convince me, that it was not unbefitting the moral governor and the lover of his creatures, to interpose in the way Moses has described, to prevent the horrid practices that prevailed throughout those nations, at least to give a check, if not entirely to eradicate them; and also to make his favoured nation the instruments of his judgments; favoured, not for their own sakes, for they, as he told them, were not better than others, but for the sake of their more deserving progenitors. And throughout the sacred history, from the beginning, I see no omnipotent tyrant, no Moloch, furious king, as he has been described, delighting himself with the miseries and destruction of his creatures; but a kind Creator and moral Governor, concerned for their best interests, and to bring them to true happiness.

5. I have also peculiar pleasure in noting through out the books of Moses and the other sacred writers of the Old Testament, their vast care and attention to teach and to hold forth at all times, that there is one God only, and no other besides him; not a God composed of many persons, which is a thing of antichristian invention, but a God in the single person of Jehovah, God of Israel, God of the universe.

I am the more induced to name this, not only because it is a truth that lies at the foundation, and is of the greatest concernment; but also through a desire to mention to you a late publication that may not have fallen in your way, of a respectable Swiss gentleman among us, Mr. De Luc, who enjoys the office

of

of Reader to the Queen, and has been made by the King Professor of philosophy and geology in the university of Gottingen, and who dedicates his tract, which is in the French language, to the King of Prussia. As I had been led to esteem the author, I was concerned and much disappointed, that he should at this day, upon such slight and imaginary grounds, set himself to deprive us of the one true God and father of the universe, and introduce in lieu of him,

God consisting of three persons, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, in the unity of his essence ; alluding in support of this to the text in 1 John v, 7, of the three heavenly witnesses; a text now almost unanimously given up as spurious, and not written by the apostle. Of which sentiment, the present bishop of Lincoln, to the credit of his judgment and integrity, hath lately declared himself in expressive terms. "I purposely omit the contested passage in the first epistle of St. John: there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. In any case it would be improper to produce a doubtful text in support of so important a doctrine as that of the Trinity; but I must own, that after an attentive consideration of the controversy relative to that passage, I am convinced that it is spurious*.”

Mr. De Luc further grounds this doctrine of his on the plural termination of one of the Hebrew names

* Elements of Christian Theology, vol. ii. p. 90.

of

of God, where his words are, referring his reader to the language of Moses in the beginning of Genesis*3 "The denomination of the Divinity," says he, "is plural; that is Elohim, the Father, the Word and the Spirit in the unity of his essence †.”

After this, Mr. De Luc proceeds to confirm these positions, by referring (I give his words) to Mr. Thomas Maurice, one of the keepers of the British Museum; who, in his Indian Antiquities, lately published, professes to find the doctrine of a Trinity, or plurality in the unity of God ‡, among those nations of antiquity, who, he thinks, must have received it from ancestors that were in possession of it anterior to the time of Moses; and thus furnish a fresh authority, as is supposed, for the doctrine of a Trinity in unity in God, independent of the sacred writings.

"MOISE commence la GENESE par la fixation de ces idées, qui sont la base du Christianisme. Dès ce début, dis-je, la dénomination de la Divinité est un pluriel; c'est ELOHIM; le Père, la Parole et l'Esprit dans l'unité de son ESSENCE."

Lettres sur l'Education religieuse de l'Enfance, précédées et suivies de Détails historiques-dédiées au Roi, par J. A. De Luc, Lecteur de Sa Majesté la Reine de la Grande Bretagne, Professeur de Philosophie et Géologie à Gottingue. A Berlin. 1800. pag. 138.

Sec, on this subject, Mr. Frend's excellent Animadversions on the Elements of Christian Theology, Letter XII. in which is a clear confutation of the vain supposition of a plurality of persons in God from the use of a plural termination in one of his names. Ridgway. 1800.

But both these arguments of these two learned gentlemen; the one, from the plural termination of Elohim, one of the Hebrew names of God; the other from the high antiquity of the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity and Plurality in God, without going into any other confutation of them, are set aside by the simple and most obvious consideration furnished by Moses and the Prophets, and the whole Hebrew scriptures; namely, that whenever God is introduced in the sacred writings, as speaking of himself, or spoken of by others, or is himself addressed, the personal pronouns, I, thou, he, are invariably used; which demonstrates to every understanding, that it is one single person, and not more than one, who is the God of Moses and the prophets and of the people of Israel, and consequently the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of all mankind.

This plain argument, which has been a thousand times produced, it is to be hoped will at last have some little attention paid to it, being nothing less, to those who respect the Scriptures, than the authority of God himself deciding the matter. For my part, I see more reason every day of my life, to be thankful for those divine records which have been preserved to us by Moses and the people of the Jews; as I fear, without them, what with the refinements of philosophy on the one hand, and the idolatrous superstition of Christians on the other, the one true God would have been overlooked and unknown. For these reasons, honouring that most antient nation of

the

the Jews with that high honour which is due to it, and grieved when I see them undeservedly scouted and despised and ill treated by Christians, I am almost tempted, whenever I meet a Jew, to move my hat to him, as one to whom I am under infinite obligations, as a martyr and confessor to the one true God.

6. It had given me much disturbance, that Christianity, which was ushered into the world, as we read, with such a profusion and expense of miracles, and is most truly a scheme to conduct the creatures of God to virtue and true happiness, worthy of the benevolent parent of mankind, should not have better made its way, and should have done so little to reform the world as it has hitherto been found to have done: I have been formerly often ready to reject it on this

account.

But you have helped much to quiet my mind, and have cured my scepticism in this respect, by pointing out in what manner these powerful means of true piety and virtue have been blunted and impeded, and the salutary effects of this excellent doctrine counteracted by the corruptions that have been grafted upon and blended with it; and chiefly by its being poisoned and perverted almost in its cradle, as soon as the powers of the world began to give it their countenance, as an instrument of ambition and worldly designs and aggrandisement; a service which it disdains; by which it is sure to be polluted, and to have its true end and design of making men of all ranks and degrees virtuous and good, defeated; but a service in