember thy Creators, in the plural. And there is nothing strange in this, when we can prove so easily that the world and all men in it were created by a Trinity.
Instead of the usual names of God, adjectives expressing some Divine attribute are very frequently substituted; and these also occur in the plural, as in the following examples:
Prov. 9. 10, ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the HOLY ONES is understanding.' Another instance of, which may be found in chap. 30. 3. See also Hosea 11. 12, in the Hebrew 12. 1.
Eccl. 5. 8, ‘There be HIGHER than they.' The Hebrew is (avow) high ones, in the plural; and is understood even by the Jews themselves to mean the holy and blessed God.
Psalm 78. 25. Man did eat angels' food.
The word mighty ones, is never used for angels; and must in this place signify God, for the two following reasons:-1. Because Abir, in the singular, is several times used absolutely as a name of God; who is called Abir Israel, the mighty one of Israel, and Abir Jacob, the mighty one of Jacob, Gen. 49. 24, Psalm 132. 2, where the LXX. have rendered. 2. Because our blessed Savior, in discoursing upon the manna, John 6. 31-33, quotes this part of the psalm, and calls that the bread of God from heaven, which in the psalm itself, is called the bread of the Mighty. Therefore, Abirim is put for Elohim, and is taken in the plural, because God is plural.
Dan. 4. 26. And whereas THEY commanded to leave the stump of the tree-roots, etc.
At the 13th verse of this chapter we read only of one watcher, or holy one, coming down from heaven, of whom it is said, that HE cried, 'Leave the stump of his roots in the earth.' Yet the number is here very remarkably changed from he said, to they commanded. And though the words of the curse upon Nebuchadnezzar were pronounced by A watcher, and AN holy one in the singular; nevertheless, at the close of the speech, this matter is declared to be by the decree of the WATCHERS, and the demand by the word of the HOLY ONES. [Ver. 17. Compare this with Prov. 9. 10] Now, it is very certain, that the judgments of God are not founded upon the decree and word of angels, or of any created beings; therefore, this watcher could be no created angel, but a Person in the Lord Jehovah, who condescends to watch over' [Jer. 31. 28.] his people, and is called the keeper of Israel, that neither slumbered nor slept' The change of these verbs and nouns from the singular to the plural, can be accounted for upon no other principle: it is a case to which there is no parallel in any language, and to such as can be reconcilable only to the being of God, who is one and many. We are to collect from it, that in this, as in every act of the Godhead, there was a consent and concurrence of the Persons in the Trinity; and though there was one only who spoke, it was the word and decree of all. There is an instance of this sort in the New Testament. The disciples of Christ were commanded to " baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' And, without doubt, the baptism they administered was in all cases agreeable to the prescribed form. Nevertheless, we are told of some, who were commanded to be baptized in the name of the Lord,' [Acts 10. 48.] and particularly in the 'name of the Lord Jesus:' [Acts 8. 16.] so that there was a strange defect either in the baptism itself, or in the account we have of it; or the mention of one Person in the Trinity, must imply the presence, name, and authority of them all.
Dan. 5. 18. The most high God gave to Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor.
Ver. 20. And THEY took his glory from him.
Here again, the word they is a plain relative to the most high God. Nor can it otherwise be agreeable to the sense of the history, or the reason of the thing itself, considered as a matter of fact. For who was it that took away the glory of the king? It was not the work of men, but a supernatural act of the moat high God; to whom Nebuchadnezzar himself hath ascribed it—' those that walk in pride HE is able to abase.' I might here subjoin, in proof of a plurality, those numerous passages of the Old Testament, wherein God is spoken of, or speaks of himself, as of more Persons than one. I will produce a few of them, to shew that such are not wanting. Gen. 19. 24, ‘The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.' Psalm 110. 1, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,' etc. Dan. 9. 17, Now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant—for the Lord's sake.' Prov. 30. 4, Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his Son's name, if thou canst tell?' Isa. 10. 12, When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Jerusalem, I will punish,' etc. Isa. 13. 13, will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of Hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.' Isa. 22. 19, And I will drive thee from thy station, and from thy state shall he pull thee down.' Isa. 64. 4, Neither hath the eye seen, O God, besides thee, what he hath prepared for him that waited for him.' Hos. 1. 7, I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God.' Zech. 2. 10, 11, I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord; and many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent me unto thee.' Zech. 10. 12, ' And I will strengthen them in the Lord, and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord.' The passages hitherto produced in this chapter are designed only to prove an indefinite plurality in God. In the remaining part of it, I shall bring forward another class of texts, which spews this plurality to be a Trinity.
Psalm 33. 6. By the WORD of the LORD were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath (Heb. SPIRIT) of his mouth.
The breath or Spirit of the Lord's mouth, does undoubtedly mean the third person of the Trinity; who is called (Job. 33. 4,) The Spirit of God, and the Breath of the Almighty.' And it should here be remembered, that when Christ communicated the Holy Ghost to his disciples, he did it by breathing upon. them: [John 20. 22.] a demonstration that Christ our Savior, who, as a Person, is the Word of the Lord, is, in nature, the Lord himself; because the Spirit, or breath of the Almighty is also the breath of Christ. And this fact is also decisive for the word, so much controverted in the Nicene creed.
Psalm 48. 16. And now the LORD GOD and his SPIRIT hath sent ME.
The speaker in this verse is no other than Christ, who, at verse 12, calls himself the First and the Last, and does here declare himself to be sent, not only by the Lord God, but also by his Spirit: which should be taken some notice of, because the Arians have objected to the co-equality of the Son with the Father, because he is said to be sent by him. But if this should hold, it will follow that Christ, for the same reason, is also inferior to the Spirit. The author of an Essay on Spirit, whose violent proceedings in the church have chiefly moved me to draw up these papers, is warm in the pursuit of this argument, that Christ is inferior to the Father, because he was sent by him. We may, therefore, (says he,) fairly argue, as our Savior himself does upon another occasion—that as the servant is not equal to his lord, so neither is he that is sent equal to him that sent him."' Not quite so fairly: for here is a gross misrepresentation, of which, and of many other things, this author should give us some account, before he proceeds any farther in the work of reformation; it being a maxim, I think, with the wise and learned, that a man should always reform himself, before he undertakes to reform the world. Upon the occasion he refers to, our Savior has said, The servant is NOT DEBATER than his lord; neither is he that is sent DEBATER than he that sent him.' [John 13. 16] But in the place of this, he has ventured to substitute another reading that comes up to this point, and agrees better with the intended work of reformation, He that is sent is not equal to him that sent him;' printing the word equal in a different character to make it the more observable; and then puts an objection of his own forging into the mouth of our blessed Savior. He professes himself a great enemy to human compositions: and we have reason to believe him, where those compositions are not his own. But his making so free with this, and many other texts, does not look as if he was any great friend to the compositions of the Holy Ghost; and can do but little credit to a vindicator of the Holy Scriptures from the cavils and scoffs of an infidel.
Isa. 34. 16.—Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read—for my mouth it hath commanded, and HIS SPIRIT it hath gathered them.
In these words, there is one Person speaking of the Spirit of another Person: so that the whole Trinity is here included. Whether God the Father, or God the Son is to be understood as the speaker, it is neither easy nor material to determine. I am rather inclined to think it is the former.
Numb. 6. 24, etc. The LORD bless thee and keep thee.
The LORD make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
After this form the high-priest was commanded to bless the children of Israel. The name of the Lord, in Hebrew Jehovah, is here repeated three times. And parallel to this, is the form of Christian baptism; wherein the three personal terms of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are not represented as so many different names, but as one name; the one Divine nature of God being no more divided by these three, than by the single name Jehovah thrice repeated. If the three articles of this benediction be attentively considered, their contents will be found to agree respectively to the three Persons taken in the usual order of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the author of blessing and preservation. Grace and illumination are from the Son, by whom we have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. Peace is the gift of the Spirit, whose name is the Comforter, and whose first and best fruit is the work of peace.
Petrus Alphonsi, an eminent Jew, converted in the beginning of the 12th century, and presented to the font by Alphonsus, a king of Spain, who wrote a learned treatise against the Jews, wherein he presses them with this Scripture, as a plain argument that there are three Persons to whom the great and incommunicable name of Jehovah is applied. And even the unconverted Jews, according to Bechai, one of their rabbis, have a tradition, that when the high-priest pronounced this blessing over the people- he lifted up his hands, and disposed his fingers into such a form as to express a TRINITY. All the foundation there is for this in the Scripture, is Lev. 9. 22. As for the rest, be it a matter of fact or not, yet if we consider whence it comes, there is something very remarkable in it.
Matt. 28. 19. Baptizing them in the name of the FATHER, and of the Son, and of the HOLY GHOST.
2 Thess. 3. 5. The LORD (the Holy Ghost, see c. 2, art. 4, 18,) direct your hearts into the love of God (the Father,) and into the patient waiting of CHRIST.
2 Cor. 13. 14. The grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and the love of GOD, and the communion of the HOLY GHOST.
In this, and the foregoing article, the order of the Persons is different from that of Matt. 28. 19. The Holy Ghost having the first place in the former of them, and Christ in the latter: which is a sufficient warrant for that clause in the creed of St. Athanasius, ' In this Trinity none is afore or after other.' And Dr. Clarke, I presume, apprehended something of this sort; because he has corrected the apostle, and transposed the order of the persons in 2 Cor. 13. 14, without the least apology, or giving his reader any warning of it. Sec. LV. p. 377.
1 John 5. 7. There are THREE that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST.
There has been much disputing about the authenticity of this text. I firmly believe it to be genuine,, for the following reasons; 1. St. Jerome, who had a better opportunity of examining the true merits of the cause, than we can possibly have at this distance of time, tells us plainly, that he found out how it had been adulterated, mistranslated, and omitted, on purpose to elude the truth. 2. The divines of Louvain having compared many Latin copies, found this text wanting but in five of them; and R. Stephens found it retained in nine of sixteen ancient manuscripts which he used. 3. It is certainly quoted twice by St. Cyprian, who wrote before the council of Nice: and also by Tertullian; as the reader is left to judge after he has read the passage in the margin. Dr. Clarke, therefore, is not to be believed, when he tells us, it was never cited by any of the Latins before St. Jerome. 4. The sense is not perfect without it; there being a contrast with three witnesses in heaven to three upon earth; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, whose testimony is called the witness of God; and the Spirit, the water, and the blood, which being administered by the church upon earth, is called the witness of men. He that desires to see this text further vindicated from the malice of Faustus Socinus, may consult Pool's Synopsis, and Dr. Hammond; and I wish he would also read what has lately been published upon it by my good and learned friend, Dr. Delany, in his volume of sermons, p. 69, etc.
But, even allowing it to be spurious, it contains nothing but what is abundantly asserted elsewhere; and that both with regard to the Trinity in general, and this their divine testimony in particular. For that there are three Divine Persons who bear record to the mission of Christ, is evident from the following Scriptures:
John 8. 17, 18, 'The testimony of two men is true.' I am ONE that bear witness of MYSELF.' The FATHER that sent me bears witness of me.' 1 John 5. 8, It is the SPIRIT that bears witness.' And Christ hath also mentioned, upon another occasion, a plurality of witnesses in heaven. We speak (says he) that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not OUR witness!' [John 3.11.] which can be no other than the witness of the Trinity; because it is added, No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven;' therefore, no man could join with Christ in revealing the things of heaven to us.
Isa. 6. 3. And one cried unto another and said, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, is the LORD or HOSTS. See also Rev. 4. 8.
They are not content (says Origen) to say it
once or twice, but take the perfect number of the Trinity, thereby to declare the manifold holiness of God; which is a repeated intercommunion of a threefold holiness: the holiness of the Father, the holiness of the only-begotten Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' And that the seraphim did really celebrate all the Three Persons of the Godhead upon this occasion, is no conjecture; but a point capable of the clearest demonstration.
The prophet tells us, ver. 1, he saw the LORD sitting upon a throne; and at ver. 5, that his eyes had seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.' Now if there be any phrase in the Bible to distinguish the true God, it is this of The Lord of Hosts.' I never saw it disputed by any Arian writer. The author of An Essay on Spirit' confesses int and Dr Clarke supposes the name Lord of Sabaoth (Jam. 5. 4) proper to the Father only. So that in this Lord of Hosts,' sitting upon his throne, there was the presence of God the Father.
That there was also the presence of God the Son, appears from John 12. 41, ' These things, said Esaias, when he saw his (Christ's) glory, and spoke of him.' And that there was the presence of God the Holy Ghost, is determined by Acts 28. 25, ' Well spoke the Holy Ghost by Esaias the Prophet unto our Fathers, saying,' etc.: then follow the words which the prophet affirms to have been spoken by the Lord of Hosts.
It is written at ver. 3, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' This St. John has affirmed to be the glory of Christ; but it was the glory of the Lord of Hosts: therefore Christ is the Lord of Hosts. And if the parallel passage of Rev. 4. 8, be compared with this, it will appear (as it hath already, Chap. 1. Art. 23,) that he is the God Almighty spoken of in that book.
The text of John 12. 41, which, being compared with this of Isaiah, proves the second person of the Trinity to be the Lord of Hosts, is evaded by Dr. Clarke in the following manner: The glory which Isaiah saw (Isa. 6. 1,) is plainly the glory of God the Father; whence the followers of Sabellius condude, because St. John here calls it the glory of Christ, that therefore the Father and the Son are one and the same individual person.' It is concluded by the orthodox of the church of England, that the Person of Christ, and the Person of God the Father, are not one and the same individual Person, but one and the same Lord of Hosts; because the Scripture, thus compared, hath affirmed them so to be; and THIS is the conclusion Dr. Clarke should have answered. But instead of this, he has produced the monstrous and impossible doctrine of Sabellius, that they are one and the same individual Person, and answered that: which to be sure is easily done, and is quite foreign to the purpose. The other conclusion, which is the only true and natural one, is kept out 'of sight, because it cannot be answered: and this of Sabellius is slurred upon his credulous readers as the doctrine of the orthodox, who disclaim and abhor it. This is no slander; for let any person read his book with a little circumspection, and he will soon find who and what he would mean by the followers and doctrine of Sabellius. And let me give the reader the following caution, which he will find to be of great service in detecting the fallacious answers of the Arian writers in their controversies with the orthodox. Always be careful to examine whether they have replied to the proof itself, or to something else in the place of it. For when you have obtained any clear evidence from the Scripture, that two or more Persons are one God, one Lord, etc., they will give a new face to your conclusion, by changing the terms God or Lord, which are names of a nature, for that of a person, which can belong only to an individual. And then they shout for victory. O, say they, this man is a Sabellian! He believes three persons to be one person! But, on the other hand, if you make it appear, that in the Unity of the one God or Lord there are more Persons than one, then they change the word Persons for that of Gods: so that you are confuted this way also; and they cry you up for a Tritheist, a maintainer of three Gods! By the help of this artifice, Dr. Clarke attempted to deal with the Scripture; and the author of an Essay on Spirit, with the creeds and liturgy of the church. And, though it be a matter scarcely worth mentioning, thus also the authors of a Monthly Review have attempted to deal with myself. Some time ago I published a 'Full Answer to the Essay on Spirit,' which has since been reprinted in Ireland, and I humbly hope may have done some little service. But when these gentlemen had deliberated with themselves upon it for three or four months, it was retailed from their scandalous shop as 'a system of Tritheism, Sabellianism, and what not! I hope God will forgive them! and this is all the answer I shall ewer make to such men and such writers.
CHAPTER 4.
IF there be any diversity of nature, or any essential subordination in the Persons of the Godhead, it must be revealed to us either in their names, or their attributes, or their acts: for it is by these only that they are or can possibly be made known to us in this life. If the Scripture has made no difference in any of these, further than that of a personal distinction, (which we all allow,) we are no longer to doubt that there is a natural or essential Unity in the three persons of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. It shall, therefore, be shewn in this chapter, by a sort of proof more comprehensive than what has gone before, that these Persons have the same names, the same attributes, the same counsel or will, and all concur, after an ineffable manner, in the same Divine acts: so that what the Scripture is falsely supposed to have ascribed to God in one Person, will appear to be ascribed, by the same authority, to God in three Persons. That, therefore, these three Persons are but one God; they are three distinct agents, yet there is but one and the same Divine agency: or, as the church has more fully and better expressed it, that that which we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we are to believe of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or inequality.'
The Trinity in Unity is the one Lord, the Creator of the world.
Psalm 33. 6, By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Heb. Spirit) of his mouth.' The whole Trinity, therefore, created the world: yet this Trinity is but one Lord: for it is written, Isa. 44. 24, I am the Lord that makes all things, that stretches forth the heavens ALONE, that spreads abroad the earth BY MYSELF.' It follows, therefore, either that the Word and Spirit, did not make the heavens; or that the Father, with his Word and Spirit, are the ALONE Lord and Creator of all things.
The Trinity in Unity is the one Supreme Being or Nature, distinguished from all other beings by the name JEHOVAH. For the Scripture gives us the following position.
Deut. 6. 4,' The Lord our God is ONE JEHOVAH and again, Psalm 83. 18, Thou, whose name ALONE is JEHOVAH, art the Most High over all the earth.'
Yet Christ is Jehovah.
Jer. 23. 6, This is his name whereby HE shall be called, JEHOVAH our Righteousness.' So is the Spirit also:
Ezek. 8. 1, 3, The Lord JEHOVAH put 'forth the form of a hand and took me—and the SPIRIT lifted me,' etc., see also Chap. 2. Art. 4. and 24.
Therefore, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are the ONE Jehovah: they are three Persons, yet have but one name and one nature. And it is the great advantage of this argument, that the name Jehovah is not capable of any such equivocal interpretations as that of God; it has no plural; is incommunicable to any derived or created being; and is peculiar to the Divine nature, because it is descriptive of it. The author of an 'Essay on Spirit,' has endeavored to avoid the force of this proof, by pretending that there are two Jehovahs, one a distinct being from the other. But in this he has exposed the cause he meant to defend, and left the argument in a worse state than he found it; for if there be two, then it is false that there is a Most High over all the earth, whose name ALONE is Jehovah: and let him try if he can reconcile it. Dr. Clarke also pretends, in the titles of two of his sections, wherein the collection of texts is very numerous, to have set down the passages wherein it is declared, that the second and third Persons derive their being (that is the expression he was not afraid to make use of) from the Father. But he has not produced one such passage; no such thing being declared in the whole Bible; and the contrary to it is plainly revealed under this application of the name Jehovah.
The Trinity in Unity is the Lord absolutely so called; in Hebrew, Adonai; in Greek, Kurios.
Rom. 10. 12, The same Lord over all, is rich unto all that call upon him.'
The reader is desired to observe, that as I cannot, in all eases, fix upon a text that does precisely distinguish the Person of the Father, I shall, therefore, be frequently obliged, as in this instance, to set a passage down in the first of the three ranks, that does confessedly denote the true God.
Luke 2. 11, A Savior which is Christ the LORD.' Rom. 11. 34, For who hath known the mind of the LORD, or who hath been his counsellor?' Which Lord, as we learn from the prophet whence this is quoted, is the Spirit; for it is written, Isa. 40. 13, Who hath directed the SPIRIT of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?" That the Person of the Spirit is the Lord, is also plain from 2 Cor. 3. 18, Now the Lord is that Spirit,: 'We are changed from glory to glory by the Spit it of the Lord;' as by the Lord the Spirit:' which is all along to be understood of the personal Spirit, because the apostle begins expressly with that at the 3d verse of this chapter. And it was from the authority of these words, ‘The Lord is the Spirit,' added to those of verse 6, ‘The Spirit giveth life,' that the council of Nice borrowed the following chaise of its creed—' I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and GIVER OF LIFE.'
The Trinity in Unity is the God of Israel.
Matt. 15. 31, 'The multitude glorified the God of Israel.' Luke 1. 16, 17, ' The children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord THEIR God: and he shall go before HIM,", that is, before Christ.
2 Sam. 23. 2, 3,' The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me—the God of Israel said,' etc. So that unless he who spoke was one being, and he that said was another, the Spirit is the God of Israel.
The Divine law, and consequently the authority, whereupon it is founded, is that of a Trinity in Unity.
Rom. 7. 25, I myself serve the LAW of GOD.
Gal. 6. 2, Fulfil the LAW of CHRIST.
Rom. 8. 2, The Lew of the SPIRIT of Life.
The Divine law, then, is the law of God, Christ, and the Spirit of life. But it is written, James 4. 12, There is ONE LAWGIVER who is able to save and to destroy:' therefore, these THREE are ONE. And here we have the true reason why the Scripture has represented the whole Trinity as tempted and resisted by the disobedience of man. For sin being the transgression of the law, and the law being derived from the undivided authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, every breach of it is an offence against the Trinity: therefore it is written,
Deut. 6. 16, Thou shalt not TEMPT the Lord thy GOD.
1 Cor. 10. 9, Neither let us TEMPT CHRIST.
Acts 5. 9, How is it that ye have agreed together to TEMPT the SPIRIT of the Lord?
The mind and will of God is the mind and will of a Trinity in Unity.
The mind of God.
1 Cor. 2. 16, Who hath known the MIND of the LORD?
1 Cor. 2. 16, We have the MIND of CHRIST.
Rom. 8. 27, He that searches the hearts knows what is the MIND of the SPIRIT.
The will of God.
1 Thess. 4. 3, This is the WILL of God.
Acts 22. 14, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou should know His WILL.
2 Pet. 1. 21, Prophecy came not in old time by the WILL of man , but holy men of God, spoke as they were moved by the HOLY GHOST.
The second passage is meant of Christ and of his will. The God of our fathers, (said Ananias,) hath CHOSEN thee,' etc., but the Person in. God who appeared to Ananias, and said of Saul, He is a CHOSEN vessel unto ME,' was The Lord, even Jesus,' Acts 9. 15, 17. For want of comparing Scripture with itself. Dr. Clarke has set down the text of Acts 22. 14, as a character of the Father only. No. 366.
The power of God is the power of a Trinity in Unity.
Eph. 3. 7, The grace of God given unto me, by the effectual working of HIS POWER.
2 Cor. 12. 9, That the POWER of CHRIST may rest upon me.
Rom. 15. 16, Signs and wonders by the POWER of the SPIRIT of God.
The Scripture, therefore, has ascribed Divine power, and that in the same exercise of it (the ministry and miracles of St. Paul) to Christ and the Spirit in common with God the Father. So that when all glory and power are ascribed to the only wise God, what God can that be, but the Trinity? Upon this principle the Scripture is easily reconciled: upon any other it is unintelligible, as the reader may soon find by consulting Dr. Clarke and some other of the Arian writers; who, to avoid this plain doctrine, have tried to amuse us with a religion made up of scholastic niceties and unnatural distinctions, which no man can understand, and which themselves are not agreed in, nor ever will be to the world's end. Yet they often dispute against us from the acknowledged simplicity of the Scripture!
The Trinity in Unity is eternal.
Rom. 16. 25, 26, The mystery—made manifest according to the commandment of the EVERLASTING GOD.
Rev. 22. 18, I (Jesus) am the FIRST and the LAST.
Dr. Clarke allows these words, in this place, to mean Christ, yet where the same words occur in Rev. 1. 8, with the addition of the epithet Almighty, he denies it: though they are demonstrated to be spoken of the same Person by the context and tenor of the whole chapter: and he tells us, the character in one place differs from the other. So that upon his principle, the Scripture has revealed to us two different beings, both of whom are the first and the last, yet not co-eternal. Which is sufficient of itself to justify all that was said above concerning his distinctions, etc. See Chap. 1. Art. 3.
Heb. 9. 14,—' Who through the EVERLASTING SPIRIT.
The Trinity in Unity is TRUE.
John 7. 28, ' He that sent me is TRUE.'
Rev. 3. 7, Those things, saith he—that is TRUE, he that hath the key of David,' etc.
1 John 5. 6, It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the SPIRIT IS TRUTH.'
The Trinity in Unity is holy.
Rev. 15. 4, ' Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for THOU ONLY ART HOLY.'
Acts 3. 14, ' But ye denied THE HOLY ONE, and desired a murderer to be released unto you,' etc. See also Dan. 9. 24, and Rev. 3. 7.
1 John 2. 20, Ye have an unction from the HOLY ONE; that is, an anointing from the Holy Ghost, who is called,
John 14. 26, The Spirit the Holy One.
The Trinity in Unity is omnipresent.
Jer. 23. 24, ' Do not I fill heaven and earth saith the LORD?'
Eph. 1. 22, ' The fulness of HIM (Christ) that fills all in all.'
Psalm 139. 7, 8, Whither shall I go then from thy SPIRIT? If I go up into heaven, THOU art there; if I go down into hell, THOU art there also?
The Trinity in Unity is the fountain of life.
Deut. 30. 20, ' —Love the LORD thy God, for HE is thy LIFE.'
Col 3. 4, 'When CHRIST who is OUR LIFE shall appear,' etc.
Rom. 8. 10, 'The SPIRIT is LIFE.'
The Trinity in Unity made all mankind.
Psalm 100. 3, The LORD he is GOD, it is HE that hath MADE US.'
John 1. 3, 'By HIM (Christ) were ALL THINGS MADE.'
Job 33. 4, ' The SPIRIT of GOD hath MADE me.'
The Trinity in Unity quicken the dead.
John 5. 21, The FATHER raises up the dead and QUICKENETH them.
John 5. 21, Even so the SON QUICKENETH whom he will.'
John 6. 63, ' It is the SPIRIT that QUICHENETH.'
The Trinity in Unity instruct us in Divine knowledge.
John 6. 45, ' They shall be all TAUGHT of GOD.'
Gal. 1. 12, ' Neither was I TAUGHT it but by the revelation of JESUS CHRIST.'
John 14. 26, ' The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, will TEACH you all things.'
The Trinity in Unity have fellowship with the faithful.
1 John 1. 3, Truly our FELLOWSHIP is with the FATHER.'
1 John 1. 3, And with his Son JESUS CHRIST.'
2 Cor. 13. 14, 'The FELLOWSHIP of the HOLY GHOST be with you all.'
The Trinity in Unity are spiritually present in the elect.
1 Cor. 14. 25, GOD is IN YOU of a truth.'
2 Cor. 13. 5, CHRIST is IN YOU, except you be reprobates.'
John 14. 17, The SPIRIT dwelleth with you and shall be IN YOU.'
So again:
2 Cor. 6. 16, God hath said, I will DWELL in them.'
Ephes. 3. 17, —That CHRIST may DWELL in your hearts.'
Rom. 8. 11, —His SPIRIT that DWELLETH in you'
The Trinity in Unity reveal to us the Divine will.
Phil. 3. 15, ' God shall REVEAL even this unto you.'
Gal. 1. 12, ' Neither was I taught it but by the REVELATION of JESUS CHRIST.'
Luke 2. 26, ' It was REVEALED unto him by the HOLY GHOST.'
So again:
Heb. 1. 1, ' GOD who SPOKE unto the fathers by the prophets.'
2 Cor. 13. 3, Ye seek a proof of CHRIST SPEAKING in me.'
Mark 13. 11, 'It is not ye that SPEAR, but the HOLY GHOST.'
And as prophecies are revealed by, so are they also delivered in the name, that is, by the special authority of each Person in the Godhead. For though the usual introduction to any Divine revelation be—Thus SAID the Lord—yet we also find the expressions, These things SAITH the Son of GOD,' Rev. 2. 18. And, Thus SAITH the HOLY Ghost,' Acts 13. 3,—with many other passages to the same effect.
The Trinity in Unity raised the body of Christ from the grave.
1 Cor. 6. 4, ' GOD hath both RAISED UP the Lord, and will also raise us up by his own POWER.'
John 2. 19, ' Destroy this temple, and in three days I WILL RAISE IT UP.'
1 Pet. 3. 18, '—Christ—being put to death in the flesh, but QUICKENED by the SPIRIT.'
The Trinity in Unity conduct the people of God.
Isa. 48. 17, I am the Lotto thy GOD, which LEADETH thee by the way that thou should go.'
John 10. 3, He (Christ the Shepherd) calleth his own sheep by name, and LEADETH them out.'
Rom. 8. 14, 'As many as are LED by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of Goo.'
The Trinity in Unity give a commission and authority to the ministers of the gospel.
2 Cor. 3. 5, 6, Our sufficiency is of GOD, who hath MADE us able MINISTERS.'
1 Tim. 1. 12, JESUS CHRIST—counted me faithful, PUTTING me into the MINISTRY.'
Acts 5. 28, Take heed therefore to all the flock over which the HOLY GHOST hath made you OVERSEERS.'
The Trinity in Unity sanctify the elect.
Jude 1.1, To them that are SANCTIFIED by GOD, the FATHER.'
Heb. 2. 11, He that SANCTIFIED and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.' Rom. 15. 16, 'Being SANCTIFIED by the HOLY GHOST.'
The. Trinity in Unity perform all Spiritual and Divine operations.
1 Cor. 12. 16, 'It is the same GOD which WORKS ALL IN ALL.'
Col. 3. 11, 'CHRIST is all and IN ALL.'
1 Cor. 12. 11, 'But ALL these WORKETH that one and the self-same SPIRIT.'
LET us now take a review of what has been collected in these papers, and sum up the evidence in its own natural terms.
It has appeared from the first chapter, that Christ Jesus, whose Divinity is daily blasphemed amongst us, because it is not proved in the Scripture, is the Lord of Hosts,' the First and the Last,' than whom there is no greater,' and beside whom there is no God that he is the Savior of the world,' the Lord and God of the holy prophets,' and apostles, 'the most high God,' the Searcher of all hearts,' comprehended and made known to us under the name of that God to whom the world was reconciled? Who though he was the Word- of God, that came forth from the Father into the world, yet he was God, and of the same Divine natures with him that sent him. Though he was perfect man, of the seed of Abraham, born of his mother, and in all things made like to his brethren; yet the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily. Though he suffered, died, was pierced upon the cross, and redeemed us by his blood; yet that blood was the blood of God,' and upon his cross Jehovah was pierced?
That the objections urged against all these positive proofs, proceed wholly upon false principles; being drawn, partly, from natural religion and philosophy, which never were nor ever will be subject to the law of God; and is not intended so to be by those who set it up and dispute for it. Partly from the economical offices and humiliation of Christ in the flesh;' in which it is nevertheless affirmed, that God himself was made manifest. 1 Tim. 3. 16. And lastly, from the Unity" of God so often asserted and insisted upon in the Scripture; not in opposition to the Godhead of Christ, but to the idols [1 John 5. 21.] then worshipped all over the heathen world. Hence it is, that God is called the true God; for they were false ones: one God; for they were many: [1 Cor. 8. 5, 6.] the living God; [Acts 14. 15.] for they were vanities without life. Yet in the place of these idols, who are to supply the contrast, they have substituted the person of their blessed Redeemer, the true God, [1 John 5. 20.] the everlasting Father, the Lord of Glory, [1 Cor. 2. 8] who is able to subdue all' things to himself, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end.
From the second chapter it has appeared, that the Holy Ghost is our spiritual Father, by whose Divine power we are begotten to a new life; and to whom we daily pray that he would not lead us into temptation. That he is the Lord,' even the Lord of Hosts,' the ruler of the Christian economy calling men to that honor in his church, which God only" can bestow upon them. That he is incomprehensibly united with God, and sensible of the omnipotent will in himself: even as the human spirit is united to man, 'and understands its own thoughts." That his power, is the immediate power of God himself; his inspiration, is the inspiration of God; his presence, the presence of God." That he is God," even the Highest; for the man Christ Jesus, who is the Son of God, and the Son of the Highest, was so called BECAUSE he was begotten of the Holy Ghost."
That the objections usually brought to disguise and destroy this evidence, are taken from the Unity, the attributes, and will of God, and the ministration of the Spirit in the economy of grace; all of them falsely interpreted.1 For as to the Unity of God, it is not a Unity of Person. As to the supreme attribute of goodness, it is also possessed by the Spirit. As to the will of God, according to which the gifts and graces of the Spirit are distributed, it is opposed to the will of man, not to that of the Spirit: which is said to blow where it listed, and to divide or distribute unto every man his gifts, not as man the receiver, but as he himself wills."
It has appeared from the third chapter, that God is signified to us throughout the Old Testament by a name that is plura1, and proved to be such from many particular instances; yet generally so restrained and qualified, as to destroy the suspicion of a plurality of Gods. That to this common name of God, many other plural names and expressions are added; and that an interchanging of the plural and singulars is frequently observed, which neither grammar nor reason can account for upon any principle, but that of a real Divine plurality. That the Persons of God are three in number, precisely distinguished on some occasions by the personal names of the Father, the Word, or Son, and the Holy Spirit,' and also by different offices. That the same term is not always peculiar and proper to the same person; because the words God, Lord, Jehovah, and Father, are sometimes applied to one Person, sometimes to another; while at other times they are not personal, but general names of the Divine nature. That in the Lord of Hosts,' sitting upon his throne, and speaking of himself in the plural to the Prophet Isaiah; there was not one Person only, but three; the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, all expressed under one name in the Old Testament, but personally distinguished to us by three different ones in the New, where this matter is referred to.
In the fourth and last chapter, the passages of the Scripture have been laid together, and made to unite their beams in one common center, the Unity of the Trinity; which Unity is not metaphorical and figurative, but strict and real: and there can be no real Unity in God, but that of his nature, essence, or substance, all of which are synonymous terms: this Unity considered in itself, is altogether incomprehensible: but it is one thing to read and to know that there is a Divine nature, and another thing to describe it. That it is proved to be a Unity of essence; first, because the three Persons are all comprehended under the same individual and supreme appellation.
They are the one Lord absolutely so called, the Creator of the world, and the God of Israel.' Secondly, because they partake in common of the name Jehovah, which, being interpreted, means the Divine Essence: and what it signifies in one Person, it must also signify in the others; as truly as the singular name Adam, in its appellate capacity, expresses the common nature of all mankind. And this name neither is nor can be communicated, without a contradiction, to any derived or inferior nature, as well on account of its signification as its application, which is expressly restrained to one only. Thirdly, it is further proved, in that the authority, the secret minds or counsel, and the power by which all things are established and directed, is ascribed to Christ and the Spirit in common with God the Father; and that in the same exercise of it, and upon the same occasions. Fourthly, because there is a participation of such Divine attribute. as cannot subsist but where they are original. Our understanding, if it be moderately instructed, will satisfy us there can be one only who is eternal, and possessed of holiness, truth, life, etc., in and from himself. Yet the whole Trinity is eternal, holy, true, living, and omnipresent: therefore, these three were, and will be, one God from everlasting to everlasting. Fifthly, and lastly, because there is a concurrence of the whole undivided Godhead in all those acts, every one of which has in it the character of a Divine wisdom and omnipotence; and expresses such an intimate union and communion of the Holy Trinity, as the understanding of man cannot reach, and which no words can ex-plain. For though it is and must be one God who cloth all these things, yet it is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who gave us our being, instruct, and illuminate us, lead us, speak to us, and are present with us; who give authority to the church, raise the dead, sanctify the elect, and perform every Divine and spiritual operation.
This is the God revealed to us in the holy Scripture; very different from the Deity so much talked of in our systematical schemes of natural divinity; which, with all its wisdom, never yet thought of a Christ, or a Holy Ghost, by whom nature, now fallen and blind, is to be reformed, exalted, and saved. The Bible we know to be the infallible word of God; the rule of our faith and obedience. I find this doctrine revealed in it; therefore I firmly believe and submit to it. And as the liturgy of the church of England hath affirmed the same in all its offices, and contains nothing contradictory thereto, I believe that also: and hope the God whom we serve will defend it against all attempts towards reforming Christianity out of it; that the church militant here on earth, may continue to agree in this fundamental doctrine with the church triumphant in heaven. For there the angels rest not day and night, praising this Thrice Holy,' blessed, and glorious Trinity. They have neither time nor inclination to dispute against that glory, which they cannot steadfastly behold. And had we a little more humility and devotion, we should not abound so much with disputation. If, in such a subject as this, we trust to our own reason, and it should have proved at last to have betrayed us into error, irreligion, and blasphemy, what shall we have to say in excuse for ourselves? we shall not dare to plead the dignity and strength of our rational faculties before the tribunal of Him, who came into the world to bring the wisdom of it to nought. And if the religion of Jesus Christ is to be corrected and softened till it becomes agreeable to the natural thoughts and imaginations of the human heart, then in vain was it said—'Blessed is-he whomsoever shall not be offended in me.'
As for him who is convinced that God is wiser than himself, who believes as he ought, and as the catholic church of Christ hath given him an example from the beginning, his danger lies on the other side; and while I venture to give him warning of it, I beseech him to safer the word of exhortation, and to take in good part the faithful wounds of a friend. Let him take care, then, that while he values his orthodoxy, he be not led unawares to overvalue it, by drawing false conclusions from it, and conceiting himself to be already perfect. If he knows and believes in the true God, he doeth well; but let not that which is an honor to him, be any encouragement to dishonor God; the knowledge of whom will only serve to increase our condemnation, if we live in any lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, who knew him not.' And though it be the faith of a Christian, and not his morality, that distinguishes him from the rest of mankind, yet that faith must appear in the conduct of his life; even as love to a friend is best witnessed by a readiness to do him service. It is true, the service is not the love, nor of equal value with it: yet the love that refuses the service will be accounted as nothing. The mystery of faith is an invaluable treasure; but the vessel that contains it must be clean and undefiled; it must be held in a pure conscience; as the manna, that glorious symbol of the word of faith preached to us by the gospel, was confined to the tabernacle, and preserved in a vessel of gold. A mind that is conformed to this world, and given up to its pleasures, though it repeat the creed without questioning a single article of it, will be abhorred in the sight of God, as a vessel unfit for the Master's use; and unworthy, because unprepared, to stand in the most holy place. It is the great excellence of faith, that it can produce such a transformation in the life and manners, as no other principle has any power to do; and many are possessed of this truth without applying it to their own advantage. It is to be feared that a consciousness of this damps their zeal, and creates that poor, pitiful, cowardly indifference, so much in vogue; which, if it had not by accident found the name of charity, would have been ashamed to shew its face in a Christian country. They are cold and backward to promote any religious conversation; they will not appear to be in earnest about their faith in the eyes of the world, lest they should be forced to abridge somewhat from the gaiety of their lives, and to live as they speak. But let them remember, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord: no dross or impurity of this world will be suffered to continue in his sight. And in this, he has no hard Master, reaping where he hath not sown, and requiring the fruit of good works without giving us strength and ability to bring them forth. He has provided for us the precious blood of the Lamb, and offered to us the assistance of his Holy Spirit, that we may be enabled to serve that living God in whom we believe. If we are purged by him, we shall be clean: if he wash us, we shall be whiter than snow: and when the kingdom of God shall come, and his glory shall appear, we shall be prepared to behold his face in righteousness.
This, and no other, is my sincerest wish and prayer for every Christian, who shall give himself the trouble to peruse these papers; in which I pretend to no merit but that of a transcriber; which I shall always esteem to be honor enough, where the word of God is my original. And if they should be any way instrumental to promote so good an end, he will not have read, nor shall I have written in vain.
IN ANSWER TO SOME POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE TRINITY, BEING AN APPENDIX TO THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.
Men and Brethren:
As Christians and members of the church of England, you have been taught that the true God, whom you are bound to believe and worship, is a Trinity in Unity. In the name of these three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, you have been baptized; and in the litany are directed to pray to this holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God, that he would have mercy upon us miserable sinners.
From the first propagation of the gospel, there has been a sort of men in the Christian church, who had too high an opinion of their own knowledge and wisdom, to submit quietly to this doctrine. They pretended it was contrary to their reason and common sense, and impossible, in the nature of things, that the true God should be made manifest in the flesh for the salvation of the world; and hence they argued, that the incarnation must either have been a delusion, a fact brought to pass only in show and appearance; or that the Person incarnate must have been some created being, far inferior in power and dignity to the divine nature itself.
About three hundred years after the death of Christ, when paganism, or the worship of idols, was losing its influence in the Roman empire, this heresy being come to its full growth, did immediately supply the place of it, and prospered to such a degree that it overspread the greatest part of the East, and ended at last in the imposture of the false prophet Mahomet; whose doctrine was readily embraced wherever Arianism prevailed, and no where else among Christians; and his disciples do at this day most zealously deny that Trinity which you worship.
When the teachers of the church found themselves disturbed, and their people corrupted more and more by the daily increase of this heresy, upwards of three hundred Christian bishops, many of whom had been tortured and maimed in the heathen persecutions, assembled 'together at the city of Nice, in Bithynia, and one Arius, a principal promoter of this wickedness, was summoned to appear before them: his doctrine and writings were condemned; the faith which these holy men had brought with them to the counsel was declared, and is now preserved in the Nicene creed; which form we make use of in the church because it comprehends the sense of our faith in a few words. But we do not rest our belief upon the authority of any human form, because the doctrine therein expressed is secured by the unquestionable authority of the Old and New Testaments.
The evidence of this faith, as it is found in the Scripture, I have endeavored to extract and methodize in the best manner I could. The work was made public rather with an humble and charitable desire to assist the studies of the younger clergy, than to instruct the common people; and, therefore, it was first printed at Oxford. Nevertheless, I am well persuaded, that so many of the arguments therein contained, are levelled to all capacities, that an unlearned reader may thence be able to satisfy himself, and inform hie Christian neighbors. I shall, therefore, have no occasion in this place to urge any new evidence from the Scripture, but only to refer to some of the old; it being the design of this address to obviate a, set of popular arguments, which have been made use of by some nameless writers, to turn your affections from the doctrine of the Trinity; most of which might be applied, with as much propriety, to prejudice you against any other article of faith in the Christian religion.
1
You know, my dear brethren, that pride is a very prevailing passion in human nature; and unless we are very much upon our guard, and are fortified with the true principles of Christian humility, we are all of us in danger of being ensnared by it. Men are proud of their clothes, and proud of their riches, and proud of their titles; but, above all, they are proud of their understanding. Some men are endowed with a strength of mind which enables them to bear up, with cheerfulness, under the common trials of sickness, and losses, and disappointments; while, perhaps, the same men cannot endure the thought of being cheated and imposed upon, because it is a reflection upon their understanding. Our adversaries, therefore, hoping to make the stronger impression/ apply themselves, first of all, to your pride, and inform you that this doctrine of the Trinity is imposed upon your consciences by church authority. [] But if the fact be laid before you, it will soon appear that no point of faith is thus imposed upon you by the church of England. The points of faith which you are required to believe, are interwoven with all the forms and offices of our public liturgy. They are collected together for the younger sort of people in the church catechism: and for all teachers, whether clergy or laity, they are drawn out more at large in the Articles of Religion, generally printed at the end of the book of Common Prayer. So that all the articles of faith being imposed in the same manner, it will follow, that they are all imposed by church authority, or none of them. Let us put it to the trial, and begin with the first article of the creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty.' How is this article imposed? Does the church determine by her own authority whether there is a God or not? And so for the rest. Does the church determine whether there is a Christ, or a Holy Ghost? whether there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a life everlasting 1 Certainly the church neither does nor can pretend to determine any of these things for us; because, where anything is determined by authority, such authority must be superior to what it determines: to suppose which, in this case, would be equally false and presumptuous. Therefore, the truth of the matter is this; that the church does only declare that faith which it has received; and, instead of her imposing, this faith is imposed upon the church by the uncontrollable authority of God in the holy Scripture, to which every private Christian is, referred for the proper evidence of any particular doctrine, and for that of the Trinity amongst the rest. Those articles which, are of a nature inferior to the church itself, are the only subjects of church authority. Thus, as the body is more than the raiment that is worn upon it; so the life and being of the church are superior to those outward regulations, which serve only to the order, decency, and well being of it; and which the church may, for this reason, appoint, alter, and improve, by her own authority. But if any man informs you, that points of faith or moral practice are imposed upon your consciences by the same authority, he has either mistaken the case, or is himself endeavoring to impose upon your understanding.
2.
But the gospel,' they say, was designed for persons of all capacities, and unless all persons of common sense are qualified to understand what the Lord requires of them, we must charge Almighty God with dealing unfairly with his creatures: [] Now, if the gospel be so easy that nothing but bare common sense is wanted for the understanding of it, why do these authors write so many books to help you to understand it in the Arian sense? If you are able, as they flatter you, to instruct yourselves out of the gospel, then their practice is a contradiction to their principle, and their labor is superfluous by their own confession. My brethren, we do not argue in this manner; we know that you have sense and ability to understand the merits of a cause, and are ready to hear reason, when it is plainly represented to you; but if you were able make all things intelligible to your own selves, we should neither preach to you, nor write books for you.
When God appointed teachers in his church, (1 Cor. 12. 28,) he certainly did not suppose that the „congregation would be equally capable of teaching themselves. If this were true, then, indeed, God would seem to have dealt unfairly with Christian people, by appointing a ministry of learned men, and providing for their instruction, as if bare common sense, with the Bible in its hand, were not so sufficient, as our adversaries would have you believe; in opposition to us, kit not to themselves.
The duty of a Christian minister is to teach: his studies are intended to qualify him, and his time is set apart, for that purpose. For the bulk of the people, God hath appointed labor and business of another kind, as necessary to support themselves and their families; and their duty is to hear. But if God hath required you to do our work and your own too, then your lot is hard indeed. You will not, therefore, think it any reflection upon your common sense, that God has appointed an order of teachers in his church, who will never desire you to believe what they are not at all times ready to prove; but will rather beseech him that these teachers may be endued with faith and affection to fulfil the labor of love to which they are called, and courage to declare that truth which they have learned from the holy Scriptures; and by thus praying for the clergy, you will convince them that God hath added grace to your common sense, and that you practice that Christian charity which is more acceptable in his sight than the attainments of learning and knowledge; for these are no more than temporary qualifications, and are to be used only as means; but charity is the end and perfection of all.
3.
They tell you, moreover, that people of all sorts have a right to judge for themselves in matters of religion. As this principle very nearly affects the peace of the Christian world, and the salvation of individuals, I would advise you to inquire strictly into the meaning of these terms, and to consider how far they may be justified, and how far they are to be condemned. Right is a pleasing thing, and liberty is an old temptation; but if any Christian doth so assert his right against a human law, as to depart from his obedience and subjection to the Divine law, such a right will do him no good when he has got it, because it will not protect him under his religious mistakes against the superior judgment of God; so far from it, that it is probably one of the chief mistakes he will have to answer for.
When they assert that you are to judge for yourselves, they must mean, either that you are to judge of truth by its proper evidence, or that, by a certain prerogative of conscience, you are to guess for yourselves what is right or wrong, without any evidence at all. If only the former of these senses is intended, they say no more than we all say, and what the church hath said ever since the Reformation. If the latter is also allowed, and unlearned people have a right to follow their conscience, (that is, their inclination,) without any evidence, or with some false and partial representation of it, then it will follow, that the difference between good and evil is not real, but imaginary; that truth and falsehood, like temporary fashions, are not the objects of reason, but of fancy; which doctrines, if admitted in their full latitude, would turn all reason and religion upside down: and I think they have done it in part already.
When they come to apply this principle, they take occasion to add, that if you are convinced of such doctrines as they teach you, viz. that God Almighty is only one and the same Person, that the Holy Ghost is first minister in the government of the church, that he has angels to assist him, that Christ is to be honored with mediatorial worship, etc., ' then you have a right to protest against the Athanasian creed.' But, I say, neither you nor I can possibly have any such right as this, unless We are convinced by sufficient reasons. Our persuasion can never be turned into an argument, unless it be also maintained, that a man who is persuaded can never be mistaken. The Mahomedans are convinced that their Alcoran is a Divine revelation; that all Christians are guilty of blasphemy in believing, and idolatry in worshipping, a Trinity in Unity; and that they have a right to protest against the foundations of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But as they are convinced of these things, for very bad reasons, we pity the blindness of their understanding, and only laugh at the right they have assumed, as one of those many groundless castles which human vanity and bigotry have built in the air.
But allowing that Arians, thus convinced, have a right of protesting, what are orthodox Christians to do on the other hand? Have they no right? Does a persuasion confer a right on one side, and none on the other? that would 'be very unreasonable. Therefore, we, who are convinced that the creed of Athanasius is more agreeable to the Scripture than the doctrines of Arianism, have a right to remonstrate against the repealing of it; though we can never expect to do so, without being persecuted and reviled for it as long as we live.
4.
To prejudice your minds against the Athanasian creed, they inform you, that the doctrine of the Trinity, as there set forth, is 'not expressed in the words of Scripture; there are no such propositions to be found in the declarations of Christ and his apostles.' By this it is meant, that you do not find any such expressions as Trinity in Unity—not three Eternals, but one Eternal,' and such like.
The best course you can take upon this occasion, is to argue with them upon their own principles, which generally stop a man's mouth sooner than any other. Ask them, where they find it asserted in the words of the Scripture, 'Almighty God is one supreme intelligent Being, or Person I' Ask them, in what chapter or verse Christ or his apostles did ever declare, that' the Holy Spirit is first minister in the government' of the church; and where it is said that he has angels for his assistants!' Ask them, again, where they meet with the proposition, the worship of Christ is inferior or mediatorial?' And you might ask them twenty more such questions, which they could never ask upon their own principles; so that they have employed an argument to corrupt you, which returns upon themselves, and with this disadvantage on their side, that they have departed from the sense as well as the-words of Scripture; but the church, if besides the words of Scripture, it uses others, does still retain such a sense, as the words of Scripture will clearly justify.
5.
But lest you should believe this, they assure you the Athanasian creed has proposed a downright contradiction as an article of faith; and if this be the case, then, indeed, we must allow that such a contradiction cannot be justified by the words of Scripture. You must believe (say they) if this creed has any weight, that three Gods is one God.' If you examine the creed itself, you will find no such doctrine as they have put into it; but on the contrary, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are NOT THREE GODS, but ONE GOD; and again, We are forbidden, by the catholic religion, to say, there be three Gods.' I pray you to observe this; and to consider with yourselves, whether our adversaries, supposing them to be satisfied in their own consciences that they were able to confute the catholic doctrine of three Persons and one God, would have endeavored to take advantage of your simplicity, by putting this false notion of three Gods into the place of it
6.
Upon other occasions, they try to give you an ill opinion of our ecclesiastical forms, by calling them the decrees of fallible men, and creeds of human invention; which is a very mean objection, unless they who make it, and propose a contrary sort of belief, are themselves infallible. We readily own that the persons, who drew up the forms used in the church, were men like ourselves. But did they deliver the doctrine of these forms as their own doctrine, or the doctrine of Almighty God in the Scripture? If they delivered it as their own, then their fallibility would be a pertinent consideration: but if it is the doctrine of the Scripture, then the fallibility of the men who deliver it, is nothing to the purpose; and as such only we take it, using our own private judgment in relation to the men, but submitting our reason to the infallible Spirit of God. A judge who sits upon the bench by the king's authority, to determine civil causes, is a fallible man: but so far as he makes the law of the land the rule of his judgment, he is infallible. And we never attempt to persuade you, that the teachers of our church are infallible, but so far only, as they make the Scripture the rule of their judgment. Therefore, when you hear them reflected upon as fallible men, do them so much justice as to -ask yourselves the question, whether they who make this objection are themselves infallible? Is not the author of An Appeal to the Common Sense of all Christian People,' a fallible man, when he tells you, in terms of human invention, that God is one supreme intelligent Agent, or Person? That the Holy Spirit is his first Minister? That Christ did really suffer in his highest capacity? That he is to be honored with mediatorial worship? Doth he not deliver these doctrines as a fallible man? Yea, verily, not only as one who may be, but who actually is deceived, if the Scripture is true.
7.
As a further encouragement to opposition, you are taught that anybody may deny the Trinity upon protestant principles. And here give me leave to tell you, my friends, that there are some people who seem to think it is the profession of a protestant, not to believe but to deny; and that a man is no good protestant, unless he disputes everything that falls in his way. Had this been the true Christian spirit, our Savior would probably have recommended it to his hearers, by setting a bear, or a tiger, or a fox, before them, and proposing these creatures, as the best examples of it. Instead of which, he shewed them what his followers ought to be, by presenting to them a little child as their pattern: whence the people were to understand, that as a little child receives the instruction of its parents, without any of the perverse disputing of a corrupted mind; so ought they to receive the kingdom of heaven, that is, the doctrine of the gospel. This is a disposition lovely in the sight of God-and men, and so far from rendering the possessors of it more liable to be imposed upon, that none but persons of this temper are able to discern the truth when it is offered, according to that expression of Christ—, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and halt revealed them unto babes.' There would be more peace in the world than there is now, if men would but remember this; and there would be more wisdom too: for none are so blind as they who are always boasting of the quickness of their own eyesight; they are so filled up with the opinion of their understanding everything, that it is impossible to make them understand when they are mistaken.
But it may be dangerous to enlarge any farther upon this subject, lest it should be suspected that I am leading you into popery.
There is, however, a very false light in which your liberty, as protestants, is represented to you; and therefore, I think it my duty to make you aware of it. No protestant (they say) can, consistently with acknowledging the Scripture as the only rule, charge you with the least presumption for bringing decrees not found there to the test of rational inquiry.' The decree here alluded to is the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity. As to myself, my whole book bears witness for me, that I thought it my own duty, and would have it also be your practice, to bring this doctrine to the test of Scripture, as the only sufficient rule in such a case. And I am persuaded, no reasonable. Christian will have any objection to your proceedings, if you examine, in the best manner you are able, whether the catholic doc= trine of the Trinity is found in the Scripture, or not. But we shall charge you justly with a great deal of presumption, if you undertake to compare it with Scripture as a decree not found in Scripture for this is to beg the question; that is, to take it for granted that a decree is false, and then compare it with the Scripture to see whether it be true. If this is your method, you must unavoidably conclude, as your advisers have done before you. To prevent which, I recommend those words of the wise man—, He that answered a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.' A protestant who enters upon a mock inquiry with these prejudices and anticipations, is guilty of great injustice towards his Christian brethren, and is all the while putting a trick upon himself.
If you consult the discourse to the reader, prefixed to the Catholic Doctrine, you will see, toward the latter end of it, upon what grounds I have charged the learned Dr. Clarke and his followers with this unfair practice of bringing to the Scripture that knowledge which they ought to receive from it. Perhaps you never heard any history of that author, therefore I will tell you thus much of him; that he was a man greatly to be respected for his temper and scholarship; but it happened, unfortunately for his character as a Christian, that he wrote a celebrated book upon the Being and attributes (or perfections) of God; and having discovered, as he thought, by the force of his own wit, what God was and must be in all respects, he rejected the Christian doctrine of the Trinity; and to put the best face he could upon his unbelief, spent much of the remainder of his life in writing ambiguous comments, and finding various readings, that is, in picking holes in the Bible.
The author of an Appeal to the Common Sense of all Christian People,' calls him, the immortal Dr. Clarke, [] and has borrowed from him the substance of that whole book, which was the worst thing he ever wrote in his life. The glittering characters of great, learned, and immortal, are frequently thrown out with an intention to dazzle the eyes of common readers; and chiefly by those writers who are most forward to accuse us of an implicit obedience to human authority and the decrees of fallible and interested men. But if you leave the faith and hope of a Christian, your loss will be equally great, whether you are tempted to it by the pope of Rome, or by the immortal Dr. Samuel Clarke.
8.
Now we are upon the subject of human characters, I will propose to you, on the other hand, those learned and godly martyrs, who were concerned in reforming the church of England from the errors of popery. If the doctrine of the Trinity is so contrary to the Scripture, as our adversaries would have you believe, how did it happen that these men, who were certainly endued with all the advantages and ornaments of human learning, and had the Bible so often in their hands that they translated every word of it into the English tongue, suffered this doctrine of the Trinity to stand unreformed: I will shew you how the Arians endeavored to solve this difficulty, which is indeed a very great one. They say, 'It may fairly be presumed, that as they were just come out of the gross corruptions of popery, they did not see the whole truth as it is in Jesus.' So that notwithstanding their resolution to reform, yet popery hung about them still, and they did not reform so much as they ought to have done. But if you are to be guided by presumptions, you will soon discover, that the fairer presumption is on the other side, when the nature of men and things upon such occasions is rightly considered. When tares, growing amongst wheat, are to be plucked up, there is not nearly so much danger that any tares should be left behind, as that some of the wheat should be plucked up along with them. If you have a crooked stick in your hand, and would make it straight, the first step you take is to bend it too much the contrary way; after which it may come to be right at last. Just so it happens, that if mankind are offended with anything, and sensible of a past error, they are apt to fly from it with such an undistinguishing aversion as to fall, before they are aware, into the contrary extreme; and their prejudice, if they have any, is not for, but against, what they are correcting. Instead of doing too little, they are in danger of being in such a heat as to overdo every 'thing they set about: whence it is moat naturally to be inferred, that our divines, who reformed the errors of popery, were not then inclined to act in favor of popery. A spirit of reformation is an excellent thing; and I wish to God it abounded amongst us more than it does, provided it would exert its force against those real corruptions, which are but too visible to all serious members of the church of England; but unless it is tempered with great wisdom and caution, it degenerates naturally into a spirit of contradiction. Which things being considered, I would advise you not to be influenced by any presumptive reflections, upon the judgment of our first reformers, till the Arians are able to prove, by some direct evidence, that the doctrine of the Trinity, as now expressed in our creeds and offices, is an unreformed article of popery.
9.
Our adversaries lay so great a stress upon this charge of popery, and find it so convenient at every turn, that they are determined to make papists of us at any rate: therefore they assure you in words not fit for a Christian to repeat, that the church of Rome had as good a right to impose the worship of angels, and the Virgin Mary, upon the consciences of men, as the church of England had to impose the worship of the Holy Spirit as God, and of three Persons as one God.'" The papists, without question, will thank them for putting the worship of the Virgin Mary upon a level with that of the Holy Spirit. But this respect being paid to the papists at our expense, it is proper you should be made acquainted with the merits of this affair.
The papists do not pretend to justify their worship of the blessed Virgin by any precept or example of the Scripture; but tell you, in some fabulous legends, what heavenly favors have been" granted to her worshippers; that ignorant people may be encouraged to the like idolatry. But where will the Arians find any such stories imposed by the church of England, to justify the worship of the Holy Ghost.
If you ask the papists how they can prove- that we ought to worship the blessed Virgin, the best argument they can allege, is the practice and infallibility of their own Roman Catholic church; but do we ever attempt to quiet your scruples with any pretensions to unscriptural authority, or personal infallibility?
Let us pass at length to the Scripture itself, which will chew you how dangerous it is for unlearned and well-meaning people to trust themselves in the hands of an Arian reasoner.
Doth the Scripture, in any chapter or verse of it, call the bodies of Christian people the temple of the Virgin Mary? But the apostle St. Paul saith, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?' And what is the use of a temple? Is it not a house of prayer, praise, and sacrifice? He that has a temple must be entitled to Divine honors in it; or we shall be guilty of idolatry when we worship him in his own temple; which is absurd. The apostle himself makes this practical inference in the words which immediately follow— Therefore, glorify God in your body.' And if the word God in this place denotes an object of worship exclusive of the Holy Spirit, (as our adversaries are obliged to suppose, or give up the point,) then it will follow that the temple belongs to one being, and the glory and worship to another; which is one of those many strange things you are bound to believe, before you can be of the Arian opinion. [] Can you find it anywhere written in the Scripture, that the angels of heaven worshipped the Virgin Mary? Read the sixth chapter of the prophet Isaiah, in which the seraphim ascribe glory to that Lord of Hosts who spoke the following words to the prophet: Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not,' etc. Now, St. Paul teaches us, in the last chapter of the Acts, that these words were spoken by the Holy Ghost. So that when we say, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the HOLY GHOST,' we have the example of the seraphim in heaven for this way of worship; a consideration which will make us easy under all the opposition it meets with here below in the world. When you have reflected upon these things, then you may ask yourselves the question, whether Christians who are born of God, are anywhere said to be born of the Virgin Mary? Whether the apostles, who were called of God to the ministry of the gospel, were called of the Virgin Mary? Whether the Virgin Mary can be tempted and blasphemed by sinners? Whether she conferred Divine inspiration upon the prophets of the Old, or the apostles of the New Testament? Whether we are baptized in the NAME, that is, into the religion and worship of the Virgin Mary? But all these things, and many more, are true of the Holy Spirit; who dwelling in our body as in his own temple, is therein to be served and glorified; and being also worshipped and glorified, together with the Father and the Son, by the angels of heaven, I think we have a better right to worship him here upon earth, than the papists have to worship the Virgin Mary.
Our adversaries would persuade you we have so little to say upon this subject from the Scripture, that it is a great favor in them not to triumph over us, and insult us for it. As if it were no insult upon the church of England to suppose her worship as groundless as the idolatry of the papists?
The argument drawn from the words of Isaiah, with those of St. Paul, is very plain, and very close: The Lord of Hosts, whom the seraphim glorified, spoke those words which were spoken by the Holy Ghost: therefore, the Holy Ghost is the Lord of Hosts, whom the seraphim glorified.' Yet the author of the appeal declares, that nothing can be more fallacious than this way of reasoning, and that he could in the same manner, conclude that Isaiah is the Lord, because the words of the Lord (I was found of them that sought me not) are applied to Isaiah, Rom. 10. 20,—where the apostle thus introduces them—But Esaias is very bold, and with, I was found of them that sought me not. This author, I believe, is the first Christian who did ever suppose, that the apostle applied the words in this verse to the person of Esaias; or those in the preceding, to the person of Moses. This, however, is not worth insisting upon, because he has mistaken the nature of the argument. The force of it lies here; that the speaker of the words above mentioned, as they stand in the prophet Isaiah, is called by the name of the Lord of Hosts, was glorified by angels, seated upon the throne of heaven, and sent a prophet by his own authority; and this speaker, as St. Paul informs us, was the Holy Ghost. If the Scripture doth anywhere assert that Isaiah spoke under the same name, and with the same circumstances, then we shall be ready to allow that the cases are parallel, and will worship him also. Had the objector expressed himself clearly, his meaning would have appeared to be this: that because God speaks by a prophet, and speaks also by his Holy Spirit, as much may be inferred in honor of the one as of the other. But when God speaks by a prophet, he speaks by another; when he speaks by his Spirit, he speaks by himself. He reconciled the world by Jesus Christ, but not as by another; for God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. So when he speaks by his Spirit, he speaks by himself; as truly as a man utters his voice by the spirit or breath of his own mouth; or searches his own thoughts by the operations of his own mind. I am not afraid to insist upon this comparison, because I borrow it from St. Paul; and it demonstrates such a unity between God and the Spirit of God, as Christians believe, and Arians do not: nor do they attempt to get over it by any solution I have yet seen, which will not also prove that a man and his spirit must be two different beings; or that we may correct an apostle's argument till it squares with our own opinion. In this manner reasons the author of the Appeal. The Spirit is represented as a person who searches the deep things of God, and consequently he cannot be God.' But if he cannot be God, because he searches the things of God, then the spirit of a man cannot be man, because it knows the things of a man. But, observe how he proceeds: ' No man,' says he, ' can know, or make known to others the thoughts of a man, but either the man himself, or he to whomsoever the man will discover them.' In which words the premises are manifestly changed. The apostle saith, What man knows the things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him;' that is, the man himself: but the author of the Appeal, says, either the man himself, or some other. The Scripture itself gives us the- catholic conclusion; this alteration of the Scripture will admit of the Arian conclusion. From St. Paul's comparison, the Spirit is God himself; from this author's he is either God himself, or some other.
10.
In a book, lately published against the Articles of Religion, under the title of The Confessional, I have met with a new objection to our way of worship; which, as it can deceive none but common readers, I shall present you with it in this place.
The Athanasian creed says,' as the author of this work observes, That in ALL THINGS the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.' Then he asks, ' Is this the case in ALL our forms of worship. Turn back to the Litany,' (that is, turn forward, the Litany stands after the Athanasian creed,) and you will see three distinct invocations of the three Persona, to each of whom the term God is assigned, implying a sufficiency in each, in his personal capacity, to hear and grant the petition.' This, he assures you, is a remarkable and notorious deviation from the Athanasian maxim; and that others might be given in great abundance.
By an Athanasian, he means a Christian maxim, but calls it Athanasian, that your faith may seem to stand in the wisdom of men: and our deviation from this maxim is evident to him, from the three distinct invocations in the beginning of the Litany. But if you look into the Litany itself, you will discover, that these three invocations- are followed by a fourth, addressed to the Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons and ONE GOD.' In the three former petitions, the Unity in Trinity; in the fourth, the Trinity in Unity is worshipped. But of this fourth he takes no notice; and then accuses the church of a remarkable and notorious deviation from her own maxims; whereas, he ought to have taken the whole address together, and then have urged the exceptions, if any such could have been reasonably made against it. To take one portion of any form, abstracted from another which completes it, and then charge his brethren with -defects and contradictions of his own making, is agreeable neither to sound criticism, nor, indeed to common equity. Such a practice as this will convict even the Scripture itself of atheism: for if you leave out the words—The fool hath said in his heart, there will remain the naked assertion—there is no God. Or, it might be proved from the gospel, as I once heard it attempted by an excommunicated infidel, that the Old Testament is now to be utterly condemned and laid aside, because it is said—hang all the law and the prophets. But if the sentence be taken in that form in which the Scripture hath given it, the sense is entirely altered, and so it happens with the objection lately discovered by the author of the Confessional. His brethren, as you have seen, accuse us of believing in Three Gods; and he mocks at our worship, as if it could be reconciled with no other principle.
11.
But it is said further, that the doctrine of the Trinity is an offensive doctrine, which has done infinite mischief to the cause of Christ's religion, and that it is in vain to expect the conversion of Jews, Mahomedans, and heathens, so long as we hold this doctrine necessary to salvation.
On such occasions as this, the gospel, I fear, will countenance but a very small degree of compliance. In matters indifferent, and for the sake of those who have not yet broken the bond of peace and Christian unity, every concession ought to be made that can be made with innocence. But if we once quit our moorings, to launch out into the boundless ocean of worldly policy, miscalled Moderation, in search of proselytes, whose pride, pleasure, and merit it is, not to be found and converted, we shall be rewarded with shame and disappointment, and shall also make shipwreck of our own faith.
The Socinians objected it to us long ago, that the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation prevent the conversion of Mahomedans, Jews, and pagans. And the same doctrines hinder our Arians and Socinians too from being converted: the true character of the Christian Savior, and the true object of Christian worship, being so essential to the gospel, that no man is to be accounted a convert, till he agrees with Christians in these articles. Were we to alter the Christian faith into what Jews, Turks, and pagans believe, then we should gain them all; for then should we be agreed: that is, we should cease to be Christians as well as they.
If this reasoning is of any force in one case, it must be admitted in others. The Trinity, they say, is so offensive to the Turks, that we shall never gain them till it is given up. No: nor then neither. For Mahomet gave them a liberty of having several wives; but Christ hath taught us, that God in the beginning made them male and female, and that a Christian must have no more wives than Adam had. Of this doctrine I may therefore say, with as much reason as the Arians do of the Trinity, that it has done infinite mischief, and that we can never expect the conversion of Mahomedans, so long as it keeps its place in the gospel of Christ. If an Arian or Socinian were to preach in the streets of Constantinople, insisting properly upon this doctrine, he would make no converts: for the Turk will as soon be persuaded to worship the Trinity in Unity, or even three different Gods, as submit to have no more than one wife. And this may serve to shew the weakness and absurdity of such popular arguments; to which I apprehend, our disputants against the church would not apply themselves so often, could they depend safely upon better topics. If the present faith and worship of the church are against the Scripture, that is enough; and we shall want no other arguments to persuade us out of them. But if they are not, I leave you to judge, my friends, whether we ought to forsake them out of civility to the Turks, who pray five times a day that they may never become Christians.
But there are Papists in the world who have souls to be saved as well as the Turks; and what would they think of us, if we should gratify Jews, heathens, and Mahomedans, by denying the Trinity? They have always been sound in the belief of this doctrine; and we could never hope to recover any proselytes from the errors of popery; but, on the contrary, should make the religion of protestants more odious than ever, if under the name of reformation, we were to root up the foundations of the gospel. You have heard, perhaps, that they have called us heretics for these two hundred years past, and very falsely; but if we should abjure the Christian Trinity, we should no longer have the name for nothing; but should be guilty of adding that truth to the accusation, of which they would not fail to make their advantage. And, lastly, the far greater part of protestants would reject us.
These things being considered, we are brought at length to the following issue; that to please some, 4 we must part with the doctrine of the Trinity; and to please others, we must keep it. Which may shew plainly enough what I have had in view from the beginning of this epistle, that merely popular arguments are of no use toward settling points of scriptural doctrine; but may be turned this way or that, as the manager finds it most convenient. Discretion and charity are indeed to be consulted by every Christian, and on every subject; but a writer who has a good cause to maintain, and knows where its proper strength lies, will not go out of his way to amuse people with what is nothing to the purpose. Whereas, if a cause is not so strong as it should be, popular considerations serve to put the reader into a heat; and when a man's passions are up, he will hear no reason on one side, and requires none on the other.
12.
There is one more of their insinuations, which is the last I shall make any remark upon at present; and it is this, viz. that there are several clergymen of the church of England, who groan under the weight of the Athanasian forms and worship, that would be very glad of your assistance to be delivered from so great a burden upon their consciences.' For the credit of the church of England, I hope there are not many such: but if any clergyman should be so mistaken as to imagine that a contempt for any of the Christian doctrines is an argument of -their superior sense and learning, they are more truly the objects of pity, than of envy or imitation; and your Arian counsellors, who are so forward to caution you against human authority, will give me leave to advise you not to depend upon human example. An error is still an error, though it resides in a clergyman; and, instead of being thereby sanctified, is only more deformed and dangerous than it was before. A profane oath, or a curse, would sound the more horrible, if a bishop were to have the uttering of it. A toad is a hideous creature in every situation; but it is never so much abhorred as when it creeps into the best room in the house. The ministers of Christ are the salt of the earth; and if this salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
The Scripture will teach you, that the worship of the golden calf was a grievous sin, though Aaron, who was a clergyman, had the making of it. And there was a time, when the whole body of the clergy, I mean the Jewish, determined Christ himself to be a blasphemer and deceiver, and were instant with loud voices requiring that he might be crucified.
Those clergymen, who, like Dr. Clarke and his follower, the author of the 'Appeal,' do by their own confession believe two different Gods, while they falsely accuse us of believing three, would undoubtedly be very glad to be well rid of a Trinity in Unity; as the Turks were, when they took the religion of Mahomet into the place of it. And if they should at length prevail, by dint of popular clamor and importunity, of which some wonderful effects have been seen in this kingdom, the Turks, and the Jews, too, would congratulate them upon their victory; and so would every determined deist and atheist in the nation. Yet, after all, none of them would worship that imagined inferior deity, whom this author would persuade you to worship.
I believe it also to be very true, that they would, as their advocate tells you, be very glad of your assistance. And I have been considering with myself in what form and manner your assistance can be administered. They can hardly mean, that you should assist them with the pen, and write books upon reformation; for very few amongst you are scholars: nor with the tongue, for you are no orators. And I know not how you can assist them otherwise, except it be with fire and sword, as the reforming clergy were assisted in the last century, when loyalty was malignity, and episcopacy was anti-Christianity, and the most miserable oppression and slavery of two-thirds of the people, was celebrated as a state of Christian liberty to the prevailing party.
We know, but too well, that the gospel, with all its doctrines, is an insupportable burden to those who do not believe it; and so is the law of the land to those who do not like to be under the restraint of it. Some men are fond of liberty in one shape, and some in another. Some think as they please; and others act as they please. This latter sort of people, many of whom are groaning under the weight of political forma, would also be very glad of your assistance towards amending the constitution, and restoring gentlemen to that state of freedom, in which they might follow their consciences without any danger.
And, perhaps, they would not object to your assistance as unwarrantable in the sacred cause of liberty, though you should accomplish their purposes by pulling the magistrate from his chair, the judge from his bench, the two houses of parliament from their seats, and the king from his throne.
These are the prospects I have before my eyes, when I hear Deists and Socinians haranguing the public upon the subjects of conscience and imposition; which prospects having been once realized in this church and kingdom, cannot be deemed altogether chimerical. Such popular reasonings as I have now been contending with, have already produced the most fatal consequences, to the triumph of the papists, and the scandal of the reformation; they have deceived you once; and unless you are upon your guard, they will deceive you again: and the last error shall be worse than the first: worse in itself, and worse in its consequences. It pleased God to deliver the church from its captivity under the puritans, and the people from their infatuation; but if experiments, when they have been tried, leave us no wiser, or, perhaps, not so wise as they found us, it is much to be questioned whether we shall again meet with the like indulgence: at least, it will be safest always to bear in mind that course of Divine Providence in a similar instance, proposed as a warning to all Christians by the apostle St. Jude, 4 how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not.' Those authors who would stir you up to seditious notions, make you so many fair speeches, and lay claim to so much candor and charity, that you may easily mistake them for your best friends. But I must now leave you to judge for yourselves, whether a writer, who lies skulking in the dark, under a nameless title-page, can really love you better than one who is not afraid to subscribe his name at length to what he has written, and is exposing himself for your sakes to be reviled and persecuted in the monthly publications of infidel critics, who, on account of the information I have here given you, with a desire to clear away some of that dust which they and their friends are perpetually throwing into your eyes, will find, if possible, some worse names for me than they have ever done yet. They have expressed their wrath against me more than once or twice; and probably they will now do it again. But a little more ill-language will do me no harm; and if I can do you any good at such an expense, it will be cheerfully taken by your Very sincere friend, And most affectionate brother in Christ,
WILLIAM JONES. Pluckley, December 16, 1766.