Ghost."-Matt. xxviii. 19; or, into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the word, "name,” by an idiom of the Hebrew language, being redundant.

To baptize into a person was a form of expression signifying the reception of the religious ideas associated with that person. Thus the Jews were said to be baptized into Moses, because they received the religious ideas associated with the institutions of that Prophet: and on the other hand, the Samaritans were said to be baptized into Mount Gerizim, because they received the religious ideas associated with the belief that there, and not at Jerusalem, was the appointed place of the Temple. The formula then of baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, signified nothing more than the acceptance of the religious ideas associated with God in this new manifestation of Himself, revealed through the Christ, and accompanied by the operations of His Spirit, witnessing, both internally and externally, to the new light that had come into the world, the promised reign of the spirit of God. These were the words which most readily were associated with, and suggested those religious ideas which were looked upon as constituting the characteristic faith of one who was willing to enter into the gospel kingdom of Heaven, that is, to adopt the Christian idea of God and of Religion. The Father, the Christ, the Spirit of God in us giving us some communion with that Father, by uniting us through spiritual sympathies with that Christ is not this of the very soul of Christianity? God manifested in Jesus, and our souls accepting the revelation, because the spirit of our Father within us draws us towards him who had the same spirit without measure—is not this to express in a few words all the characteristic and peculiar ideas of Christianity, and therefore most fit to be used as suggesting sum

marily to matured converts the new faith into which they were baptized? The same set of ideas might have been as fully expressed by the shorter form of being baptized "into

Christ," for this would imply the possession and acceptance of all the religious ideas associated with his person and ministry-and accordingly we find that in every recorded case of baptism or allusion to baptism in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, the expression simply and briefly is to "baptize into Christ," and never once is there an allusion to the form of baptism into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now this demonstrates two things: first that the Apostles did not look upon these words as a form prescribed by Christ and secondly, that they did not regard them as a confession of faith in a tri-personal God, else would they never have neglected all mention of the first and third persons, and simply baptized into Christ, that is, into the religion of the Christ. There is a remarkable confirmation of this view, if indeed it can be supposed to want confirmation, in the language of Paul to some disciples at Ephesus, who had not received the witnessing power and presence of the Holy Spirit. They declare that they had not so much as heard whether there was any Holy Spirit. To what, then, the Apostle were you baptized; not into whom, observe, but into what were you baptized,—that is, was not the manifestation and participation of God's Spirit one of the religious ideas and expectations of your faith as converts. And they answer that they had only been baptized into the baptism of John, who had promised the Holy Spirit, but had no power to confer it. And then Paul baptized them into Jesus, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now can any one read this passage and believe that the Holy Ghost implies the third person in a Trinity: was it not simply God's spirit received by the first to the religion of the Christ?

says

believers as an

a portion of

attestation

Nothing can be more arbitrary than to assert that baptism implies the personality and deity of that into which a person is baptized. The Apostle Paul says that Christians were baptized into the death of Christ.

Rom. vi. 3.

Is the death

of Christ therefore a person and a God? Is it not simply one of the religious ideas which their faith embraced?

The personality and deity of the Holy Spirit we indeed do not deny; but the methods by which Trinitarians attempt the proof of this self-evident proposition, are, like all proofs of identical propositions, unsatisfactory to an extreme. The Lecturer in Christ Church, when meeting the objection, that baptism into Christ was no proof of his deity, because we have also the expression, "baptism into Moses," dropped out of sight the true bearing of the objection against the deity of Jesus, and argued that the expression, baptism into Moses, was so far a proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit, because Moses was a person. Was the death of Christ, a person? Was Mount Gerizim, a person? We do not deny the personality of the Holy Spirit-though this is no way of proving it. We do deny that the deity of Christ is implied in baptism into his name, and the force of the expression, baptism into Moses, in this bearing of it, was either not seen or was put aside.

The argument, that because three words follow one another, without any expressed distinction, they must all refer to subjects of the same nature, co-equal and co-extensive, and this, too, as the strongest, indeed the only direct evidence of a Trinity in the Godhead, is really one of those arguments for a doctrine of revelation, which a mind with any reverence knows not how properly to discuss. I am glad to be able to say, that Dr. Tattershall pronounces this to be only a presumptive proof of the separate personality of the Holy Spirit, that is, in fact, no proof at all, but merely such a hint as might lead to the presumption that there may be additional evidence, and which, therefore, in the absence of such additional evidence, amounts to nothing. If any one, however, advances such JD DXwe have only to ask first, is any one really such an argument,

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content to rest such a doctrine on such a proof, and call this Revelation? and secondly, to advance in our turn, other pas

sages of Scripture, where this principle of interpretation cannot be maintained. If the concurrence of the words, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, necessarily implies that each of these refers to a person who is God, and that when taken together they make up the entire nature of God-then, I ask, what is the necessary inference from such expressions as these,-"I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things?"— 1 Tim. v. 21. Now if the argument is conclusive that infers in the one case the deity of Jesus, it must be equally conclusive, when it infers, in the other, the deity of the elect angels. The Trinitarian answer will be,-"We know that the angels are not God, and in accordance with this knowledge, we interpret the passage:" and equally do we answer, that when such a passage is given us as proof of the deity of the Lord Jesus, we know that he was a man, and in accordance with this knowledge do we interpret the passage. Other instances might be given of similar modes of expression :-" And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel," 1 Sam. xii. 18; and more strikingly still, Rev. iii. 12, where the name of a place is associated as a religious idea, with the names of God and Christ. "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of Heaven from my God, and [I will write upon him]

my new name."

There is only one other passage in which these three expressions occur together; and it must have a precisely similar explanation: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all." Now here the expression of the Holy Spirit," fixes the meaning of the word communion signifies "participation," "a having in common." Thus St. Paul speaks of "the communion of the

"communion

passage.

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sufferings of Christ," Philipp. iii. 10. In this sense, then, it can have no reference to a person, and must signify simply a participation of that spiritual presence, comfort, and power of God, which was the promise and the witness of the religion of the Christ. In explaining such passages, we have again and again to recal ourselves to the belief, that we are actually considering the strongest Scriptural assertions of the doctrine of a Trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead. The first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians closes thus: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus." Who thinks of inferring the equality of Paul with Jesus? And yet, if such a mode of reasoning is allowable, from the close of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, it is impossible to give any reason for its not being equally conclusive when applied to the close of the first Epistle of the Corinthians. But such verbal reasonings are in every way unworthy of the solemn character of revelation, nor can the mind long dwell upon them without feeling how painfully they interfere with the sentiment of Reverence, and what a lowering it is of Christ and Christianity to place them in such lights.

The portion of Scripture, however, which is mainly relied upon to prove the distinct deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, is that most solemn and faithful promise of Christ to his disciples, in which the Spirit of Truth is described as a Comforter which the Father would send in his name, and who, when he came, would testify of Jesus, and bring to their remembrance all things that he had said unto them, but which they had not understood. Now let us connect this promise of a Comforter previous to his death, with a similar promise after the resurrection, and then endeavour to ascertain the meaning. In the first chapter of the Book of Acts, at tho :

.

at the eighth verse, it is written, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea,