limits: but they may be found at full length in the work just mentioned, under the word Trinity. But should it for argument's sake be conceded to the Baron that he has untied one mysterious knot, which by the bye I do not allow, yet in doing that he has made more than a hundred texts of scripture knotty, which before were plain, and has thereby increased both mystery and difficulty a hundred fold, as shall be seen in the sequel.

Nevertheless, the Baron's Creed allows of a Trinity in the Godhead, and the following is the scheme of it. Jesus Christ is God, and besides him there is no other, the Spirit within him is the FATHER-his body is the SON,-and, the operations, and actions proceeding from both, constitute the HOLY GHOST. If there were any merit in the authorship of this anti-scriptural doctrine, yet even then it would not fall to the share of the Baron, for the very same doctrine, in substance, was broached and propagated in the third century by an Archheretic of the name of Noetus, and whose followers were called Noetians, and also Patripassians, because they said the Father suffered in the body of Christ for the sins of all mankind. After these arose another sect bearing some resemblance, though somewhat different, under the denomination of Sabellians, being the followers of one

Sabellius.

Vide Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Cent. 3. Whatever doctrines men profess, except they be Atheists or Deists, they commonly ground them on some portion of the Scriptures: the Swedenborgians support their doctrine of the person of Christ being the entire Godhead on the following Scriptures, chiefly-I and my Father are one. (John x. 30.) He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. (John xiv. 9.) For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Coloss. ii. 9.)

Now it is a rule of criticism amongst divines, that Scripture is a key to Scripture; and that wherever one part of Scripture appears to contradict another, then the analogy of the whole Bible and unbiassed reason must determine which of the seeming contradictions ought to give way. Wherefore the Scriptures which make Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and a distinct person from God the Father, being very numerous, and unequivocally expressed, must in all fair construction determine the above-cited texts to bear a very different construction to that which Baron Swedenborg puts upon them.

Let us then examine the first cited text, viz. "I and my Father are one." This text is made by the Baron to signify that "I and my Father

are ONE PERSON": whereas the very grammatical form of the words is against such a construction. For we find I which is one person; and then my Father-which is another person; and these are coupled together by the plural verb are: but upon the Swedenborgian scheme our Saviour ought to have said "I and my Father am one."

Here it will be proper to state the gloss which the learned Divines give upon the words before us, and which, I think cannot be much mended, which is after this manner-"I and my Father are one in will,-one in purpose,-one in design,-one in love, grace, and good will to all mankind-and all our operations tend to one and the same end, truth, righteousness, and goodness." This plain construction appears to be amply supported by the following text. "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." (John xvii. 11.)

Now, whether we take those for whom our Saviour prays, to be his apostles or his followers in general, our purpose will be equally answered: he prays "that they may be one as we are," that is, as his Father and himself were one in will, purpose, love, goodness, design, &c. So also he would that all his followers should be of one accord, of one heart and one mind-that they should mind

the same things, and speak the same things, and be all one in Christ Jesus. But he never did, he never could mean that they should be all comprised in one Person.

This subject may be farther illustrated by a mercantile firm, which may consist of three, four, or more individuals. Of these it may be said,

and often is said, that they are all one; because they are one in purse, one in gains, one in losses, one in their hopes and fears, and one in all their mercantile interests. But they are not one person. The same may still more emphatically be said of man and wife. They are one in every interest; and the Saviour himself says that "they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh." (Matt. xix. 5, 6.) But even though man and wife are to be one flesh, yet they are never said to be, nor thought to be, one person.

The second text cited above: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." (John xiv.9.) Now, if these words be taken according to the letter, then several plain texts of Scripture will be clearly falsified, as for instance, "And he" (the Lord) "said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live." (Exod. xxxiii. 20.) "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten

C

66

Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John i. 18.) And the Father himself which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape." (John v. 37.) "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father." (John vi. 46.) From these passages it is manifest that the words in question are to be taken in a figurative sense. Every good man, in a fair and scriptural sense, bears the image or likeness of God; or, as St. Paul expresses it, he has "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." (Coloss. iii. 10.) The same Apostle says, " For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God." (1. Cor. xi. 7.) Now Jesus Christ bore the image of God in a superlative degree, and is therefore with much emphasis and propriety styled "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature." (Coloss. i. 15.) But St. Paul has language still more expressive, if more be needful speaking of Christ he says, "Who being the brightness of his glory," (the Father's glory)" and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had purged our sins, sat down on the