in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help on one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him, with whom my hand shall be established; mine arm also shall strengthen him. I will set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation." "Also I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth." Here David is called God's first-born, and he is represented as calling God his Father. Here too, then, by implication, all kings, on account of their dignity, are called sons of God. Much more should the Messiah be so called, on account of his expected elevation above all. No doctrine of a Trinity, then, could possibly have grown up among the converts to Christianity from Judaism. But soon the great body of the church was Pagan in its origin, who had been educated in Pagan ideas of God, and who had been accustomed to consider Jupiter, their supreme god, as a derived being, the son of Saturn. There was, then, in their hereditary conceptions of Deity nothing of that pure spirituality, and none of that unique and unrivalled supremacy, with which the Jews regarded their Jehovah, whose very name, in reading their Scriptures, they did not dare to pronounce. They began therefore to interpret the epithet, "Son of God," of the nature, instead of the office of Jesus. If he was the Son of God, then by nature he must have the same attributes with his Father, and of course be God, and by the most unaccountable process that the human mind has ever ex

hibited, "Son of God" became converted into "God the Son," in contradistinction to God the Father.

Another circumstance, which contributed to the deification of Christ, was, that the prophetic power which rested upon him is called by John "the Word." Word, in Greek, signifies both reason and speech, and by the strangest fancy, they conceived, as Christ was the Son of God, and was therefore a derived being, that he was God's reason before he was generated, and he was God's speech afterward; and that he began to exist in personal form when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." The Greek philosophy, which then predominated all over the civilized world, had no little influence in forming the doctrine of the Trinity. Plato, who was the highest authority in philosophical speculation at that period, had broached some speculations as to the divine nature, which approached, in some measure, the early theory of the Trinity.

Another circumstance, which made the early Christians more readily fall into these heathen speculations concerning the nature of Christ, was their desire to counteract the opprobrium of following a crucified Master. "The cross of Christ was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks, foolishness." The Christians were not unwilling to favor a hypothesis which seemed to countervail the humble origin of their religion, and throw a glory over their head, by ascribing to him the highest metaphysical rank in the universe.

Another circumstance, which favored the formation and growth of the Trinity, was the peculiar form of baptism. This to a Jew was perfectly plain and intel

ligible, and not liable to mislead them in the least. Baptism was a form of public profession first adopted by the Jews in receiving proselytes from other religions. The proselyte was washed, in token of adopting a purer faith, and commencing a purer life. Baptism was gradually used in various senses, By John the Baptist, the Jews were "baptized into repentance;' that is, into a profession of repentance. People were said to be baptized into things as well as persons. Paul tells us that Christians were baptized into Christ's death; that is, into a profession of a renunciation of the world. No Jew, therefore, would ever have considered the Holy Ghost, God, or even a person, because they were baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost. Nor would he have supposed that the Christ was God, because they were baptized into his name, because the Apostle declares that the Israelites "were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." There was no scrupulous adherence to the form which is given in the last chapter of Matthew. In baptizing converts from Judaism, the Apostles baptized them only into the name of Christ; they already acknowledged God and the Holy Spirit. It was proper, however, for the heathen to be baptized into the name of God, as well as of Christ, for they were converts to the belief that he was the only true God, as well to the belief that Jesus was sent by him to teach and save the world. But they might have acknowledged this without receiving Christ in his true character of the miraculously authenticated Messenger of God. It was therefore necessary to add the third article, the Holy Spirit, the seal of Christ's mission, for

the salvation of the world. Jews would never have built the superstructure of the Trinity on such a foundation. But those who had been accustomed to Pagan ideas, misinterpreted the form of baptism entirely, and imagined that these three articles of faith were three persons of a Trinity, and that these three persons were one God.

The work, however, of the deification of Christ and the Holy Spirit, was a slow process; and that of the Holy Spirit is still but imperfectly accomplished; for the mass of Trinitarians, even now, when questioned upon the subject, are found to have very indistinct impressions of its personality even, and many deny it altogether, and still claim to be Trinitarians.

It was not until the year three hundred and twentyfive, that any portion of the church could agree to ascribe Deity to Christ, and then in a sense, which, to a modern Trinitarian, nullifies such ascription entirely ; for the creed which was established at the Council of Nice expressly asserts that he is derived and subordinate. Nothing was established concerning the Holy Ghost, until the Council of Constantinople, in the year three hundred and eighty-one.

The history of the doctrine of the Trinity, may be seen by any one, at a glance, by placing under the form of baptism, which may be in some sense considered as the creed of the Apostolic church, the Apostles' Creed, as it is called, which was an enlargement of the form of baptism, and gradually took its place in the first two centuries; under that, the Nicene Creed, of the year three hundred and twenty-five; under that, the Creed of Con

stantinople, of the year three hundred and eighty-one; and under that, the Athanasian Creed, composed some time, no one knows when, or by whom, in the dark ages.

The form of Baptism you all very well know. The Apostles' Creed begins the work of enlargement by defining the sense of the term "Son," to be, that he was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. "I believe in God, the Father Almighty," one God, all the ancient copies have it, "Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," &c.

What is very remarkable in this creed, is, that there is no allusion in it to Christ's preëxistence. All that is said of the Holy Ghost is, "I believe in the Holy Ghost," leaving every one to define for himself in what sense. In the Nicene Creed, you perceive a very different definition put upon the sonship of Christ. "I believe in one God, &c., and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God out of God, Light out of Light, very God out of very God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father." Here you see, the origin of the Son of God, instead of being dated, as it is in the Apostles' Creed, at his birth of the Virgin Mary, is carried back before all worlds, and represented as being from the substance of the Father, proceeding as light does from the sun, very God, because derived from very God. The Holy Ghost is left, in this creed, where it was in the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in the Holy Ghost." But in the Creed of Constantinople, the same