150 Tna CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 10. The blessed God excludes every thing from comparison or competition with himself;" Is. xlvi. 4. " To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compareme, that we may be like ?" Yet our Lord Jesus Christ saysconcerninghimself; John xiv. 9, " He that bath seen me, hath seen the Father ;" and the apostle Pauladds ; Heb. i. 3. He is the brightness of his Father's 'glory, end the express image of his person ;" and Phil. ii. 8.-- " He thought it no robbery to be equal with God ;" though it must be confessed, that thecriticisms whichattend this last named text, take off something from its force and evidence, and render the sense pf it a little dubious. 11. Christ is that glorious person, " in whom dwells the fulness of the godhead bodily ;" Col: ii. 9. which is too exalted an expression to be given to a more creature, if the godhead or divine nature were not so united to the man Christ Jesus, as to render him onecomplex person, God and man. It is true that the apostle prays for the Ephesians, that they " may be filled with all the fulness of God ;" Eph. iii. 19. But this can'mean no more than a fulness of those gifts, graces, and manifestations of God, which the primitive christians enjoyed and hopedfor. But the word godhead is never used to signify gifts and graces, but only the divine nature, which in its perfection and fulness, dwelt in this peculiar and transcendent manner in Christ alone, and not in his saints. And the addition of the word, bodily,' seems to shew a peculiar union of the godhead to the human- nature or body, of our Lord Jesus Christ. 12. Our faith and trust in Christ, is The same with faith and trust in God, as appears ; Jer. xvii. 5, 7. " Cursed be theman that trusteth in man ; blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord; and whose hope the Lord is." Compared with Ps. ii. 12. " Blessed are all they that put their trust in him," that ist Christ. 13. Christ is the Lord our God, by whomwe are saved Hos. i. 7. " The'Lord said, " I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord, [Jehovah ;] their God," Compared with Luke ü. 11. " Unto you is born in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord." God the Father who is .Jehovah, saves his church by his Son, who is also Jeho- vah and their God. ` 14. That glorious person who iscalled "theSpirit of God," Rom: viii: 9.'and in many other places of scripture, is also Balled iD the Spitof Christ," in that very same verse, as well as 1. Pet. i. 11.'" and the Spirit of his Son ;" Gal. iv. tß. aid as bé is promised to be 'poured'" out on all flesh," by the Lord our God ; Joel ii: 27, 28. ''tisis was accomplished; Acts ii. 10. when Christ "shed forth this Spirit verse 33. and baptized the disci- ples " with the HolyGhost, and With due,'' as Mat. iii. l]'
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