QUESTION II, 445 This was iiot proper to bethevery first lesson in cliristianity. The great work of the conversion of the world was done by degrees as human nature could bear. Thus God hath treated men in all ages, aid led them on " from faith to faith ;" Rom. i. 17. Thus our Lord Jesus Christ treated his disciples ; John xvi. 12. 1 hatie'yeì many things" to say toyou, butye cannot beat Mein now. And thus the apostles treated the Jews and Gentiles, to whom they preached ; 1 C'or- iii. 2. and fed them with milk and not with meat, for they were not able to bear it. Thus by slowde- grees they léd'them from the knowledge of Jesus the Son of Man, to the knowledge of Jesus the Son of God'; from the dis- covery of Jesus the prophet, to the discovery of Jesus the Mes- siah, the priest and the'king ; from the revelation of Christ the Saviour of men to the revelation of Christ the eternal life and the true God from the doctrine of the presence of God with him, to the doctrine of his personal union with godhead, rr in Whom dwells 'all* the fulness of the godhead bodily ; Col. ii. 9. and who is " God over all blessed for ever ; Rom. ix. 5. by virtue of this glorious and personal union with the eternal God." yohrself, have not you been just now inveighing against plurality of Gods? And now t find, you have yourselves snore than one ; the Father .is God, and the Son is God, then you have two gods. Missionary. We do not believe twogods, but one only God ; though at the same time, we firmly believe, that there are three persons in onedivine essence ; and yet these three persons are not three, but one God : And this we believe as a great mystery, toe. 3.nd then he goes on to explain it by the understanding and thewill proceeding from the soul, which are yet really one and the same thing with the soul. Upon which the Malabariasa makes this reply ; I find, said be, that you, with your subtil ways of arguing, can make a Trinity consistent with unity ; and. if your explication is absolutely necessary to make others understand what you mean, pray allow us the same ad- vantsge of'expfaieing the doctrine of our religion, and putting it in the most favourable light we can, for. the excluding the absurdities imputed to us ? And this once granted us, it will follow, that our.plurality does not destroy the unity of God, no mere thanyour Trinity does. We worship the gods upon no other aceount, than because they are the vicegerents of the Almighty, whose adminis- tration he employs in governing the world, as he did employ them at the begin- ning, in creating and forming the same. And our God appearing among men at sundry times under different shapes, had at every apparition a different name given him, which contributed very much to the multiylying of the number of our images ; whereas in truth, theyare but different representations of the same ttod, under different aspectsand appearances. See "-Conference, number xi." Now if the apostles had dealt so imprudently with the Heathens or with the Jews, by preaching the doctrine of the Trinity at first in the fullest expressions, they bad embarrassed the minds of their bearers, and exposed themselves and their doctrine of salvation by Jesus the Messiah to such difficulties and wrangling dis- putations. But you find no controversies of this kind raised in their first preaching.
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