e

been incumbent on believers to make a profession of that Trinity, into whose name they are baptized. To be baptized into the name of any one, is to surrender ourselves to him, in order to yield him such homage as is due to God. It, therefore, involves or supposes a confession of his Divinity. It is not, indeed, expressly mentioned in Scripture, that a confession to this effect was demanded in these very terms. But neither is it explicitly affirmed, that the Apostles baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: yet, without doubt, they observed the institution of our Lord with the most scrupulous exactness. When the Apostles, too, baptized in the name of Christ, which Luke, in his account of their labours, testifies that they did; the whole Trinity, as Ambrose ingeniously observes,* is intended by that name: for when Christ, that is, the Anointed, is mentioned, the expression includes the Father, by whom he was anointed; Christ himself, who received the anointing; and the Holy Ghost, the oil with which he was anointed. In this remark Ambrose has followed Basil, whose words are these: "The naming of Christ is the confession of "the whole; for this word denotes, at once, him who anoints, viz. God; the Anointed, viz. the Son; and "the unction, viz. the Spirit."+ Besides, when our Lord says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be "saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned," f what is more consonant to reason than that the object of faith to which he referred was that very doctrine which is delivered at baptism? Hence all the ancients, with hardly any exception, made a solemn recognition

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* Lib. i. De Sp. S. cap. 3.

+ De Spir. Sanct. Vide Vossium de Baptismo, p. 51.

e Acts ii. 38. viii. 16. xix. 5.

f Mark xvi. 16.

"You

of the Trinity at the administration of baptism. " were asked," says Ambrose," Do you believe in God "the Father Almighty? You replied, I believe; and "you were immersed, that is, you were buried. You "were asked, in the second place, Do you believe in "our Lord Jesus Christ? You said, I believe; and

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you were immersed, and thus buried together with "Christ. You were asked, in the third place, Do "you believe in the Holy Ghost? You answered, I "believe; you were immersed33 a third time, &c." "We ought," says Basil," to be baptized as we have learned, to believe as we have been baptized, and to "honour the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as

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we have believed." See several other testimonies of the Fathers in Forbes ;† to which I here add the expressions of Nazianzen in the speech which he delivered in the Council of Constantinople, the 6th General Council, held in the year of our Lord 381. "We be"lieve in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, "of the same substance and the same glory; in whom, also, baptism has its perfection: for in baptism, as

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THOU WHO ART INITIATED KNOWEST, there is both "in word and deed, a renunciation of atheism and a "confession of the Deity." Thus it appears that the pious ancients believed, that when a man makes a profession of the Trinity in baptism, he passes from atheism to an acknowledgment of the true God.

XIV. It will not be unseasonable here to inquire, WHETHER THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY WAS KNOWN TO ADAM IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE?

Lib. ii. De Sacramentis, cap. 7.

+ Instruct. Histor. Theol. lib. i. cap. 17.

+ Orat. xxxii.

35 See NOTE XXXIII.

Moses Amyrault, a celebrated divine, has thought proper to deny this, and to contend,* that the economy which takes place among the Three persons of the Godhead, so peculiarly respects the redemption of mankind, that "the knowledge of it cannot pertain to the state "of innocence, in which there was no place for salva❝tion or redemption." To us the matter appears in a different light; and we will explain and confirm our opinion by the following arguments.

XV. The doctrine of the Trinity, we confess, is a mystery, which man, how distinguished soever for wisdom and industry, could not discover by the mere consideration of himself and the creatures. We hold it, however, as unquestionably certain, that God revealed several truths to Adam in his original state of integrity, which unassisted nature was incapable of teaching him. Being the confederate, the friend, and a kind of vicegerent of the great God upon earth, it was essential to his happiness to enjoy communion with his God, and from time to time to receive such instruction from his lips as might serve to prepare him more thoroughly for rendering praise to his Creator. Whence, indeed, did he receive the command respecting the tree of knowledge; whence did he learn the signification of the tree of life, --if not by Divine revelation? How else, did he so well know the manner of the creation of his wife, though formed while he was asleep, as to declare that she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh?

Zanchius says, he has no doubt that God sometimes spoke to Adam, in an external and visible form, by his own Son, clothed with the appearance of a human body.

* Dissert. de Mysterio Trinitatis, p. 121, and at greater length p. 158, et seq.

+ De Creatione Hominis, lib. i. cap. i. sect. 12.

To him it appears altogether improbable, that this privilege which God afterwards granted to a considerable number of men was withheld from the first man, who was the chief friend of God, and created in his perfect image. He affirms, too, that this was the opinion of the Fathers, of Justin, Irenæus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Ambrose, Augustine, and others. For my part, as I dare not determine any thing respecting the mode of revelation, beyond what is related in sacred writ, so I am persuaded that, from the instances which we have adduced, it cannot be questioned that several revelations were, in reality, made to Adam.

XVI. That the mystery of the Trinity was included amongst the subjects of divine revelation to our first father, may be proved thus. It is universally admitted, that the understanding of Adam was adorned with the most excellent wisdom. Now it is the principal branch of wisdom, to know God: Not, however, to know him in so general and indistinct a manner that one understands there is some Infinite Deity, from whom all other beings derive their existence; for such knowledge remained among the heathen, who, we all know, were blind and foolish, and destitute of the divine image. It is essential to a true knowledge of God, that you know distinctly WHAT he is. If you apply those general notions which you have of a Deity to any other than to Him, who, while he is One in essence, subsists in Three persons, you must be considered, not as possessing the knowledge of the true God, but rather as substituting an idol, and a figment of your own imagination, in the place of the true God. But, since it is incongruous and almost blasphemous to impute this to Adam in his state of innocence, we must conclude that

VOL. I.

2 A

7.

he had some knowledge of a Three-one God, who alone is the true God. Epiphanius,* in the following expressions concerning Adam, employs the same argument: "He was not an idolater, but knew God the "Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; for he

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was a prophet, and knew that the Father said to the "Son, Let us make man." We are here taught by this writer, first, that revelations of a prophetical sort were given to Adam; and, then, that the mystery of the Trinity was one of the points revealed to him: which he proves by this consideration, that he was no idolater. He manifestly supposes, that he would have been an idolater, if he had entertained any other conception of the Almighty, than as a Three-one God.

XVII. In these words, too, Epiphanius suggests another argument, which we shall more fully illustrate. In the work of creation God evidently showed himself a Three-one God; for the Father made the worlds by the Son;s the Holy Spirit moved upon the waters, and thus rendered them prolific; and the whole Trinity, by mutual excitation, prepared for the creation of man. It is incredible, therefore, that the Trinity was utterly unknown to the first man; unless we can suppose him to have been ignorant of his Creator. Since both the Son and the Holy Spirit created him, he could not have been ignorant of these Divine persons, without being ignorant of his Creator, and unable to praise or adore him aright. Truly it is not without emphasis and meaning, that in a considerable number of passages in which the Scripture speaks of the Creator of man, it makes use of the plural number. Thus where we read, "Thy Ma"ker is thy Husband," the words in the original literal

In Panario, p. 8.

8 Heb. i. 2.