to which there is no parallel in any language, and such as can be reconcileable only to the being of God, who is one and many. We are to collect from it, that in this, as in every act of the godhead, there was a consent and concurrence of the persons in the trinity; and though there was one only who spake, it was the word and decree of all. There is an instance of this sort in the New Testament. The disciples of Christ were commanded to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And, without doubt, the baptism they administered was in all cases agreeable to the prescribed form. Nevertheless we are told of some, who were commanded to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and particularly in the name of the Lord Jesus, so that there was a strange defect either in the baptism itself, or in the account we have of it; or the mention of one person in the trinity must imply the presence, name, and authority of them all; as the passage is understood by Irenæus-in Christi nomine subauditur qui unxit, & qui unctus est, & ipsa unctio in qua unctus est. Lib. III. cap. 20.

X.

Dan. v. 18. The most high God gave to Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor.

V. 20. And THEY took his glory from him.

a Acts x. 48.

b Ibid, viji, 16.

Here again, the word they is a plain relative to the most high God. Nor can it otherwise be agreeable to the sense of the history, or the reason of the thing itself, considered as a matter of fact. For who was it that took away the glory of the king? It was not the work of men, but a supernatural act of the most high God; to whom Nebuchadnezzar himself hath ascribed it—those that walk in pride HE is able to abase.

I might here subjoin in proof of a plurality, those numerous passages of the Old Testament, wherein God is spoken of or speaks of himself, as of more persons than one. I will produce a few of them, to shew that such are not wanting. Gen. xix. 24. The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. Psal. cx. 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, &c. Dan. ix. 17. Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant-for the Lord's sake. Prov. xxx. 4. Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his Son's name, if thou canst tell? Isa. x. 12. When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Jerusalem I will punish, &c. Ibid. xiii. 13. I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. Ibid. xxii. 19. And I will drive thee from thy station, and from thy state shall he pull thee down. Ibid. Ixiv. 4. Neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. Hosea i. 7. I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God. Zech. ii. 10, 11. I will dwell

in the midst of thee, saith the Lord; and many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. Ibid. x. 12. And I will strengthen them in the Lord, and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord,

The passages hitherto produced in this chapter are designed only to prove an indefinite plurality in God. In the remaining part of it, I shall bring forward another class of texts, which shews this plurality to be a trinity.

XI.

Psal. xxxiii. 6. By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Heb. SPIRIT) of his mouth.

The breath or the Spirit of the Lord's mouth, does undoubtedly mean the third person of the trinity; who is called, Job xxxiii. 4. The Spirit of God, and the breath of the Almighty. And it should here be remembered, that when Christ communicated the Holy Ghost to his disciples, he did it by breathing upon thema a demonstration that Christ our Saviour, who, as a person, is the word of the Lord, is in nature the Lord himself; because the Spirit or breath of the Almighty is also the breath of Christ. And this fact is also decisive for the word FILIOQUE, so much controverted in the Nicene Creed.

a John xx. 22,

XII.

Psal. xlviii. 16. And now the LORD GOD and his SPIRIT hath sent ME.

The speaker in this verse is no other than Christ, who at ver. 12. calls himself the first and the last, and does here declare himself to be sent, not only by the Lord God but also by his Spirit: which should be taken some notice of, because the Arians have objected to the co-equality of the Son with the Father, because he is said to be sent by him. But if this should hold, it will follow that Christ, for the same reason, is also infe rior to the Spirit. The author of an Essay on Spirit, whose violent proceedings in the Church have chiefly moved me to draw up these papers, is warm in the pursuit of this argument, that Christ is inferior to the Father, because he was sent by him. "We may therefore, says he, fairly argue, as our Saviour himself does upon another occasion-that as the servant is not equal to his lord, so neither is he that is sent equal to him that sent him."a Not quite so fairly: for here is a gross misrepresentation, of which, and of many other things, this author should give us some account, before he proceeds any farther in the work of reformation; it being a maxim, I think, with the wise and learned, that a man should always reform himself, before he undertakes to reform the world. Upon the occasion he refers to, our Saviour has said—The ser»

a Page 98.

vant is NOT GREATER than his Lord; neither is he that is sent GREATER than he that sent him.a But in the place of this, he has ventured to substitute another reading that comes up to his point, and agrees better with the intended work of reformation-" he that is sent is not equal to him that sent him," printing the word equal in a different character to make it more observable; and then puts an objection of his own forging into the mouth of our blessed Saviour. He professes himself a great enemy to human compositions: and we have reason to believe him, where those compositions are not his own. But his making so free with this and many other texts, does not look as if he was any great friend to the compositions of the Holy Ghost; and can do but little credit to a Vindicator of the Holy Scriptures from the cavils and scoffs of an infidel.

XIII.

Isa. xxxiv. 16. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read-for My mouth it hath commanded, and HIS SPIRIT it hath gathered them.

In these words there is one person speaking of the Spirit of another person: so that the whole trinity is here included. Whether God the Father or God the Son is to be understood as the speaker, it is neither

a John xiii. 16.