unto the Lord is one spirit."

Such a union as

this is the foundation of those mystical allusions in the Scriptures which apply to Christ the name of a Bridegroom, and represent the Church as his Spouse, and Heaven as the eternal Marriage Feast. And Christ having assumed our nature, that is, taken it into the Deity in his own person, the communications which may thence be given to our glorified bodies from our participating in the same human nature with Christ is "what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor can enter into the heart of man to conceive." Our Lord himself, when on earth, prayed to his Father in behalf of his disciples, "that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they, also, may be one in us: "And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.”2

Lindsey. My Lord, I have nothing more to ask of this witness.

Att. Gen. Sir, we will not trouble you further. Court. Stop: I have a question to ask him. What do you say of the doctrine of Plato?

Witness. Plato, my Lord, and his followers held

1 1 Cor. vi. 16.

2 John xvii. 21, 22. First Dialogue, p. 240.

the doctrine of three Supreme and Almighty Principles, which they called persons (in Greek hypostases), and that these act in conjunction, and created the world and all things in it.

Court. How and when did the heathen philosophers embrace this notion of these Three Principles?

Witness. They derived it from immemorial tradition: how, it is impossible to say; but we can show that it was no invention of the Christians. Plato, who speaks so much and so ambiguously of it, was born about 428 years before Christ, but he was not the author of what is called his Triad of the Deity; nor did the heathen philosophers ascribe it to him: they said that Orpheus treated of it long before Plato, and the Chaldæans long previously to Orpheus. They looked upon it as having come down to them by old and long tradition, from what source they knew not. Plotinus, speaking of these three chief persons, which sometimes they call principles, says, "that they were not new, nor then invented, but a tradition of old time." They called these three sometimes "Three Principles," at other times, "Three Gods;" sometimes, "Three Natures," at other times, "Three Persons." Nor is it to be wondered at that they

1 Μὴ καινοῦς, μὴ δὲ νῦν, ἀλλὰ πάλαι μὲν εἰρήσθαι.

fell into these varieties of expression, when we consider that they were without that Revelation which has more clearly declared these things to us; and, consequently, they were not tied down to that strictness and correctness of expression, which binds us when speaking of this divine mystery. Still, they explained themselves sufficiently to show, that by these Three, they meant only one God. They called, therefore, this Trinity of gods, the rò sïov, the Godhead, or the nature of God: for what says their ancient oracle? "In all the world there shines a Trinity, of which an Unity is the head."1

Court. Who is your next witness?

Att. Gen.

Call Edward Burton.

Court. Who is Mr. Burton?

Att. Gen. Mr. Burton, my Lord, is the erudite author of a very valuable work, held in the highest esteem by the great Theologians of our day,

· Παντὶ γὰρ ἐν κόσμῳ λάμπει τριὰς, ἧς μονὰς ἄρχει. Oracula Zoroastri in Platonicis collecta, p. 8.

Leslie's First Dialogue, p. 245.

Plotinus, the pupil of Plato and the preceptor of Porphyry, speaking of the Aóyoç, says, his very nature is God, Oɛòc, avrn ǹ púois, and to show that he meant not the first person of the Godhead, he calls him dɛútepog Dɛòc, a second God. — Ennead. v. 5. c. 3.

entitled, "Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ."

Court. Very well, proceed.

Att. Gen. What do you understand to be the doctrine which the Defendants have upheld in their writings, as respects the divinity of Christ?

Witness. These modern Unitarians profess their belief in the simple humanity of Christ; by which they mean, that Jesus had only one nature, and that was the human; that he was in every sense of the term born in the ordinary way; that he had no pre-existence; that he was in no sense of the term God, except as it was applied to Moses and Elijah, when invested with a divine commission.

Att. Gen. You say these are the doctrines of the Defendants, whom you call the modern Unitarians who were the ancient Unitarians?

Witness. The ancient Unitarians sprung up in the fourth century; but various sects have been thrown off by these in the process of time. The first Socinians have many and various shades of difference from the Unitarians of the present day. Some have approached nearer to the Arian notions; some have allowed that religious worship may be paid to Christ; some have believed that since his ascension, he has existed in a much more exalted state. Many other variations might be pointed out: but, without examining them separately, I assert, upon the authority of the Ante-Nicene

Fathers, that the doctrine which they held is wholly irreconcileable to any modification of the Unitarian Creed.1

Att. Gen. The Defendants have denied in their writings, that Christ was born of a Virgin, and reject all ideas of his miraculous conception; they do this on the testimony of the ancient Fathers of the Church: now, as your work treats, by its title, of these writings, do these Fathers, in your opinion, support this notion?

Witness. Decidedly the reverse. There is not one of the Ante-Nicene writers, from Barnabas to Lactantius, who does not mention that Christ was born of a Virgin; and this single circumstance, which I can support by their evidence, destroys at once the notion of Christ being born in an ordinary way. There is not one of them who does not speak of Christ being made man, or of his coming in the flesh. The expressions, "God becoming man," "God being incarnate," 2 are very common in their writings. Now, had these Fathers been Unitarians, had they believed Jesus Christ to have been a mere man, I would ask, could they or would they have spoken of him in this way?"

Att. Gen. What is your opinion respecting the Nazarenes and Ebionites?

1 Burton, p. 440.

· Θεὸς ἐνανθρωπήσας, Θεὸς ἐνσαρκωφείς.

3 p. 440.