Numb. 6, 27. This act of blessing the people was considered an important priestly function as it is mentioned on a line with other functions, Lev. 9, 22; 1 Chron. 23, 13. Isaiah was made. to hear the seraphims sing their "Thrice Holy." Thus God was at pains to have His people constantly put in mind that the God who is truly One is this God who is Three in One. Ps. 2, 7: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. We had ascertained that the three persons of the Godhead are distinct each from the other. The distinctness of each is declared not only to us, but also within the circle of the Holy Trinity itself. It flows from certain acts which cause us to predicate something of one person that we cannot predicate of the other. Each person has a personal attribute which never passes over to either of the other persons, and thus fixes its distinctness forever. In Ps. 2, 7 we behold this difference in full operation as between the Father and the Son. The brief statement is in the form of an address: there is a party speaking and a party spoken to. I and Thou, my and Thee, as every child knows, refer to the first and second person. The relation of speaker and addressee is accidental. The speaker on one occasion may be the addressee on another. Thus we find the addressee in this text the speaker in John 17. However, the subject of the brief discourse between speaker and addressee in the text before us never changes hands, so to speak, between them. The speaker here states with regard to Himself: "I have begotten Thee," and with regard to the party spoken to: "Thou art my Son." He claims for Himself fatherhood, for the party spoken to sonship. This relation is never inverted between the first and second persons of the Godhead. True, Christ is also called Father, Is. 9, 6. A person may hold to one the relation of son, while to another he holds the relation of father. Christ is "the everlasting Father," or the eternity-Father, from whom eternity takes its origin (if we can speak of an origin of eternity!). Ile is the father of the raindrop, Job 38, 28, the "Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turn ing," James 1, 17. He has created us and acts as a father to us. But He is not the father of the Father. This statement: "Today I have begotten Thee," cannot be made by any other than the first person of the Trinity. And this statement: "Thou art my Son," based on the ground here stated, cannot refer to any other than the second person of the Trinity. Angels are called "the sons of God," Job 1, 6; 2, 1; 38, 7; also all men, Mal. 2, 10, especially those who walk in His ways, Gen. 6, 2. 4. But Christ alone is the Son of God, because "He hath begotten Him;" He is "the only Begotten of the Father,” John 1, 14. 18; 3, 16. 18; 1 John 4, 9. In an inscrutable and ineffable manner God has communicated His essence to His Son, who thus is "the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person," Hebr. 1, 3. He is "the Firstbegotten," Hebr. 1, 6, "the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature," Col. 1, 15. Luther rightly renders the genitive náong xrioews by "vor" (prae, not ante) "allen Creaturen." The Son's origin not only antecedes by the difference of eter nity, but also excels by the difference of divine majesty that of every creature. He has taken His being directly from God and shares all God's attributes, being "one with the Father," John 10, 30. He addresses the first person of the Godhead as His Father, and the Father proclaims Him as His beloved Son. This relation constitutes the personal attribute of the Father and Son. John 15, 26: 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. Gal. 4, 6: Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. These passages state the personal attribute of the Holy Spirit. Christ speaks of Him as "another," John 14, 16, distinct from Himself and from the Father. He goes out from the Father (xπорɛɛτα). Christ also is gone out from the Father (épyeta), John 8, 42; 16, 27 ff.; 17, 8. The choice of these two verbs, the former of which is always applied to the procession of the Spirit, while the latter is used to describe the advent of Christ into the world, shows that each is a different action. Virtually Christ, in John 15, 26, predicates of the Spirit both εξέρχεσθαι and εκπορεύεσθαι, the former as an action to be expected by the disciples, the latter as an action which is already going on, the former as an official act of the Spirit, the latter as an action by which the Spirit is constituted in His essence and being. He is "the Spirit of God," tò ñveŭμa tou deo (1 Cor. 2, 11), i. e., as the next verse declares, "the Spirit which is of God,” τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. The mode of this procession passes our comprehension. The allusion to breath issuing from the mouth (Ps. 33, 6; John 20, 22), to the wind (John 3, 8), is helpful, but inadequate to express this act. The procession is not from the Father alone, but also from the Son, but this latter fact is not as explicitly stated as the former. Still the genitive in Gal. 4, 6, whether it is understood as expressing ownership or origin, sufficiently indicates the procession also from the Son. Christ also speaks and acts in a manner indicating this procession, John 20, 22; 15, 26; 16, 7. The reading of the Athanasian Creed, especially to applicants for confirmation, would serve the purpose of a resumé or review of this doctrine. (To be continued.) DR. MARTIN LUTHER'S TREATISE OF CONFESSION, JESUS. 1. First. The holy king and prophet David has composed a psalm of 176 verses, by far the longest and largest psalm of all, which in its four divisions is daily sung and read in the churches, at prime, tierce, sext, and none. And it is especially strange that each verse from beginning to end prays for nearly the same thing and has the same content as the other, so that it is tedious, unless the Spirit guide us, to hear that in so long a psalm one and the same matter is treated, though in different words, so many times, namely, one hundred and seventy-six times. For the scope of all the verses and of the entire psalm comprises two things: First, that God would guide and teach, instruct and keep us in His ways, commandments, and laws; secondly, that He would keep us from human doctrines and ordinances. Whosoever attends to these two things easily understands every verse and the entire psalm. 2. Second. We ask, Why has the prophet done this? The answer is self-evident, viz.: to give us an earnest warning which we might have before our eyes daily, to beware of, and flee from, human doctrines and laws as from the greatest misfortune on this earth, for nothing glitters more beautifully and does greater harm. Thus Christ, Matt. 7, 15, when He had proclaimed His teaching, concludes with a warning to beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. And He earnestly admonishes the disciples, Matt. 16, 6. 12, to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, that is, as He Himself explains, to beware of human doctrines that teach merely hypocrisy and not foundation truths. 3. Here David has done the same, as if to say: Now, then, I will compose a psalm that contains nothing but a warning of human doctrines, and I will heap the measure even unto surfeit, for I see that they glitter so beautifully, are swallowed so easily, and seduce us from God's laws so craftily and covertly. Accordingly, there has been a good reason for reading this psalm above others daily, although it has been of no avail – Christendom has become filled, nevertheless, with human laws, and even this psalm, contrary to its own intent, has been tied down with human laws. All the priests read it every day, not knowing in the least what they read. 4. Third. Although this psalm ought to be sufficient to give us a horror of commandments of men, the disease has gone so deep and so far that all men have been brought to believe firmly in a false interpretation, everybody holding that the sayings in this psalm, and similar ones, are directed only against public and great transgressions, and not against the laws of the pope and the priests. Thus they have not only dulled the edge of the sword, but they have placed a piece of horn over it so that it cannot cut, so much so that the laws of the pope, and not Holy Scripture, now rule everywhere. Therefore it is necessary to fight and storm against such old and deeply rooted errors with mighty and trenchant verses of Holy Scripture. Let us see whether we can drive them from the field and reveal their unwarranted procedure and unjust tyranny, so that we may again teach and know that whatsoever God has not commanded is to be avoided as the devil's poison and death, no matter whether the pope or the bishops, whether angels or devils have ordained it. 5. Fourth. In the first place, Moses says Deut. 4, 2 [ch. 12, 23]: "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it." Can "to add to" mean anything else than to teach more, and to "diminish from" to teach less than is taught by Scripture? It cannot refer to interpretation, for interpretation neither increases nor diminishes, but merely explains. Is not this a plain passage against all man-made laws? Now what are the pope's laws other than additions pure and simple, on account of which Scripture gives a special name to the devil and calls him in Hebrew "Leviathan," that is, "increaser," one who increases a thing beyond its due limits. 6. Therefore all that add man-made laws to God's laws are surely God's enemies and apostles of Leviathan, and whosoever accepts and keeps these laws is a disciple of Leviathan. It is no excuse to say that Moses has said this not in regard to the New but to the Old Testament; for the apostle says Hebr. 2, 2-4 that we ought to give more earnest heed to the New Testament, given through Christ Himself, than the Old, which |