of note, that, to mifchievous purpose, he being dead yet speaketh. To proceed then.

That when we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft, we are baptized in the name of three Perfons, and of three Divine Persons, and of three equally Divine Perfons, * seems not to be more evident from Scripture than from the reason of the thing. For else we are baptized in the name of two Perfons and one virtue or quality, &c. which is a notion palpably ridiculous; or we are baptized in the name of three Perfons, betwixt the first and two latter of which there is an infinite difparity; (there being no medium between God and a creature ;) which is a fuppofition not lefs ridiculous. And, in fact, the Baptifmal Form is fo ftrong, that heretics have found themselves under a neceffity of changing it; or of explaining it away; fome baptizing into the death of Chrift; fome in the name of the uncreated God, and in the name of the created Son, and in the name of the fancti

*See Lightfoot's Harm. of the N. Teft. Sect. 92. p. 273.

fying Spirit, created by the created Son., Dr. Clarke, to whom Arianifm is under great,obligations, writes as follows. We are baptized, fays he, into the profeffion of that belief, and an obligation to the practice of that religion, which God the Father has revealed and taught by the Son, and confirmed and established by the Holy Ghoft. If this is extrication, what is difficulty? +

The fame learned author paraphrafes the introduction to St. John's Gofpel in the following words: "With God the Father, the "FIRST, the SURREME caufe and original of all things, there exifted before all ages that "Divine Perfon whofe name is called the "Word of God, the only begotten of the Fa"ther, the brightness of his glory, and by "ineffable cOMMUNICATION of divine

power and perfections, the express image of "bis Perfon." The fine artifice of this paraphrafe will escape a common, or a curfory reader. I guefs, Dr. C would never have confented to the least alteration in this paf

See a late work entitled An Elucidation of the Unity, &c. p. 59. where this Form is treated with equal freedom.

fage, or have permitted us only for ineffable to read eternal. The phrafe-before all agesis defignedly ambiguous; and imports merely an acknowlegement of the impoffibility of fixing the date of the generation of the Son of God.

or,

In the beginning was the word,* fays St. John; i. e. (if we will hearken to the Socinians,) Jefus Chrift exifted when the Gofpel was first preached by John the Baptift; if you please, by himself. The word was with God; i. e. was known to God, and to God only; or, was with God, by being taken up into heaven to receive his prophetic commiffion, agreeably to a parallel expofition of another paffage, which will be presently noticed, and both by the fame interpreters. The word was God, viz. in a fecondary or derivative fenfe; in a fenfe implying Chrift's priority and fuperiority to all other creatures; fo that if we take this whole fentence together, the word was with God, and the word was God, the term God is to be understood in the proper sense in the first claufe, and in an improper and inferior fenfe in the fecond: as Dr. C.

• John i. 1.

and

and others, according to a judicious writer's remark, ingeniously expound this paffage !

No man bath afcended into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven; * are the words of our Lord himself in the fame Gofpel. Perhaps the Socinian conftruction of this text which was just now laid before you is little less romantic than Grotius's expofition of the words -he that came down from heaven, i. e. fays this famous commentator, he that "was fent, or given to us by the fpecial Grace " of God."

As fome interpreters make, or, more properly, invent a diftinction between primary and fecondary worship, and would fain have us believe in a created creator, or a deity by delegation, fo others of a very different ftamp think of the Saviour of the world as meanly as they can poffibly think, and divest him of almost every ray of glory. The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, fays St. John. †

*

• John iii. 13.

+ John i. 14.

M 3

Chrift

Chrift was born mortal, fubject to infirmities and fufferings, &c. fay fome Socinian expofitors: the word was flesh, fimply and absolutely, fay others: the word was MADE, or CONVERTED into flesh, fays the Flandrian Anabaptift.

St. Paul affures the Coloffians, that in Jefus Chrift dwelleth all the fulness* of the Godhead bodily; viz. all the will of God as we are given to understand by Socinus. Before Abraham was, I AM, † fays our Lord expressly to the Jews; by which he means only to affirm, according to fome interpreters, that he was the Messiah before Abraham was the father of many nations; or, as others expound, fhall I fay? or wreft this fcripture, that he existed, or was before Abraham in the purpofe and decree of God. How far the name of Grotius dignifies this expofition, let every intelligent hearer judge. Or, let us fee whether we are like to derive more fatisfaction from the following explanation or rather evacuation of this text by the celebrated

• Col. ii. 9.

+ John viii. 58.

author