DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9552#0229
TO THE CHRISTIAN PUBLIC.
199
How then doth David in spirit call him Lord ? " Luke
ch. iv. ver.i : " And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost,
returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness." It must not, therefore, be supposed, that
the manifestation of this holy attribute of God is peculiar
to the Christian dispensation. We find in the Scriptures
the term "God" applied figuratively in a finite sense to
to Christ, and to some other superiors, as I have already
noticed in page 130: a circumstance which may pos-
sibly have tended to confirm such as are rendered, from
their early impressions, partial to the doctrine of the
Trinity, in their prepossessed notions of the deity of
j'Jesus. But with respect to the Holy Ghost I must con-
fess my inability to find a single passage in the whole
Scriptures, in which the Spirit is addressed as God, or as
a person of God, so as to afford to believers of the Tri-
nity an excuse for their profession of the Godhead of
the Holy Ghost. The only'authorities they quote to
:this effect that I have met with are as follow : Acts, ch.
v. vers. 3,4: " Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan
filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ? Thou hast
not lied unto men, but unto God." From which they
conclude, He that lieth to the Holy Ghost lieth to God.
John, ch, xv. ver. 26 : "But when the Comforter is come
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall
testify of me." As to the first of these texts, I need
only remark, that any sin or blasphemy against one of
the attributes of God is of course reckoned a sin or
blasphemy against God himself. But this admission
amounts neither to a recognition of the self-existence of
the attribute, nor of its identity with God. With res-
199
How then doth David in spirit call him Lord ? " Luke
ch. iv. ver.i : " And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost,
returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness." It must not, therefore, be supposed, that
the manifestation of this holy attribute of God is peculiar
to the Christian dispensation. We find in the Scriptures
the term "God" applied figuratively in a finite sense to
to Christ, and to some other superiors, as I have already
noticed in page 130: a circumstance which may pos-
sibly have tended to confirm such as are rendered, from
their early impressions, partial to the doctrine of the
Trinity, in their prepossessed notions of the deity of
j'Jesus. But with respect to the Holy Ghost I must con-
fess my inability to find a single passage in the whole
Scriptures, in which the Spirit is addressed as God, or as
a person of God, so as to afford to believers of the Tri-
nity an excuse for their profession of the Godhead of
the Holy Ghost. The only'authorities they quote to
:this effect that I have met with are as follow : Acts, ch.
v. vers. 3,4: " Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan
filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ? Thou hast
not lied unto men, but unto God." From which they
conclude, He that lieth to the Holy Ghost lieth to God.
John, ch, xv. ver. 26 : "But when the Comforter is come
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall
testify of me." As to the first of these texts, I need
only remark, that any sin or blasphemy against one of
the attributes of God is of course reckoned a sin or
blasphemy against God himself. But this admission
amounts neither to a recognition of the self-existence of
the attribute, nor of its identity with God. With res-