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have derived from the holy Apostles by tradition, and preser ved in the Catholic church down to this present day."*

CXXV. Secondly, Baptism was always administered in the name and by the express invocation of the most holy Trinity; which fact is a public and solemn profession of faith in the three divine persons, and in the unity of their nature. With a view of professing her faith in the three divine persons, the church, for a considerable length of time, made use of a threefold immersion in the administration of baptism.

CXXVI. Thirdly, and lastly, the public worship of adoration or Latria, was at all times, and all over the world, paid by christians to God the Father, to God the Son, and to God the Holy Ghost, as we learn from St. Justin in his Apology for the Christians. "Since we are taught that Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate the President in Judea, in the time of Tiberius Cæsar, is the Son of the true God, and since we hold him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we can demonstrate that they are worshiped by us with reason." Athenagoras in his legation for the Christians likewise says: "We declare the Holy Ghost himself, who inspires the prophets, to be an emanation of God, that he is emitted and reflected like a ray of the sun. then should not be surprised to hear those called Atheists who believe God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, and who show their power in their unity and their distinction in their order." The same constant and in

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"Decrevimus fidem scripto edere et exponere, quam a principio accepimus, ac hæbemus traditam ac servatam in catholica Eulesia usque in hodiernum diem a Beatis Apostolis."

† Justin Apolog. 1. Ιησεν Χριστον τον σταυρωθέντα επι Ποντιε Πιλα το το γενόμενος εν Ιεδαία ετσι χρονισ Τιβέρες Καισαροσ επιτροπος, υιον τε οντοσ θες μαθοντοσ, και εν δευτερη χωρα εχινσο, πνευμα τε προφη τικον εν τρίτη τάξει, οτι μετα λογο τιμωμεν, αποδείξομεν.

Athenag. Legat.- και το καυτό το ενεργεν τοισ εκφωνεσι προφή τικωσ αγιον πνευμα, απορροίαν είναι φαμεν τε θεέ, απορρέον και επαναφερόμενον, ωσ ακτινα ηλικ Τισ εν εκ αν απορήσαι, λεγοντασΘεον πατέρα και υιον Θες και πνευμα αγιον, δεικνυντασ αυτων και την εν τγενώσει δυναμιν, και την εν τη τάξει διαίρεσιν, ακέσας αθιασ καλεμένες.

variable belief of the church is irresistibly evinced from the immemorial use of the well known Trisagion: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy immortal, have mercy on us, and the Doxology Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was, &c. which, from the earliest ages of the church began to be used as parts of public worship. (See more on this below.)

CXXVII. I do not see what can be possibly objected on the part of the Unitarians against the uniform and constant testimony of the whole Christian world in support of the mystery of the adorable Trinity, except we be again told, that the whole church of God, spread over the universal world was involved in a most damnable error, in downright idolatry, and that their bold assertions, their superior reason ought to have more weight with us than the reason, the wisdom, the learning, and the sanctity of all the preceding ages, of the Apostolical Fathers, of myriads of Martrys that died for that faith, of Holy Pontiffs, and of venerable Councils, in which the whole church was assembled. And if so, I ask, where then, was the church of Christ even in the Apostolical ages? For we have proved, and shall still more amply show, from the writings of the apostolical Fathers, that the church in its very beginning adored and worshipped the Son and the Holy Ghost as one and the same God with the Father. Where was the church of Christ for these eighteen hundred years? For we have demonstrated on the one side, that the christian world has at all times, solemnly professed both by faith and practice, the ineffable mystery of the Trinity, and on the other it is self-evident, that an idolatrous church, that adores as true God two persons, who, if we credit the Unitarians, are not God, cannot be the true church of God. But what is still more, what must we think of God himself, who, by sending his only-begotten Son into the world would seem to have had no other design than to involve the world in the worst of idolatries? What must we think of the Son, who, in the solemn commission he gives to his Apostles of teaching all nations, so clearly distinguishes the Trinity of persons and the unity

of nature, saying, "Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost?" What must we think of the Apostles, and the first generation of the church, which was immediately instructed by them, and from whose mouth they must have received this fundamental dogma? In short, what must we think of religion at large, if God, if Christ, if his Apostles have so egregiously imposed upon the world? and will it not follow, by an immediate and necessary consequence, that Christianity is nothing more than a fable, and that it will be the part of wisdom to launch out into an universal religious, or better to say, irreligious skepticism?

Moreover, if these unheard-of pretensions of the Unitarians. should happen to find admittance in the world, and if they are to be listened to, when they modestly tell us that the whole christian world, for a space of not less than eighteen hundred years, has been grossly mistaken; and next that they are the only true and first illuminati, and that their opinion, without further ado, is more to be esteemed, than the joint and uniform evidence of all christendom; we shall, in that case, have to invent a new logic, and a strange one, too, it must be ; and, beginning with tearing down what philosophy has hitherto revered as the first principles and foundations of all knowledge and truth, establish new ones as opposite to them as they are to good sense accordingly, we must begin to teach, that the evidence of men, even supposing it to be in the highest degree, and whatever be their number, their probity, and the duration of their testimony, has ceased all at once to be an infallible criterion of truth, that it proves no longer any thing: we must maintain that, to give the lie to the whole world or to deny a public, solemn and interesting fact attested by millions, who new sealed the veracity of their deposition with their own blood, nothing more will be required, than that some unblushing writers, who live at a distance of eighteen. hundred years from the time, when the fact under consideration is supposed to have taken place, should step forward and boldly say the whole world was deceived respecting this fact; the fact is false ask no further reason; it ought to be

reason enough for you, that I tell you so. I say, that, if this Unitarian logic be correct, one single ordinary witness, without any particular advantage, will have it in his power to enervate and invalidate the testimony of millions. For I do not suppose that the present Unitarian church, if church it can be called, will pretend to bear a higher ratio to the whole christian world, than one bears to a million. Now, unless all mankind turn at once antipodes to good common sense, I have my doubts, whether such a logic, recommended as much as you please, by the importance of the Unitarian "AUTOS apa," will ever gain respect in the world. We shall return hereafter to this subject.

Unitarian Objections Answered.

CXXIX. "Unitarians believe one of the great doctrines taught in the Scriptures, to be the unity and supremacy of God, and as there is but one God, so the Scripture teaches, that he alone is to be worshipped."*

So likewise believe christians, and this is a truth to which not reason only, but Scripture also, throughout, bears witness in these passages, in which the Lord our God is said to be one Lord, one God, &c. Deuteron. vi. 4. Cor. xv. 4. 6. &c.

But who has ever told the Unitarians, that the three divine Persons are more than one God? When, therefore, in the above passages God is said to be only one God and one Lord, the Scripture means only to exclude such as are not true God, that is to say, the false divinities of paganism, but by no means the divine persons of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, who with the Father are one and the same true living God, as having but one and the same indivisible divine nature. But, replies the Unitarian, how can there be three distinct persons, without there being three Gods?

I answer, because the three divine persons have all one and the same numerical and indivisible nature, which is neither multiplied, nor divided; and because there is in the Deity one

* Unitarian Miscellany, &c. No.1. vol. 1. p. 12.

only Principle or fountain of the whole Godhead, viz. the Father, who on that account is said to be of himself, because he proceedeth from none, and from him both the Son and the Holy Ghost proceed, the former by way of the understanding, and the latter by way of the will, but so proceed, that they remain in him, according to the words of Christ, St. John x. 38. "The Father is in me, and I in the Father." And it is for this reason, too, that Jesus Christ directs us chiefly to pray to his Father, and not to himself or to the Holy Ghost, and that he himself as man prayed to the Father only; not as if he and the Holy Ghost were not one and the same God with the Father; but because the eternal Father being the principle and the fountain head of the Deity, in as far as he proceedeth from none, and both the Son and the Holy Ghost proceed from him, it was quite natural that Christ himself, during his mortal condition, should pray to the Father, and should likewise direct us to pray to him as to his principle, from whom he cometh forth from all eternity. But by praying to the Father, we pray at the same time to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as being one with the Father in nature and substance; and for this reason, we may address our prayers indifferently to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Ghost, as the Christians of all ages have ever done.

CXXX. "From this short abstract may be seen, says the writer of the Miscellany, the opinions of Unitarians, as they differ from many other Christians, on the subject of the Trin

ity."*

He ought to have said, from all Christians without exception, as there can be no Christian without baptism, nor baptism without the explicit belief of the blessed Trinity, according to the express words of Christ, "Go ye, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Matth. xxvii. 19. and, "unless a man be reborn out of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." John iii. 5.

*Unitarian Miscellany, No. 4. vol. 1. p. 18,

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