liturgy of that early æra hath been preserved, at least none that can be absolutely proved to have been composed during the Apostolic period (though there are several which the testimony of high antiquity ascribes to it), yet the evidence on record is all-sufficient for our purpose. To a believer in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures (and in this argument we have nothing to do with Deists) the testimony or practice of one man, declared to be taught and led by the Spirit of God will be equivalent to the testimony or practice of the whole church, since the former could no more be deceived than the latter.

"For the first age the Scripture is sufficient evidence of the Christian practice. For, not to insist on the precept of honouring the Son as they honoured the Father; or the form of baptism in which they are commanded to join the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in one act of worship; or the injunction to believe in the Son as they believed in the Father; with many other acts of internal worship peculiar to God alone: I only argue from their example and practice. St. Stephen the protomartyr, when he was sealing his confession with his blood, breathed out his last breath in a prayer to Christ, "Lord Jesus, re"ceive my spirit;" and "Lord, lay not this sin "to their charge." (Acts vii. 59.) St. Paul professes he never baptized any but in the name of Christ. (1 Cor. i. 13.) And his common forms of blessing were with invocation of the name of Christ. "Grace be to you, and peace, from God "the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ." And The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and "the love of God, and the communion of the "Holy Ghost, be with you all:" as the solemn forms run almost in all his epistles, both in the

beginning and the conclusion of them. Nay, so common was this practice, that among other titles of the believers, at their first rise and appearance in the world, they were distinguished by the character of those that called on the name of Christ.* (Acts ix. 14, 21. 1 Cor. i. 2. 2 Tim. ii. 22.) Many other such like evidences are obvious to any one that reads the New Testament. I only add that of the Revelation (ch. v. 8-14) where the church in heaven and earth together is represented as offering both prayers and hymns to Christ. (See also chap. vii. 9, 10.)

"We have here seen the model of the worship of Christ (and of the Holy Ghost) as begun and settled in the practice of the church in the first age. And we shall find it continued in the same manner in those that followed immediately after. For Pliny, who lived in the beginning of the second century, and as a judge under Trajan took the confessions of some revolting Christians, says, they declared to him they were used to meet on a certain day before it was light, and among other parts of their worship sing a hymn to Christ as to their God. Which is a plain indication of their worship of Christ on the Lord's day. Not long after this lived Polycarp, who joins God the Father and the Son together in his prayers for grace and benediction upon men: "The God and Father of "our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Him"self, the eternal High Priest, the Son of God, "build you up in faith and truth, &c. and give

you a lot and part among the saints, and to us "with you, and to all them that are under heaven "who shall believe in Jesus Christ our Lord and "in His Father who raised Him from the dead."

* Επικαλεμένον το όνομα Χριςτε.

And so he begins his epistle, "Mercy and peace "from God Almighty, and from the Lord Jesus, "Christ be multiplied unto you." And when he came to his martyrdom, he made a prayer to God at the stake, before he was burnt, concluding it with this doxology to the whole Trinity: "I bless "thee, I praise thee, I glorify thee for all things, "together with the eternal and heavenly Jesus "Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom unto thee " and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and for "ever, world without end. Amen."

"When Polycarp was dead, the church of Smyrna wrote a circular epistle to other churches, to give an account of his sufferings, wherein they relate this remarkable occurrence,-That as soon as he was dead the Jews suggested to the heathen judge, that he should not suffer the Christians to take Polycarp's body to bury it, lest they should leave their crucified Master and begin to worship this other, "Not considering," says the epistle, "that we can never either forsake the worship of "Christ, who suffered for the salvation of all those "who are saved in the whole world, the just for "the unjust; or worship any other. For we "worship Him as being the Son of God; but the "martyrs we only love as they deserve for their "great affection to their King and Master, and as "being disciples and followers of their Lord, "whose partners and fellow disciples we desire to "be." This is an unanswerable testimony to prove both the Divine worship of Christ, as the true Son of God, and that no martyr or other saint was worshipped in those days. Not long after this lived Justin Martyr, who in his second apology, to wipe off the charge of Atheism brought against them by the Heathens, who objected to them, "That they had cast off the

"worship of God," answers, "That they worshipped the God of righteousness, and His "Son, as also the Holy Spirit of prophecy." And he tells the Emperor a little after, that "They held "it unlawful to worship any but God alone.' Therefore in their practice they also shewed their belief of the true Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost; since they worshipped them only upon this foundation and supposition, that they are truly God; and to have done it upon any other supposition had been gross idolatry by their own confession. Which I wish were duly considered by those who now write against the Divinity of Christ, (and of His Spirit) and absurdly pretend that all the fathers of the three first ages were of their opinion. For this is only to make them guilty of the grossest idolatry, and involve them in a monstrous contradiction; whilst they pretend to worship none but God alone, and yet gave Divine honour to one, whom (if our modern representers say true) they did not believe to be God by nature, but only a creature."

To these testimonies from writers of the second century might be added those of Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, the heathen Lucian, Irenæus, Theophilus Bishop of Antioch, and others, for the purpose of proving that "the Trinity in Unity ought to be worshipped," if the primitive church, deriving their opinions immediately from the Apostles, is to be credited, or its practice to be followed.* For brevity's sake we shall only subjoin from Clemens Alexandrinus the following doxology to the whole Trinity. "Let us give

*These may be found in Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, from whence the above extracts are made. He has carried the inquiry through the three first centuries, Book ix. ch. 2.

"thanks to the only Father and Son, to the Son "and the Father, to the Son our teacher and "master, with the Holy Spirit; one in all re"spects; in whom are all things; by whom all things are one; by whom is eternal existence; "whose members we are; whose is the glory "and the ages; who is the perfect good, the "perfect beauty, all wise, and all just: to whom "be glory both now and for ever. Amen."

We have opened our meditations on the collect for Trinity-Sunday with the foregoing extracts (the importance of which will be a sufficient apology for their length) for the purpose of shewing the unison of our church with the apostolic model in her worship of Three Persons in one Jehovah. Our collect contains-an act of devout thanksgiving for the orthodoxy of the creed which we profess-and an act of fervent supplication for persevering grace, that we may "hold fast the profession of our faith without "wavering."

What grandeur and sublimity are observable in the humiliating questions which Zophar proposed to Job! (chap. xi. 7, 8, 9.) " Canst "thou by searching find out God? Canst thou "find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is "high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper "than hell, what canst thou know? the mea"sure thereof is longer than the earth, and "broader than the sea."

"Wouldst thou th' Eternal with thy line explore? "Fathom Almighty thought, and find its shore? "Go, mete heav'n's height, the depth of Hades sound, 'Span the wide earth, and reach o'er ocean's bound."

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If the ways of God are beyond our reach and past finding out, how much more Himself!