prove nothing, does fix it, and that undeniably. Yet multitudes. neglect this obvious principle and expend all their ingenuity in criticism and in wresting language from its obvious sense, and when they have by fair and unfair means effected their purpose as it regards particular texts, they think they have done all that is necessary to disprove the Trinity. How would this principle operate in a court of justice? Let a man be arraigned, and let numerous circumstances make his guilt perfectly clear; then let his advocate endeavor to show that each fact taken separately and out of its relations would not prove the man guilty, and then infer that therefore all united cannot. Would he convince any jury of common sense men? Would it not be well to remind him that there was one momentous fact more which needed to be explained, viz., how so many unfortunate facts all tending in one direction, happened to be so united, as to form a moral certainty of guilt? And if he could not explain this fact, of what avail would be all his ingenuity? But the opposers of this doctrine are in a still more unfortunate condition, for they cannot do the one or the other. They cannot explain the facts separately on which the doctrine rests, much less can they explain their union in such a system.

If, now, any one shall undertake to reprove us for saying that we do understand what the word person means, and that there are properly three persons in one God, as if we pretended, with our finite sounding-line, to fathom the infinite one, or with our square and compass to measure the illimitable recesses of his Divinity to such a one, we will reply, Do you believe that the Bible reveals at all a personal God? If so, in what language is his personality revealed? Sure we are that no language can be found in which a personal God can be revealed, which is not used to denote the personality of the persons of the Trinity. If the personality is revealed in one case, it is no less in the other. We deny, therefore, that we have attempted to penetrate into the secrets of the Deity. The personality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is not a secret. It is a thing revealed. We do not pretend that we have found out the Almighty unto perfection. But what the Almighty has clearly revealed, we do profess to read intelligently, and systematically to

state.

If, now, another shall allege that all this language of personality belongs merely to the sphere of expression, and is designed merely to affect and impress the mind, but not to declare the existence of correspondent metaphysical realities; if he shall, to sustain this assertion, say that such personalities are finite, and cannot truly set forth God, the Absolute, the Infinite; to such an one we will reply, Your view makes a philosophical theory of the Absolute, which no Scripture sustains-a binding law of interpretation. This is not to be governed by Scripture, but it is to govern Scrip

ture by philosophy. Again: We do not accept your philosophy. We see no incompatibility between the idea of personality, and that of infinity. Infinite power, creating all things; infinite will, controlling all things; infinite knowledge, infinite ends and plans, comprehending all time, all space, all existences; infinite energy of affection and emotion, corresponding to such ends and plans; these are the elements of infinite personality. These are the proper and natural counterparts to our ideas of infinity, in time, space, and number. The mind cannot be satisfied till it conceives of infinite personality to fill and use all time, all space, all things. Such is the only idea of God that the mind of man can form. He worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. He filleth immensity; he inhabiteth eternity; of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. We reply once more: Your principles not only subvert personality in the Trinity, as a reality, but they subvert any personality in God, as a reality; for no personality can be described, except in the same terms that are used to describe the persons of the Trinity; and if these imply no real corresponding personality, because God is the absolute, the infinite, and personality is finite, then God neither is personal, nor can any language truly describe him as such. But if this is so, then all the names of the Divine attributes, that are intellectual, moral, and affectionate, cease to have any significance. For we cannot attach to such words as wisdom, will, knowledge, love, mercy, patience, justice. grace, any ideas that are not taken from our knowledge of our own personality. The necessary result is, that God becomes to us an impersonal, and an unknown God, not only now, but forever; for personality in us will always be what it now is, and if it cannot now lead us to a true knowledge of God, it never can.

But if a third person shall say that any such speculative developments are needless, and lead to evil, we reply, Infinite personality is not a speculative development. It is the very thing revealed, concerning the Father, concerning the Son, and concerning the Holy Ghost. If this is not revealed, nothing is. We are aware that unauthorized speculative developments may be connected with this. To base a theory of generation on the names Father and Son-or of procession, on the going forth of the Spirit, as sent by the Father and the Son-this is a speculative development, and in it antiquity too freely indulged. But the doctrine can be stated in its rigid Scriptural simplicity, without it. It consists in the great, simple, majestic fact of infinite tri-personality.

But while we decline to adopt the generation and procession development of antiquity, we are free to confess, that we prefer it to the ground assumed by some, that we do not know what person means, in the doctrine of the Trinity, and that it is some unknown, three-fold distinction in a God whose essence, will, and

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attributes are one. This is not what the Bible reveals. It sets aside the personal language of the Bible, as not meaning what it seems to mean. In place of it, it presents nothing intelligible to the mind. Its natural development is Sabellianism. Whatever defects existed in the ancient development, it certainly did not suppress personality. Nay, Prof. Stuart says that it virtually amounted to tritheism. Even if this is not so, it is certainly undeniable, that it preserved in its full power, the great idea of real tri-personality in God.

If, now, any one shall say, that this doctrine of a trinity injures the mind, and that the idea of absolute personal unity is best adapted to the wants of men, we beg leave to demur. Absolute, unmitigated personal unity in an infinite mind, is a cold, unsocial idea. It never has, in any age, been powerful on the human mind. To us, we confess that it is painful. The desire of an equal to love, does not strike us as an imperfection in an infinite person; nay, it would seem to us imperfect without it. If this is so, what would be the social state of an infinite, eternal, solitary mind? Who, in the universe, could worthily understand or reciprocate the love of an infinite heart? overflow? But when we read that the Father knows and loves Towards whom could such a heart the Son, even as the Son knows and loves the Father, we at once feel an infinite relief. When we read, "The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things which himself doeth," we do not see inferiority or dependence, but the boundless joy arising from the interchange of infinite thought and infinite love. read of the only begotten Son, as "in the bosom of the Father," When we we are delightfully impressed with this affecting symbol of tender and ardent love. When we read of the Spirit as searching all things, even the deep things of God, and as "hearing" the views of the Father and of Christ, and as "speaking whatsoever he hears," we have no thought of inferiority, but of delightful intellectual intercourse, and of perfect unity in thought, feeling, plans and action, between the blessed persons of the Trinity.

These ideas lie upon the very face of the Scriptures. They are the very things that affect the mind. They are involved in any clear view of the plan of redemption. They are essential to any definite and affecting conception of the love of God. When it is said of the Father, that he spared not his own son, but gave him up for us all, or that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son; our whole power to feel or measure the love of God, lies in the reality which we attach to their separate personality and ardent mutual love. We must either really believe, or else for the time imagine this, or the language loses all its significance and all its power.

We are no tritheists. We are full believers in the essential unity of God. But so far as the wants of our own mind are con

cerned, we would much sooner believe in three separate, infinite, self-existent spirits, than in one solitary God, who in the wide universe could find no equal to love. Intellect is not the great want, nor power, but love, reciprocated love, even in God himself. For can we conceive of the infinite Father as happy, without the love of the infinite Son?

We reject tritheism because it is not a fact ;--because the Bible does not teach it, but rather the essential unity of God.

But we are free to confess that such an idea of tritheism as we can form would be far better to us than such unity, as leaves only a Sabellian trinity as its ultimate logical development. There is something lovely, affecting, sublime, in the mutual love and perfect social intercourse of three infinite self-existent minds. It would not strike a repulsive chord in our mind if it were revealed in the Word of God. The unity of three such minds in infinite love, and intellectual intercourse, would give an idea of bliss unspeakable. The thought of it might well fill a universe with joy and elevate them to higher degrees of mutual love.

But we do not accept any unrevealed speculations. We go to the Bible and take what we find there. We do find there the same enrapturing idea of infinite society between Divine persons, and in addition to it essential unity, which we regard as a higher perfection than if these persons were essentially separate, because God in fact so exists. From all human speculations in the annunciation of the Trinity as a revealed doctrine we abstain, desiring only to learn and to teach the doctrine as it is revealed, and therefore to teach it solely through the words and thoughts which the Holy Ghost teacheth. This has been our simple aim in the present effort, and as we close we commend our humble labors to Him in whom alone is all our hope of success.

"Have we not reason to conclude that this distinction of three in one is that in which the most perfect and happy society consists, in which love and friendship is exercised to the highest perfection and with infinite enjoyment and felicity. And that the most perfect and happy society of creatures, united together forever, in the kingdom of God, in the strongest sweetest love and friendship, is an emanation from this infinite THREE ONE, as the fountain and pattern of all happy society and friendships and the highest possible resem blance of it. This idea seems to be suggested, if not necessarily implied, in John 17: 21-23."-Dr. Hopkins.

He also intimates that this "may be essential to the infinitely perfect being, and that otherwise he would not be absolutely perfect, all-sufficient and innnitely blessed." Dr. Emmons maintained the same general view.

ARTICLE VIII.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

By Rev. ROBERT W. HILL, Mendon, N. Y.

CHRISTIANS are agreed that the Word of God is the means of sanctification. But what part of this Word is honored with an instrumentality so exceedingly important? Is it the Law, or the Gospel, or both unitedly and indiscriminately? A wise answer to these inquiries may be of service to the church and to the ministry. In discussing this subject we shall institute and endeavor to answer the following questions: What is the Law as distinguished from the Gospel? Is there any evidence, that the truths of the Gospel as such possess a greater efficiency in the work of sanctification, than the truths of the Law? Does the Gospel receive any agencies not received by the Law? Is not the sanctification of Christians to be ascribed to the influence of those agencies? Does the Holy Spirit employ the Gospel more than the Law in the work of sanctification?

1. What then is the Law as distinguished from the Gospel? The word Law is used in the Scriptures with various latitudes of meaning. Sometimes it refers to the dictates of conscience. Hence it is said of those to whom no express revelation had been given, "which shows the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." Again, it denotes those rites and ceremonies which were peculiar to the Jewish dispensation. This is "the law of commandments contained in ordinances," and which had only "the shadow of good things to come." To this the Saviour alludes when he says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." It was enacted for a specific purpose, for a particular people, and for a limited time. The term Law, also means the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments delivered on Mount Sinai. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." It embraces all those great moral truths which are founded in the relations of intelligent creatures to God and one another, and which ought ever to regulate their feelings and conduct, so far as we can judge, is equally applicable to all, whether they be angels or men, whether they be holy or unholy, whether they exist in heaven, on earth, or in hell.

The word Gospel is more limited in its signification. It means "good news, or a joyful message." It is the revelation of the grace of God to fallen men through a Mediator. The distinction between the Law and the Gospel will be more clearly seen, by contemplating some truths which are common to them both, and then noticing the points in which they differ.