is the goodness of God, which is essential; but this goodness is also an attribute of the Spirit; who therefore is proved to be very God; and by that argument too, for the sake of which, some have denied him to be God.

XXIV.

† Matt. iii. 16. The Spirit of God.

persons.

The Spirit, say they, is not God, because he is only the Spirit of God. But so likewise the human spirit, whence the apostle has taugnt us to borrow an idea of the divine, is the spirit OF a man; yet, was it ever pretended, that the Spirit, for this reason, is one being, and the man another? No, certainly: and the same must be true of God, and the Spirit of God; as far as the being of the same man, who is one person, can be an image of the same God, who is three But there is the plainest testimony of scripture, that the Spirit, though said to be the Spirit OF Jehovah, is also called by the express name of Jehovah himself. For it is written, Judg. xv. 14. that the Spirit OF Jehovah CAME upon Samson. Yet at chap. xvi. 20. it is said, that Jehovah himself DEPARTED from him. Till it can be shewn, then, that the person who came upon him was one, and the person who departed from him was another; it is undeniable, that the Spirit, though said to be OF Jehovah, is strictly and properly Jehovah himself.

XXV.

† Heb. ii. 4. GOD also bearing them witness with-gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will.

Hence it is objected, that the Holy Ghost is subservient and subordinate to the will of another; therefore he cannot be the supreme and true God. But if this own will of God should prove to be no other than the will of the Spirit, this imaginary objection of the Arians, which if it be an error must also be a blasphemy, will turn to a demonstration against them. And that the will of God really is the will of the Spirit, is manifest from 1 Cor. xii. 11. all these worketh that one and the self-same SPIRIT, dividing to every man severally as HE (even he himself) WILLETH.

XXVI.

† Rom. viii. 26. The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us.

The Spirit is not God, because he maketh intercession with God; and God, as it is imagined, cannot intercede with himself. But it is a matter of fact, that he has actually done this: therefore it is wicked and false to say that he cannot. For God reconciled the world TO HIMSELF, and it was done by intercession. The other objections I meet with, are all of this stamp : as that the Spirit is said to be given, to proceed, to be

poured out, to be sent ; and they argue that it is impossible for God to give, to proceed from, or to send, himself. But here the question is begged, that God is but one person, in which case it might be a contradiction: but the scriptures demonstrate, as it will be seen in the following chapter, that God is three persons; and then there is no contradiction in any of these things. It is also to be observed, that the giving, proceeding, sending, and ministration of the eternal Spirit to Christ in glory, are terms that concern not the divine nature, but relate merely to the acts and offices, which the several persons of the blessed trinity have mercifully condescended to take upon them, for conducting the present economy of man's redemption and sanctification.

By this time, I take it for granted, every pious reader must have observed, how copious and conclusive the scriptures of the Old Testament are, upon the subject of the trinity; and that without having recourse to them upon every occasion, it is impossible for me or for any man to deal fairly and honestly by the apostolical doctrine of the Church of England. Our Lord himself has told us, that every scribe, or teacher, instructed into the kingdom of heaven, should bring forth out of his treasure, things NEW and old. It was his own practice. He appealed, at every turn, to the law, the prophets, and the psalms, for the testimony of his own doctrine; and the church has followed his example, from the days of the apostles almost down to the present times. And so far is the Old Testament

a Matt xiii. 52.

from being no part of the scripture, that it is the book, and the only, book, the gospel calls by the name of the scripture. It was this book, which the noble and faithful Beraans searched every day of their lives, to see whether the gospel then preached and afterwards published in the New Testament, was agreeable to it; with the intention, either to receive or reject it, as it should appear to be recommended by this authority. It was this book, for his skill in which, Apollos is praised as one mighty in the scriptures; the same scriptures, of which St. Paul was bold to affirm, for the benefit of a brother Christian, that they were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. As long as this faith flourished in the church, these scriptures were much read and profitably understood: but now it is dwindled into a dry lifeless system of morality, they are become in a manner useless; and some (it grieves me to say it) even of those who have undertaken to teach others, want themselves to be taught again this first element of Christianity, that the New Testament can never be understood and explained, but by comparing it with the Old.

Of this error and its consequences we have a sad example in the celebrated Dr. Clarke; a man, whose talents might have adorned the doctrine of Christ, had not his faith been eaten up by an heathen spirit of imagination and philosophy. He published a .book entitled, the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity; a work of great pains and premeditation. short preface he allows the subject to be of the

In a

greatest importance in religion-not to be treated of carelessly-but examined by a serious study of the WHOLE SCRIPTURE. And to convince the world that this and no other was his own practice, he affirms, in his introduction, p. 17. and prints it in capitals, that he has collected ALL the texts relating to that matter. Yet his whole collection is finished and shut up without a single text from the Old Testament! I cannot find that he has even mentioned such a book. "The Christian revelation," says he, p. 1. "is the doctrine of Christ and his apostles." This he calls, p. 4.-" The books of scripture " and again, p. 5.—"The books of scripture-not only the rule, but the whole and the only rule of truththe only foundation we have to go upon." And he proves it thus-“because no man has since pretended to have any new revelation.” An argument that will prejudice few people in favour of his sincerity. For though there has been no new revelation SINCE the books of the New Testament, as we all confess : does it follow that there was no old revelation BEFORE them? And did this author never read, that the same GOD, who spake in these last days by his Son, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets ?a yet he affects to know nothing at all of the matter. And as to the use he makes of the New Testament, who would expect, that a man who has made nothing of one half of God's revelation, should be very nice in his treatment of the other? In the first

a Hebrews i. 1.