tions in the splendour of his rays. When this blessed era shall arrive, shall we not find an abundant compensation for the partial darkness, or the feeble dawn, which has so long overspread the world, not only in the superior duration, but in the superior glory of that period, when, to use the beautiful and expressive figure of the prophet, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. THE TRINITY OR THREEFOLD EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. In entering on the investigation of the peculiar doctrines of revelation, the first object which meets our attention is the Trinity, or Threefold Existence of the Deity. The existence of God is equally the foundation of natural and revealed Religion. But in the sacred scriptures it assumes an aspect new and peculiar. The Holy Spirit has revealed in them a modification of the divine essence unknown to the lights of nature. Its unity indeed, is not impaired; but we are taught to believe in the coexistence of three infinite, eternal and equal natures or persons in one most holy and undivided Godhead. As this is a doctrine entirely beyond the discoveries of human reason, it is our duty to receive it simply as a revealed fact, without attempting too curiously to pry into the inscrutable mode of this divine union, which must transcend the comprehension of our minds. Perhaps, however, it is not farther beyond our intellectual capacities to form distinct conceptions of a Trinity in union, than it is clearly to conceive of God himself as pre sented to our thoughts by natural religion. Each of his perfections offers to the mind impenetrable difficulties, and, in many of their circumstances, apparent contradictions. The christian system embraces three infinite subsistences, or persons, equally the objects of divine worship; and all included in one self-existent and eternal essence, only sustaining dif ferent relations to mankind. This doctrine justly excites our wonder, and confounds the imbecility of our minds. But we are not without an analogy in our own nature to facilitate our conception of the possibility of the fact. The understanding, the will, and the affections, often enter equally into the acts of the soul; yet, so that we do not discern in each operation of the intellect, volition, or affection only a third part of its force; but we perceive that the whole soul is exerted in the act, and the power of each principle is as the entire energy of the soul. It would, indeed, be impious to imagine that the human mind affords any adequate type of the Supreme and Infinite Spirit, but it certainly yields an analogy by which our conceptions may be aided of three distinct and equal powers in one simple and undivided essence in which the energy of the whole is exerted in the operations of each. Those who are unfriendly to the evangelic system often reproach believers on this subject, as receiving a doctrine that is unreasonable only because it is above the investigation of reason. This is a distinction which cannot fail to norant. meet the thinking mind in the contemplation of innumerable subjects in nature. We see the fact, but we cannot understand the manner of its existence, nor free it from inexplica. ble difficulties which equally embarrass the wise and the igWho can explain the ubiquity of God, without extension or division of parts? Who can reconcile his immutability, and the steadfastness of nature with the promises of his protection to good men? Or who render free from the most embarrassing perplexities two of the most evident truths, the perfect liberty of human action, and the infallible foreknowledge, and preordination of events, the one, the most obvious dictate of experience, the other, among the most certain principles of science? In any revelation from God concerning himself, have we not the justest grounds to expect many discoveries which would otherwise, have far transcended the discoveries, and, perhaps, the distinct conceptions of our reason. We must judge with infinite imperfection or absurdity of the divine nature, if we receive no revelation concerning it but what we can measure by the feeble powers of the human intellect.-On such transcendant subjects when convinced that God has spoken, it is the first duty of a christian to receive implicitly the declarations of his holy word, without any attempt to bring them down to the level of our own minds. It is a natural inquiry, which has been often made, whence can arise any moral benefit from the revelation of a Trin ity, when it is confessed that human reason is incapable of conceiving the mode of the divine existence? I answer that the utility of this revelation is precisely similar to that which is derived from the knowledge of the being of God. The belief presents to our ideas a Legislator and a Judge, an object of worship and of holy fear, a law of duty, and the most powerful sanction of that law. For, although we cannot distinctly conceive of the divine nature, nor expand the mind to the comprehension of infinite perfection; yet as far as is competent to all the purposes of piety and virtue, we are able to understand the relations of his justice, his power, his wisdom, and his goodness, to us as moral beings. In like manner, although the threefold existence of the Deity is most mysterious and inscrutable, yet the belief of this doctrine, as it is revealed, offers God to the understanding and the heart, in the threefold relation of our Creator, our Saviour, and the Illuminator and Sanctifier of our nature;-in one word, as the Moral Governor of the world in reference to our redemption. These relations can be clearly understood by man, and are infinitely important to him, as an offending creature, to be known. In them lies all his consolation, and the foundation of his hope for eternal life. |