The Divinity of the Holy Ghost demonstrated by a comparison of different texts.. God is distinguished in the Old Testament, by a great variety of Plural names and expressions .....87 The Divine Plurality is a Trinity of persons... The controverted text of 1 John v. 7. cited by the Latins before the council of Nice.... An instance of Dr. Clarke's distress and sophistry, 14 A Letter to the Common People. ... The origin and issue of Arianism... mon People... II. They tell them their common sense is a sufficient guide without the Clergy, ••••155-6 III. They invest the people with a right of judging as they please.. 157 Their objection returns much stronger upon them IV. They try to set them against the Athanasian Creed ..... ....160 161 selves,... Athanasian Creed....... ..ibid. V. They forge a contradiction, and put it into the ་ ..... VI. Fallible Arians rail at the orthodox for being They alter the Scripture to keep this accusation in countenance X. A sophistical objection to the Litany, by the author of The Confessional.. 162 164 ....168 XI. The Arians plead seriously for the removal of the orthodox faith, because it is offensive to Jews and Turks... ΤΟ ΤΗΣ READER. HE Christian religion is best known and distin THE guished by the God proposed in it, as the object of our faith and obedience: and as there is no true religion, but the religion of Christians, so is there no true God, but the God of Christians. Before the coming of Christ, and the fulfilling of the Law, God was known by the name of Jehovah, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. The Israelites, who were the seed of Abraham, and drew their whole religion from a divine revelation, had the knowledge of the true God; and the people of every other nation, who were "aliens from the com"monwealth of Israel, and strangers from the cove"nants of promise," were also "without God in the "world." Though they talked much of God, and wrote much of him, and offered him many sacrifices, yet they knew him not: the being they served, was * Eph. ii. 12. not God, but another in the place of him, falsely called by his name. And though some modern Christians have forgot there was any difference, yet the very heathens themselves, upon some occasions, were ready enough to allow it, Naaman the Syrian, when he was cured of his leprosy by the prophet Elisha, made a public confession of it." Behold, 66 now I know that there is no God in all the earth, "but in Israel." The same is affirmed by the inspired Psalmist" All the gods of the heathens are "idols ;" and God himself declares them all to have been vanities c. b The case is now with the Christians under the Gospel, as it anciently was with the Jews under the Law: they believe in the only true God; while the anchristian part of mankind, who are by far the majority, either know him not, or wilfully deny him; as Pharaoh did the God of the Hebrews when he was told of him. And we are now got to such a pitch of indevotion and ignorance, that among those who profess and call themselves Christians, there are too many who are almost come to be Heathens without knowing it. For there is a fashionable notion propagated by most of our moral writers, and readily subscribed to by those who say their prayers but sel a 2 Kings v. 15. " |