and peculiarly the doctrine of our bleffed Saviour: A new commandment, fays he, Igive unto you, that ye love one another—by this all all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another*; this is MY commandment, that ye love one another: and fecondly, because the Apostle feems to regard this great duty as a principle recently taught, and particularly enforced by the precept and example of our Divine Master.

Again. He that bath feen me bath feen the Father, fays our Lord, and he that feeth me, feeth him that fent me. Now in what sense are thefe declarations true? Not in the literal; for the Father could not be visible in the human person of the Son; because God is a Spirit, and no man bath feen God at any time; whom no man hath feen, or can fee§: and by neceffary confequence our Saviour hereby in effect asferts, that, notwithstanding his appearance in the flesh, he himself really and truly partook of the Divine nature; that, according

* John xiii. 34. § 1 Tim. vi. 16.

+ John xiv. 9.

John i. 18.

to

to his own expreflion, the Father dwelt in him; or, in the language of the Apostle, in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, or fubftantially.

Again. In the Gospels St. John the Baptift is called the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths ftrait*: but in the evangelical prophet the style is at once more explicit and more majestical; prepare ye, says he, the way of the Lord, make strait in the defart a highway for our God. In the course of the fame fublime chapter ferufalem is called upon to lift up her voice with ftrength, to lift it up and fay unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. And then the prophecy proceeds in the following words. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: bebold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He fhall feed his flock like a fhepherd, &c. Now, unless it can be demonstrated, that these paffages do not refer, ultimately at least, to the coming, and to the

* Matt. iii. 3.

+ Ifa. xl. 3.

perfon

perfon of the Meffiah, he is manifestly here announced under the different characters of a good Shepherd, a righteous judge, and the Lord God. Befides, if there is no fuch reference, the several apoftolical citations from the prophet are most impertinently ridiculous.

Once more. The first and fecond perfons of the bleffed Trinity are expressly distinguished, and respectively characterised as equal, in a paffage wherein the Apostle occafionally afferts the unity of effence in the Godhead. We know, fays he, that there is none other God but one; for though there be that are called Gods, to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jefus Chrift, by whom are all things, and we by him*. It may be pretended indeed, that the terms under which the Son is here characterised are not of equal weight and fignificance with those which are defcriptive of the Father; but I will take upon me to aver, that the fame might have been pretended, had these terms been tranfpofed,

*

I Cor. viii. 4. &c.

and

and the paffage had run thus; to us there is but one God, the Father, by whom are all things, and we by him; and one Lord Jefus Chrift, of whom are all things, and we in him. And in many places the three divine Perfons are feverally specified and referred to, as jointly concurring in the wonderful scheme of man's redemption; particularly in the following. St. Peter inscribes his first epistle to the ftrangers fcattered through Pontus, Galatia, &c. elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through fanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and Sprinkling of the blood of Fefus Chrift: and St. John falutes the churches of Afia with wishing them grace and peace from him which is, which was, and which is to come, and from the feven Jpirits which are before his throne, and from Jefus Christ*. I am fenfible indeed that by the feven spirits, juft mentioned, interpreters do not universally understand the Holy Ghoft; but this at least, I cannot help remarking, may be offered in favour of the fenfe in which I have taken the expreffion, that it is a fenfe of which the

* I Rev. 4.

words

words are full as capable as of any other whatever; and that by the present conftruction a very confiderable difficulty is removed which clogs a different interpretation. For admitting the Holy Ghost to be fignified by the feven Spirits, there will be nothing fingular or unprecedented in this inverfion of the order of Perfons in the Trinity; but why angels, according to the fenfe of fome commentators, should be mentioned before Jefus Christ, (who is higher than the angels even in many of our adverfaries conceptions,) feems accountable only by forced and unnatural explications. And still more perplexed, and incompatible with the nature of a bleffing, or a falutation in general, or with the apostolical greetings and benedictions in particular, the sense of others feems to be, who by the Seven Spirits understand the graces of the Spirit, or the various operations of Divine Providence. (i) However, granting the paffage to be rather obfcure, I would take occafion to obferve from it yet farther, that although we should be very cautious of deducing doctrines of faith from fymbols, or mystical expreffions,