"visitings" while he wrote this? Did no blush of secret shame suffuse his countenance? Did he venture to indulge a self-complacent satisfaction in the felicity and originality of the thought, and in fancying how it might take with his readers? I pity him if he did.

Mr. Yates has given (p. 58.) a list of passages asserting the Divine unity. Were any person to ask "Are these "all? he could instantly confront the inquiry with thou"sands and tens of thousands," that teach the same doctrine by implication. On the same principle, I have said: "The

argument in support of the doctrine of the Trinity is "not, by any means, completed, when those passages of "Scripture have been adduced, in which that doctrine is "asserted or implied in its full extent; in which, that is, "all the three persons of the Godhead are introduced to"gether. The proofs of the divinity of Christ, and of "the Holy Spirit, form distinct portions of the same body "of evidence; all bearing directly on the same great ge"neral truth.” (P. 31. and 19.)-The justice of this observation, Mr. Yates himself fully admits. After quoting it, he says, (p. 159.) "I agree with him, that all the passages which ❝ contain evidence of the divinity of Christ and of the Holy "Spirit bear upon the subject. For if Jesus Christ and "the Holy Spirit be two intelligent beings, each distinct "from God the Father, and if each of them be proved "to be infinite in all perfections, it will necessarily fol"low, that there exist three infinite and all-perfect minds, "or, in other words, three persons in the Godhead." This is a distinct admission (although in such terms as

*

*It would be endless to be commenting, every time I quote such passages, on Mr. Yates's phraseology, which is uniformly and studiedly framed to convey to his reader's mind an erroneous conception of our sentiments.

might be expected from a Unitarian) of the pertinence to the establishment of the Trinity of all the proofs of the Divinity of Christ and of the Spirit. But what he immediately subjoins is truly surprising. "It would, how"ever, be impossible," says he, "to reconcile this fact, "supposing it proved, with a belief in one God only; (very true, according to his statement of the fact ;) "nor "ought we to be satisfied with any attempts to establish "a doctrine so obscure and so important as that of the "Trinity, merely by showing that the Scriptures assert, "in separate places, the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy "Spirit, as well as the Divinity of the Father."-Here is self-contradiction with a witness. In the sentences first quoted, the proof under consideration is distinctly admitted to be valid and conclusive:-if it can be brought and substantiated," it will necessarily follow," says Mr. Yates, "that there are three persons in the Godhead." Yet in the sentences of the same paragraph last quoted, it is as distinctly denied that it is a kind of proof with which we should at all be "satisfied." That is, we should not be satisfied with evidence from which the conclusion will necessarily follow.

But the reason why we should not be satisfied is a very wonderful one. Although we should succeed in proving, from the testimony of the Scriptures, that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, we must not, it seems, believe, or at least we are not bound to believe it to be so, because, forsooth, the proofs are in "separate" places of the Bible!-Who is this that presumes thus to dictate to the Infinitely Wise the precise manner in which he must communicate instruction, before his creatures are obliged to receive it, and to

be satisfied with it?-Let Mr. Yates apply his own excellent remark, in another part of his volume: "if we study "the Scriptures with true humility and piety,-we shall be "thankful for every portion of God's word as it is, and "endeavour to improve it wisely."

Had Mr. Yates, then, been so ingenuous, as to give a true list of passages in support of the Trinity, it ought, even upon his own showing, to have consisted, not only of the texts which assert the doctrine fully, introducing formally all the hree persons; but of all those which are adduced as proofs of the supreme Divinity of the Son and the Spirit. Let him present such a list; and while (as might be expected) there may be some of them fanciful and inconclusive, we shall not be fearful of his appeal to the "candid reader," to " peruse "the list, and seriously ask himself, whether the passages "here brought together, would at once strike the mind of an "unprejudiced inquirer with a conviction, that the doctrine of "three persons in the Godhead is laid down in the Holy "Scriptures."

Mr. Yates arranges his seven texts in the order in which they occur in the Bible. In this way, it so happens, that the two with which he begins are passages which were introduced by me at the close of my ninth Discourse, after having gone through all the evidence I had thought it necessary to adduce in support of the Divinity of Christ and of the Spirit. The two passages are Num. vi. 23-26. and Isa. vi. 3.

"With respect to the two first passages on the list," says Mr. Yates, (the benediction pronounced by the Hebrew priests, and the solemn praise uttered by the Seraphim) "Mr. Wardlaw only produces them as containing a tacit re"ference to the Trinity of persons in the Godhead.' But how "was it possible that this tacit reference could be perceived

"before the doctrine was clearly declared? Can we imagine "a more preposterous inversion of ideas and evidences, than "that which is attributed to the Author of revelation, by sup

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posing the references to a doctrine to come first in order, "and the explicit statement of it afterwards? However "Trinitarians may surmount this difficulty, they must re"member, that an allusion to a doctrine is not a proof "of it." (Page 147.)

There is an art in giving a greater degree of prominence to an argument than it was thought entitled to by the opponent who adduced it; in making it appear in the light of a principal, when it was only brought forward as an accessory, and with an expressly specified conditional probability. I know not whether I am to reckon this a specimen of Mr. Yates's generalship or not. If it was so meant, it is by no means a master-stroke. He surely ought to have noticed the place and the manner of my introducing the text in question. My words are: "When such pas66 sages as our text," (viz. Matthew xxviii. 19.) " and the two "on which I have now been commenting" (viz. 1. Cor. xiii. 14. and Rev. i. 4. 5.) "are considered, it becomes "more than probable, that in the threefold benediction enjoined by Jehovah himself to be pronounced on the

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people of Israel, by the priests under the law, there was a "tacit reference to the Trinity of persons in the Godhead: "The LORD bless thee, and keep thee; the LORD make "his face shine upon thee, and be gracious to thee; the "LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee

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peace!'-and also, that the same glorious doctrine is "recognised in the solemn and impressive language of an"gelic adoration: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! "the whole earth is full of his glory.'" (Pages 303. 304.)

Now Mr. Yates (although in terms abundantly wary) admits almost as much when he adds to the sentences quoted above: "If the doctrine of the Trinity were previous

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ly established, we might perhaps not irrationally presume, that the three persons in the Godhead were re"ferred to in the threefold praise and benediction: but we "cannot make such an application until we know that there "are three persons in the Godhead." (P. 147.)-The reader, therefore, is at liberty to form his own judgment of the mass of other evidence in support of the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead; and then to interpret the phraseology of these texts, either as containing a tacit reference to that doctrine, or as designed only to give intensity to the sentiment, just as he may find his mind affected by the evidence.

But tacit reference! How, says Mr. Yates, can this be? His reasoning in the above extract, considering its feebleness, is certainly couched in terms of sufficient confidence. It ought to be enough to remind Mr. Yates;-it will be enough, I presume, to remind my readers, that the whole of the ancient Mosaic economy was just a system of tacit references, or comparatively obscure allusions, to doctrines which were afterwards to be more fully developed.

With respect to Isa. xxxiv. 16. and Isa. xlviii. 48. Mr. Yates "cannot conjecture what my arguments from them could "be, and therefore cannot answer them."-I shall not pretend to divine the cause of his inability to conjecture; but shall only say negatively, that I do not believe it to have been any obtuseness of intellect. "I shall only remark," he says, "con"cerning the former of these passages, that the pronoun MY, "which he has printed in small capitals, and upon which there"fore, I presume, his argument depends, as it appears to me,