hereafter show more fully the importance of this subject to Christians as well as to our people. To present the subject to your view in a clear and convincing manner, it will be necessary to divide it into several parts, and I hope you will peruse them with patience and fervent prayer to God for the aid of the Ruach Hackodeth, i. e. the Holy Spirit.

§ 2. Before I proceed to prove the doctrine proposed, viz. the Divinity of the Messiah, I wish you to understand that I consider him to be really and truly God by nature, and not God either in an inferior sense or by constitution. I am far from the opinion of those who say that Christ is a mere creature by nature, but, by the will of the Father, advanced to the dignity of a God; and, being so advanced, he is Deus verus, i. e. a true God. Wherein, my dear Benjamin, does this differ from the old heathenish practice of turning creatures into gods, acknowledging one superior and many inferior gods? If such a distinction be consistent with truth, then Baal, or Ashtaroth, or any of the gods of the nations, might be looked upon as inferior deities, and be served with the subordinate worship. Solomon might sacrifice to Ashtaroth and Milcom, or Chemosh, or Moloch, provided he did serve the God of Israel with sovereign worship, acknowledging him supreme. Why was it considered a crime in the Samaritans to fear the Lord and serve their own gods? 2 Kings, 17: 33-41. Blessed be God that our people have been kept, for a long time past, from idolatry, and, without exception, do consider such worship idolatry; and hence it follows that if Christ be no more than a nominal God, inferior to the Father, all worship of him, and reliance upon him, would be idolatry as much as the worship of angels or men, or of the gods of the heathen world.

How just is the sentiment of St. Augustine, addressed to Maximin, an Arian Bishop, who considered Christ as inferior to God; "Repeat it ever so often, that the Father is greater, the Son less, we shall answer you as often, that the

greater and the less make two; and it is not said, thy greater Lord God is one Lord, but the words are, 'the Lord thy God is one Lord.' Nor is it said, there is none equal to me; but the words are, 'there is none other besides me.' Either, therefore, acknowledge that the Father and the Son are one Lord God, or in plain terms deny that Christ is Lord God at all." Aug. L. 2. c. 23. p. 727.

It is equally against reason and Scripture to say that Christ was constituted God by the pleasure of the Father. How could the giver and disposer of all graces receive any thing as a matter of gift or favor? How could he be said to have obtained the privilege of being adored, who had long before been adored both by men and angels? He who is God from the beginning, who had glory with the Father before the world was, who is himself the Lord of glory and Creator and Preserver of all things, was infinitely too high, too great, and too divine to receive any accession to his dignity, or any real increase either of perfection or of glory. When the Scriptures speak of his exaltation, it refers to him as Mediator, as has been shown before.

3. You will further keep in mind, dear Benjamin, that when I speak in the following pages of a plurality or trinity in unity, you must conceive of distinct persons in the one Jehovah; i. e. there is one only God or Jehovah, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three distinct persons are but one Jehovah. I shall show hereafter that distinct personal properties are applied to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But these persons are not three characters or relations only, in the same substance, mind, or spirit; but something more, because the Scripture plainly makes a greater difference between them; nor, on the other hand, are they three distinct substances, minds, or spirits, because they would then be three gods.

I employ the word person, because language does not admit of a fitter term to express this great article of our faith. The word person has not always been in use, yet God

was always believed to be Father, Son, and Spirit, as will be shown hereafter. It was first adopted to impress more clearly on the minds of Christians the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to strengthen them against the errors of those who said that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are only three different names of the same object; as if Christ, the eternal wisdom, would have used terms for the institu tion of baptism (Matt. 28: 19) which convey such different ideas to the mind, without designing us to make some sort of distinction, and without intending to show us that there really is some distinction, yet at the same time without exposing us to multiply the Godhead, and thus mislead us from that great truth which he always inculcated, viz. that there is but one God, and that it is impossible there can be more than one. The word of God is full of expressions drawn from natural objects familiar to us, and the Holy Spirit employs them for the purpose of giving us clearer conceptions of what God is in comparison with man. Hence these expressions, "God repents, he is angry, he has eyes," &c. &c. and similar figures, which are merely designed to exhibit to us spiritual and invisible things by means of objects which are familiar to our senses. In this sense, the word person ought to be understood in reference to the Deity.

§ 4. I beseech you, my dear Benjamin, to guard against the common objection that this sacred doctrine is "absurd and contradictory, and therefore cannot be true; or incomprehensible, and therefore ought not to be believed." With respect to the former, viz. that it is absurd and contradictory, that three should be one, and one three. This may either be true or false. If I were to assert that my five fingers are one finger, or one finger to be five fingers, that would be absurd, contradictory, and impossible. But if I were to say my five fingers are one hand, and my one hand five fingers, this is neither absurd, contradictory, nor false. In like manner, to say that Jehovah is three persons, and

three persons one Jehovah, is neither absurd, contradictory, nor impossible. I freely acknowledge that this, or any other similitude, is infinitely below the dignity of the subject; but as it has proved a blessing to my soul, I fervently pray that it may prove so to yours also.

I cannot deny myself the pleasure of transcribing the following lines from the learned Dr. Grotius, on Matt. 28: 19.

"

'Why is one God set forth in persons three?

"In holy writ thus known is he.

"That three are one what reason can us teach?

"God is above all human reach.

"Can it by no similitude be shown?

"The sun, light, heat, are three, yet one."

Again he says-▬

'May we not some such thing in mankind see?
"Life, reason, will, in one are three.

"Are Father, Son, and Spirit equal? they
"With equal might one sceptre sway."

§ 5. As it regards the second objection, viz. that the doctrine is incomprehensible, and therefore ought not to be believed; I admit the fact, but deny the conclusion. We believe the real existence of many things whose nature and operation exceed our comprehension. "It is an old and truc distinction," says Dean Swift, "that things may be above our reason without being contrary to it. Of this kind are the power, the nature, and the universal presence of God, with innumerable other points. How little do those who quarrel with mysteries, know of the commonest actions of nature. The growth of an animal, of a plant, or of the smallest seed, is a mystery among men. If an ignorant person were told that a loadstone would draw iron at a distance, he might say that it was a thing contrary to his reason, and he could not believe it before he saw it with his eyes. The matter whereby the soul and body are united, and how they are distinguished, is wholly unaccountable to us. We see but one part, and yet we know we consist of

two; and this is a mystery we cannot comprehend any more than that of the Trinity." Ser. p. 24. Since, then, almost every thing in nature is so mysterious and above our comprehension, why should it be thought strange that the doctrine of the blessed Trinity should be mysterious and incomprehensible? Dr. Priestly himself, the great opponent to this truth, has acknowledged "that we can know nothing about the essence or nature of God." Simpson's Deity of Christ, page 20. The great reasoner Mr. Fletcher says, "It is one of the loudest dictates of reason, that as we can. not grasp the universe with our hands, so we cannot com prehend the Maker of the universe with our thoughts."

§ 6. Our people, you know, my dear Benjamin, acknow ledge that they are bound to believe certain truths respecting God, although they exceed their comprehension. For the third article of their creed runs thus: "I believe with a perfect faith, that the Creator, blessed be his name, is not corporeal, nor to be comprehended by an understanding capable of understanding what is corporeal, and that there is nothing like him in the universe." The doctrine of the resurrection is attended with intricacies and difficulties above the comprehension of human reason, and yet it is one of the fundamental articles of our people, as will be shown hereafter. I freely acknowledge, my dear brother, that the subject is mysterious and incomprehensible as it respects the mode of existence, but as the reality of it is revealed in the Bible, it becomes an article of our holy faith, as well as that of the creation of the world, although it infinitely exceeds our comprehension how a universe could spring into being out of nothing.

Dr. Isaac Barrow, one of the first Christians and scholars, says "that there is one Divine nature or essence common unto three persons incomprehensibly united by peculiar idioms and relations, all equally infinite in every divine perfection, each different from the other in order and manner of subsistence; that there is a mutual existence of one