ways took it for a divine person: But these new interpreters come too late to be listened to. What the phrase, Holy Spirit, signifies, we have learnt from our ancestors, our ancestors from the Apostles, and the Apostles from Christ. Yes, the constant and uniform belief of eighteen hundred years, about the personality and divinity of the Holy Ghost, comes from the Apostles, the very founders of christianity, or else let the Unitarian point out, if he can, by what Pontiff or council, by what man or number of men, in what age, and in what country, it was first introduced. This belief is, therefore, Apostolical, and, of course, true and divine and as the Unitarian creed stands in direct opposition to it, it must needs be human and false.

To infer with the Christian Disciple that, because this phrase, the Holy Spirit, is used sometimes in scripture for God himself, sometimes to express the power of God, his wisdom, his will or his command; at other times to denote a single gift or endowment, such as power, wisdom, courage, or skill, in some art: finally, to signify the moral influence employed by God in any way; all which we most readily grant. To infer from this, I say, with the said Journalist, that the phrase, Holy Spirit, never signifies a Divine Person, would be a mode of arguing similar to this: The word Jerusalem, in scripture, now signifies the militant church, now the triumphant, and at times the soul of the just man, therefore it never signifies in a true and literal sense the material city of Jerusalem. Now that the phrase Holy Spirit, besides the above meanings, is chiefly and principally, at least, in certain places, intended to signify a true Divine Person, is proved beyond the possibility of a doubt. First, from the very form of baptism prescribed by Christ, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Secondly, from the promise of the Holy Ghost." St. John, xiv. v. 16, 17, 27.-xv. v. 26.-16. From the tenor of these chapters Christ the incarnate wisdom of God must be necessarily supposed (which cannot be done without a shocking blasphemy)

to have spoken contrary to all the rules of human language, if by the Holy Ghost he did not mean a divine person, as it must be obvious to every one that will peruse them. Thirdly, From 1 John, v. 7. “For there are three that give testimony in Heaven; the Father, the Word, the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." See our scriptural proofs above.

The author just quoted labours in vain to establish parallel instances of bold personification that occur both in the Old and New Testament, in which such things as unquestionably are not persons, are described with all the attributes of a person. So, he thinks, are described the Stone of Joshua (Joshua xxiv. 26, 27.)-next wisdom (Proverbs i. 2, 3, 4, 8, 9.) Thirdly, Sin and death (Rom. xix. 17.—vi. 12, 14, 17, 23.-1 Cor. xv. 55, 57.)—and lastly charity (1 Cor. 13.)

For, assuredly, whatever strong epithets, glowing language, and bold figures Joshua and St. Paul make use of, the former in speaking of the stone of testimony, and the latter in describing sin, death, and charity, there is no man in his senses, that will ever be tempted to take a stone, or sin, or death, or, in fine, charity, for a true living person: for in these instances the subject-matter itself, the connexion with the context, and the aim of the sacred writer point out the meaning so clearly, that it is not possible for any man to be misled by any bold figurative language. On the contrary, the scripture language relative to the personality of the Holy Ghost, is so decisive, so irresistible, so absolutely unsusceptible of any other meaning, that the christian world, for the lapse of eighteen centuries, have invariably understood it of a true and real person. As to wisdom, if taken abstractively, it is selfevident that it cannot mean a person, but if understood in a concrete sense, that is, as actually existing and acting, as it is generally taken by the fathers of the church in that place, where wisdom is said to have built her house, furnished her table, mingled her wine, &c. then it means a true Divine Per

son, the uncreated and incarnate wisdom, the only begotten Son of God.

CLI. Against the arbitrary and unheard of interpretations of the Scriptures on this and other subjects, on which the Unitarian differs from all christendom of the present and past ages, we deem it important to remind the reader never to lose sight of the unanswerable argument which we have developed, (III Number, page 106.-124.) and which is equally applicable to all controverted points between Christians and Unitarians. Indeed, these new teachers have no right whatever to be listened to, nor are we Christians under any obligation whatever to dispute with them from the Scriptures, or to go to the trouble to examine the merits of their system, or to establish our christian doctrines by scriptural evidence; for we have a much shorter and surer way, a way adapted to the meanest capacity, a way to which nothing can be replied, and which settles the question at once for ever. Which is this way? It is to examine, not in what way the teachers of the Unitarian school interpret the Scriptures, or in how many different senses the same scripture may be taken by this or that set of prepossessed and partial men; (for it is well known, that there is no passage in the Scriptures so clear, that may not be tortured by party-men into ten thousand different and even opposite meanings;) but to examine in what way the Church of God and the whole christian people have always and every where understood them: To examine, not what any new sect, for instance, the Unitarian, teaches, respecting the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, but what the christian world has always believed on these subjects: for this constant, uniform, and universal belief and practice of the whole church of God respecting these doctrines being once established: this plain and simple question arises: Whence could this constant, uniform, and universal consent and practice possibly originate? As we find no source or beginning of it at any period posterior to the Apostolic age, philosophy compels us to trace it to the preaching of the Apostles, after the same manner as good sense forces us, and will

force our posterity to refer the declaration of American independence to the year 1776, and not to any other period either anterior or posterior, since at any anterior period we do not find it atchieved, and at any posterior period we find it already established and in full operation.

But if the doctrines in question emanate from the Apostles, they are, therefore, true, they are revealed, they are divine; therefore, without examining any further the Unitarian system, or inquiring into its titles, we know before hand, that it is anti-apostolical, and of course a human invention.

CLII. There is scarcely an Unitarian production,* in which we are not triumphantly asked, where in the Scriptures can you point out to us the words: Trinity, consubstantial, person,or these phrases: There are three persons in one supreme God: or: Jesus Christ is consubstantial with the Father, or: the Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity, &c.? As, therefore, such like words or sentences are not to be met with in the Scriptures, the Unitarian writers thence infer with an air of triumph, that the said mysteries are evidently unscriptural.

With a view of dispatching once for all this frivolous, contemptible, and hackneyed objection, I beg leave to make these few remarks.

First of all, this kind of objection is by no means peculiar to the Unitarians, but has been common to all the innovators of past ages. For as all their strength lies in equivocations, fallacies and subterfuges, by which they are used to conceal, under language apparently orthodox or even Scriptural the tenour of their heresy, they cannot bear the idea, that such terms or expressions should be consecrated by the church to define and express her doctrine, as are unsusceptible of a different sense or of equivocation. Hence the clamours of the Arians against the term: Consubstantial, Trinity, of the Nestorians against the expression "OTOXOS, Mother of God," &c. From these instances it is an incontestible fact, that the church of God considered herself at all times in possession

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* See Jared Sparks' V. letter, page 148, &c. the Christian Disciple, the Uni tarian Miscellany, and other Unitarian publications passim.

of an undefeasible right of fixing and determining her faith by such expressions, as she thought fittest to distinguish it from all other doctrines, and to cut off for ever all possible cavil or crafty interpretation of her enemies. And, indeed, why should we dispute the church of God a right, which every commonwealth, every legislator; nay, even every private individual has to deliver his thoughts after such a manner and in such language, as he deems fittest to render it impossible for any one to mistake his meaning, or to put on it a wrong construction? Or shall we be told that the commonwealth exceeds the limits of its power, when, on a doubt arising about the true meaning of any article of our constitution, or on perceiving that a false and pernicious construction is put upon it, adopts and consecrates an expression, which defines its real and only true signification, and once for all precludes all possibility of distorting the law from its true and intended meaning? Shall, in such cases, the declaration of the Government, or the sentence of a Judge be invalid or void of effect, because it is not word for word couched in the very expressions of the Constitution or of the law?

To silence, therefore, forever these childish clamours of our Unitarian friends, we, in imitation of the fathers of the church*, retort with infinite advantage the argument upon them, and ask them in our turn: In what part of the Scripture do you find those words or sentences in which you so uniformly affect to express your creed, if creed it can be called, and not rather a denial of all creed, a denial of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost, a denial of Christ's atonement for mankind, and of the necessity of grace for the performance of salutary works? The words Trinity, consubstantiality, Person, &c. are not to be

But in what Scripture have they themselves (the Arians) found "the name of substance: there are three Hypostases: and: Christ is not true God: and many other like words and phraseologies, which the Arians daily use, and which still are not read in the Scriptures? It matters not, whether you make use of Scriptural expressions or not, provided you maintain the orthodox doctrine. The Heterodox, although he use no other but Scripture expressions, will not less hear from the Holy Ghost, "why dost thou declare my justices?" Psalm. xlix. 16. Athanasius lib. de Synodis, Tom. I. page 752.