the Trinity to another. How this is to be explained, they do not pretend to know, or even to have an opinion. They consider it as their duty, simply and humbly to receive the fact, as a great mystery, without presuming to comprehend it, or to attempt a developement of the manner in which the fact exists; just as they receive the fact of the Divine Omnipresence, or of the blessedness of heaven; although the same Bible which reveals these facts, declares that they are both far beyond the reach of our minds.

But it will, perhaps, be asked, what we mean when we say, there are three Persons in the Godhead? What kind of distinction is that which is expressed by the word Person? We frankly answer, we do not know. We find a certain three-fold mode of existence in the Deity frequently referred to in Scripture, but not explained; it may be because it is not possible adequately to explain it to creatures in our situation; perhaps not even to any created being. There is an essential poverty in all human language, when we attempt to speak of the properties of spirits, and more especially when we speak concerning the most Exalted and Incom

prehensible of all Spirits. The term Person has been employed in the Church of Christ, to express the distinction before us, for many centuries. We found it in use; and not knowing a better term for the purpose intended, we have cheerfully adopted, and continue to use it still. We by no means understand it, however, in a gross or carnal sense. We utterly deny that we mean by it three distinct, independent beings; for we believe that there is but one God. But we mean to express by it a certain (to us mysterious) three-fold mode of existence, in the one living and true God, which carries with it the idea of an INEFFABLY GLORIOUS SOCIETY in the Godhead, and lays a foundation for the use of the personal pronouns, I, Thou, He, in that everblessed Society. In short, to employ the language of Dr. Barrow, we believe, "That "there is one Divine Nature or Essence, com"mon to three Persons, incomprehensibly uni❝ted, and ineffably distinguished; united in "essential attributes, distinguished by peculiar "relations; all equally infinite in every Divine "perfection; each different from the other in "order and manner of subsistence; that there ❝is a mutual existence of One in All, and All in

"One; a communication without any depriva ❝tion or diminution in the communicant; an "eternal generation, and an eternal procession, "without precedence or succession, without pro66 per causality or dependence; a Father impar❝ting his own, and the Son receiving his Father's "life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without "any division or multiplication of essence."These are notions which may well puzzle our "reason in conceiving how they agree, but "should not stagger our faith in assenting that "they are true: upon which we should medi❝tate, not with hope to comprehend, but with "dispositions to admire; veiling our faces in "the presence, and prostrating our reason at the "feet, of Wisdom so far transcending us."*

Nor ought it to give rise to the least difficulty in the minds of any, that the second Person of the Trinity is called the Son of God; that He is said to be the only Begotten Son, and the eternally Begotten. I know that the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son of God is regarded by many as implying a contradiction in terms.. But here again is a most presumptuous assump

*BARROW's Defence of the Trinity. p. 7. 8.

tion of the principle, that God is a being altogether such an one as ourselves. Because generation among men necessarily implies priority, in the order of time as well as of nature, on the part of the father, and derivation and posteriority on the part of the son, the objection infers that it must also be so in the Divine nature. But is this a legitimate, is it a rational inference? It certainly is not. That which is true, as it respects the nature of man, may be infinitely removed from the truth, as it respects the eternal God. It has been often well observed, that, with regard to all effects which are voluntary, the cause must be prior to the effect; as the father is to the son, in human generation: But that in all that are necessary, the effect must be coeval with the cause; as the stream is with the fountain, and light with the sun. Has the sun ever existed a moment without sending out beams? And if the sun had been an eternal being, would there not have been an eternal, necessary emanation of light from it? But God is confessedly eternal. Where, then, is the absurdity or contradiction of an eternal, necessary emanation from Him, or, if you please, an eternal generation,—and also an eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the

Father and the Son? To deny the possibility of this, or to assert that it is a manifest contradiction, either in terms or ideas, is to assert that, although the Father is from all eternity, yet He could not act from all eternity; which, I will venture to assert, is as UNPHILOSOPHICAL as it is IMPIOUS. Sonship, even among men, implies no personal inferiority. A son may be perfectly equal, and is sometimes greatly superior to his father, in every desirable power, and quality: and, in general, he does in fact partake of the same human nature, in all its fullness and perfection, with his parent. But, still, forsooth, it is objected, that we cannot conceive of generation

in

any other sense than as implying posteriority and derivation. But is not this saying, in other words, that the objector is determined, in the face of all argument, to persist in measuring Jehovah by earthly and human principles? Shall we never have done with such a perverse begging of the question, as illegitimate in reasoning, as it is impious in its spirit? The scriptures declare that Christ is the Son, the only begotten Son of the Father; to the Son the Father is represented as saying, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: and concerning himself the Son declares,