THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES AND THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN.

V. Our humble Inquirer after truth, in his perusal of the four Gospels, and especially that of St. John, has seen frequent mention of Three Divine Persons,-distinct Persons,-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,-distinguished by personal attributes and actions,-attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, and inspiration, which belong only to God. He has also seen, that the Three Divine Persons are each expressly called God; and he has learned, from the same Sacred Volume, that there is only one God. He must therefore be led, by the testimony of Scripture, to conclude, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Three Persons in One God.

He is led to this conclusion on the general authority of Scripture. But there are particular testimonies in various passages of the New Testament which enforce the same conclusion, that the Three Divine Persons are only One God. The unity of the Son with the Father is declared by Christ himself (John x. 30); and the immediate context (ver. 28, 29, assigning to the Son

the same omnipotence as to the Father), and the blasphemous sense which the Jews, his hearers, imputed to the words, show, that unity of motive and power was the obvious meaning of the expression, "I and my Father are one."

This unity of nature is evident from the identity and equality of the infinite attributes ascribed to the Father and the Son by St. John in the beginning and the conclusion of his First Epistle, in which the Son is called, "that eternal life "which was with the Father" (ch. i. ver. 2), and "the true God, and eternal life" (ch. v. ver. 20), and in the Apocalypse the same eternal nature is ascribed both to the Father and the Son, i. 8: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and "the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which 66 was, and which is to come, the Almighty;" which by some is applied to the Father, and by others to the Son; and i. 11, and xxi. 6, which are the words of Christ.

The unity of the Son with the Father in the same Divine nature is also evident from the unity of the Spirit of Christ with the Spirit of the Father. The prophets of the Old Testament "spake as they were moved by the Spirit of

"Christ" (1 Peter i. 11), and " by the Holy "Ghost" (2 Peter i. 21). The Apostles, in their defence before magistrates, spake (according to the Saviour's promise) as they were moved by the Spirit of Christ (Luke xxi. 15), and by the Spirit of the Father (Matt. x. 20). The Spirit of the Son, therefore, is one with the Spirit of the Father; and, consequently, by the same unity of nature, is the Son one with the Father. And, as the Son is one with the Father, and the Holy Spirit is one with both, all Three must necessarily be one in nature and power.

This unity of the Three Persons of the Deity is also evident from the testimony of St. John, in his First Epistle (ch. v. ver. 7): "There are "three that bear record in heaven: the Father, "the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these "three are one." They are one incidentally by the sameness of their testimony, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; they are necessarily one by their unity of nature. And the Apostle's argument from their threefold testimony is infinitely augmented and enforced by their unity of nature. The testimony was true by the Jewish law, because it was the concurrent declaration

of three witnesses; but it was, a fortiori, humanly speaking, more true; because the Three are, by their Divine nature, One. And therefore it is said, in the ninth verse," If ye receive the wit"ness of men,"-of three men,-who are only incidentally one, the witness of God, in the Three Persons of the Deity, is greater. The passage has been strangely misunderstood in considering it as a testimony of St. John to the Trinity, instead of being a testimony of the Trinity to the Divinity of the Son of God,the same threefold testimony which the Apostle has recorded in his Gospel.

Of the celebrated passage of St. John's Epistle, our Inquirer will be told, that its authenticity has been disputed by many learned men for these last three centuries: in answer to which, he must be told, that if it has been disputed by many, it has been received and defended by more; and that its authenticity was never denied before the sixteenth century, nor ever questioned during

the fifteen centuries which preceded that period, though it had been constantly alleged against the Arians, and other unbelievers in its doctrine, from the middle of the fifth century.

He will be told, that the Verse is not to be found in the most ancient Greek MSS. of the New Testament. He should, in answer, be informed, that there are only two Greek MSS., containing the Epistles of St. John, remaining of the first eight centuries, and that it might have been in many of the hundreds of MSS. that are lost; for it is contained in the Latin Version, which is more ancient than the most ancient Greek MSS. that omit it. And the Latin Version is an evidence of its Greek original.

He should also be informed, that there are two genuine Greek MSS. now extant, which contain the Verse: one at Dublin, and the other in the Vatican; one of which MSS. is at least as ancient as some which are quoted against the Verse; and the other more ancient than many that are opposed to it. He should also be told, that it was contained in the Greek MSS. from which the Greek Testament was first edited by the Complutensian Editors, and by Erasmus in