easy for the trifling and thoughtless to say, that they cannot conceive why they should be called upon to believe a doctrine which is confessedly inexplicable; and if the great principle which pervades the Bible is founded on the Doctrine of the Trinity, it is useless for them to read the Bible, as they certainly should not understand it. I have no doubt there are persons capable of making such a vague assertion as this: they are satisfied to pass through the world without considering by whom it was made, or who directs and controls every thing in it: but to what will this tend, as I do not believe that even the madmen of revolu

very unfair ones, to bring all the ancient Christians and their writings into disrepute; and by their own modern, self-important, and false criticisms upon the text of Scripture, often give the sense of it such a turn as to make our religion a very different thing from that which has been all along the religion of Christians if they can gain this point, they make a great step to overthrow the Doctrine of the Trinity by their own proud and carnal reasoning."

Wall, On Infant Baptism, Vol. II. page 113.

tionary France had any confidence in the truth of the doctrine which they promulgated, "That death was an eternal sleep?" If there is a man on earth (which I do not believe) who rejects all idea of a Supreme Being, with such an one it is needless to argue. Such an one must

neither look at the firmament nor the Heavens, for "they declare the glory of God." If again there are any (as I fear there are) who reject divine revelation, what will their natural religion, as they call it, point out to them? Will they find no difficulties, when they allow themselves time to reflect on the great Creator? will they find no difficulty in contemplating the nature of the Deity? A great heathen writer says, that "it is not easy to discover the nature of the gods, nor lawful to inquire."* The truth is, that

* "It is utterly impossible for the Socinians ever to get over the testimony of the Scriptures; if they were abolished, and other records of the church with them, I freely grant that we should not naturally have any

it is not in the power of man to form of himself an accurate idea of God's essential nature and eternal existence; he must receive all that he knows from God's

notion of a Trinity, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one Godhead, nor should we ever have thought of being baptized in such a name, nor have known of 'The Word,' which was God, being made flesh. These mysteries, we grant, would have been unintelligible. But then there would have been another inconvenience in that way of knowing God which they propose, viz. in entertaining only such notions of him as we can form by natural reason and clear ideas; for some few persons of more refined intellectuals, would conceive him to be a spiritual being, far above the properties of body and matter; others, that could form no notion of a Spirit, would say, This is unintelligible mystery, we must have a God that has a body, or else we shall think him to be nothing.' The experience of all ages of the world shews that what I say is no fancy, but matter of fact. God give us all the modesty and humility to think that his mode of existing may well be such as we cannot comprehend, any more than a worm can comprehend what reason, or speech, or a soul is, and quietly acquiesce in that account which he has been pleased to give of his own nature, and of what we are to believe concerning him, and to take it according to the plain meaning of those, whom he has inspired to write it, and to judge ourselves, as we are incapable of explaining the manner

own revelation; all our purer wisdom on the subject of the Deity arises from the Christian revelation, as perfecting that revelation which, was vouchsafed to the Jews, and which was only preparatory to that of the Gospel: through both revelations the Doctrine of a Trinity in Unity may be traced. Let us now examine this fact. At the very opening of the Bible, we find a word, implying plurality,* introduced as the title of the Almighty. The writer of the Pentateuch might have used a word of singular import (as he does elsewhere), and thus have precluded all ambiguity, but he uses this word of plural import no less than thirty times,

of it, and much more incapable of any ability of trying and examining the truth of it by our natural ideas of the things themselves. This last is presumptuous, and one should think an improbable attempt of those who own the divine inspiration of the Scripture."

F

Wall, Vol. I. page 151.

* Elohim. Vide Bishop of Hereford's "Thoughts on the Trinity," and "Allex's Judgment of the Jewish Church against Unitarians."

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at the beginning of his history and in its primary chapters, and thereby admits ambiguity. When we consider that the cause why the Jews were selected by the Almighty to be his peculiarly chosen people, was the faith of Abraham" that ought to excite reflection in those who are afraid of believing too much; but when we also consider that the express purpose of their being chosen was to preserve the knowledge of the One True God, the great Jehovah, amidst a world. wholly given to idolatry, and that all their laws and ordinances tended to that sole object; the use of the plural Elohim is a very striking circumstance: it appears extraordinary, that Moses, when he is describing the creation of the universe, should, in order to express his conception of the Deity, introduce a term which implies plurality, and frequently connecting it with verbs and persons singular. Extraordinary also is it, that, as in the decalogue when first delivered, so also on a

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