either. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God.

Among the three then there is not superiority.

"1. Not as to time: The Father is from everlasting, so is the Son, so is the Spirit. 2. Not as to nature: The Son being of the substance of the Father, and the Spirit of the substance of them both. 3. The fulness of the Godhead is in the Father, is in the Son, and is in the

Holy Ghost. The Godhead then, though it can admit of a Trinity, yet it admitteth not of inferiority in that Trinity. If otherwise, then less or more must be there, and so either plurality of gods, or something that is not God: so then, Father, Son, and Spirit are in the Godhead, yet but one God; each of these is God over all, yet no Trinity of Gods, but one God in the Trinity.

"The Godhead then is common to the three, but the three themselves abide distinct in that Godhead: distinct, I say, as Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.

"This is manifest further by these several positions.

"1. Father and Son are relatives, and must needs therefore have their relation as such: A father begetteth, a Son is begotten.

"Proof. Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fist? who hath bound the waters in a garment? What is his name, and what is his Son's name, if thou canst tell?' 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son,' &c. The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.'

"2. The Father then cannot be that Son he begat, nor the Son that Father that begat him, but must be distinct as such.

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Proof. I am one that beareth witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.'. 'I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world.' Again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.'

"The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.'

3. The Father must have worship as a Father, and the Son as a Son.

Proof. They that worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.'

"And of the Son he saith, And when he bringeth his first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.'

"4. The Father and Son have really those distinct, but heavenly relative properties, that discover them, as such, to be two as well as one.

"Proof. The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things.' Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.' The Father sent the Son; the Father commanded the Son; the Son prayed to the Father, and did always the things that pleased him.

"The absurdities that flow from the denial of this are divers; some of which hereunder follow.

"1. It maketh void all those scriptures that do affirm the doctrine; some of which you have before.

"2. If in the Godhead there be but one, not three, then the Father, Son, or the Spirit must needs be that one, if any one only so then the other two are nothing. Again, if the reality of a being be neither in the Father, Son, nor Spirit, as such, but in the eternal Deity, without consideration of Father, Son, and Spirit, as three; then neither of the three are any thing but notions in us, or manifestations of the Godhead, or nominal distinctions, so related by the Word but if so, then when the Father sent the Son, and the Father and Son the Spirit, one notion sent another, one manifestation sent another. This being granted, this unavoidably follows, there was no Father to beget a Son,

no Son to be sent to save us, no Holy Ghost to be sent to comfort us, and to guide us into all the truth of the Father and Son, &c. The most amounts but to this, a notion sent a notion, a distinction sent a distinction, or one manifestation sent another. Of this error, these are the consequences; we are only to believe in notions and distinctions, when we believe in the Father and the Son; and so shall have no other heaven and glory than notions and nominal distinctions can furnish us withal.

"3. If Father and Son, &c. be no otherwise three than as notions, names, or nominal distinctions, then to worship these distinctly, or together, as such, is to commit most gross and horrible idolatry; for albeit we are commanded to fear that great and dreadful name, The Lord our God;' yet to worship a Father, a Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Godhead, as three, as really three as one, is by this doctrine to imagine falsely of God, and so to break the second commandment: but to worship God under the consideration of Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, and to believe them as really three as one when I worship, being the sum and substance of the doctrine of the Scriptures of God, there is really substantially three in the eternal Godhead.

"But to help thee a little in thy study on this deep.

"1. Thou must take heed when thou readest, there is in the Godhead, Father and Son, &c. that thou do not imagine about them according to thine own carnal and foolish fancy; for no man can apprehend this doctrine but in the light of the word and Spirit of God: 'No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son; and he to whom the Son will reveal him.' If, therefore, thou be destitute of the Spirit of God, thou canst not apprehend the truth of this mystery as it is in itself, but will either by thy darkness be driven to a denial thereof; or if thou own it, thou wilt (notwithstanding thy acknowledgment) falsely imagine about it.

"2. If thou feel thy thoughts begin to wrestle about this truth, and to struggle concerning this, one against another, take heed of admitting of such a question, How can this thing be? for here is no room for reason to make it out; here is only room to believe it is a truth. You find not one of the prophets propounding an argument to prove it, but asserting it; they let it lie, for faith to take it up and embrace it.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."

I preserve this document, to prove how well Bunyan could define and compress, even upon the most difficult of all subjects. This characteristic of his power is the more interesting, because he always approached the doctrine of the Trinity with awful solemnity as well as modesty. He did not reckon the doctrine "unwordable" exactly; but he did better: he cherished the habitual conviction, that the Mystery is "enough to crush the spirit, and stretch the strings of the most capacious and widened soul that breatheth on this side of Glory, even if exceedingly enlarged by revelation."- Works, vol. ii. P. 1107.

CHAPTER XL.

BUNYAN'S CATHOLICITY

WHEN one of the strict Baptists told Bunyan, that "as great men's servants are known by their livery, so are gospel Believers by the livery of water-baptism," Bunyan said, "Go you but ten doors from where men know you, -and see how many of the world, or Christians, will know you by this goodly livery. What !-known by waterbaptism to be one who hath put on Christ, as a servant by the gay livery his master gave him? Away, fond man; you do quite forget the text,- By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye LOVE one another!' "__ Works, vol. ii. p. 1238. This Text was Bunyan's watchword; and he gave all men the full benefit of it, who held the great doctrines of the Reformation, however they might differ from him as to discipline or forms. His love of the Brethren was not, indeed, confined to Protestants. It embraced all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Where he saw love to Him, he thought of nothing else. Accordingly, in his review of the character and spirit of the Martyrs, he names nothing else. What they thought of Christ, regulated all his thoughts of them. This maxim makes his sketches of them brief; but it renders them highly characteristic of his own spirit; as will be seen by the following specimens of his review.

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Ignatius found that in Christ that made him choose to go through the torments of the Devil and hell itself, rather than not to have him.