gle passage in which it can be shown to refer to a first Person of a Trinity. And here has been the mistake. Superficial readers of the Bible, having once been taught that Father stands for one of the Persons of the Trinity, instead of the whole Deity, have never examined whether this were its true meaning, or not. But let them take up the Scriptures again, and carefully scrutinize every passage in which this term occurs, and they will find that the Father always comprehends the whole Deity, and is the only Divine Person. "Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." Here God and Father are synonymous, and include the whole Deity to the exclusion of Jesus Christ, for it is said "God and our Lord Jesus Christ." "That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here, likewise, Father and God are synonymous, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a Person of the Trinity, but the whole Deity. "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom. Here God and Father are also used as synonymous, and that Being is the God of Jesus Christ. One of the Persons of the Trinity certainly cannot be God to another. It can mean nothing else, then, than that Father is co-extensive with God, takes in the whole Deity, and that whole. Deity is the God of Christ. Of consequence Christ can make no part of his own God. To escape this conclusion it may be alleged that this is said of his

inferior or human nature. Then it will follow that the title "Lord" is applied to his inferior or human nature, for it is said "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ;" and the title "Lord" as proving a superior nature in him, can never again be used.

We now come to a passage still more decisive; "One God and Father of all, who is above all." The Father here is not only used as synonymous with God, but declared to be the only God. The other Persons are of course excluded. Christ often in the gospels addresses God as his Father. A superficial reader, tinctured with this strange theory of three Persons, might suppose him to be addressing the first Person instead of the whole Deity. "O! my Father, let this cup pass from me." But when he examines farther, he will find it is the whole Deity he addresses, for Christ commands his disciples to pray to the same Being, and the same Person, saying, "Our Father who art in heaven." But what is full to this point, is his message to his disciples after his resurrection, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." The Father of Jesus Christ, then, was not the first Person in the Deity, but the whole Deity, the same Being or Person who is the Father of Christians. Father and God are here, too, used as synonymous. The same Being who is our Father is Christ's Father, and the same Being who is Christ's God is our God. So that the term Father includes the whole Deity, and excludes Christ. You perceive, then, that the claims of the

Father to be the one God, are not only supreme, but exclusive. How, then, can any man, or set of men, attempt to wrest the word Father from the only sense in which it is used in scripture, signifying the whole Deity, and fix upon it a new meaning, the first Person of a Trinity?

When Christ is spoken of in connection with God, it is always not only with marks of inferiority and subordination, but he is expressly excluded from Deity. "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Jesus Christ in both these passages is spoken of, as not only inferior to God, but as making no part of him. Another striking proof of this is found in the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. Christ is represented as being made the head of a spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of the Messiah, by God, who subdues all things under him, and makes him to triumph over the last opponent, Death. The resurrection completes his reign, and he surrenders his kingdom to God. "Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son himself be subject unto him that did put all things under him, that God

things under him."

may be all in all." Is not the supremacy and sole Divinity of God the Father written in every line of this quotation? Can the Son be a Person of Deity equal to the Father, and of course have equal and underived dominion, when his having dominion at all is ascribed to the Father's having put all things under him? When he surrenders up his kingdom to God, it is not, you will remark, as one Person of a Trinity to another, but to the whole Deity, to God even the Father. "Then shall the Son himself be subjected to him that put all One equal Person of the Trinity be subject to another after the resurrection, through the boundless ages of eternity? Impossible! There must be a mistake. Son must mean something else than an equal Person of the Trinity. Besides, it goes on to say "that God may be all in all." That person cannot be God who resigns his kingdom to God, "that God may be all in all." Son must then be, as it can be shown to be in the New Testament, an equivalent to Messiah. learn, moreover, from this passage (what furnishes a satisfactory explanation of much of the language of the New Testament respecting Christ,) that the apostles considered him, at least during their own age, and while miracles lasted, to exercise under God a subordinate agency in the establishment of his religion, such as he promised them when he ascended, "Lo! I am with you always, to the end of the world," or of the age. Hence the form of their benediction, "Grace be unto you, and peace

We

from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." "I thank my God through Jesus Christ." Can any thing be clearer than that Jesus Christ is here distinguished from God, and considered as only an instrument or Mediator? Jesus Christ certainly can make no part of that God whom Paul thanked through him. "Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Can one equal Person of the Trinity be the property of another? But God, when there is no intimation to the contrary, must mean the whole Deity. Christ is, therefore, the property of the whole Deity. Then he can make no part of the whole Deity.

But it may perhaps still be thought by some that the title Lord applied to Christ, proves him to be Deity, or an equal Person in the Deity. This word however has many meanings in the scriptures. It may mean proprietorship in the sense of Creator and Disposer. It may mean delegated authority, such as that of a Teacher, Spiritual Guide, Controller of the conscience. It may mean a mere appellation of respectful salutation between man and man. In which sense Jesus Christ is Lord of Christians, it will not be difficult to determine. Lordship in the sense of Creator and Disposer, is in scripture confined to one, the supreme and only God. Christ is our Lord only in the second sense, that of Spiritual Guide and Master, a sense not original, but delegated and ministerial. "Ye call me," said the Saviour to his disciples, "Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am." "God" says Peter "hath made that