CHAPTER III.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ONLY TRUE GOD AND

OF JESUS IN HIS CHARACTER OF THE PROMISED MESSIAH THE SEED OF THE WOMAN IS THE BASIS OF ETERNAL LIFE.

THE Apostle St. John has recorded, with great copiousness, the last discourse which our blessed Saviour held with his disciples immediately before his crucifixion. This, as we might well expect, is very full and explicit upon various matters of the highest importance. Among others, which come not under our present consideration, it sets forth, with singular distinctness and precision, the doctrinal basis of that eternal life, which was alike the final object of all the three Dispensations, and which our Lord had received power to communicate unto all his faithful servants.

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said: Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may 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 may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent`.

The knowledge then of the only true God, and the additional knowledge of Jesus in his character of the Christ or the Messiah sent by the true God, is the doctrinal basis of eternal life. Neither of these two is sufficient without the other. It is not enough to know the only true God, while Jesus of Nazareth is rejected as the promised Messiah: nor is it sufficient to receive Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah, while the only true God is either unknown in his nature or is associated in our adoration with those that are not gods. The two must be joined together: we must alike know the only true God and Jesus the Christ whom the only true God has sent.

Hitherto the matter is perfectly plain: but there is a peculiarity in the form of the proposition, which writers of the Socinian school have eagerly seized upon, and which therefore requires a very careful discussion.

Our Lord is addressing his heavenly Father: Father, says he, the hour is come; glorify thy Son. Now, in the course of his address, the proposition before us is enunciated: This is life eternal, that they might know THEE the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. The address therefore being made to God the Father, it fol

lows that God the Father is declared to be the only true God. Hence it is argued by Socinian writers, that, since the Father is declared to be the ONLY true God, our Saviour Christ and the Holy Ghost are NOT truly God; real and essential divinity being ascribed by Jesus himself to the Father ALONE. Consequently, we are bound to conclude, that the man Jesus is a mere man, and that the Holy Ghost is either a divine attribute or a synonymn of the Father.

This argument, incomparably the best (I think) of the Socinian School, possesses so much plausibility, that at the first sight it may well startle even the soundest believer: it will be useful therefore, both to point out its fallacy, and to exhibit the true interpretation of the passage upon which it is founded.

I. Its fallacy lies in a palpable mistatement of our Lord's very precise and accurate language.

Christ, in the form of an address, declares, that his Father is the only true God. Such is the declaration of Christ: and it is a declaration, to which his faithful Church in all ages most cheerfully and devoutly subscribes. But his Socinian commentators, as the necessity indeed of their argument imperiously requires, virtually represent him as declaring, that his Father only is the true God.

Now, between these two propositions, The Father is the only true God and The Father only is the true God, there is a very radical and essential

difference. The first of them is laid down by our Lord; and it speaks an undoubted verity: the second is laid down by Socinian commentators; and it speaks an undoubted falsehood.

1. Our Lord asserts, that the Father is the only true God. This assertion, if analysed, will prove to be in reality a complication of two assertions.

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The former of the two assertions is, that there is an only true God: the latter of the two assertions is, that the Father is this only true God. Both are equally mdisputable: nor will it be found, that any orthodox believer is at all disposed to controvert either of them, though he is unable to discover how they in any wise promote the cause of Socinianism.

For who would dream of controverting the proposition, that there is an only true God? Certainly no man, who holds from Scripture the vital doctrine of the blessed Trinity in Unity; who holds from Scripture the vital doctrine, that there is one God mysteriously existing in what (from the poverty of human language) the Church is wont to denominate three persons of hypostases.

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Or who again would dream of controverting the proposition, that the Father is the only true God? Certainly no sound believer in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: for, if he denied the Father to be the only true God, he would run directly counter to his own avowed principles. ›

But, while he thus confesses that there is an only true God and that the Father is this only true

God: he is quite unable to discover, how he thereby yields up any vantage-ground to the advocates of Socinianism. For what in nature is the only true God, whom he confesses? In his Bible, he finds the Father styled God, the Son styled God, and the Holy Ghost styled God: in his Bible, he finds the Father distinguished by divine attributes, the Son distinguished by divine attributes, the Holy Ghost distinguished by divine attributes: in his Bible, he finds, that one only true God is declared to exist, and that all the gods of the nations are pronounced to be mere vanity. Hence he concludes, nor can he reject the conclusion without rejecting the scriptural premises themselves: hence he concludes, that the only true God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost incomprehensibly existing in a Tri-Unity, and that there is no other true God save this. But, if he be led to such a conclusion, then of course he must receive as an undoubted truth our Lord's declaration, that the Father is the only true God. This however will not, in the slightest degree, affect his belief in the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. For, holding the doctrine of a divine Unity existing in a divine Trinity, and thence holding the doctrine that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are the only true God; he of necessity holds also the doctrine that EACH of those three divine persons is the only true God. Hence, the circumstance of his holding, that the Father is the only true God,