the abovementioned doxology is quoted, says, "We can never forsake Christ, nor worship any other: for we worship him as being the Son of God."

5. Athenagoras says, "The Nes xa Aoyos, (Mind and Word of God,) is the Son of God;" and, "We who preach God, preach God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one."

6. Tatian, bishop of Antioch, who flourished in the year 172, says, "We declare, that God was born in human form." 7. Melito, bishop of Sardis, who flourished in the year 177, says, "We are worshippers of one God, who is before all, and in all, in his Christ, who is truly God, the eternal Word."

8. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, says, "The three days before the creation of the heavenly luminaries, represent the Trinity; God, and his Word, and his wisdom."

9. Clemens Alexandrinus prays to Christ to be propitious, and says, "Son and Father, both one Lord, grant that we may praise the Son, and the Father, with the Holy Ghost, all in one; in whom are all things, through whom are all things in one, through whom is Eternity, of whom we are all members, to him, who is in all things good, in all things beautiful, universally wise and just; to whom be glory, both now and for ever. Amen." He also says, "Gather together thy children, to praise in a holy manner, to celebrate without guile, Christ, eternal Logos, infinite age, eternal light, fountain of mercy."

10. Tertullian says, "The name of Christ is everywhere believed, and everywhere worshipped, by all the nations mentioned above. He reigns everywhere, and is everywhere adored. He is alike to all a King, and to all a Judge, and to all a God and a Lord.”

Again: "Behold all nations henceforth emerging from the gulph of error, to the Lord God the Creator, and to God his Christ."

Tertullian also declares, that, " Tiberius received accounts from Palestine, of the things which manifested the truth of Christ's divinity."

To these Christian testimonies, all of the two first centuries, I shall subjoin a few others, out of multitudes, which belong to a later period.

The testimony of Origen, in his comment on the text, has been already seen. He also says, "We (Christians) worship one God, the Father, and the Son."

He farther says, "Now, that you may know the omnipotence of the Father and the Son to be one and the same, as he is one and the same God and Lord with the Father; hear what St. John hath said, in the Revelation. These things saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.' For who is the Almighty that is to come, but Christ?"

He also mentions the Christians, as saying, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are one God;" and speaks of this as a difficult and perplexing doctrine to such as hear not with faith, or are not Christians.

Again, he says, "When we come to the grace of baptism, we acknowledge one God only, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

Origen flourished in the year 230.

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who flourished in the year 248, says, "Christ is our God; that is, not of all; but of the faithful and believing."

The council of Antioch, which sat about the year 264, in their epistle say, " In the whole church he is believed to be God; who emptied himself indeed of a state of equality with God; and man, of the seed of David according to the flesh."

Eusebius, the celebrated ecclesiastical historian, who flourished in the year 315, declares that Pilate, in his letter to Tiberius concerning the miracles of Christ, says, that " he was raised from the dead; and that he was already believed by the body of the people to be God."

This part of the subject I shall conclude with the following heathen testimonies.

Pliny the younger, in his letter to the Emperor Trajan from the province of Bithynia, whither he went with proconsular authority, writes, that "Certain Christians whom he had examined, affirmed that they were wont to meet together on a stated day, before it was light, and sing among themselves, alternately, a hymn to Christ, as to some God." This letter is, with the highest probability, placed in the year 107.

Celsus, an eminent epicurean philosopher, and adversary of the Christians, charges them with worshipping Christ, "who," he says, "has appeared of late;" and whom he calls, "The minister of God." Celsus flourished in the year 176.

At the same time flourished Lucian, the celebrated writer of Dialogues, and a philosopher of the same sect. In the "Philopatris," a dialogue frequently attributed to him, Triphon represents the Christians as "swearing by the most high God; the great, immortal, celestial Son of the Father; the Spirit, proceeding from the Father; one of three, and three of one."

Hierocles, who flourished about the year 303, a heathen philosopher also, says that "the Christians, on account of a few miracles, proclaim Christ to be God."

On these testimonies I shall only ask a single question. Can any person who has them before him, doubt for a moment, that the Christian church in its earliest ages acknow,ledged and worshipped the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as the only living and true God?

To the testimony of the Christian church I shall now add that of the Jewish church.

Philo, the celebrated Jew of Alexandria, who lived before the birth of our Saviour, calls the Logos the eternal Logos, or Word; and says, that "he is necessarily eternal, and the image of the invisible God."

Further, he says, " He who is, on each side attended by his nearest powers; of which one is creative, and the other 'kingly. The creative is God, by which he founded and adorned the universe. The Kingly is Lord. He who is in the middle, being thus attended by both his powers, exhibits to the discerning mind the appearance sometimes of one, and sometimes of three."

Of the Logos he says, " He who is the begotten, imitating the ways of his Father, and observing his archetypal patterns, produces forms;" that is, material things. He often calls the Logos the Divine Logos; and represents him as the manager, or ruler of the world. He farther says, that "God governs all things according to the strictest justice, having set over them his righteous Logos, his first begotten Son." The duration of created things he ascribes to this cause; "that they were

framed by him who remains, and who is never in any respect changed the Divine Logos. Finally, he calls the Logos "an Angel; the Name of God; a man; the Beginning; the Eternal Image; the most ancient Angel; the Archangel of many names; and the High Priest of this world ;" and says, "His head is anointed with oil."

The Chaldee Paraphrasts, and other Jewish commentators, speak of this subject in a similar manner.

They speak of the Mimra, the Hebrew term rendered in the Greek Aovos, and in the English Word, as "the Word from before the Lord," or which is before the Lord; as a Redeemer, as only begotten, as the Creator. They say, The Word of the Lord said, Behold Adam, whom I have created, as the only begotten in the world, as I am the only begotten in the highest heavens." They paraphrased the text, Genesis iii. 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God, walking in the garden,' thus: "They heard the Word of the Lord God," &c. Several Jewish commentators say, that "it was the Voice which was walking."

One of them says, that "Our first parents before their sin, saw the Glory of God speaking to them; but after their sin, they only heard the Voice walking."

Philo and Jonathan both say, that "it was the Word of God which appeared unto Hagar."

Jonathan says, "God will receive the prayer of Israel by his Word." Paraphrasing Jer. xxix. 14, he says, “I will be sought by you in my Word."

The Jerusalem Targum, or Paraphrase, says, "Abraham prayed in the name of the Word of the Lord, the God of the world."

Jonathan says also, "God will atone by his Word for his land, and for his people; even a people saved by the Word of the Lord."

Psalm cx. 1. They paraphrase, "The Lord said unto his Word," instead of My Lord, as in the Original.

The Jewish commentators say, "there are three degrees in the mystery of Aleim, or Elohim ;" and these degrees they call Persons. They say, "They are all one, and cannot be separated."

Deut. vi. 4. Hear, O Israel! Jehovah, our Aleim, is cue Jehovah,' is thus rendered by the author of the Jewish

book Zohar; "The Lord, and our God, and the Lord, are one." In his comment on this passage the author says, "The Lord, or Jehovah, is the beginning of all things, and the perfection of all things, and he is called the Father. The other, or our God, is the depth or the fountain of sciences; and is called the Son. The other, or Lord, he is the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from them both, &c. Therefore he says, Hear, O Israel!' that is, join together this Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and make him one essence, one substance for whatever is in the one is in the other. He hath been the whole; he is the whole; and he will be the whole."

Again: "What is the name of King Messiah? Rabbi Akiba hath said, Jehovah is his name. As it is declared, Jer. xxiii. 6, ' And this is his name by which they shall call him, Jehovah, our Righteousness."

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These commentators also call him the Branch; the Comforter; Gracious; Luminous, &c.

And again; "The Holy God calls the King Messiah by his name: Jehovah is his name; for it is said Exodus vii. 1, The Lord is a man of war; Jehovah is his name.'

To these explicit and unquestionable testimonies I shall now add a collection of others, of a different nature, but scarcely less decisive.

6

In the concise history of the creation Moses says more than thirty times, Aleim, (that is, Gods,) created;' the noun being plural, and the verb singular, in every instance. These the Jewish Paraphrasts explain by Jehovah; his Word, that is, his Son; and his Wisdom, or Holy Spirit, which they call three degrees. These three, they assert, are one; and declare them to be one, inseparable Jehovah. This doctrine the Jews have exhibited in a variety of methods, clear, convincing, and impressive. These I shall now proceed to exhibit, after having premised a remarkable sentence from Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh, or Judah the Holy, in which the doctrine of the Jewish church is declared in the most explicit manner. "God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three in unity, one in trinity." This rabbi flourished in the second century.

With this preface I observe,

(1.) That the form of blessing used by the Jewish priests,