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reproves us when we do ill, and commends us when we do well; as also from prophecies and miracles, which could not have been if there had not been a God.

But, lest human reason should fail of producing so essential a point of knowledge, God has put it beyond all doubt by revelation.

We infer the Unity of God from the absurdity of supposing two or more Creators, two or more first causes of all things, two or more supreme Governors of the world. We have the following texts for proving it: Mark xii. 32; Deut. vi. 4; the first Commandment, (Exod. xx. 3.) which St. Paul (1 Cor. viii.) refers to.

The doctrine contained in the second part of the Article is called the doctrine of the Trinity-a word not used in Scripture, but adopted in the second century of the Church. This doctrine may be proved from the circumstance of our Saviour's Baptism-where the Son was being baptized-the Holy Ghost descended-and the Father spoke, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Luke iii. 21, 22. Also from the solemn form in which our Saviour instituted Baptism, Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Matt. xxviii. 19; and from the form of blessing made use of by the early Christians, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and

the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all, 2 Cor. xiii. 13; in both which forms the three names are joined together without any distinction. And that these three Persons are of one power, substance, and eternity, is evident, because such attributes and divine honours are ascribed to them in Scripture, as belong, not, and cannot be ascribed to, any other being besides God.

This Article is directed against the Arians and Socinians, who style themselves Unitarians and Anti-Trinitarians.

ARTICLE II.

Of the Word or Son of God, which was made very Man.

"THE Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of

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a John i. 14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.Mic. v. 2. Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.-John viii. 58. Before Abraham was, I am. John iii. 16.

h John i. 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.-1 John v. 20. We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God, &c.-Col. i. 16, 17. Heb. i. 8, 10. iii. 4.

John x. 30. I and my Father are one.

one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, 'dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice not only for

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d Is. vii. 14. Matt. i. 22, 23. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.-Gal. iv. 4. When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman.-Heb. ii. 17. It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren.-Is. ix. 6. Phil. ii. 6, 7,8.

e 2 Cor. v. 19. GOD was in Christ.-Col. ii. 9. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily.1 Tim. iii. 16. God was manifest in the flesh.

f John xix. 33, 34. When they saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water. Which is a known sign of actual death in human bodies.

g Matt. iii. 17. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.-Is. xii. 1. 2 Cor. v. 18.

h Eph. v. 2. Christ hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.-Heb. ix. 28. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.-1 John i. 7. The blood of Jesus Christ cleaseth from all sin.-Is. liii. 5, 6.

original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.

In this Article, which relates to the second Person in the holy Trinity, we have three principal positions to prove. 1. The Divinity of Christ. 2. His Incarnation. 3. His Atonement. The text, John i. 1, with others here annexed, sufficiently proves the Divinity of Christ. Christ is emphatically called the Word of God, as being the medium through whom God made a full revelation of his will to mankind. Christ allowed himself to be called God, and Lord, by his disciple, St. Thomas, and acknowledged it before the high priest.

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The Incarnation of Christ, and the union of the two natures, see texts, Is. vii. 14; Matt. i. 22, 23, &c.; also most particularly, Rev. i. 5, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18.

Here note, that since it pleased God to promise, (Gen. iii. 15.) that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, it was necessary that he should be born of a virgin, that so he might not be the seed of man, as all other men are. Also note, that it was necessary for Christ to be incarnate or become man, because as God he could not have suffered; God being a spirit, and therefore without body, parts, or passions. Also it is evident that he was a man, from being subject to human passions-Jesus wept.

Christ's suffering and atonement. That the Messiah was to suffer was foretold in a variety of passages of the Old Testament. He was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, oppressed and afflicted, wounded and bruised, brought to the slaughter, and cut off out of the land of the living. See the whole of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. The suffering of Christ was also typified in all the sacrifices of the Law, and particularly in the Passover and the Scape-goat. Our Saviour forewarned his disciples of his passion; and St. Paul preached to the Thessalonians that Christ must needs have suffered, Acts xvii. 3. And Scripture universally declares, that his suffering was for our reconciliation. 1 Tim. iì. 6, He gave his life a ransom for all. See, besides the texts annexed, Eph. ii. 16, 17, 18.

"To be a sacrifice not only for original guilt, &c." By original guilt is meant that guilt which was incurred by the disobedience of Adam, and transmitted to all his posterity; and by actual sins of men are meant those sins which individuals actually commit; for there is no man that sinneth not, 1 Kings viii. 46. See, besides the texts given, 1 John ii. 1.

This Article seems directed against the Socinians, who consider Christ as a mere man, and deny the doctrine of the Atone

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