possible? Is the existence of the Divinity a subject for puns and problems, as though the Christians, according to a living author, worshipped three infinite Gods, each of whom was jointly and separately the object of devotion! The idea of a separate Divinity is novel to the church. Does a mortal being, altogether incapable of knowing how his own spirit exists, claim a licence to ridicule a revealed mode in which the Divinitas, the corns, or Godhead is said to exist? Can a created being, an atom of yesterday either conceive or declare how the uncreated spirit, the pure intelligence exists? Shall the presumptive mind of man, infinitely inadequate to the task, deny the Godhead or the personality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit against the face of the whole Bible, and against the faith of the whole primitive world? What sort of distortions must you, with such a creed, be compelled to make in your comments and translations of the sacred volume? Take a specimen from John xvi. 13. where our Saviour promised to ask the Paraclete of the Father,Howbeit, when he the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all [the] truth;' that is, when he the action of Providence,' is come, even the action of Providence' whom I will send, it will guide you into all truth for it shall not speak of itself, but whatsoever it shall hear, that shall it speak; for it shall receive of mine, and shall shew them unto you.' let us ingenuously confess that nothing but the extreme reluctance we have to submit our opinions to the decision of the Supreme Wisdom, can pos sibly induce us to suspect that a Divine person is not designated in our Saviour's words. I ask here, whether the precision of thought, and propriety of argument, of which the persons I attack make a profession, I had almost said a parade, can possibly obstruct the acknowledgment of three distinct persons in the text? I ask whether a logic, the most rigid, can obstruct the acknowledgment of the Father, to whom all things belong; the Son who participates of all things that belong to the Father; and the Holy Spirit who takes and reveals those things to the church ?-Saurin. ، When St. Paul asserts that an idol is nothing ; that to us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him,' he speaks like Isaiah against idolatry, which has gods many and lords many.' Why does he add the word-Father-after God? He cannot mean the Father of the Creation, that being designated by the adjection, of whom are all things.' He must therefore mean that the Father is the fountain of Deity, communicating in essence with the Son and Spirit. Why does he three times deviate from the simple form of the word @sos, God, and say Acts. xvii. 29. ro drov ; Rom. i. 20, deuorns ; and Col. ii. 9. dorns, in which he is followed by the fathers, but to designate the Divinity in words equivalent to Godhead? why does he ten times in the commencement of his epistles wish grace and peace to the churches from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. If the Son be not one in es sence with the Father, has idolatry any where offered a greater insult to the ELOHIM who made heaven and earth, than is offered by this Apostle, who sets Joseph's son on the Throne with the Eternal! An insult which merely imitates the Saviour's word. This is life eternal to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.' John xvii. 3. The question is not how you understand St. Paul, but how the Jews and Proselytes would understand him. When the Saviour said, My Father worketh hither, and I work, the Jews sought the more to kill, because -he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.' John v. 17. 18. 19. Has not the beloved Clement the same ideas of the Godhead as St. Paul, when he says, 'have we not all One God, and One Christ? Is not One Spirit of grace poured out upon us all? Does he here speak of three Gods, or of a Triune God? Sect. xlvi. 6 "Dr. Carpenter, of Bristol, has made a full boast of Isaiah's assertions of the unity of God against the plurality of idols. Let us calmly meet the truth as in both the Testaments. I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God besides me, Isa. xlv. 5. Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no God, I know not any. They that make a graven image are all of them vanity, Isa. xliv. 8, 9. I am God, and there is none like me; before me there is no God formed, neither shall there be after me, Isa. xlvi. 9. The Word was God. John, i. 1. Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Rom. ix. 5. Thy throne, O God, is forever. Heb. i. 8. Who being the Brightness of his Glory, and the express image of his person. Heb. i. 3. The Glorious appearing of the Great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ. Titus, ii. 13. Kai is often translated even and must here be so understood. To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forever. Jude, 25. "You cannot surely be ignorant that the terms LORD and GOD are never absolutely applied to any creature. To rulers the Lord gives the title, but never absolutely. I have said, ye are gods, but ye shall die like men.' We shudder at your allegations that the title was given to Christ as it was given to them. His Kingdom was an everlasting Kingdom. Let us hear the elegant Tertullian on this subject, in his book against Praxeas, who had accused the Christians of Tri-theism, written before the close of the second century. There is then One God the Father, and besides him no other; by which he does not mean to deny the Son, but the existence of another God. Meanwhile the Son is not another distinct from the Father. Do but, in fine, inspect the design of these forms of speech, and you will find that they almost exclusively respect the makers and worshippers of idols, that the unity of the Divinity may supersede the multitude of false gods, while it includes the Son, who is undivided, and inseparable from the Father, and understood, though not named, to be in the Father. Had he. for instance, named him, it would have been equivalent to the separating of the Son from himself. Had he thus said, there is none other besides me, except My Son, he would have made the Son to be another, and taken exception against him, as against idols. * In these few words we have a perfect view of the import of all the passages in Isaiah which assert the unity of Elohim against the plurality of idols; and by consequence a full refutation of a Bristol pamphlet on Isaiah's Titles of Christ, which makes a parade of error on the preceding texts. "Mark xii. 35, 37. 'Jehovah saith to My Lord,' &c. Note. David, transported in prophetic vision, speaks of his illustrious descendant, the anointed king of his chosen people, and prophet of the new dispensation, as his superior.' You are aware that Maimonides says, that the Jews did not use the name Jehovah after the Babylonian captivity, it being the name by which he was distinguished from the gods of the heathen, a name in which no creature hath any participation. You are aware also from De Rossi's collations, that about two thirds of the copies read Adonai, Lord, where others read, Jehovah. What then can you infer with certainty from the change of these two * Igitur unus Deus Pater, et alius absque eo non est : Quod ipse inferens, non Filium negat, sed Alium Deum. Cæterum Alius à patre Filius non est. Denique, inspice sequentia hujusmodi pronuntiationum, et invenias fere ad Idolorum Factitores atque Cultores Definitionem earum pertinere; ut multitudinem falsorum Deorum Unio divinitatis expellat, habens tamen Filium quanto individuum et inseparatum a Patre, tanto in Patre reputandum, etsi non nominatum. At quin si nominasset illum, separasset, ita dicens, Alius præter me non est, nisi Filius meus. Alium enim etiam Filium fecisset, quem de aliis excepisset. |