ners-sanctifies believers-comforts the afflicted— covenants with believers in baptism, and raises the dead. These acts as clearly imply the personality of the Spirit, as they imply his existence.

But it is replied, that the Holy Ghost is personified, as inanimates objects are personified in figurative language. Even Kinkade takes this ground with strange inconsistency. In one part of his book he says, "God's Spirit is mentioned to signify God's self. By vexing the Lord's Holy Spirit, they vexed the Lord, therefore the Lord's Spirit was the Lord. God and the Holy Spirit are the same person.The Holy Spirit is something more than a mere quality, it is real being, and yet not a distinct person from the Father." See" Thoughts on the Holy Spirit."

After arguing for seven pages that the Holy Spirit is the Father, without any distinction of persons, he suddenly shifts his ground, and denies that the Holy Ghost is a person! "Some suppose," says he, "that because the Holy Spirit is called a witness, it must therefore be a person. If the Holy Spirit is a person, he must be inferior to Christ, because he [Christ] had power to send him. If the Holy Spirit and the Father are one, and the selfsame Being, I cannot see how he, as a person, could proceed from him." In this passage, Mr. K. virtually denies that the Holy Ghost is a person. He believes him to be "something more than a mere quality," a a real being"-the soul of God, and really God; and yet he is not a person. But as Mr. K. always uses the term person in the Arian sense; that is, to signify body; the mystery is explained. His meaning is, that the Holy Ghost has not a body; or, in other words, that God has not two bodies.

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Leaving this rickety hypothesis to fall to pieces of its own weight, we dwell for a moment on one more feature, and close this chapter.

We deny that the Holy Spirit is invested with, the attributes of an intelligent person by personification. To show that objects are thus invested in figurative language, is a useless task, as no one denies it. But let it be proved that this is the case in one instance where the acts of the Spirit are mentioned. If these acts are only ascribed to the Spirit figuratively, then of course they were never really performed. The works of conviction, conversion, sanctification, and resurrection, must then be mere figurative representations. If this be true, the whole Bible is an allegory, and we may deny the literal reality of any thing and every thing in the whole range of Christianity itself. All that would be left for us, would be a figurative conversion, sanctification, salvation, God, heaven, and hell! Such are the legitimate fruits of the Arian theory.

But we turn with delight from these bewildering vagaries, to the sober realities of the Bible. A doctrine that cannot stand by the plain and explicit declarations of that Holy Book, without the aid of a licentious criticism, is unworthy of God, and dangerous to man. But, as the Holy Ghost is there revealed to us as a searching, knowing, willing, speaking, creating, convicting, converting, and sanctifying MIND, distinct from the Father and the Son, his personality is as obvious as that of the Father. We therefore regard him, not as an imaginary being, existing only in poetic conception; but as an acting, knowing, converting, and sanctifying Spirit, really and personally existing. May the Holy Ghost be merciful to such as deny his personal and real existence; and may he so lift the veil from off their

hearts, as to convince them of their error and unbe. lief; lead them to embrace the truth as it is in Christ; and enable them to go on full of faith and of the Holy Ghost to their lives' end.

CHAPTER IX.

THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD.

In the early part of this work we proved the absolute unity of the Divine Being a unity that utterly precludes the possibility of more than one God. We were also particular to show that while Arians deny the proper unity of God, by holding to two Divinities, we acknowledge but one God, while we hold that this one God exists as three persons. By person we do not mean a distinct and independent being, as we have elsewhere shown, but merely one of those distinctions in the Godhead that are revealed to us as Father, Word, and Holy Ghost. In this sense we proved the Holy Ghost to be a person, and also established his Divinity. We had previously shown that Christ had two natures, in one of which he was man; and that in his higher and pre-existent nature he was verily and really GOD. These two main points, then, we consider as fully established in the preceding pages.

I. That there is but one living and true God; and II. That while the Scriptures insist upon ONE GOD ONLY, they reveal THREE DISTINCT PERSONS, of one substance, power, and eternity; and invested with every characteristic and attribute of Supreme Divinity.

Neither of these positions can be abandoned,

unless we abandon the Word of God. They must therefore be reconciled; and in order to this we are obliged to conclude that these three Divine persons the FATHER, WORD, and HOLY GHOST co-exist in a manner incomprehensible to mortals, as ONE SUPREME AND EVERLASTING GOD. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. And how can we reject it, so long as we believe the Scriptures? Can we deny the unity? The Bible says there is but one God. Can we deny the plurality? The Bible teaches the Divinity of the Son, and the personality and Divinity of the Holy Ghost. What, then, can we do but believe in a Trinity? or that these three Divine persons constitute the one infinite and eternal BEING.

Solid as are the premises from which this conclusion is drawn, we are not without further proofs of a plurality of persons in the Godhead. To these additional evidences we now invite attention.

I. The Scriptures speak in a number of places of the "GODHEAD”-a title of Deity which of itself conveys an idea of plurality as well as of unity. "We ought not to think the Godhead is like unto gold"-"Even his eternal power and Godhead""In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead." Now if this title is not used to represent the Divine Being, as distinguished from either of the persons which constitute the Deity, why not use the term Father, or God, instead of Godhead? Does not this title convey an idea of plurality, even to the minds of Arians themselves? and is not this the reason why they seldom or never use the term?

II. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." On this passage an eminent critic observes, "The very first name in the Scriptures under which the Divine Being is introduced to us is a plural one." Dr. A. Clark says, "The original

word is certainly in the plural form, and has long been supposed by the most eminent, learned, and pious men, to imply a plurality of persons in the Divine Nature."

III." And God said, let us make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness." Here the pronouns "us" and "our" show that there is a plurality of persons in the one Divine Being. Mr. Millard says, "the plurality of these expressions does not necessarily imply more than two, and as God made all things by Jesus Christ, [alluding to the agency scheme,] it appears evident to me that it was the Son to whom he spake." Mr. Perry endorses his opinion. Kinkade accounts for these plural expres sions and titles by supposing that God imitated the dignitaries of earth in saying us, our, we, &c. He says, "In Hebrew, as well as in all other languages, a King, an Emperor, or any other person of great dignity, is frequently mentioned in the plural number. Thus, the King of Spain says, 'We, Ferdinand the Seventh. The King of France says, 'We, Charles the Tenth.' The Emperors of Russia say, 'We, Alexander,' or 'We, Nicholas.'" According to this expositor, then, the Almighty has anticipated the refinements of earthly courts, and has followed the practice of kings, thousands of years before this practice was in vogue. Such an argument needs no refutation. But Mr. M.'s scheme is equally exceptionable. 1. The creation of man is represented as the work of all the persons indicated by the term " "Let us make man," not " do thou, my agent, make To say that only one of these persons was engaged in the work, is to contradict the text.

man."

us."

2. Man was to be made in the image of all these persons. "Let us make man in our image," &c. Mr. M. admits that there were two persons, namely