The speaker in this verse is no other than Christ, who at ver. 12. calls himself the first and the last, and does here declare himself to be sent not only by the Lord God but also by his Spirit:which should be taken some notice of, because the Arians have objected to the co-equality of the Son with the Father, because he is said to be sent by him. But if this should hold, it will follow that Christ, for the same reason, is also inferior to the Spirit. The author of an Essay on Spirit, whose violent proceedings in the Church have chiefly moved me to draw up these papers, is warm in the pursuit of this argument, that Christ is inferior to the Father, because he was sent by him. "We may therefore, says he, fairly argue, as our Saviour himself does upon another occasion-that as the servant is not equal to his lord, so neither is he that is sent equal to him that sent him."a Not quite so fairly: for he is a gross misrepresentation, of which, and of many other things, this author should give us some account, before he proceeds any farther in the work of reformation; it being a maxim, I think, with the wise and learned, that a man should always reform himself, before he undertakes to reform the world. Upon the occasion he refers to, our Saviour has said-The servant is NOT GREATER than his Lord; a Page 98. neither is he that is sent GREATER than he that sent him. But in the place of this, he has ventured to substitute another reading that comes up to his point, and agrees better with the intended work of reformation-" he that is sent is not equal to him that sent him;" printing the word equal in a different character to make it more observable; and then puts an objection of his own forging into the mouth of our blessed Saviour. He professes himselfa great enemy to human compositions: and we have reason to believe him, where those compositions are not his own. But his making so free with this and many other texts, does not look as if he was any great friend to the composi tions of the Holy Ghost; and can do but little credit to a Vindicator of the Holy Scriptures from the cavils and scoffs of an infidel. XIII. Isa. xxxiv. 16. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read-for MY mouth it hath commanded, and HIS SPIRIT it hath gathered them. 1 In these words there is one person speaking of the Spirit of another person: so that the whole trinity is here included. Whether God a John xiii. 16. the Father or God the Son is to be understood as the speaker, it is neither easy nor material to determine. I am rather inclined to think it is the former. XIV. Numb. iv. 24, &c. The LORD bless thee and keep thee. The After this form the High Priest was commanded to bless the children of Israel. name of the Lord, in Hebrew Jehovah, is here repeated three times. And parallel to this is the form of Christian Baptism; wherein the three personal terms of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are not represented as so many different names, but as one name: the one divine nature of God being no more divided by these three, than by the single name Jehovah thrice repeated. If the three articles of this benediction be attentively considered, their contents will be found to agree respectively to the three persons taken in the usual order of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the author of blessing and preservation. Grace and illumination are from the Son, by whom we have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. Peace is the gift of the Spirit, whose name is the Comforter, and whose first and best fruit is the work of peace. Petrus Alphonsi, an eminent few, converted in the beginning of the 12th Century, and presented to the font by Alphonsus a king of Spain, wrote a learned treatise against the Jews, wherein he presses them with this scripture, as a plain argument that there are three persons to whom the great and incommunicable name of Jehovah is applied. And even the unconverted Jews according to Bechai, one of their Rabbi's, have a tradition, that when the high priest pronounced this blessing over the people-elevatione manuum sie digitos composuit, ut Triada exprimerent-he lifted up his hands, and disposed his fingers into such a form as to express a trinity. All the foundation there is for this in the scripture, is Lev. ix. 22. As for the rest, be it a matter of fact or not, yet if we consider whence it comes, there is something very remarkable in it. See Observ. Jos. de vois. in Pug. Fid. p. 400. 556, 557. N 2 XV. Matt. xxviii. 19. Baptizing them in the name of the FATHER, and of the SON, and of the HOLY GHOST. XVI. 2 Thes. iii. 5. The LORD (the Holy Ghost, see C. 2. Art. t. 18.) direct your hearts into the love of GOD (the Father) and into the patient waiting for CHRIST. XVII. 2 Cor. xiii. 14. The grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and the love of GOD, and the communion of the HOLY GHOST. In this and the foregoing article, the order of the persons is different from that of Matth. xxviii. 19. The Holy Ghost having the first place in the former of them, and Christ in the latter: which is a sufficient warrant for that clause in the creed of St. Athanasius-In this Trinity, "none is afore or after other." And Dr. Clarke, I presume, |
