no means neceffarily implies. And the interpretation is rendered the more probable, as the Almighty is reprefented as attended with angels, in all the divine appearances on earth. It seems alfo to be confirmed as being an antient jewish opinion, from Job Xxxviii. 7. Where waft thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth?-when the morning fars fang together, and all the fons of God Shouted for joy? (≈)

Another folution, that God is introduced, speaking after the manner of kings, and great perfonages, Dr. Horne alfo refufes, though not for any valid reason, as it fhould feem; viz. for it being unworthy of God to borrow language from men; when in fact it is univerfally the cafe in

(z) [The morning flars.] They are filed the fons of God in the next fentence. The fons of God are the angels, Job, i. 6. ii. 1. I fuppofe they are called the morning ftars, on account of the luminous vehicles wherewith they are clothed. The morning ftar is exceedingly bright. What a grand appearance does the poet here prefent to our view, ten thoufand times ten thoufand and thoufand of thoufands of glittering angels attending the birth of our world, and finging Hallelujas to the Almighty Father.' Scott's book of Job in english verfe, with remarks, &c.

in our facred books, and one does not well fee how the divine Being could otherwife make himself intelligible to mortals.

The real ftate of the matter however is, that there is no myftery in it, one way or other; no ground to think that Mofes's language was infpired, but that he expreffed things in the way he judged beft, and varied his expreffions in this fort, for the greater folemnity, as man was the nobleft work of God, when he came to speak of his creation.

Let us now hear, what Dr. Horne has to offer himself upon the point.

• What then should hinder us, proceeds he, from accepting the third solution, given by the best expofitors antient and modern, (N. B. the best only according to his ideas) and drawn from this confideration, that in the unity of the divine essence there is a plurality of perfons coequal and

coeternal, who might fay, with truth and

propriety, Let us make man; and man is • become like one of us? Of fuch a perfonality, ' revelation informs us; it is that upon ⚫ which the economy of man's redemption is founded; his creation, as well as that • of

U 2

of the world, is, in different paffages, attributed to the Father, to the Son, and to

the Holy Spirit; what more natural there'fore than that at his production, this 'form of speech fhould be used by the 'divine perfons? What more rational than to fuppofe, that a doctrine fo important 'to the human race, was communicated from the beginning, that mén might know whom they worshiped, and how they ought to worship? What other good and fufficient reafon can be given, why the name. ' of God, in use among believers from the firft, fhould likewife be in the plural number, connected with verbs and pronouns in the fingular?

6

Remarks.

1. I put in the margin an obfervation (a) of Dr. Croft, in his late fermons at the Bampton

(a) Perhaps too much stress is laid upon the expreffions, Gen. i. 26. Let us make man in our image. The plural is frequently applied to one only: and the language of confultation is evidently ufed in condefcenfion to human infirmity. With the fame kind of condefcenfion, we are

told

Bampton-lecture; that this plural way of speaking is not a proper foundation upon which to build a plurality of persons, coequal, and coeternal, in the unity of the divine effence, as Dr. Horne afferts; we may therefore, confidering the foregoing better folutions of the phrafeology, dismiss this first argument of his, as having nothing at all in it.

told, Gen. xviii. 20, 21. that the LORD faid; because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is great, and because their fin is very grievous, I will go down now and fee, whether they have done according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. It is dangerous to reft an article of faith upon that, which may be only a mere idiom.'-Sermons in the year 1786, at the Bampton-lecture, by Dr. Croft.

I would obferve to you here, by the way, that Justin Martyr, a heathen philofopher and convert, one of the first who corrupted the fcriptures by bringing in his heathen fancies of a fecond God, inferior to the one fupreme, and making Chrift to be that fecond God; introduces Chrift here, Gen. i. 26. as the perfon to whom God fpoke: and makes him the person that went down to Sodom and Gomorrha, and not the creator of the universe. See Dial. cum. Tryph. p. 153. 159. Ed. Benedict. Hage Comi

tum, 1742.

2. With refpect to the argument which he would deduce from the plural termination of one of the hebrew names of God, Elohim or Aleim, in favour of a plurality of perfons in the deity, you can have nothing more fatisfactory in confutation of it, than what is advanced by Dr. Priestley, in a masterly, original manner, in his reply to Mr. Parkhurst, at the end of the volume which contains his letters to Dr. Horne, and to yourselves.

But as Dr. Kennicott has ftained his noble work, by giving countenance to this weak argument for the doctrine of the trinity, from the plural noun, elohim, being joined with a verb in the fingular number, in the 48th page of his general differtation prefixed to his hebrew bible: I fhall give you an extract of what a most valuable perfon, lately deceafed, and a mafter of biblical learning, has remarked in reply to him (b).

• Let

(b) Exodus; a corrected tranflation, with notes, by William Hopkins, B. A. Vicar of Bolney, and Mafter of the Grammar school of Cuckfield, Effex, p. 149.