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the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth; then was I by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. That all this is a mere person

ification, appears not only from the whole strain of the passage, but from what follows. "Now, therefore, hearken unto me, O ye children; for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not."

In the book of Ecclesiasticus, a part of the Apocrypha, composed several ages before Christ, but after the closing of the Old Testament, we have a similar personification of Wisdom. "Wisdom shall praise herself, and shall glory in the midst of her people. In the congregation of the Most High shall she open her mouth, and triumph before his power. I came out of the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth as a cloud. I dwelt in high places, and my throne is the cloudy pillar. I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep. In the waves of the sea, and in all the earth, and in every people and nation, I got a possession." This, the reader will perceive, bears a close analogy to the phraseology of John, in which he calls the Word "the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." What succeeds, bears an equally strong analogy to that part of John's introduction, in which he says, that divine

illumination, though pervading the minds of the whole human race, was peculiarly imparted to the Jews. "He came to his own, and his own received him not."

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Wisdom goes on to say: Lo, the Creator of all things gave me a commandment, and he that made me, caused my tabernacle to rest, and said; Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thine inheritance in Israel."

There is likewise in the Wisdom of Solomon, a personification of the Word of God, represented as sent from heaven, a gigantic destroyer of the Egyptians, on the night when all their first-born were destroyed. "Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war, into the midst of a land of destruction. And brought thine unfeigned commandment, as a sharp sword, and standing up, filled all things with death, and it touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth."

From these quotations the reader will perceive that the personification of the attributes of God, in the Gospel of John, was nothing new, but was already known to the Jews in their own sacred and theological writings.

LECTURE IV.

PROPHECIES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

ISAIAH, IX. 6.

FOR UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN, UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN, AND THE GOV. ERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER; AND HIS NAME SHALL BE CALLED WONDERFUL, COUNSELLOR, MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE.

THERE are few passages in the Bible, which have been so often quoted to prove the doctrine of the Trinity as this. It is proper then, that, in treating of that subject, we should give this text a particular consideration.

Before entering into the discussion, however, it will be proper to premise, that we go into the Old Testament, for arguments in favor of the Trinity, with the strongest presumption against the probability of finding any there, from the fact that no such doctrine was ever discovered in it by the Jews themselves. During the fifteen hundred years of their national existence, no idea of a Trinity ever entered the mind of any pious descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and no scholar of Moses ever thought of giving any other than the most strict and literal construction to the first of all

the commandments: "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah your God, Jehovah is One." This was long before the hostility sprung up, which has existed between the Jews and Christians, on account of the fact that the Christians have received as the Messiah, him whom the Jews rejected and crucified. If there were such a doctrine, it must certainly have been revealed in the language of the Old Testament. This language was the vernacular tongue of the Jews. If it was revealed, and was an important doctrine, then it was important that they should understand it. But they did not understand it. The descendants of those Jews, who have inherited those Scriptures, and who derive their religion solely from them, are as strenuous as were their forefathers on the fundamental article of their faith. And is it a supposable case, that those who live in a remote age, and speak another language, should discover a fundamental doctrine in the Hebrew Scriptures, which the Hebrews themselves, who spoke the language, did not discover ; a doctrine, too, which apparently contradicts the first principles of their religion contained in their Scriptures ?

If the doctrine of the Trinity were true and important, we could scarce conceive of any way in which Moses could have discharged his office as the lawgiver of the Jews, in a manner more calculated to mislead them. At the very commencement of his mission, he represents the Deity to have appeared to him under the similitude of a burning bush, and to have given the name by which he wished to make himself known to the Jews, as "I AM," a name which in itself expresses

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the simplest mode of personal existence, and into which it is impossible for any idea of plurality to creep. know of no language which he could have used, which would have conveyed the idea more definitely, not only of an essential, but a personal unity. It is true, that the attempt has been made, to deduce a different conclusion from one passage in Genesis, where God is said to have deliberated about making man, and about the treatment of him after he had eaten of the forbidden fruit. "Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness. But it is only necessary to observe, that Moses represents the person who makes the speech, in the singular number; "And God said; " showing plainly that there is no inconsistency meant to be conveyed, with the personal unity of God, but that it is a mere idiom of speech, not peculiar indeed to the Hebrew, but common to all languages. There is not a monarch

in Europe, who might not be proved to be plural, on the same principles, for they all say, "We." Editors of newspapers even, adopt the same form of speech, and we all, in our most common intercourse, address each other in the plural number; and if idioms were always to be taken in proof of facts, it might be proved that we believed each other to be made up of many persons, when we say to each other: "You are good, or, you are wise, &c." The Germans carry this matter further, and address each other as not only in the plural number, but in the third person. "They are good, they are wise," meaning the very person whom they address. Is there anything like plurality intimated in the following most solemn and impressive language?

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