and concurring to the actions of the other two. So we are informed (Ps. xix. 1.) that THE HEAVENS (are) the means of declaring, recounting, or particularly exhibiting, the glory of God; even. his eternal power and Godhead, as St. Paul speaks, Rom. i. 20. And accordingly Jehovah himself is sometimes, as hath been shown, called by the name HEAVENS, both in the Old and New Testaments. Yea not only so, but we find in both that the persons of the ETERNAL THREE, and their economical offices ond operations in the spiritual world, are represented by the three conditions of the celestial fluid, and their operations in the material world. Thus the peculiar emblem of THE WORD, or second person, is the light, and he is and does that to the souls or spirits of men, which the material light is and does to their bodies.

children in philosophy?

See 2 Sam. xxiii. 4; Isai.

Various similar instances may be pointed out, all tending to illustrate these notions." Adams's Lectures. vol. i. p. 194.

Light is convertible into fire by a concentration of its rays on any combustible substance, and fire into light on its emanation from its focus: in like manner, air is convertible into both fire and light, as appears by a collision of flint and steel; and light and fire must be, on their extinction, converted into air, since no annihilation of their substance can take place.

"The air burnt is fire-Fire extinguished and concreted returns to air-Air becoming still grosser constitutes clouds and darkness." Plato's Timæus.

Spirit is the pabulum of fire, and fire deprived of spirit or air cannot live." Hypocrates de flatibus.

xlix. 6; lx. 1; Mal. iv. 2; Luke i. 78; ii. 32; John i. 4-9; viii. 12; xii. 35, 36, 46. The third person has no other distinctive name in Scripture than one which, both in Hebrew and Greek, denotes, in its primary sense, the material SPIRIT, or air in motion; to which appellation the epithet HOLY, or one of the names of God, is usually added. And the actions of the HOLY SPIRIT, in the spiritual system, are described by those of the air in the natural. See John iii. 8 ; xx. 22; Acts ii. 2. Thus, then, the second and third persons of the ever blessed Trinity are plainly represented in Scripture by the material light and air. But it is further written, “JEHOVAH thy ALEIM is a consuming fire." Deut. iv. 24. Comp. Deut. ix. 23; Heb. xii. 29; Psalm xxi. 9. lxxviii. 21; Nahum i. 2. And by fire, the emblem of wrath, derived either immediately or mediately from heaven, were the typical sacrifices consumed under the old dispensation.

The substance of the above is taken from the Lexicon of the learned Parkhurst, whose words I have for the most part adopted, because they convey, better than I could have done in my own, the doctrine I wish to explain to you. I shall have occasion, as I proceed, to refer again and again to this subject which is to me always a delightful and instructive one. It reduces to the level of my understanding the possibility of truths which, without it, I could not comprehend. It

answers the same end which, I conceive, the whole system of typology, and our Lord's parabolic mode of instruction, were designed to answer. It represesents the world itself as an enigma, of which the solution is to be found in spiritual and eternal things. 1 Cor. xiii. 12. I add an extract from Jones's "Trinitarian Analogy," the whole of which I recommend to your perusal.

"This relation between the powers of nature and the Persons of the Godhead, so plain in the Scripture, will give a new prospect of Christian doctrine, and will show at the same time that the boasted unitarian," (or rather anti-trinitarian) "opinion of a single person in the Godhead, has nothing in nature to support it; and being unnatural, is, according to the rule of the Socinians, incredible. For they have objected that the belief of the Christian doctrine is absurd, because it is a doctrine of which we can have no ideas, and consequently can have no understanding.

"What they mean by having no ideas, is not very clear; and I take the objection from an author who, by his writings, never had a clear idea of any thing. There is not one term used in stating the doctrine of the Trinity which does not convey a known idea; therefore, when it is said that we have no ideas of a Trinity in Unity, it must be meant that we have no natural per

ception of the truth; perhaps not so much as a capacity of being made to perceive, by virtue of any demonstration that can be offered to us, the truth of the proposition that the three Persons are one God. But if this be a sufficient reason for disbelieving any doctrine, it will then follow that our understanding is the measure of all truth, which no man hath yet been bold enough to assert. We should, therefore, be justified in receiving any doctrine on the testimony of God, without being able to show its truth from any knowledge of our own. But if men will insist that they must see a similarity of truth in what is known, before they admit what is unknown, then we can meet them upon their own ground. Only let it be understood, that by an idea of a doctrine we mean an image of its truth, and then of such ideas we have plenty; some of them selected and applied by the word of God from the creation of God; and if due justice were done to their testimony, the whole world would be Trinitarian, and join with Christians upon earth, as Christians shall join with angels in heaven, in giving glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, three Persons and one God.

“The Trinitarian analogy is no new discovery. The wise and learned have long been in possession of it. It only wanted to be brought out

to view, and insisted upon; and this is the proper time, when infidelity insults us for believing without ideas.

"Abbe Le Pluche observed, many years ago, "There are but three known fluids in nature, which by their continual activity are the principles of all motion; and these are light, fire and air. Le Pluche called them three fluids, but later experiments in Philosophy strongly persuade that they are but one in substance. The application of these to the Divine Trinity was known to the primitive Christian church: are not these three Persons' (says Epiphanius) 'properly understood by every one, as light, fire, and spirit reveal them to us?'* There is no occasion to believe that this analogy originated with Epiphanius, or any other single person, when it is so clearly found in the Scriptures."

With this quotation I conclude for the present; only suggesting further to your consideration, whether any explanation can be given, without the aid of Scripture philosophy, to the remarkable mode of expression used in one of the collects of our Church Service? In the conclusion of the collect, for Whitsunday, we assert that Christ

οντα

The words of Epiphanius are, Ουκ ουν τρια ταυτα εκασίω αξίως νοουμενα, καθώς εαυτα αποκαλύπτει Φως, Πυρ, Πνευμα ; Edit. Colon. vol. i. p. 891.