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(Rom. xvi. 14,) says: "The Son of God is indeed more ancient than any creature; inasmuch, that he was in Council with his Father at the creation of all things." (See also Proverbs viii. 22, 31.)

6. St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, the Disciple of St. John the Evangelist. This pious martyr, when at the stake, surrounded with flames, testified as follows: "For this, and for all things else, I praise thee! I bless thee! I glorify thee, by the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved son, with whom to thee and the Holy Ghost be glory, both now and to all succeeding ages, Amen." (Wake's Apost. Fathers, Am. ed. p. 246.) This martyr was Bishop of the Church at Smyrna, and it testified at his death, A. D. 107, "that we can never forsake Christ, who died for the salvation of the whole world, and that we can worship no other." (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. ch. 18.) It is therefore evident, that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost were considered as objects of Divine worship by this father.

7. Justin Martyr wrote about forty years after the death of St. John the Evangelist. He says: "God, in the beginning, before all the worlds, produced from himself a certain intellectual Power, which is, by the Holy Spirit, (in the Scriptures,) mentioned as the Son of God, as Wisdom, as an Angel, as God, and sometimes, as the Lord, and the Logos or Word. We know Jesus Christ to be the Son of the true God, and hold him to be the second in order, and the Prophetic Spirit the third; and that we have good reason for worshipping in this subordination, I shall show hereafter. "They who affirm the Son to be the Father, are guilty of not knowing the Father, and likewise of being ignorant, that the Father of the Universe, has a Son, who being the Logos, and first begotton of God, is also God."

8. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, A. D.168. This Father, in his defence of Christianity, addressed to Autolycus says, "these three days, (of the Creation) are types of the Trias, (Trinity) the Father, the Son, and the Spirit of his Wisdom."

9. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, speaks of the Deity of Christ veiled in the flesh, and considered him Perfect God and Perfect Man; that he was true God eternally: This author wrote his apology to Marcus Antoninus A. D. 170.

10. Tatian, an eminent Platonic Philosopher, flourished A. D. 172. He speaks of the Word, as the first instance of the Productive Power of God; that it was effected by a division, without separation."

11. Athenagorus, flourished A.D. 178, says of Christ "He is the first born of the Father, but not as ever beginning to exist; for, from the beginning, God being an eternal mind, must have had from all eternity, the word in himself and as the wisdom and the power, he exerted Himself in all things: all matter was subject to Him by formation, and the elements blended together, and mixed by His operation." We acknowledge God and the Son as his Logos, with the Holy Ghost, one as to their power, even the Father, the Son and the Spirit; the Son to be the Mind, the Word, the Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit to proceed as light doth from fire."

12. Tertullian flourished A. D. 185. He says "Christ is in his own right God Almighty as he is the Word of Almighty God. We christians do affirm a Spirit to be the proper substance of the Logos, by whom all things were made, in which he subsisted before he was manifested, and was the Wisdom that assisted at the creation, and the Power that presided over the whole work-Christ is for this reason called the Son of God, and the God from his unity of substance with God the Father, for God is a Spirit-Thus it is, that the Logos which came forth from God, is both God, and the Son of God, and those two are one. This is the Christ the God of Christians.

13. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons in France, suffered martyrdom A. D. 202. Certifies, that the Faith of the churches of the East, of Egypt, of Africa, of Spain, of Germany, of the Celts, as well as of the Mediterranean churches of Palestine, was held with one consent, as if it were animated with one love, and spoke with one mouth;

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this faith consists of their acknowledgment of Christ, that he became incarnate for our salvation; that he that made all things is with his word, justly called the only God and Lord.

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14. Clemens Alexandrinus, Presbyter of the church of Alexandria, flourished A. D. 195. He writes, "O children, our Pedagogue is like to God his Father, whose Son he is, without sin. He is God in the form of man, immaculate, who executes the will of his Father, the Word, God, who is in the Father, who is on the right hand of the Father, and with this form, he is God."

15. Origen, one of the most learned Fathers of the church, and the first writer who paid any attention to the criticism of the Bible, flourished A. D. 210, to 253. He says, "the Word of God, clothed in the flesh of Mary, came forth into the World, and, indeed, it was one thing in him that was seen, another was understood: For the appearance of flesh in him was obvious to all; but to few, and chosen persons was the knowledge of his Godhead imparted. Christ is the word of God; but the word was made flesh. In Christ therefore, there is one substance from above, another, assumed of the human nature" &c. "He who makes a good confession ascribes to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, each three respective peculiars, but will nevertheless confess, that there is no diversity of nature or substance, when we come to the grace of Baptism, renouncing all other Gods and Lords, we confess One God alone, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."-(See page 29, par. 3d.)

Numerous other authorities, of the same import, are unavoidably omitted, having already exceeded by far, the limits originally assigned to this manual. We shall therefore pass from these extracts for, and against, without comment, and return to the subject and remarks of our present proposition.

The Word, or Power of God, if not made flesh, was assuredly made manifest in the flesh; For God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself; and is the same power that created all things: "He hath made the

earth by his power: He hath established the world by his Wisdom and hath stretched out the Heavens by his discretion" (Jer. x. 12.)

Having, therefore, the testimony of God's Holy Prophets, and Apostles, as the guarantees of our Faith; and believing with our whole hearts; that the Wisdom, Power, and Holiness of the One Supreme, are in their essential essences, one and the same substance, though represented according to their peculiar qualities, as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.* And as it is not contrary to the regular rules of expression, when speaking of the essential properties of Being; to speak of those properties, as characteristic of the Being in whose substance they are united as the constituents of that Being: We therefore believe, Jesus Christ in his essential nature, to be the Power of God, † that together with the Wisdom and Holiness constitutes that Spiritual fulness of the Godhead which dwelt, and forever dwells in the sanctified Person of Jesus Christ, and we therefore, accept him, as the Son of God, an integrant essence, an essential property of God in his Divine Nature; and as the Son of Man, in the body of flesh prepared for his Incarnation, in which, he is "The Only Wise God our Saviour."§

In that day, when "Our Lord comes with the splendour of him to whom all power was given in heaven and in earth." "He bears three names. The first is one, that no man knew, a name beyond human conception : His heavenly name: The second, the Word of God, His name as the Mediator, his Scriptural name: The third, King of Kings and Lord of Lords! His name, as the conqueror of the idolatrous religion, and sovereign of the World, his earthly name," he will be then universally acknowledged in conformity with the foregoing sentiments.

Further Illustrations. 1. "Let there be Light," said the Wisdom of God: and his Power created Light "and there was Light"|| The Son of God as the acknowledged Coloss. ii. 9. § Jude 25.

*Mau. xxviii. 19. t1 Corin. 1. 24. Gen. 1. 3.

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Creator of all things,* is fitly called, the Logos or Word of the Lord; or the Power of God.

2. "Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness," said the Wisdom, and, by the Power of God was Man created. "In the image of God created he, him: male and female, created he, them," (in one man) "and he called their name, Adam‡ (or the man.)

Remark: God did not make a Trinity in three Persons as the image of Himself; but he made a Trinity in One person as the image of Himself: And this One Person, or image of the perfections of Deity, is called Emmanuel, or God with us."

But how can there be an image of an invisible, and to man, an incomprehensible Being? The image of the Invisible God, was not intended to represent material substances; but spiritual essences; and as Wisdom, Power and Holiness are the co-existent, co-eternal, un-create, and essential properties of, and united in the one substance of Deity, the Son of God, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, was in deed, and in truth, "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his Person."§ (i. e. The essences of his substance.)

True, it is said, that "God created man in his own image." "Emmanuel is the God, in whose image man was Created"T-Christ, the Son of the Blessed, is the image of the Father, in his spiritual fulness: and Man was the image of God in Christ; or the spirit and flesh united; hence, Christ is the Spiritual Head of every man; and God in Christ, is the Head of all things; the God of the Spirits of all flesh,"**"a Just God, and a Saviour."

3. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good." That every thing which his Wisdom had devised: which his power had Created, or Made, and which his Holy Spirit had Perfected and Sanctified, were all very good.

* Coloss 1. 16. + Gen. 1. 27. Gen. v. ii. Murray's Let.&c. vol 2. p 241 Hebr. 1. 3. TMurray's let. vol. ii. p. 241, ** Num xvi. 22. tt Gen. 1.31.