Having thus disposed of the fundamental proof-text for the unity of God in contradistinction to all other pretended deities, as found in the Old Testament, let us now take one of the most striking declarations respecting the Unity of God in the New Testament. This is found in John xvii: 1-3. "These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to Heaven and said, Father; the hour is come, glorify the Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

The argument drawn from this passage by Unitarians is, that since THE FATHER is declared to be THE ONLY true God, our Saviour, and the Holy Ghost are not truly God. But, in this argument, there is a gross fallacy. The very precise, and cautiously chosen, words of Christ are misstated. What Christ does say is, that his Father is the only true God, but he does not say that his Father ONLY is the true God. He affirms that his Father, in contrast with all the other so-called Gods, is the only true God, but he does not say that the Father ONLY, to the exclusion of the Son and the Holy Ghost, is alone this true God. Between these declarations there is a radical and essential difference. Christ affirms that there is an only true God, and that his Father is this only true God, both of which propositions we believe to be true. But this leaves the question still to be answered, as in the case of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who, and what, is this ONE ONLY TRUE GOD? According to his own representation of himself, God we have seen, is not an absolute, and uncompounded person, but is a triplicity of persons in one Godhead. God is a necessary, self-existent, spiritual being, in whom Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, do necessarily co-exist, so as to constitute that one being. The Father is the only true God, not excluding the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son is the only true God, not excluding the Father and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is God, the only true, not excluding the Father and the Son. When, therefore, it is said the Father is the only true God, since each of them participates in that one essence or Godhead which is the only true and real God, each and all unite to constitute this one Godhead. And as this Godhead is common to each and all, it may be attributed to each; and each, therefore, may be called the only true God. Such is, as we believe, the teaching of Scrip

ture, as to the natural, necessary, and eternal union, in one Godhead, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And against this our Saviour affirms nothing; since he does not say thou Father ONLY, art the true God, but that the Father is THE ONLY true God, a declaration which is equally true of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

The term Father, when applied to God, does not always in Scripture, refer to the person of the Father, as distinct from the Son, but is employed as a general title of the divine nature, and thus includes the three persons.* When the term Father is applied to God personally, and not as to his Godhead or essence, it is either in reference to his paternal relation to his creatures, and especially to believers, or to Christ as his only begotten Son, "whose goings forth," or, as the words mean, "whose generation is from of old, from everlasting."

Now, what our Saviour says, he says of "My Father," i. e., of God as that eternal Godhead with whom he was "in the beginning as God, the Son." Christ, therefore, says, that God as his Father, that is God in that infinite essence and Godhead in which as he elsewhere declares "he and the Father are one," is the only true God. The very selection, out of all possible titles of God, of the term Father necessarily implies, and has reference to, the Son of whom Scripture is full. We everywhere read also, of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, who is God. Now, the term Father implies that the person so described, in the order of internal relation between the persons of the trinity, is the source or fountain of the trinity and the first in authority and office. Of him, therefore, it may emphatically be said, that he is the true God, since he includes and implies in his own nature, the Son and Holy Ghost.

Besides, whatever of divine honour is here ascribed to the Father is also ascribed to the Son. For, it is not only necessary to eternal life to know the Father to be the only true God, but also, as our Saviour's words certainly imply, to know the Son also, as being also, the only true God as well as the Father. We are to know that and all that of the Son, which we are to know of the Father; that is, that he also, is the true God, and therefore, as elsewhere, God teaches us "we are to honour THE SON, EVEN AS we honour THE FATHER."

*Deut. xxxii: 6; Is. lxiii: 16, and lxiv: 3; Matt. v: 16, 48, and vi: 4, and 7, 11; John viii: 41.

† Micah vi: 4. See Jonathan Edward's Works, vol. 9.

Both the Son and the Father, therefore, and not the Father alone, or the Son alone, are represented as being unitedly and equally the grand objects of spiritual, saving knowledge, a statement which never would have been made without infinite presumption and impiety by Christ were he not himself "God, blessed for ever.”

The knowledge here made requisite is, it must be remembered, a spiritual and heartfelt reliance on the united object presented to our faith. It includes love to him, adoration of him, and obedience to his commands. And as this knowledge is to be directed to the Son as well as to the Father, in order to obtain eternal life, the Son is to be regarded as the only true God equally with the Father. And this is what we are elsewhere taught, when we are told that "God is IN CHRIST reconciling the world unto himself," Christ being "GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH."

But further, the Father is here said to be the only true God, because he only can give eternal life. But this eternal life is here and elsewhere, more frequently and emphatically, associated absolutely and entirely with the Son, who must, therefore, also be the only true God. And hence Christ is denominated frequently "the life." He is frequently said to give "everlasting life" and "eternal life."* And the apostle John, as if in allusion to this passage, declares, "and we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is TRUE, and we are IN HIM that is TRUE, even IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. THIS IS THE TRUE GOD AND ETERNAL LIFE.

And that the Son is elsewhere called the true God in Scripture, is admitted by Socinus himself, the father of modern Socinians. "It is very false," says Socinus, "that we should openly declare Jesus Christ is not true God. We profess to say the contrary, and declare that he is true God, in several of our writings, as well in the Latin as in the Polish language." "Jesus Christ," says Smalcius, another father of the Unitarians, "also may be called with a sovereign right our God, and the true God, and so he really is." Our Saviour therefore, in attributing to HIMSELF as well as to THE FATHER the title "only true God," speaks, as our opponents admit, in conformity with the other portions of Scripture; as when, in the Old Testament, that being, whom we have identified with Christ, is made to *John vi: 27, and x: 28; Matt. xix: 16, 21. †See Ad. Wick., p. 49, in Abaddie, p. 275.

declare "I am Jehovah thy God; thou shalt have no other Gods before me." "Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any;" and again: "There is no God else besides one, a just God and a Saviour; there is none besides me; for I am God, and there is none else;" and again, “I am God, and there is none else; I am God and there is none like unto me."

The expressions in this text manifestly allude to the multitude of Pagan divinities who falsely bare the name of Gods. The adjective true is opposed to false, and the adverb only is opposed to many. Christ was, evidently, speaking in opposition to the corrupt theology of the heathen, as if he had said, "The Gentiles perish, because they have no knowledge of any but false Gods; but it is life eternal to know thee, the only true God, in opposition to idols, including his co-equal and co-essential Son, who is Jesus the Christ."

Of exactly similar import is the declaration of the apostle in 1 Cor. viii: 4-6. "As concerning therefore, the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many; but to us there is but one God,—THE FATHER, of whom are all things, and we in him; AND ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, by whom are all things, and we by him." Here also God,-that is, the Godhead, or God considered in his essence, and as implying the Father and the Son, is said to be ONE in opposition to idols as in 1 Thess. i: 9. If we compare this with the expression of St. Thomas, "My Lord and my God," we have the following argument: "To us there is but one God the Father-but to us Jesus Christ is also Lord and God. The Gospel has, therefore, either preached two Gods, one distinct from the other, or that the "one God the Father" is here the name of a nature, under which Christ himself, as God, is also comprehended. The same conclusion may be also deduced from several other passages. Thus, in Matt. xxiii: v. 9, it is said, "Call no man your Father upon earth, for ONE IS YOUR FATHER, which is in heaven." But in verse 10, it is said, "Neither be ye called MASTERS, for ONE IS YOUR MASter, even ChriST, (vide John iii: 13,) which is in Heaven. Now, if from the words, ONE IS YOUR FATHER, an argument is drawn for the exclusive divinity of the Father, the same argument would prove, that one per

son only is our master, and that this person is Christ, which excludes the persons of the Father and the Spirit from the honour of that title, and therefore, reduces the argument to an absurdity. We are to conclude then, that as the phrase, “one master," cannot be meant to exclude the Father, so neither do other similar expressions applied to the Father, as "one good," or "one is your Father," exclude the person of Christ. The title of Father is, itself, ascribed to the second person of the Trinity; for Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, says of himself, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I WILL BE HIS GOD, and he shall be MY SON."* Isaiah expressly calls him the EVERLASTING FATHER. Again, it is written, "They are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection:" "but," says Christ, "I am the resurrection." Christ therefore, is God, and the believers are his children. The word Father, therefore, cannot always be a name that distinguishes the first person in the Godhead from the other persons of the Godhead, but is often to be understood as a term merely of relation, and as in this sense, applicable to the second person also.†

But Whitby so fairly meets, and so fully confutes the argument which Dr. Carpenter, and Unitarians generally, derive from this passage, that I shall here transcribe his comment. The passage is this: "To us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in (or for) him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." Hence, (says Whitby,) the Arians and Socinians argue against the Deity of Christ, as he who saith there is one Emperor, to wit, Cæsar, saith in effect, there is no other Emperor but Cæsar. So he that saith there is one God the Father, saith in effect, there is no other God besides the Father. Again, he who, having separately spoken of one God, proceeds distinctly to speak of one Lord, to wit: Jesus Christ doth, by that distinct title, sufficiently show Christ is not that God. Such is the argument of Unitarians. To this Whitby replies: "To the second argument the reply is obvious, by retorting the argument, as to the ancient Commentators, against this Arian objection, thus: That, as the apostle, by saying there is one Lord Jesus Christ, cannot be reasonably supposed to exclude the Father from being the Lord of christians, as he is often styled in the New Testament; so neither by saying, there is one God the Father, ought he to be supposed to exclude Jesus Christ *Revel. xxi: 7, Isaiah ix: 6, Luke xx: 36, John ii: 45.

† See Jones on Trinity.