sometimes Kúpios, signifies the All Sufficient or All Mighty'; and, when written with, it is believed not to be attributed to any creature in Holy Scripture. The sixth Name is Sabaoth, the LORD of Hosts, as in the Psalm; "Who is this King of glory? The LORD of Hosts, He is the King of glory." • Lastly, the two Greek names, which occur in the New Testament, are Θεόs, derived either from θέω or τίθημι, Ι dispose, or from Oéw, I run, or else from Oɛáoμai, I behold; all metaphors expressing the human conception of the Ruler of the Universe: and Kúptos, which designates GOD as LORD of all by way of eminence, and is applied in a peculiar sense to CHRIST as being by right of redemption the LORD of His elect people the Church.P Chemnitz well observes, that Dionysius the Areopagite (so called), "when about to say something of GOD, entered on no bad way, when he collected the appellations attributed. to GOD in Scripture. But Platonising over much he disturbs the simplicity of the fishermen, and has afforded occasion to posterity for many idle speculations." I may add that the religious recital of these sacred Names and Attributes in our devotions tends to heighten our faith, and to prevent it by GOD's blessing from degenerating into a bare intellectual speculation concerning abstractions. Ps. xxiv. 10. This name was also retained in the Latin Church, as in the Gallican Sacramentary at the conclusion of the Mass: "Tu summe Deus, aïos (äyios), Ipse sanctus, omnipotens Sabaoth, qui venisti ab excelsis pati pro nobis, miserere nobis." Sacrament. Gallic. apud Mabillon., Museum Italicum Tom. I. p. 281. P See S. Hieronym. Ep. 136, ad Marcellam. Martinus Chemnitius, Loci Theologici, Part I. p. 28. 107 CHAPTER V. OF THE HOLY TRINITY. of the Doc §. 1. BEFORE We examine in detail the most sacred Doctrine Statement of the TRINITY, it is well first to prefix the Church's authori- trine. tative statement thereof. "We worship" "one GOD, one LORD; not one only Person, but three Persons in one Substance:" "one GOD in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the FATHER, another of the SON, and another of the HOLY GHOST. But the Godhead of the FATHER, of the Son, and of the HOLY GHOST is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal." "For that which we believe of the glory of the FATHER, the same we believe of the SON, and of the HOLY GHOST, without any difference or inequality." "As we are compelled by the Christian verity, to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be GOD and LORD; so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords," or "three eternals,” or "three incomprehensibles," or "three uncreated," or "three Almighties." "The Father is made of none: neither created, nor begotten. The SON is of the FATHER alone: not made, nor created, but begotten. The HOLY GHOST is of the FATHER and of the SON: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." "And in this TRINITY none is afore, or after other: none is greater or less than another; but the whole Three Persons are co-eternal together: and co-equal." • Communion Office, Book of Common Prayer. • Creed of S. Athanasius. Com. Office, Preface on the "Creed of S. Athanasius. See General §. 2. The importance of this great Doctrine may be gathered from the fact, that when Our LORD sent His Apostles forth with a commission to preach the Gospel He charged them to "go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the FATHER, and of the SON, and of the HOLY GHOST." This then, and not the doctrine of the Incarnation or of the Atonement or of the Resurrection or of Justification, is the very pith and kernel of the Gospel. Those blessed truths, however valuable they be, are involved in the central Verity of the Blessed TRINITY. And this was generally acknowledged in ancient times both by orthodox and heretic. Thus we read in the Second Arian Creed of Sirmium; "The summary of the entire Faith and its security is, that the TRINITY be ever held, as we have read in the Gospel ;" and they finish the quotation from S. Matthew." And S. Jerome speaks of expounding the doctrine of the TRINITY as tantamount to teaching the whole Creed. "But there is a custom," he says, "of this sort with us, that throughout the Forty Days we should expound publicly the doctrine of the holy TRINITY to those who are to be baptized."* The Scripture testimonies, on which the doctrine rests, are derived chiefly from the New Testament; the reason whereof will be explained hereafter. I have already cited the most illustrious passage, to which should be added others which involve mention of the TRINITY in a few words. "But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the FATHER, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the FATHER, He shall testify of Me." › "But if the SPIRIT of Him that raised up JESUS from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up CHRIST from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His SPIRIT that dwelleth in you." "And because ye are sons, GOD hath sent forth the SPIRIT of His SON into your hearts, crying, Abba, FATHER." a With diffidence I add the controverted passage; "For also a clear statement of the Faith Labbe, Conc. Tom. II. p. 788. * S. Hieronym. Ep. 61. ad Pammachium, Tom. I. p. 215. y S. John xv. 26. there are three that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST; and these three are one." b I say "with diffidence" because its genuineness is questioned; it being supposed from its too direct testimony to have been fabricated by some of those injudicious Christians, who in the fourth century published the Divine Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite and similar works with the hope of benefiting the cause of Orthodoxy. But it may be doubted at least whether the assumed benefit is so obvious; for the passage in question might easily be perverted to a Sabellian sense. And the testimony of S. Jerome is deserving of respect; who, in the Prologue to the Canonical Epistles, complains of unfaithful translators omitting it in their editions." §. 3. The revelation of the TRINITY has been compared to the gradual process of illumination which attends the sunrising. First one flush of light, then another, till at last appears above the horizon the sun itself in full-orbed splendour. This accords with S. Paul's statement, that CHRIST "hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." "The Old Testament proclaimed the FATHER clearly, the SON more obscurely: the New manifested the SON and indicated the Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT. The SPIRIT dwelleth among us at present, making His manifestation more evident to us. For it was not safe, while the Divinity of the FATHER was not yet acknowledged, that the SON should be clearly proclaimed; nor, while that of the SON was not received, that the HOLY SPIRIT should (to use a bold expression) be imposed on us." e "One Deity," says Epipha 1 S. John v. 7. That it was known in Africa long before the time of Arius is proved by the following passages of Tertullian and Cyprian: “Ceterum de Meo sumet,' inquit, sicut Ipse de Patris. Ita connexus Patris in Filio, et Filii in Paracleto, tres efficit cohærentes, alterum ex altero, qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quo modo dictum est, Ego et Pater unum sumus."" (Adversus Praxeam, cap. 25.) "Et iterum de Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto scriptum est: Et hi tres unum sunt.' (S. nius, "is announced in Moses, and a duality (of Persons) is diligently proclaimed in the Prophets, and a TRINITY is manifested in the Gospels, according to times and generations more and more befitting the righteous man with a view to knowledge and faith. This knowledge is of immortality, and springs from faith itself or adoption. But first it expresses the justifications" (or good works, dixaiwμaтa) “of the flesh, raising as it were the outer enclosure of the temple in Moses; secondly, it expounds those of the soul, adorning as it were the holy place in the other Prophecies; thirdly, those of the spirit, arranging as it were the mercy-seat and the holy of holies for its own abiding-place in the Gospel writings."f And S. Isidore of Pelusium gives the reason of this gradual unfolding of the truth; namely, that GOD "legislating for the Jews who inclined to polytheism did not think it meet to introduce a difference of Persons, lest dogmatising that there was a different nature in the Persons they should fall into idolatry; but that, having learned from the commencement the doctrine of the Unity, (Tĥs μovapxías) they might next learn by degrees the doctrine of the Persons, which comes back again into the Unity of Nature." 8 The passages of the Old Testament, which supply indications of a TRINITY of Persons in the Godhead, and admit of being urged in argument against Jews and Sabellians, are the following. "And GOD said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." "h If, as some of the Jews, and among Christians Marcellus of Ancyra, supposed, this was addressed by God to Himself, it bears the mark of a puerile and otiose saying: if, on the contrary it refers to the Creator's consulting with His Angels, as Aben-Ezra and Maimonides together with the old Saturnilian heretics' imagined, it is made to contradict plain testimonies of Scripture, as; "Who hath directed the SPIRIT of the LORD, or being His counsellor hath taught Him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed S. Epiph. Adv. Hæreses, lxxiv. num. 10. Tom. I. p. 899. S. Isidorus Pelusiota, Lib ii. Ep. 143. h Gen i. 26. More Nev. L. ii. cap. 6. |