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wrote against Sabellius, Paul of Samosata and the Arians. Proper attention shall be paid to some anti-christian sophisms. when we shall treat of the divinity of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, to whom, with the Father, be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

There are few divines in latter times that have commented on the adorable mystery of the Trinity more sublimely and devoutly than the learned and pious bishop of Meaux has done; the writer of these sheets, therefore, thought the following extract from his works would not prove unacceptable to his readers.

LXX DAY.

God, Father and Son. St. John, xvii. 3. 5. 10. 21. 25. CXLIV. "It is not possible to dismiss this divine prayer of our Saviour, nor the speech, which precedes it, and which, as we have seen, has furnished the matter for it. One reads over and over again this discourse, this last farewell, this prayer of Jesus Christ, and, as it were, his last wishes, always with a new relish, and with a new consolation. All the secrets of heaven are revealed in it, and that, after the most insinuating and affecting manner possible.

Which is the grand secret of heaven, unless it be that eternal and impenetrable communication between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? That is, I say, the secret of heaven, which renders happy those that see it, and which had not been as yet perfectly revealed: But Jesus Christ reveals it to us here in an admirable manner.

Who says a Father, says a Son; and who says a Son, says an equal in nature; and who says an equal in a nature as perfect as that of God is, says an equal in all perfection: insomuch that there cannot be a first and second but through a holy, perfect, and eternal origin.

This is what Jesus Christ gives us to understand, when he asks of his Father the clear manifestation of the glory which he had in him,* Apud te : with thee and in thy bosom before the world was made.t. That glory, which he had in

*John, i. 1. + Ibid. xvii. 5.

the bosom of God, could not but be the glory of God himself: which, and the glory of the Son too, being always, and preceding all that has been made, was not, of course, made itself. It is, consequently, uncreated as that of the Father. This is so, and cannot be otherwise.

The Son equal to his Father, and still at the same time his envoy, because "he cometh from him."* He came forth from him, to come into the world, this is how he was sent. He quits the world, to return to the Father, behold the term of his mission: This is all that Jesus Christ is in his Person, perfectly equal to God who sends him, because he is his own Son; God would not have a Son who would be less than himself, or who would not be worth himself. Pardon, Oh Lord! these expressions; they who speak, are men. When we say, that God would not, this is to say, that it would be unworthy of God, and that, of course, it cannot be. It is on this account, that in every thing and every where he treats as equal with his Father. "And all mine are thine, and thine are mine."t This bespeaks a perfect equality, and on both sides. It is more than if he had said that he is his equal: for it is more to treat as equal with him, than to enounce simply that equality.

But let us see what Jesus Christ is with regard to us. He is, like his Father, our happiness: "to know his Father and him, is for us everlasting life." Hience he says, "He that loveth me, shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him." This is the great effect of my love: It is thereby I render men eternally happy. And he adds, "if any one love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make an abode with him."§

"We will come," in company, my Father and I. Who could ever thus equalize himself to God? "We will come:" for we cannot come one without the other: 66 we will come :" for it is not all to have the Father; I must be had too : 66 we

* John, xvi. 28.-xvii, 8; § Ibid. xiv. 23.

+ Ibid. xvii. 10.

Ibid. xvii. 3.xiv. 21.

will come;" Who can come into man, in order to replenish and sanctify him inwardly but God himself? "We will come to them and make an abode with them." They will be our common temple, our common sanctuary: We will be their common sanctification, their common felicity, their common life. What can he say more explicit, to put himself on equality with his Father? The best way to say it, is to show it by effects. Oh man, what do you long for? To have God within you. And in order that you may have him fully, my Father and I will come into your interior: If you desire to have me within yourselves, by wishing to have God within you, I am then God.

It is thus the faithful shall be one; because they will all have within themselves the Father and the Son, and will be their temple: "They will be one," says Jesus Christ, but they will be ❝one in us."* We shall be the common band of their unity: because my Father and I being perfectly one, all unity must come from us; and we are the bond of it as well as the principle.

This is the first part of the divine secret: The perfect unity of the Father and of the Son, at present perfectly revealed to men: in order to give them to understand, how sincere and perfect their union ought proportionably to be: since it has for its model and bond the unity absolutely perfect of the Father and of the Son, and their eternal and unalterable peace." B. Bossuet, vol. x.p. 295, last ed.

CHAPTER IV.

On the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, against the Arians, Macedonians, Socinians, now known under the name of Unitarians.

SECTION 1.

The Holy Ghost is true God, and, therefore, consubstantial with the Father and with the Son.

CXLV. This dogmatical conclusion is proved first from the authority of the divine Scriptures. Christ, Matth. ult.

John xvii. 21.

says. "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Here in the form of baptism prescribed by Jesus Christ, we find the Holy Ghost joined to God the Father, and to God the Son, therefore he is true God, one and the same God with the Father, and the Son; for if he were not, no reason can be imagined why he should be associated with the Father and the Son in honour and dignity, neither can it be conceived, why he should be named in baptism, the sacrament of faith, unless he be the object of our faith, to be which cannot belong to a creature; therefore, the Holy Ghost is true God, &c.*

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CXLVI. In the Acts of the Apostles,* which St. Chrysostom, by way of excellence, styles "Librum dogmatum de Spiritu Sancto," the book which contains the dogmas of the Holy Ghost; and Ecumenius, another Greek Father, “ Ευαγγέλιον τῷ πνεύματος Αγιο, " the Gospel of the Holy Ghost" St. Peter thus addresses Ananias: "Ananias, why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost, and by fraud keep part of the price of the field? Thou hast not lied to men but to God." Here the Holy Ghost is clearly and absolutely called God, and contradistinguished from creatures. "Thou hast lied not to men but to God." I am sensible, that, as there is no tenet so clear, which the Unitarian critic will not endeavour to distort from its plain, obvious, and natural meaning to his favourite system, the present passage will have to suffer the accustomed violence; but I am confident, too, that the sober reader will look down with pity and indifference on the distorted and arbitrary interpretations of a few new teachers, when they come to see, that the great luminaries of both the Greek and Latin church perfectly agree in understanding this text of the divinity of the Holy Ghost. This passage is urged against the Macedonians by St. Basil, lib. v. against Eunomius, and in his book on the Holy Ghost, chap. xvi.-by St. Gregory Nazianzen in his thirty-seventh oration-by St. Cyril of Alexandria, in

Acts, chap. viii,

Thesau. thirty-fourth assertion-by St. Ambrose, book i. chap. iv. on the Holy Ghost-by St. Epiphanius, seventy-fourth Heres. by St. Augustin, lib. iii. chap. 21. against Maximinus, &c.

CXLVII. In the same Acts, chap. xix. St. Paul found certain disciples at Ephesus, and he said to them: "Have you received the Holy Ghost, since ye believed? But they said to him, We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost. And he said: in what then are you baptized? Who said in John's baptism. Then Paul said: John baptized the people with the baptism of penance &c. Having heard these things, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." That is to say, with the baptism instituted by Jesus Christ, and the form of which he himself has prescribed in these words, "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Who does not see, that St. Paul and the disciples of Ephesus meant to speak here of the Holy Ghost as of a person and as of a divine person, too, as without whose faith and baptism they could not be true Christians?

CXLVIII. What is said to have been spoken by the Lord the God of Hosts, Isaiah, vi. "Hearing, hear, and understand not" is said by St. Paul in the Acts, xxviii. chap. to have been pronounced by the Holy Ghost, "well did the Holy Ghost speak to our Fathers by Isaias the prophet: With the ear you shall hear and shall not understand," &c. Therefore the Lord of Hosts, and the Holy Ghost are the same, and of course the Holy Ghost is true God as to nature and substance; for he that is called Jehovah and the Lord of Hosts in the old law, is called the Holy Ghost in the new, but he that is called Jehovah and the Lord of Hosts in the Old Testament, is true God as to nature and substance, therefore, the Holy Ghost is true God as to nature and substance.

CXLIX. He is true God, to whom the divine attributes and such works are ascribed, which God only can perform. But the divine attributes and divine operations are attributed to the Holy Ghost: this minor proposition is proved from the

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