vah; the Father is Jehovah; have you not affirmed thrice? And unless the Father, Son, and Spirit are convertible terms, have you not declared there are three Jehovahs, three self-existents? And if you proceed to say that these three are one Jehovah, do not you affirm three to be one?

Are we told that we do not know in what divine unity consists ? We ask in reply, has not the Bible declared to us" Jehovah our God is one Jehovah?" Is not this proposition useless and unmeaning to us, if we cannot know what the term one implies in this connexion? Jesus repeated this proposition with no qualification to his disciples. He did not give any new explication to the term one, nor even hint that it was not to be taken in its common numerical value. We abide by that sense. We have knowledge enough respecting the divine unity to understand the proposition, that our God is one Jehovah. We need no more in this argument.

When our Lord repeated to his disciples and other Jews the passage we have cited, he knew how they would understand him. If, then, the term one was to be received in any new sense or with any qualifications, why did he not inform them? If he himself, who spoke to them, was Jehovah, would they or could they know it without being told? And if he had disclosed to the Jews this appalling fact, would they not have manifested something of that astonishment which such a disclosure must have awakened in their breasts? Would his enemies have needed to suborn false witnesses against him, if they had heard him announce himself to be Jehovah, which would have alone made him in their eyes worthy of death?

It has been stated that the doctrine of the Trinity is taught simply as a fact, to be received or rejected according to evidence. "The scriptures," it is said, "reveal many things as facts which they do not undertake to explain." As an example, the declaration "God is a Spirit" is cited. Now we demand the similar declaration announcing the fact that God is a triune being. A fact is not a matter of mere inference from something which is said; it must be declared in so many words or be shown to be necessarily implied in something else which is stated as a fact. If the great teacher thought it not needless to declare the fact that God is a spirit, which reason itself might have vindicated with a sufficient clearness, was it not needful to declare a fact so entirely beyond our comprehension, as that God is a triune intelligence? We have never seen the scripture which even intimates that the Godhead is plural and yet individual. You may cite a text respecting Christ's dignity, but that announces only what respects Christ. It declares no fact concerning God. Even if you could, as you cannot, find a text affirming "Christ is God," this would only prove Christ and God to be convertible terms, and would not prove that God or Christ exist in a Trinity. Separate passages of any kind respecting the Father, and respecting the Spirit, and respecting Christ, prove nothing as to the fact of a Trinity. Establish first the fact that the divine nature is plural or triple. Else the most you can prove is that the one God is sometimes spoken of under one name and sometimes under another, but in his nature remaining without distinction or division. We do not however admit that the scriptures give testimony even to thus much of the doctrine.

Suppose (what is not the case) that the divine attributes were all ascribed in scripture both to the Father and to Christ. What is the proper inference from such a fact? That in the one divine nature there are two? Or that there are two, each of whom has the divine nature separately? That there are two, each of whom having the divine nature separately, is by himself—a God? It argues nothing, to reply, the Bible teaches us also, that there is but one God; unless it has assured us that in the one God, in the one only divine nature, there are two, each of whom has the divine perfections, and that these two are yet not divided or divisible.

The Trinity teaches that divine attributes are to be "distinctly" ascribed to three. Distinctly is "apart," 66 singly," "separately." And in asserting that there are three Gods, what do we more than ascribe the divine attributes distinctly, separately to three ?-If you believe in three Eternals do you believe only in one Eternal? Believing in three Eternals, do you not believe in three Gods. Believing that there are three who have each a divine nature by himself or distinctly from the rest, do you not believe that there are three divine natures? And where there are three divine natures, are there not three divine beings-three Gods? We know nothing of Deity but the divine attributes-and where these are, there is Deity; and when we affirm there are three Deities, we only affirm there are three who have divine attributes. The Trinity affirms no less. It only adds, these three, which are each a Deity by himself, are together but one God.

If the three who possess divine attributes be distinct, are they not different? If different, they are not the

same. Of the one you cannot affirm all which you can affirm of the other, else are they the same. But if the Father, Son, and Spirit be one and the same God, then whatever can be affirmed of God may be affirmed of either. Then we might use either name indifferently where the name God occurs. Let us try. "God raised up his Son Jesus, and hath sent him to bless you." "The Spirit raised up his Son Jesus." "The Son raised up his Son Jesus.' So also wherever the term "the Son," occurs, referring to Christ, we may substitute the name God. "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither-God." To what would this lead us? But if" the Son" be God, his name is God, and these two appellations must be equivalent, and "interchangeable." A late writer on the Trinity, Mr Cornelius, actually draws an argument from what he conceives to be the fact, that "the words Christ and God, are used interchangeably in many instances." If Christ were God, these words might not only be used for one another in many but in all instances. would dare to make this substitution now?

Who

The simple unity of God is proved by the circumstance that in scripture the pronouns I, thou, he, are applied to him precisely as to an individual human being. We are never taught to affix a plural meaning to these pronouns when God is spoken of. But if God exists as three, the plural, and not the singular, is the proper number both in the pronouns and the verbs which follow the names of God, or which follow the names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Instead of reading "Jehovah he is God," "O thou that hearest prayer," we ought to read "Jehovah they are God," "O ye that hear prayer." It is worthy

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of remark that although Trinitarians believe Christ an object of religious worship, and the Spirit also, as well as the Father, yet so impressed are they with the idea of the singleness of him who heareth prayer, that they seldom if ever address the three together, in one and the same In the language of prayer they are almost always Unitarian.

sentence.

But if three different from

God is three.

We are sometimes told that God is three in one sense, and one in another sense. Are not three and one both terms of number, and is there any example in the whole compass of language where three has any other sense than that of its numerical value, or one any sense but that of unity, when these terms are properly used? has in the Trinity a sense peculiar and what it has properly, what is that sense? Three what? Does three exceed one in this application of the term? If it means more than one-we again ask more what? To one divine nature you can add nothing, it includes all possible perfection. What more then do we include in our conception of God, when we say, God is three, than we do when we say God is one? The truth is, the proposition-God is three-cannot be conceived of by us without an idea of division, separation into parts. We can attach no meaning to the terms unless we conceive of three parts combined, making one whole -which whole God is.

This idea of partition in the Godhead cannot be disjoined from the notion of a "distinction" in the divine nature, regard it as you may. Thus, the creation is made by Trinitarians the special work of the Son in distinction from the Father and Spirit. Here then we have a great work done by God, and yet not done by the