easy nor material to determine. I am rather inclined

to think it is the former.

XIV.

Numb. iv. 24, &c.

The LORD bless thee and keep thee.
The LORD make his face to shine upon
thee, and be gracious unto thee.

The LORD lift up his countenance upon
thee, and give thee peace.

After this form the High Priest was commanded to bless the children of Israel. The name of the Lord, in Hebrew Jehovah, is here repeated three times. And parallel to this is the form of Christian Baptism; wherein the three personal terms of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are not represented as so many dif ferent names, but as one name: the one divine nature of God being no more divided by these three, than by the single name Jehovah thrice repeated. If the three articles of this benediction be attentively considered, their contents will be found to agree respectively to the three persons taken in the usual order of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the author of blessing and preservation. Grace and illumination are from the Son, by whom we have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. Peace is the gift of the Spirit, whose name is the Comforter, and whose first and best fruit is the work of peace.

L

Petrus Alphonsi, an eminent Jew, converted in the beginning of the 12th Century, and presented to the font by Alphonsus a king of Spain, wrote a learned treatise against the Jews, wherein he presses them with this scripture, as a plain argument that there are three persons to whom the great and incommunicable name of Jehovah is applied. And even the unconverted Jews according to Bechai, one of their Rabbi's, have a tradition, that when the high priest pronounced this blessing over the people-elevatione manuum sic digitos composuit, ut Triada exprimerent-he lifted up his hands, and disposed his fingers into such a form as to express a trinity. All the foundation there is for this in the scripture, is Lev. ix. 22. As for the rest, be it a matter of fact or not, yet if we consider whence it comes, there is something very remarkable in it. See Observ. Jos. de vois. in Pug. Fid. p. 400, 556, 557.

XV.

Math. xxviii. 19. Baptizing them in the name of the FATHER, and of the Son, and of the HOLY GHOST.

XVI.

Thes. iii. 5. The LORD (the Holy Ghost, see C. 2. Art. 4. 18.) direct your hearts into the love of GOD (the Father) and into the patient waiting for CHRIST,

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XVII.

2 Cor. xiii. 14. The grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and the love of God, and the communion of the HOLY GHOST.

In this and the foregoing article, the order of the persons is different from that of Matth. xxviii. 19. The Holy Ghost having the first place in the former of them, and Christ in the latter: which is a sufficient warrant for that clause in the creed of St. Athanasius

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In this Trinity, none is afore or after other." And Dr. Clarke, I presume, apprehended something of this sort; because he has corrected the apostle, and transposed the order of the persons in 2 Cor. xiii. 14. without the least apology, or giving his reader any warning of it. § LV. p. 377.

XVIII.

1 John v. 7. There are THREE that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD and the HOLY GHOST.

There has been much disputing about the authenticity of this text. I firmly believe it to be genuine for the following reasons: 1. St. Jerom, who had a better opportunity of examining the true merits of the cause than we can possibly have at this distance of time, tells us plainly, that he found out how it had

a Præf. ad Canon. Epist.

been adulterated, mistranslated, and omitted on purpose to elude the truth. 2. The divines of Lovain having compared many Latin copies, found this text wanting but in five of them; and R. Stephens found it retained in nine of sixteen ancient manuscripts which he used. 3. It is certainly quoted twice by St. Cyprian,a who wrote before the council of Nice; and also by Tertullian; as the reader is left to judge after he has read the passage in the margin.b Dr. Clarke, therefore, is not to be believed when he tells us, it was ઃઃ never cited by any of the Latins before St. Jerom."c 4. The sense is not perfect without it; there being a contrast of three witnesses in heaven to three upon earth; the Father, the word, and the Holy Ghost, whose testimony is called the witness of God; and the Spirit, the water, and the blood, which being administered by the church upon earth, is called the witness of men. He that desires to see this text farther vindicated from the malice of Faustus Socinus, may consult Pool's Synopsis, and Dr. Hammond; and I wish he would also read what has lately been published upon it by my good and learned friend Dr. Delany, in his volume of Sermons, p. 69, &c.

But even allowing it to be spurious, it contains nothing but what is abundantly asserted elsewhere; and that both with regard to the trinity in general, and this their divine testimony in particular. For that

a De Unit, Eccl. 109. Epist. LXXIII.

b Connexus patris in filio, & silii in paracleto, tres efficit cohærentes, alterum ex altero; qui tres unum sunt, &c. adv. Prax.

c See the text in his 2d edition.

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there are three divine persons who bear record to the mission of Christ, is evident from the following scriptures:

John viii. 17, 18. The testimony of two men is true. I am ONE that bear witness of MYSELF. The FATHER that sent me beareth witness of me. 1 John v. 6. It is the SPIRIT that beareth witness. And Christ has also mentioned, upon another occasion, a plurality of witnesses in heaven-WE speak (says he) that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not OUR witness !a which can be no other than the witness of the trinity; because it is added -no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven; therefore no man could join with Christ in revealing the things of heaven to us.

XIX.

Isa. vi. 3. And one cried unto another and said, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the LORD OF See also Rev. iv. 8.

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HOSTS.

They are not content (says Origen) to say it once or twice, but take the perfect number of the trinity, thereby to declare the manifold holiness of God; which is a repeated intercommunion of a threefold holiness; the holiness of the Father, the holiness of the only begotten Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And

a John iii. 11.

b Non eis sufficet semel clamare sanctus, neque bis; sed perfectum numerum Trinitatis assumunt, ut multitudinem sanctitatis Dei mani festent; quæ est trinæ sanctitatis repetita communitas; sanctitas patris, sanctitas unigeniti filii, & spiritus sancti. Orig. Hom, in loc.