Jehovah—and the Habitation of Jehovah, by ascribing to each of them personal actions and properties, whilst he makes them all equally God, by assigning to them those effects of wisdom and power which are peculiar to the first cause; and yet he is not accused of having established three Gods, nor of having denied the unity. The Cabbalist distinguishes between the higher Numerations, Supreme Crown, Wisdom and Understanding; which he asserts to be no properties, as the name might import, but eternal subsistance of the Godhead; and yet he is not charged with having violated the unity of Jehovah, nor with having induced three Gods. Finally, the Daruschit vindicates the eternity and divinity of the Law and of the Throne of Grace, by demonstrating that they actually existed with Jehovah prior to the creation, and that on the authority of the inspired penman, they all denote one and the same thing, that is, one and the same God; and yet he is not condemned for having dissolved the unity by the number of his pre-existences. How then can the Professors of Judaism with any colour of propriety object to that tenet, which agrees in every essential point with the principles of their own church.*

We do not allude to these writings of the Jews because we think they have any claim of authority over our judgment, or that they are entitled to any high regard for the soundness of their understanding, or the correctness of their principles of interpretation: but their testimony is valuable, as historical documents giving us relics of the better knowledge and the purer faith of their ancestors. Neither do we undertake to affirm that these ancient writings of the Jews as clearly teach the triune personal distinction in the Godhead as so many and so learned men have been led to believe they do. Their opinion is our own. But still, we do not offer the testimony of these writings as in itself, a positive proof of the divine authority and truth of the doctrine of the Trinity, but as a presumptive proof that it is so, because the ancestors of those who now oppose the doctrine so interpreted Scripture, and so contemplated the Divine Being as to conceive of a plurality in the one

*On this point, the reader can examine the judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church against the Unitarians, by Alex. Simpson, Plea, pp. 407-431. Haleson on the Trinity. Maurice Jud. Antiq. vol. 4, ch. 11, pp. 113. Jamieson's Reply to Priestly, vol. i., pp. 48-117. Randolph's View of our Saviour's Ministry, vol. ii., pp. 343-354. Gill's Commentary on all the Passages. Lightfoot. Whitaker's Origen of Arianism. Kidder's Demonstration of the Messiah, Part iii., ch. 4, 5. Horsley's Tracts, pp. 242-244. McCaul's Old Paths. Stillingfleet on the Trinity, pp. 203-206. For a full account of the Targum, see Prideaux Conect. of Old and New Test., Part ii, B. 8.

Eternal Godhead. Again the Jews, who regard these writings as authoritative, their testimony must undoubtedly be conclusive, and against all presumptive arguments of Unitarians, they are equally conclusive, since they prove that the doctrine of an absolute personal unity in the divine nature is a defection from the ancient faith of the Jews as well as of christians, and was never held either by believers in revelation, or by Gentiles without revelation.*

It must be remembered also, that a great number of the early converts to christianity and to the belief of the Trinity were, like Paul and the other apostles, Jews, and some of them, like him, trained up in their schools and familiar with all their learning. And as a contradiction between the Old and New Testaments would be destructive to the inspired and authoritative claims of both, the adoption of christianity with the doctrine of the Trinity as a vital principle, by them, is an irrefragable proof to their belief in its perfect consistency with what they regarded as the teaching of God's word.†

A multitude of the early christians were, on the other hand, Greeks, or at least familiar with the Greek language, and with that dialect spoken in Palestine, and in which the Books of the New Testament were written. Many of them also, like Paul, had been learned in all the wisdom of the ancient philosophers, and some of them had been teachers of their systems, and enthusiastic admirers of their genius and eloquence.

But further, all the primitive and early disciples of christianity, had either been brought up Jews or Pagans. They were imbued therefore, with all the prejudices and bigotry of these nations, and their enmity even unto blood against christianity. To the unbelieving, who constituted the great majority of the Jewish nation, the doctrine of the deity of Christ and of the Trinity, was an opprobrious scandal, nay a God defying blasphemy, for the open avowal of which they condemned Jesus Christ to what, by their law, they considered a merited crucifixion. To the Greeks and Romans this doctrine was the uttermost folly, contradiction and absurdity. It was made the ground-work of opprobrious ridicule, as may be seen in the oath put by Lucian into the mouth of a christian, and by the

*Note D., Testimony of Jews.

†The alleged Unitarianism of the early Hebrew Christians has been triumphantly overthrown by Bishop Horsley, in his Tracts against Priestley, and in Jamieson's Vindication in reply to the same writer in Whitaker's Origen of Arianism, and other works.

charge contained in the letter of Pliny to Prajan.* By the philosophic few these doctrines were regarded as pure polytheism and the idolatrous worship of a mere man, while they rejected all faith in the Gods. To the multitude among them, on the contrary, they appeared as the impious substitution of a new system of polytheism for one already established, as the faith of their fathers.

That the early christians, both Jews and Gentiles, should have adopted christianity, and with it as a prime verity, this doctrine of the Trinity, is, therefore, overwhelming presumptive evidence, both that the doctrine is Scriptural, and that it is Divine.

It is a further evidence for this conclusion, and a new line of presumptive and corroborative proof, that some even of the ancient heretics, who separated themselves from the body of the church and were cut off by it, as fully retained the doctrine of a consubstantial trinity as the orthodox. This was the case with the Manichees† and the Montanists, Tertullian having written some of his strongest works in favour of the Trinity after joining this sect.

Such then, are the many various and antagonistic witnesses, who unite their testimony in favour of the doctrine of a trinity, as having been the doctrine originally, of a primitive divine revelation, and as being the undoubted doctrine taught in the Hebrew and christian Scriptures. The heathen world, the christian world, the various and conflicting denominations of christians, the ancient Jews, all converted Jews, Romanists and Greek, and all other oriental christians, the Syrian Church buried for ages on the coasts of Malabar, and the Waldenses equally concealed from the earliest times amid their inaccessible mountains, all unite in testifying to this glorious and divine truth.

Now, be it remembered, that fact thus testified to, is not the truth of this doctrine, but the simple, palpable, and easily understood FACT, of this doctrine having been handed down more or less, and purely from primitive and patriarchal revelation, and of its being at this moment, and ever since they were written, embodied and taught in the sacred Scriptures.

It must also be remembered, that the Greek and Roman Churches were early separated, and have ever since remained rival and antagonistic churches. The firm tenure of this doc

*See given in Note C., as one line of proof. See also, Lardner's Works. † See Lardner, vol. iii., pp. 351, 330, 287.

trine therefore, by both churches, their mutual and earnest contending for it as the faith once delivered to the saints, and their undeviating preservation of it amid all their other changes and corruptions, gives undoubted strength to the force of their independent and yet concurrent testimony.

The undoubted fact of the early and established belief in the doctrine of the Trinity is, itself, a powerful presumption in favour of its apostolic origin. For, as it is itself, altogether remote from the conceptions of the human mind, had the primitive Jews and Jewish converts, and christian converts, been Unitarian, it is impossible to conceive how, or in what manner the doctrine could have been so firmly and finally established as the doctrine, both of the Old and New Testaments, and as fundamentally important.

To these considerations must be added, not only the almost universal testimony of Christendom, in the present and all modern times, to the doctrine of the Trinity, but the amazing learning with which every point bearing upon this question has been discussed;-the erudition and research employed in the study and analysis of the Greek and Hebrew languages; and the definitive character now given to the proper and only legitimate interpretation of the sacred Scriptures.

The passages from which these various and independent witnesses deduced the propositions which constitute the elements of the doctrine of the Trinity, are all those which teach that God, while in his Godhead or nature, he is absolutely one, is, in some sense plural, and not absolutely or personally one, that this plurality is limited to the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that each of these are God. Now, these passages of Scripture are not few. They are exceedingly numerous and enter into the whole structure and phraseology of the Bible. And as it regards their qualities of clearness, plainness, and determinate signification, we appeal from the prejudiced dogmatism of an adversary to the judgment of the truly calm and sincere inquirer, and from the comparatively few who have attempted to sustain the Unitarian hypotheses, upon purely Scriptural testimony,-to the innumerable witnesses we have produced, who, against all the prejudice which stood in their way, have been constrained to receive the doctrine of the Trinity as the doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.

There is still another remark, which will strengthen this presumptive argument for the Scriptural authority of the doctrine

of the Trinity, and that is, that were it not plainly and indubitably taught by God himself, no sincere believer could ever have dared to promulgate it. For, if there is one point on which the Scriptures are more full, express and positive than any other, it is in their denunciations against all idolatry and false Gods. Of Christ, it is almost essential characteristic in the prophetic writings, that he should "utterly abolish idolatry." (Isa. ii., 18.) If therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity be not true, then believers in any age, have been almost universally idolaters. And hence, from anti-trinitarian principles, the blasphemous consequence follows,-that God himself has led his creatures into temptation,-temptation to that very sin, which, above all others, he hates and abhors,-temptation to idolatry! The Deity declares that he is a "jealous God;" that his glory he will not give to another, nor his praise "to graven images." He most pathetically expostulates upon this subject, (Jer. xliv., 3,) "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate." With what scrupulous care does the Supreme Being guard against all temptations to idolatry? Lest the Israelites should worship the relics of Moses, the Deity himself privately interred him, and no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." The brazen serpent also, was destroyed, lest it should lead the Israelites into idolatry. But, if the Deity used such precaution to prevent men from worshipping the body of Moses and the brazen serpent, how can we believe that he would use no precaution where the temptation was infinitely greater. How can we imagine that he would use no precaution to prevent men from worshipping his Son and the Holy Ghost, if only creatures? Is not such a supposition in the highest degree, absurd and unreasonable, and impious? We find that, not only is there no precaution employed in the Scriptures to prevent men from such idolatry, but that everywhere and in every way the Scriptures teach and require men to worship, both the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit. The most glorious perfections of Deity are ascribed to them; the most glorious works of Deity are performed by them,-those very works by which the being and attributes of God are proved,-by which his eternal power and Godhead are manifested, and by which he is distinguished from all false gods. They are, also, everywhere represented as the object of the prayers of men, and of the united praises and adorations of all intelligent beings. What temptations to idolatry if these persons are only creatures or